I think everything goes back to scheduling issues. Big East wouldn't have such a bad perception if it didn't have to schedule the way they do. Big East teams have dropped because some teams have scheduled 2 FCS teams for OOC schedule. Its one bad year, sure, but SOS has always been an issue for the Big East.
Not only that, but when you only have eight teams you have a much higher likelihood of having years like this where the bad teams are improving and the good teams are having a down year, that creates a huge cluster of ok teams. When you have 12 teams, this is much less likely to happen...
(11-12-2010 01:19 PM)ArmoredUpKnight Wrote: [ -> ]I think everything goes back to scheduling issues. Big East wouldn't have such a bad perception if it didn't have to schedule the way they do. Big East teams have dropped because some teams have scheduled 2 FCS teams for OOC schedule. Its one bad year, sure, but SOS has always been an issue for the Big East.
There isn't a single school in the BE that has to schedule two FCS teams and the fact that Syracuse played two this season has nothing to do with UC's struggles (damn you 'Cuse!)
The reason SOS is an issue for the BE is because we don't have a USC/OSU/Texas/Florida/Bama/etc. in the conference to rely on for a nice bump.
Common sense yo.
Scheduling issues comes back to the revenue issue...its cyclical.
Big East teams want to have 7 home games so that they have revenue to make expenses. If you only have 3 home games in conference, then you have to have 4 of 5 OOC, which leads to playing two FCS schools. CUSA schools arent entering into those one and done deals, some MAC schools will, but most of them are doing 2 for 1 or something similar. 3 of 5 OOC home games only gives you 6 home games, which is like breaking even.
This is why the Big East has no problem with adding two schools and possibly going to 9 conference games. It will have a guaranteed home game attached and then you are looking at 2 of 3...one FCS school and signing home and homes with 2 others, you are guaranteed 6 or 7 home games, depending on the conference schedule.
It goes back to the necessary revenue, the coaches complained about the fact that an unbalanced schedule can affect who wins the conference, but the bigger problem (for the AD) is that it has a direct revenue effect.
I really don't think scheduling is that much of an issue here. We all just suck this year, starting with OOC losses due to coaches leaving and players leaving, which leads to media bashing and low tv ratings which leads to bad tv time slots and lower tv contracts than the others, which is less money, and on and on and on.
Scheduling 1 or 2 FCS or non BCS teams a year is a sidenote to the league not getting it done when necessary, in addition to other angles like home/road/bowl attendance from Big East.