Transic_nyc
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RE: Would the New Big East take Boston College?
(02-16-2020 04:02 PM)GoldenWarrior11 Wrote: BC, while a founding member of the BE, will in a number of years have been members of the ACC longer than the BE. UConn was still able to return to the BE due to remaining strong sentiments to the conference (and to former conference affiliations). For BC, they have never shared a league with Marquette, DePaul, Creighton, Xavier or Butler. The ACC money remains strong, and remain in a football-first conference with Syracuse, Pittsburgh, Miami, Florida State and Virginia Tech.
The only way BC would ever find its way back in the Big East is if a situation occurred where the B1G and SEC simultaneously raided the ACC (say, UNC/Duke/GT/Virginia went to the B1G, and FSU, Clemson, NC State and VA Tech went to the SEC). That leaves Syracuse, Pittsburgh, BC, Louisville, ND and Wake left out. ND would likely get another non-football league membership with another P conference. From there, it's possible that SU, Pitt, BC, UL and Wake pursue an alliance with UConn for football, and place non-football membership in the BE (which would really just be circling back to where things stood in the 1980's). The likelihood of that happening would be close to nil.
Unfortunately, since BC joined the ACC, their men's basketball program has regressed. In the BE (26 years), they made eleven NCAA Tournaments (six Sweet 16s and two Elite Eights); since joining the ACC, they have made only three NCAA Tournaments, zero second weekend appearances, and zero NCAA Tournament appearances in over a decade.
Unless ND wants to travel to Ames, Stillwater, Pullman or Corvallis every other year I doubt they can pull what they did with the ACC. I know it's all an academic exercise at this point. Nevertheless, they'll continue to have scheduled games with BC, Stanford, Navy, Pitt, Miami (you forgot about them), USC, Michigan, Michigan State, Purdue, Georgia Tech every year or every other year. In other words, they're never going to be without opponents because they're Domers. The question is bowl access and whether they regard the CFP as an important goal for them. That's what the ACC gives them now. I suppose the PAC could give them something similar to what they have with the Orange Bowl with the Las Vegas Bowl.
Should BC, UL, SU, Miami and Pitt return to the Big East I think that's enough incentive for the Domers to return there as well, especially with Wake joining them. Maybe Navy joins that group as a football-only member. So you'd have a football conference that looks like this:
Syracuse
Boston College
Connecticut
Navy
Wake Forest
Louisville
Miami
Pittsburgh
I think that's enough programs for them to have 1 or 2 games a year, rotated among the eight. 2 or more games with SEC opponents; one or two with Texas/Oklahoma; one with USC and/or Stanford/UCLA/Cal; 2 with a mix of Wisconsin/Northwestern/Michigan State/Ohio State/Penn State/Purdue/Michigan every other year; then complete the mix with one of BYU, Liberty, SMU, Air Force or Army.
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