(09-24-2020 04:17 AM)CliftonAve Wrote:  

(09-23-2020 10:35 PM)Nerdlinger Wrote:  

(09-23-2020 09:17 PM)RUScarlets Wrote:  

(09-23-2020 09:52 AM)DFW HOYA Wrote:  16 is too many, the ACC knows that. They've scuttled a powerful brand for taking ESPN's bait to split up the Big East to save them money.

A 12 team ACC (so long to BC, Pitt, and post-Boeheim Syracuse) would be a powerful combination.

Big East Football was greater than the sum of its parts because of the rivalries and the media focus. If you just kept the North East monopoly, you could have let Miami go and all the schools would have been better off collectively. Now, some schools are winners and others are losers. That's Darwinism I suppose, but even a football conference with:

South: Pitt, WVU, UC, UL, USF, UCF
North: RU, UConn, BC, Cuse, Navy (FB only), Temple

That conference would have never lost P6 status in football let alone BBall. Now half those schools are set years back while the others sold out to greed (and obscurity in most cases). ESPN sadly didn't want to shell out two separate contracts and tried to cut costs, diluting the product overall.

It's questionable that a conference like that would have maintained power status in football into the CFP era. And in any case, they lack a monopoly on the Northeast without the strongest school, Penn State.

Under the metrics of the BCS system that conference would still be an automatic qualifier. Had that conference remained, I don’t think the schools would have the authority to blow up the BCS system.

RU is right though, there were some great rivalries there. Obviously you had WVU/Pitt, UC/UL, WVU/UL, UC/Pitt, SU/UConn, SU/Rutgers, UConn/Rutgers.. the first two were much more established that the later but I think those other series were starting to perculate over the years. For me as a UC fan, I thought the Ohio River quadrant of WVU, Pitt, Louisville and Cincinnati was just starting to gel and become established as an anchor of football in that conference. I witnessed a lot of people here in Ohio care about BE football that otherwise would not have been in the past... I am no speaking of Cincinnati here I am talking about other parts of the state that would time in for a UC/Pitt or WVU game. The TV ratings for the 2009 UC/Pitt game rivaled the ratings for Ohio State/Penn State game which had been played the week before.

I really enjoyed the 2005-2011 Big East. I was in UG during part of that stretch and watched a lot of college football. I was one of those Ohioans who started following the Bearcats during that stretch. The teams were competitive and the games were exciting. Like you said, the new rivalries that were starting to emerge were fun to watch. They unfortunately lacked the big name programs that could demand big tv dollars which meant the grass was going to be greener on the other side for anyone who left so they couldn’t keep it together. ESPN ultimately decided to kill BE football.

I do wish they had the foresight to bring UCF in as a fb affiliate if not a full member. It would have given USF a true in conference rival and ensured everyone played in FL every single year.