Hello, long-time lurker, first-time poster. I'm just getting my way around here, so some things that are obvious to everyone are so new to me.
First of all, happy to have the school I root for join a real conference for a change, instead of a fly-by-night collection where factions were only too interested in promoting their interests, regardless of the harm caused to others. Too much lingering bitterness from that experience but now looking forward to, hopefully, a brighter future.
Well, I kinda hoped that our admission to the B1G would be a bit low-key but with Scarlet Julie (that's my nickname for the AD) that wasn't going to be possible.
Anyway, yes, the Big East is now dead to me. I wish for those 10 private schools the best but it's no longer the conference I used to know. Its "death" has many culprits. Actually, every school who has been in it at one time or another has some fault in that. However, E-Spin (my name for the Mouse Sports Network) has a huge role as well. How about promoting the narrative that it was accident that they were in the BCS? Somebody in the editorial department must have thought this up and then have the flunkies relay it to the audience. Well, I should've known something was up considering the number of Cuse grads who work there. I could go on and on but I'll leave that for later...
I've been boning up on the Big Ten since the announcement, through watching BTN, their Twitter page, etc.. I really like BTN Live (6pm ET where I live). Not that I necessarily agree with all of the opinions expressed there but at least I know that if there's something Big Ten-related that somebody might bring it up there, since I know that E-Spin isn't going to cover northern schools all that much.
Beyond PSU and UMD, I think the program where I would like to play against more is Northwestern, as a way of starting a "NY vs Chicago" thing. Nebraska looks to be a fun series, even though I know the FB team will struggle against them. I understand Illinois will be the cross division rival in two years. The FB program has had success against them in the past and, by then, we should have a team capable of beating them most years.