Left Seater wrote:I don't see this being a BCS or AQ conference moving forward. (Granted the BCS could totally change going forward.) But this could be the line up of the Big East as soon as 2013 and it still includes schools that want out.
UConn (publicly said they want out)
Rutgers (has spoken to ACC - longshot)
Cinci
Louisville (we all agree a likely Big XII target and they will go if invited)
South Florida
Houston
SMU
UCF
Memphis
Boise State
San Diego St
Navy (football only 2015)
So in 2015 divisions would look like this possibly:
East
UConn
Rutgers
UCF
South Florida
Navy
Cinci
West
Louisville
Boise St
San Diego St
SMU
Houston
Memphis
The East is really lacking in this geographical breakdown. Hell the SEC would like to schedule most of those guys non-conf. The West is stronger but mostly only because of Boise St. No way is this an AQ conference based on the teams today. Not to say some couldn't improve, but the only way this conf remains an AQ is if the BCS decides it must have 6 AQ conferences.
I looked at this a few months ago, and I'm going mainly from memory, but . . .
As I understand it, there are three criteria that are used by the BCS to determine AQ status, which will be used over the last four seasons (2008-11):
1. Average ranking of top-ranked conference team in final BCS rankings;
2. Average ranking of all conference teams in the six computer rankings used by the BCS; and
3. Percentage of conference members to finish in the Top 25 of the final BCS standings, measured as a percentage of the top-ranked conference in this category and with all conferences adjusted for size.
A conference automatically gets AQ status if it finishes among the top six conferences in each of the first two categories and is at 50% or better in the third category. A conference can apply for a waiver to the Presidential Oversight Committee for AQ status if it finishes among the top six conferences in each of the first two categories, or in the top five in one category and the top seven in the other, and is at 33% or better in the third category.
Largely due to Boise State, the first category will be no problem at all for the Big East. They'll finish ahead of the ACC and possibly ahead of the B1G.
The second category probably won't be a problem for the Big East, either, even though their average computer ranking figures to fall. Fwiw, the last time the conferences were re-evaluated, the Big East finished in sixth place in this category. The Big East's average ranking was approximately 26. By way of comparison, the average ranking of the #1 conference (Pac-10) was approximately 20, and the average ranking of the #7 conference (MWC) was approximately 46. The Big East may lose some ground in this category, but not enough for another conference to leapfrog them. Remember, both the MWC and C-USA are taking a hit in this category as well.
The potential problem for the Big East is the third category. I think the Big XII will be in first place in this category once adjustments for conference size are made. The Big East figures to finish somewhere between 33% and 50%, making them eligible for a waiver for AQ status but not eligible for automatic AQ status. One of the reasons I thought the Big East might consider Southern Miss for membership is that Southern Miss would have helped them in this category. Ironically, losing Louisville might help the Big East in this category, although if the Big XII picks up Louisville and BYU, BYU did finish in the Top 25 in 2009. And fwiw, the Big East finished below 50% in this category after the 2007 season, although they were so close (49.11%) that a waiver was pretty much a no-brainer.
A bigger question might be how do you schedule a 17 team basketball conf? If you split into two divisions and play everyone in your division home and home and then everyone else in the other division once that is still 24 conference games. That would mean conf games in early Dec. That is likely a no go, so do you just play everyone else in the league once?
Currently, the Big East has each team play home-and-home against each of three other teams in the conference, and a single game against every other team. I suspect basketball scheduling will continue on a somewhat similar basis.
MuchoBulls wrote:The ACC didn't take Syracuse and Pitt for football, they wanted them for basketball.
Maybe, though as it turned out, adding Syracuse and Pitt undoubtedly helped the ACC in football. Not so much for the direct impact as for the chain reaction it triggered.
They were also an unintended beneficiary of aTm's decision to join the SEC, as that opened a spot in the Big XII for TCU.
Recall the BCS categories set forth above. In the first category, had the 2010 realignment held (i.e., TCU to the Big East and Boise State to the MWC), the ACC would have wound up in seventh place in the first category, behind both the Big East and the MWC. As it now is, they'll still finish behind the Big East, but they'll be ahead of the MWC. Granted, they still would have been eligible to apply for a waiver, and likely they would've gotten it. But why leave something to chance if you don't have to?
If it came to pass that way, then UCF would take whatever option they had. It certainly much better than what they would have in C-USA, or whatever the C-USA/Mountain West would look like.
I think the greater issue is what it does to conference scheduling as a whole. One of the appealing things about the Big East's new alignment is that if they do scheduling right, every team in the conference will play a road game in either Florida or Texas. Putting UCF in the West would scuttle that, though.
I would think that if Louisville stays, they will want to play both Cincinnati and Memphis annually, and it's extremely unlikely that Cincinnati and Memphis both will wind up in the same division. Given that fact, moving to the West might be a bit more palatable to them.
