Interesting

[1977 BearCat]

1. The OU athletic director said the following a couple of days ago:

I think our intent would be to move as quickly as we could," Castiglione said. "There may be other issues that hinder our ability to move as quick as we want. Behind the scenes we will be doing as much as we can as quick as we can to resolve it."

2. One of he Kansas City Star bloggers yesterday mentioned South Fla as a Big 12 possibility. That is the first time I have ever seen South Fla mentioned in any article, blog entry etc.

3. The Acting Big 12 Commissioner has stated that there is no agreement within the conference as to the correct number of schools other than 16 will not be considered. That implies 14 might be.

4. SB Nation suggested yesterday that ND maybe considering a Big East exit and the Big 12 was under consideration (the Big 12 has previously talked to ND about a football scheduling alliance).


Is it possible the the Big East, Big 12 and ACC are working on a plan to split up the remaining football schools in the Big East.

ACC gets Rutgers and UConn, becomes a true atlantic coast conference, splits into an 8 team north and south division, and effectively eliminates the probability of an upcoming law suit.

Big 12 gets an immediate injection of four teams (all the talk about adding West VA might be true but at the moment that won't happen for 27 months which doesn't help the Big 12 next year). They also establish a presence in a large market (Tampa) in the recruiting rich state of Florida. They add one more team for football only and add ND b-ball and non-rev sports with a football scheduling alliance (something ND would never do for the Big East) to get to 14 teams.


All AQ conferences win in that one of the AQ conferences is eliminated and all current AQ teams have found new homes.

[binturong07]

1. The OU athletic director said the following a couple of days ago:

I think our intent would be to move as quickly as we could," Castiglione said. "There may be other issues that hinder our ability to move as quick as we want. Behind the scenes we will be doing as much as we can as quick as we can to resolve it."

2. One of he Kansas City Star bloggers yesterday mentioned South Fla as a Big 12 possibility. That is the first time I have ever seen South Fla mentioned in any article, blog entry etc.

3. The Acting Big 12 Commissioner has stated that there is no agreement within the conference as to the correct number of schools other than 16 will not be considered. That implies 14 might be.

4. SB Nation suggested yesterday that ND maybe considering a Big East exit and the Big 12 was under consideration (the Big 12 has previously talked to ND about a football scheduling alliance).


Is it possible the the Big East, Big 12 and ACC are working on a plan to split up the remaining football schools in the Big East.

ACC gets Rutgers and UConn, becomes a true atlantic coast conference, splits into an 8 team north and south division, and effectively eliminates the probability of an upcoming law suit.

Big 12 gets an immediate injection of four teams (all the talk about adding West VA might be true but at the moment that won't happen for 27 months which doesn't help the Big 12 next year). They also establish a presence in a large market (Tampa) in the recruiting rich state of Florida. They add one more team for football only and add ND b-ball and non-rev sports with a football scheduling alliance (something ND would never do for the Big East) to get to 14 teams.


All AQ conferences win in that one of the AQ conferences is eliminated and all current AQ teams have found new homes.


I was actually kind of thinking along those lines as well. Finding an AQ home for all the teams that are currently in an AQ conference I think would be important to avoid lawsuits and/or interference from Congress. I would have to think that would be a priority of the BCS. But, Id have to imagine that that type of collusion would fall under anti-trust law somewhere.

[GoCats1994]

Two thoughts...

1) Regarding Gastiglione's quote ("There may be other issues that hinder our ability to move as quick as we want. Behind the scenes we will be doing as much as we can as quick as we can to resolve it.")

This could be as simple as "trying to see how much money it will take to buy WVU (as an example) out of its 27-month commitment"

2) Regarding the BE, B12, ACC working cooperatively with each other...

(a) What does the Big East get out of it? (the remaining BE b-ball-only schools)
(b) What does ND get out of it, since presumably they would be losing a couple fallback bowl options?

[1977 BearCat]

Two thoughts...

1) Regarding Gastiglione's quote ("There may be other issues that hinder our ability to move as quick as we want. Behind the scenes we will be doing as much as we can as quick as we can to resolve it.")

This could be as simple as "trying to see how much money it will take to buy WVU (as an example) out of its 27-month commitment"

2) Regarding the BE, B12, ACC working cooperatively with each other...

(a) What does the Big East get out of it? (the remaining BE b-ball-only schools)
(b) What does ND get out of it, since presumably they would be losing a couple fallback bowl options?


1. True but the Big East has shown no willingness to date to let Pitt and Syr buy out early.

2a. The remaining b-ball schools get to cash a bunch of big checks.

2b. The fallback bowl options that ND has through the Big East are fairly limited (e.g. Champs Bowl can select ND I thing once in a 4 year time frame). Also I don't believe that ND wants to be part of an all Catholic conference because they have very little in common with those schools (including, arguably religion).

[CaptainProbasco]

Is it possible the the Big East, Big 12 and ACC are working on a plan to split up the remaining football schools in the Big East.

ACC gets Rutgers and UConn, becomes a true atlantic coast conference, splits into an 8 team north and south division, and effectively eliminates the probability of an upcoming law suit.

Big 12 gets an immediate injection of four teams (all the talk about adding West VA might be true but at the moment that won't happen for 27 months which doesn't help the Big 12 next year). They also establish a presence in a large market (Tampa) in the recruiting rich state of Florida. They add one more team for football only and add ND b-ball and non-rev sports with a football scheduling alliance (something ND would never do for the Big East) to get to 14 teams.

All AQ conferences win in that one of the AQ conferences is eliminated and all current AQ teams have found new homes.


Such a scenario would leave the Big 12 and ACC open to a collusion lawsuit from the Big East basketball schools. In fact, I think they'd be more likely to sue under this scenario than if they left a few football teams in the Big East.

Doesn't mean that's not what's happening though.

[1977 BearCat]

Such a scenario would leave the Big 12 and ACC open to a collusion lawsuit from the Big East basketball schools. In fact, I think they'd be more likely to sue under this scenario than if they left a few football teams in the Big East.

Doesn't mean that's not what's happening though.

That assumes the Big East b-ball schools wouldn't at this point be willing to happily take the money and move on.