mashup.weei.com/sports/2016/05/06/thinking-out-loud-conference-realignment-set-to-rear-its-ugly-head-againExcerpt
Thinking out loud … while wondering whatever happened to WPRO disc jockey Holland Cooke.
— Told ya so. The story that just won’t go away, like an oncoming tidal wave of inevitability, has returned to our shores. And no, it has nothing to do with air pressure in balls.
It has everything to do with balls, all right. Intercollegiate Armageddon (as I like to call it) began in the early 2000s and rose to a crescendo just a few short years ago (2013) when the old Big East disintegrated, thanks in part to the poaching abilities and inexorable greed from conference commissioners and school administrators in the current ACC, Big Ten, SEC, Pac-12 and, to a lesser extent, the Big 12. Football drives the economic bus on these schools’ campuses, and everyone was eager to pull up to the pump, ready for a fill-up.
For the most part, everyone got what they were hoping to get — especially when it came to their bank accounts. Perhaps except for Boston College, which received athletic irrelevancy and inadequacy in exchange for a big check. But forget the added expenses, forget the extra time spent for student-athletes away from their studies, forget the non-revenue sports thrown to the curb to cut expenses and lower budgets — this is life in the Power Five, or the Football Five. Their version of Collegiate Relevancy.
However, the Big 12 found itself reduced to just 10 schools, and while the conference boasted of being able to play everyone from within, it still was missing out on the Big Party. That soon could change, as a result of league meetings this week and the Big 12 presidents meeting at the end of this month.
The Big Party is the College Football Playoff. True, the Big 12 did have its first entrant in the four-team CFP this year (Oklahoma), but it missed out in Year 1 with two teams that arguably could have been factors (TCU and Baylor). Even though the NCAA has now said leagues with less than the previously mandated 12 teams can hold a conference title game (for more $$$, of course), the Big 12 has known for some time that to be a player in the current national championship chase every year, expanding back to 12 teams from 10 would need to be considered.
Why? Because new research (from CBSSports.com) says the Big 12 would have a 10-15 percent better chance (a chance, mind you) of reaching the CFP in a given year with 12 teams instead of 10. Well then. Drop everything for the almighty dollar, and get ‘er done. More power? More prestige? More money? The Big 12 finally is looking at expansion to get back to 12 teams, and it’s targeting the former members of the Big East currently residing in the American Athletic Conference — whose league office still remains in Providence.
Yes, Providence. The epicenter of Intercollegiate Armageddon then and now, with another earthquake about to shake down the landscape. As if having crime, political inadequacy and corruptness, and general business unfriendliness in Lil’ Rhody wasn’t enough.
The leading candidates for departure this time, according to multiple reports, are Cincinnati and BYU. The Bearcats are a given in this corner, because of school population size (nearly 50K), rebuilt and expanded athletic infrastructure, recent athletic success in football and basketball, and the need for a “regional” travel partner for West Virginia. When and if the Big 12 presidents vote, UC is as good as gone.
Brigham Young also is a relatively easy choice to make with one notable exception — the school still doesn’t want to play on Sundays. That could be a deal-breaker. We’ll see if money matters. Short of BYU’s inclusion, those queuing up to be next in line: Memphis, Houston, UCF and SMU. Each has its attributes, each has its shortcomings. But no mention — zero mention, actually — of UConn.
Why? Two things come to mind. One is the travel distance. That’s obvious. Two is even though UConn reached a BCS bowl in 2010 (the Fiesta Bowl), the football program could be swallowed whole by the behemoths in the Big 12, just two seasons removed from a 2-10 disaster. The Northeast is not a fertile recruiting ground for anyone in the Big 12, as opposed to, say, Ohio or Florida. Again, this has nothing to do with a men’s basketball program that has four national titles, or a women’s program that owns 11 such trophies.
This is the result of UConn’s deal with the devil, and jumping into the money pit that playing big-time college football has become. It’s what happens when you wannabe something you can’t possibly be. It’s what happens when bridges are burned, administrators are caught unprepared, or worse yet — when they’re caught with their hands in an empty cookie jar.
UConn hoops hasn’t been irreparably harmed (yet) thanks to its sterling track record and national rep over the past 17 years. Some great coaches and athletes are still there, too. But the day is coming when the basketball finally is deflated in Storrs, largely because football can’t get itself pumped up enough to play with the Big Boys. Make no mistake here, the Huskies’ basketball freight train is hitched to the football equivalent of a 1980s DeLorean.
Attendance is trending downward, and never has measured up to potential competitors in the Power/Football Five. Unless the Big 10 or the ACC ever decide to open their doors again, perhaps in search of total world domination, Armageddon has returned to UConn’s shores.
It is also entirely possible that nothing happens with expansion. The Big 12 ultimately might decide to stay at 10, if it can’t find the right additions. There remains the “rising tide fills all boats” scenario, and without a semi-national program like BYU in the mix, I can see the league standing pat. Or, if the CFP expands to eight teams, there’s little reason to think a Big 12 champ wouldn’t already be involved. Still, will there be other tremors, somewhere, forcing (or enticing) them to act?