(12-18-2012 03:01 PM)MetroMemphis Wrote:  This thread has taken a turn for the worse.

Yes . . . what I don't understand with this thread and others is that the Big East has in the past built its reputation on identifying "emerging programs" who, for good or bad, used the Big East as stepping stone to punch their ticket to the big time . . . Miami, Virginia Tech, West Virginia, Louisville. . . and deserving schools-in-waiting like Cincinnati and South Florida . . . now, it appears that realignment may be running out of steam at 12-14 teams per conference . . .

With the Big East "ready to respond," I'm amazed at the apparent demand among some here for schools that by many objective criteria appear to have plateaued . . . Fresno, UNLV, New Mexico, Nevada, Utah State, etc. . . . great schools and every one with some measure of football and/or basketball success . . . but will ANY of these schools become the next Miami, Virginia Tech, West Virginia, Louisville, Cincinnati, etc. . . will the PAC, Big XII, BIG, SEC, or ACC be clamoring for any of them in the next 10 years . . . I just don't see it. . . how do any of those choices realistic fit in a future with the Power 5 Conferences?

What the Big East and its members should be doing is identifying a final all-sports school or two among all of the available candidates that will rise to the level of these former Big East programs such that they too become desirable by our brethren in the PAC-12, SEC, BIG, BIG XII, or ACC . . . that and that alone should be the criteria . . .

The only way to stay relevant in the discourse is to identify schools who in the next 10 years can become just too good, too big, spend too much money, have too many rich alumni, too many corporate sponsors, too many television sets in their media market, too many alumni in a region, too much political clout, put too many butts in the chairs at home games, and who in short become just too much to be ignored (ie, ECU) . . . we have a core of these programs now with UConn, Cincinnati, Navy, Temple, USF, UCF, ECU, Houston, SMU, etc. . . . if we don't, we will become a better version of the MAC, MWC, WAC, and every other mid-major conference nipping at the heels of the Power 5 Conferences with a collection of really good, mid-majors no one in the Power 5 want . . .and therefore, no one that ESPN, FOX, CBS, NBC, etc. respects . . .

To accomplish this, the Big East has to take a gamble now . . . it can not just rely on available candidates' prior or current success as a basis to decide . . . I believe it is about a school's current and future financial investment/institutional commitment to become the next Miami, Virginia Tech, West Virginia, Louisville, Cincinnati, etc. . . . I believe this was why Tulane and ECU were invited . . . maybe they do; maybe they don't, but they both have the vision, desire, and heart to try . . . despite the outrage by some, this reasoning is sound, and I hope that Aresco & Co. do not back down now! Be bold! Shock us!