DavidSt
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RE: Oklahoma/ big 12 expansion
(06-29-2015 01:09 PM)HawkeyeCoug Wrote: (06-29-2015 10:59 AM)adcorbett Wrote: (06-29-2015 10:18 AM)Attackcoog Wrote: Here is what I'm thinking. The Big East made a huge mistake staying too small too long as the weakest of the power conferences. Had they expanded to 12 earlier, then the new members would have had time to strengthen and become part of the fabric of the AQ conferences. Then later, when the Big East is raided and loses Pitt, W Vir, Syracuse, Louisville, and Rutgers, they still have 7 BCS AQ members to rebuild with (the remaining conference is still largely BCS AQ schools instead of being majority newly added CUSA schools). Instead, the Big East had but 4 remaining members and is made up largely of CUSA replacements with just one season as BCS AQ schools (some with none).
The problem with that theory is that even if that worked to plan, that only helped out three of the remaining teams, and hurt the other five: hence why they never did it. The Big East did remain too small: they needed to go to 9 or 10, But the infrastructure was never there to really allow for expansion, because until TCU came along at the end, no school outside of the BCS had enough "umph" that the Big East could really add without watering down it's already perceived lackluster football. ...
The invites to the Big East went out, and were accepted, in November, 2003. Looking back over the previous 5 seasons, the 5 remaining Big East teams averaged a MRatings Composite of 59.2 (excluding UConn who was still building up), with five top 30 appearances, no top 15 appearances.
The three added averaged 56.9 (including South Florida who was trending up) and collectively had two top 30 appearances, no top 15 appearances.
Available teams that averaged in the top 50 include Southern Miss (41.8), TCU (41.6), Marshall (34.4), Colorado St (36.8), Air Force (49.4), BYU (49.4), and Boise St (45). Add in East Carolina (54.6) who had good attendance and a top 30 finish, and you now have 16 very solid teams for a football only conference.
With hindsight, part of the goal would be having at least 14 teams to avoid having to reactively add two teams for a conference championship game when the raids would come. Further, South Florida had a great run initially, but have flamed out. So, they would have to go as well. All-sports invitees would include LVille and Cincy, also avoiding South Florida basketball. That would leave something like the following:
East: UConn, Syracuse, Pitt, Rutgers, WVU, ECU, Louisville
West: BYU, Air Force, CSU, TCU, Boise St, Cincy, Southern Miss
Average Ranking of the non-chosen additions: 45.5
Number of top 30 rankings: 8 (including every team)
Number of top 15 rankings: 3 (TCU, Southern Miss, Air Force)
Average ranking of new Big East (excluding UConn): 51.9
Looking back, this would have been a really awesome conference. You would always have a quality BCS bowl participant, and TV would have loved it. Keeping the football separate from all sports would have kept Big East basketball happy, and reduced expenses for everyone. The ACC would have to pay much, much more to pry teams away, and it would have eliminated competition from all the smaller conferences.
Memphis would have made it into the Big East for their basketball.
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