It appears we can help the Big East without being in the conference yet. Hopefully we can continue to win and get as high a BCS ranking as possible. Also it appears they might be scrapping the Conference Champion ranking system for a overall conference ranking system. I know this is in another thread but this deserves it own thread IMO. Here is it:

Kelly Whiteside, USA Today: Hi, Kevin. I just had a question about the Big East, when you look at their highest rated team it's, West Virginia at 20 and three non-BCS teams are above them. Can you address if they will have an automatic bid in their future in the system?

Kevin Weiberg: Well what you said there, Kelly, I think, is the key point. You know, any evaluation that we would have of any conference would be one that would be more than a single season evaluation. And we have not finalized how future automatic qualification status will be determined.

But what we are thinking about and continuing to work on is a system that will take in to account a four-year performance rating of a conference. And we'll try to look at elements other than just a single team's relative ranking in the system. We're really interested in understanding the overall strength of conferences as reflected by teams in the top 12 and top 25, as well as overall strength.

We've not settled on how we will go about doing that, quite yet, but that's kind of where our focus has been. I think it's also fair to point out that in past years, we've had other conferences whose champions have been ranked less than 12 - rather lower than 12, in the final polls. So, again, I think we would view it as trying to not overreact to any conference's performance on a single-season basis.

Kelly Whiteside: Just as a quick follow up, you don't expect any changes until when, do you think?

Kevin Weiberg: Well I think the way we're talking about it at this point, Kelly, is that we would really plan to not have an evaluation of AQ status until we've gone through an additional four-year period. So the two years of the remaining BCS structure, and the two years of any new structure. And of course that assumes that there is a new structure rolling forward here at some point.

But that is the way we have talked about it. And it would also include a review of teams that are part of the conference at the time of the evaluation. So as conference realignment continues to play out, conferences are going to get credit for the performance of teams that are migrating or moving in to their conference. That's another important element of the consideration as we go forward.

<a href='http://www.bcsfootball.org/news.cfm?headline=53' target='_blank'>http://www.bcsfootball.org/news.cfm?headline=53</a>

That's a much better way to rate conferences. The ACC probably won't have anybody in the top 12 but they'll have 4 teams in the top 25. That's more BCS worthy than having a #6 Utah and a bunch of crappy teams after that.

nflsucks Wrote:That's a much better way to rate conferences. The ACC probably won't have anybody in the top 12 but they'll have 4 teams in the top 25. That's more BCS worthy than having a #6 Utah and a bunch of crappy teams after that.

Shouldn't it be about the teams and not the conferences?

Louisville is a better team than any current Big East team this year. Don't they really deserve a spot this year?

If you are the sixth best team in the country, should it matter what conference you play in?

Conferences don't play football games. Teams play football games.

Quote:If you are the sixth best team in the country

It's tough to say Utah is the sixth best team in the country when all they are doing is blowing out lousy teams.

Two things jump out at me when reading this and it bodes well for the Big East:


But that is the way we have talked about it. And it would also include a review of teams that are part of the conference at the time of the evaluation. So as conference realignment continues to play out, conferences are going to get credit for the performance of teams that are migrating or moving in to their conference. That's another important element of the consideration as we go forward.


It looks like we might be a little mistaken on this. The Big East DOES get credit for Miami's rankings. They just share that credit with the ACC. So it looks like C-USA and the Big East would share the credit with Louisville. That's huge, because that means that the Big East would get the BCS rankings of Boston College, West Virginia AND Louisville. C-USA would get Louisville's and UTEP's.

And we'll try to look at elements other than just a single team's relative ranking in the system. We're really interested in understanding the overall strength of conferences as reflected by teams in the top 12 and top 25, as well as overall strength.

We've not settled on how we will go about doing that, quite yet, but that's kind of where our focus has been. I think it's also fair to point out that in past years, we've had other conferences whose champions have been ranked less than 12 - rather lower than 12, in the final polls. So, again, I think we would view it as trying to not overreact to any conference's performance on a single-season basis.


First off, that might actually be a good thing for the Big East. There's a good chance that the Big East could have 3 preseason Top 25 teams next year, Louisville, West Virginia and Pittsburgh. Pitt is a VERY young team with a boatload of talent that is coming into their own right now so they're likely going to be in the Top 15 or 20 of the preseason rankings, Louisville in the Top 10 or 15, West Virginia in the Top 20 or 25, maybe higher depending on whether they think WVU replaced departing players well. The SEC and ACC recently played in BCS bowls without Top 12 teams so it's not like this is a new concept. It just appears to me that they're doing everything they can to help the Big East get back on their feet and I think it will work, and work soon.