East Carolina Applies to Big East, League Targets Navy, Air Force

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That's gotta be a swift kick in the nuts for Army. You're sitting 50 miles from Manhattan, with a national fanbase desperate for you to be competitive with the other academies again, and a dying conference would rather go damn near across the entire country to hand-pick your rival than deign to select you. Man, what an insult.

Also, they're missing the boat on who they're going after. UCF is a much better choice than any of the three listed, and should be the first school called if any of the bigger conferences are looking to do some poaching.
 

dpodoll68 said:
That's gotta be a swift kick in the nuts for Army. You're sitting 50 miles from Manhattan, with a national fanbase desperate for you to be competitive with the other academies again, and a dying conference would rather go damn near across the entire country to hand-pick your rival than deign to select you. Man, what an insult.
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And, why would Air Force leave the MWC to join the Big East? What teams would want to fly 1800+ miles for every road football game? Why add that headache and expense for relatively little gain? In addition, with the possibility that the Big 12 is looking to add up to three schools, I would think Air Force is at least a candidate to get into that league back so the Big 12 gets back into the state of Colorado. Air Force would be wise to hold tight for a little while, I would think.

dpodoll68 said:
Also, they're missing the boat on who they're going after. UCF is a much better choice than any of the three listed, and should be the first school called if any of the bigger conferences are looking to do some poaching.
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I agree. I would think Memphis would also be in line for a bigger conference with its basketball cache and FedEx money. Southern Miss and Marshall also seem higher up the pyramid than Navy or Air Force, IMHO. East Carolina, too.
 

tjgopher said:
I agree. I would think Memphis would also be in line for a bigger conference with its basketball cache and FedEx money. Southern Miss and Marshall also seem higher up the pyramid than Navy or Air Force, IMHO. East Carolina, too.
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Except expansion is about FB and Memphis is a HORRID football school.
 

GoAUpher said:
Except expansion is about FB and Memphis is a HORRID football school.
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True, but the Big East is a basketball league. When half of your members don't even field a FBS football team, you get what you get in regard to football. Memphis would bring basketball validation and huge FedEx $$$$$.
 


tjgopher said:
True, but the Big East is a basketball league. When half of your members don't even field a FBS football team, you get what you get in regard to football. Memphis would bring basketball validation and huge FedEx $$$$$.
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Memphis has been begging to get into the Big East for the better part of the last decade, citing the same reasons. The Big East isn't buying it, even at their current level of desperation.

The Big East doesn't need Memphis, because they were already a basketball power before they started a football league, and they'll remain a basketball power if they cease to exist as a football league. This is all about saving football, and Memphis adds nothing in that regard.
 

You would think Temple would be a target of the Big East. They are decent in basketball and improving in football. You would think they would be a perfect fit. Villanova might be nixing their membership but you wouldn't think a basketball only school would have that power.
 

Jike Spingleton said:
Memphis has been begging to get into the Big East for the better part of the last decade, citing the same reasons. The Big East isn't buying it, even at their current level of desperation.

The Big East doesn't need Memphis, because they were already a basketball power before they started a football league, and they'll remain a basketball power if they cease to exist as a football league. This is all about saving football, and Memphis adds nothing in that regard.
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I see. And, adding Navy and Air Force certainly swings the pendulum. They'll be challenging the SEC in no time. Navy and Air Force really don't add much in football, either.

Look, the Big East isn't going to get a lot of football powers, period. It isn't a football league. Plus, things have changed drastically for the Big East in the last two weeks. The league is teetering on extinction as a football conference and has been greatly weakened as a basketball league. They just lost basketball powers Syracuse and Pitt (plus those FB teams). Rutgers is likely gone. UConn is begging to get out (and probably will). TCU is said to be re-thinking its future commitment in football. At a minmum, if the Big East wants to remain a power hoops league, they will take a hard look at Memphis. All in all, things are fairly grim for the Big East. They would have been better off with the Big 12 breaking up and bringing in Kansas, Kansas State, Iowa State and Baylor. Now, the future is bleak. Navy and Air Force aren't exactly knock out blows.
 

Jike Spingleton said:
Memphis has been begging to get into the Big East for the better part of the last decade, citing the same reasons. The Big East isn't buying it, even at their current level of desperation.

The Big East doesn't need Memphis, because they were already a basketball power before they started a football league, and they'll remain a basketball power if they cease to exist as a football league. This is all about saving football, and Memphis adds nothing in that regard.
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Exactly.

tjgopher said:
I see. And, adding Navy and Air Force certainly swings the pendulum. They'll be challenging the SEC in no time.

Look, the Big East isn't going to get a lot of football powers, period. It isn't a football league. They just lost basketball powers Syracuse and Pitt. UConn is begging to get out. If the Big East wants to remain a power hoops league, they will take a hard look at Memphis.
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They're looking at adding Navy as a football only member. Not sure about Air Force. The reason they are looking at adding 2 decent service academy teams has several likely motivations. First, they HAVE to add football teams so they don't lose their AQ status in the BCS. That's the biggest thing. Second, service academies come with national followings. For the Big East, it means they're taking 2 slightly more nationally attractive teams from a TV perspective considering they are scraping the bottom of the barrel to begin with. Third, both Navy and Air Force are decent in terms of rankings so they don't hurt (and in Navy's case may somewhat help) their overall BCS rankings when the next round of AQ reviews happen. Adding a black hole like Memphis actually hurts their chances of maintaining their AQ status for the BCS.

They may be known as a basketball conference and I agree that Bball is their bread and butter. But at the end of the day, their TV deal for football still brings them more money (along with their BCS status) then their Bball TV contract does. Even in a crappy football conference, football money still drives the bus. If they lose their status as a power hoops league they don't stand to lose as much money as if they are no longer an AQ BCS league.
 



GoAUpher said:
Adding a black hole like Memphis actually hurts their chances of maintaining their AQ status for the BCS.
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Memphis has been terrible the last few years, but they were in bowl games in 2003, 2004, 2005, 2007, and 2008. It isn't like they are too far removed from some decent seasons. The Big East (in its current desperation) might think it is worthwhile to go get them for hoops and hope they get the right football coach and the added revenue from the Big East and they can get good again in football. They play in a historic stadium and the Memphis area is a hotbed for high school football, too.

I mean the Big East may have to add no fewer than three teams, maybe more if TCU backs out. Memphis would be a decent option (with the FedEx money) given the circumstances.

Again, a lot has changed in the last two weeks.
 

tjgopher said:
Memphis has been terrible the last few years, but they were in bowl games in 2003, 2004, 2005, 2007, and 2008. It isn't like they are too far removed from some decent seasons.
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Actually, for the next round of BCS evals all those bowl games (minus the 2008) are too old: http://www.collegefootballpoll.com/bcs_automatic_qualifying_standards.html
BCS Future Automatic Qualification Standards

Under the terms of the agreements with the bowls and television rightsholder, the ACC, Big East, Big 10, Big 12, Pac-10 and SEC will have annual automatic qualification for their champions for the 2010-11, 2011-12, 2012-13 and 2013-14 seasons.

Results from the 2008, 2009, 2010 and 2011 regular seasons will be evaluated to determine whether a seventh conference earns automatic qualification for the 2012-13 and 2013-14 bowl games.
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tjgopher said:
The Big East (in its current desperation) might think it is worthwhile to go get them for hoops and hope they get the right football coach and the added revenue from the Big East and they can get good again in football. The Memphis area is a hotbed for high school football, too.
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Well, unless these negotiations are super quiet I'd say no, they don't seem to think it is worthwhile. The BCS AQ thing may very well be a large part of that.

tjgopher said:
I mean the Big East may have to add no fewer than three teams, maybe more if TCU backs out. Memphis would be a decent option (with the FedEx money) given the circumstances.

Again, a lot has changed in the last two weeks.
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And a lot could still change. It was clear that the Big East was hoping to poach a lot of the Big 12 leftovers if that conference imploded and that seems to now be off the table. Maybe now they lose out on the service academies and Memphis suddenly hits their radar. But from a strictly football perspective the school is currently a dud. As for the Fed-Ex money, that's the 2nd time you've mentioned it. What exactly do you mean by it and how do you view it to be helpful to the entire Big East?
 


Where Memphis stands in the hierarchy of college football is illustrated next weekend. Air Force-Navy is being televised nationally by CBS. Memphis, meanwhile, is lucky to make their way onto Fox Sports Net once a year if they're playing an SEC team.

If the Big East can get Air Force and Navy for football, which is the only thing that matters here, it's a much bigger coup than Memphis. Will it put the Big East in the same neighborhood as the SEC? Of course not. But it keeps them competitive as a BCS football conference.
 



tjgopher said:
Fed Ex Money.
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While very nice (seriously, if true that is insane), it isn't enough if Memphis isn't able to help the Big East remain a BCS conference (since they make more than that each season from the BCS...plus the fact that the money offer is for a BCS conference to pick Memphis).
 

Fun Fact: In 2010 East Carolina had higher per game attendance than 4 Big Ten teams (including Minnesota).
 

The Mountain West may well snatch away the Big East's automatic BCS bid.
 


RodentRampage said:
The Mountain West may well snatch away the Big East's automatic BCS bid.
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Exactly why Air Force would be foolish to jump to the Big East to travel all those miles to play football. And, exactly why the Big East will have to go shopping around for others (even potentially for some football program as poor as Memphis). Memphis averaged only 23,000 last yr, but as recently as 5 years ago was averaging almost 40,000. So, some might see potential there.
 

With the Big 12 holding for now, I look for TCU to replace A&M in the Big 12 leaving the Big East needing 2 teams. UCF should be one of them. ECU would be the most logical 2nd choice, but Navy or Army make sense. I agree that it would be foolish for Air Force to make the move at this time, the MWC is and will be better.
 

They chose these two (Navy and Air Force) becuase this almost keeps them close enough to be able to continue to get the special exemption from meeting the requirements for keeping a BCS AQ. And the BCS will not be able to strip them of their AQ (as they clearly should) because it would would be reported that they are losing their AQ "becuse the league added the sevice academies".

The MWC and CUSA could simply merge and have its winningest members play in a seperate BCS AQ conference. So both of these conferences should be in a better position than the Big East. If only they could work out that merger before more of their members flee.
 

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