I was just responding to your post. Again, I didn't say that they have turned it around to be a top 4 BE team. This was one of the worst BCS basketball programs in the country. There are nine scholarship players on the roster, and two of those are stretches because the program was decimated by Fred Hill Jr. A McDonald's AA and another top 50 recruit left the program because of him. We were hoping to win 12 games this year; losses like St. Joe's and Princeton were expected but a win against Miami wasn't.

And again, I said they are in the process of turning it around where the likes of USF, Depaul, Providence, etc would not be begging to play Rutgers. We should split those series now, let alone when the roster is full of scholarship players.

The way he has played is really puzzling. I know the competition wasn't the same but he looked so smooth in high school and very good in the McDonald's game. What happened that he doesn't contribute a thing right now?? Thank god for Baye!

Honestly, Depaul is the only team that you should be expected to sweep. If you split with some other bottomfeeders, then fine, but I really don't see Rutgers on a different level from these teams any time soon. USF and Providence both had a few glimmers of being a team in the last few years, but to sustain anything has proven hopeless.

Interesting news: UMass eyes move to join BC in FBS - BostonHerald.com

A large, land-grant, flagship university appearing out of virtually nowhere that is right in the Big East's footprint.

Looks like they will be starting out in the MAC and that their stadium is pretty small (17K according to wikipedia), but they have a nice sized student body and, I would imagine, a number of wealthy alumni in the area.

That's the first I've heard of UMass moving up, and its very intriguing.

Really? W/L wise the last 4 years seem like pretty much the worst they've been. They at least had scattered winning seasons/NIT bids prior to that.

The Boston Globe ran a story on UMass in general and one of the pieces on how UMass was looking at UConn. From October.

UConn scores by spending more - The Boston Globe


Seems like UMass would be a long-term fit for the BE (in all programs).

This conversation has made me want to play FBCB2 and take Rutgers and try to win the Big East regular season and make a Final 4. Talk about a challenge. :p

Slightly off-topic, but with Penn State going Division 1 in hockey (men's and women's) in 2012-2013 and giving the Big Ten the required six members needed for the possibility of a Big Ten hockey conference (Michigan State, Michigan, Wisconsin, Ohio State, and Minnesota are the other five programs), sounds like they're trying to lure Notre Dame in through hockey.

Notre Dame Given Big Ten Invitation | The Journal Gazette | Fort Wayne, IN

You must have me on ignore ;)Stadium is 17k, could pretty easily be expanded in the end zones to ~25k, and the rumor is that at least 1 "home" game a year would be played at Foxboro, hopefully vs a BC/UConn/Syracuse (we drew 33k there this year vs. UNH).

The majority of the alumni are in the Boston area, which is 1.5-2 hours away - not a far distance imo, but apparently a lot of people here in the Northeast consider it to be - but they basically need success to be lured back in. When UMass basketball was doing well in the 90's it was huge in Boston, and it only takes a couple ESPN games or a top 25 ranking to get the attention again.

I refuse to get too excited until I see the official invite, but this is fantastic news, even if it is coming 5, 10 (after our National Title with basketball money still flush) or even 30 years (when we created the Eastern Eight and Paterno suggested including football) too late. I do feel bad for Wade and some of the other CAA brethren, especially UNH and Maine, doubly so if JMU and/or Delaware also get football invites.

One other thing - I don't think there's any truth to it, but it's nice to at least see (UMass alum) Rick Pitino thinking of us

@APWillGraves this is for @LukeMeredithAP Pitino on UMass: "i'm a little taken aback by that ... i'm going to try to make a push .. to get them in the BE"

Bishop, do you think the MAC is just a stepping stone to a conference like the Big East? I know UConn spent four years playing Division 1-A before moving to the Big East.

Too much is changing on the conference landscape to predict 5 years down the road, but I certainly hope it is (no offense MAC fans - it's just not a natural geographic fit. The other option would be splitting off with Temple/Buffalo and some upgrading FCS schools like JMU, App St and Delaware to form a 2nd-tier eastern football conference.)

A number of our natural rivals are already in the Big East (UConn, Syracuse, even Pitt and West Virginia because of past conference affiliations) and the one that we would be overlapping with in the "Boston" market (BC) is now out. (I put Boston in quotes because UMass really carries the Springfield/Worcester market and only penetrates Boston when there is a buzz.) I think if we had upgraded in the late 90's as we were flush with basketball money and coming off a national title in FCS we would have been invited to the Big East instead of/along with UConn when they did. I think if we had upgraded 5 years ago into the MAC/C-USA we'd be the 10th Big East team right now (possibly the 9th instead of TCU, although part of TCU may be because of the BCS quality they bring).

Now that our AD/BoT have finally gotten off their asses (probably thanks to our newish Chancellor Holub, previously of U Tennessee, who loves saying we need to act like a flagship if we want to be funded like one), the biggest worry is that the Big East invites 3 more of Villanova, UCF, ECU, Houston and ends up at 12 football teams and caps it. (The other worry is that the Big Ten raids the BE for teams like Cuse/Pitt/UConn as part of a move to 16 - ensuring we move up to "the Big East", but not the Big East that we want.)

Side note - this announcement makes Villanova's decision a little more interesting and possibly more likely that they upgrade against their better judgment. In the last few years, BU/Northeastern/Hofstra have disbanded their programs, Rhode Island has dropped to the NEC, and rumors are Maine, then UNH, might not be too far behind as their travel costs skyrocket/attendance goes down. Maybe Villanova is far enough South to stay in the CAA, but since one of UMass main considerations seems to be making sure they have a seat (at least in 1A, ideally the BE) once the musical chairs ends, Villanova might look at that and decide they need to go now or risk having high-level FCS football disappear and no viable D1 conference to move up to.

People seem to think this is the signal that JMU and Delaware are next, I'm not buying into it yet.

But maybe I'm in denial.

Interesting comments from Bill Self related to TCU move. Says that KU, MU, ISU, and KSU would have all been offered by Big East if any B12 South members would have jumped ship last summer.

Self: Big East was set to take Kansas, others - CBSSports.com

Still could easily see this happening if they wanted to expand out their conference to football and basketball members and drop basketball only schools. You could form a regional division that makes sense geographically with KU, MU, ISU, KSU, Lousiville, Cincinnati, and TCU.

In a present day vacuum, I agree. Taking history into account, though, I would be shocked if the Big East dropped Georgetown, Nova and Seton Hall.

If this eventually does happen, BTW, I can't wait to see divisions named the Big East East and the Big East West. :D

The fact that Notre Dame's administration seemed very active with the addition of TCU leads me to believe that the football and non-football schools are on the same page and will stick together for awhile. Keeping Notre Dame in the Big East and happy is probably best for the conference. Forcing them out could lead them to join the Big Ten and trigger their interest in trying to get into the NYC market and with a combination of Notre Dame, Rutgers, UConn, Syracuse, and Penn State they might be able to get a pretty nice toehold. The (current) common wisdom is that only Notre Dame or Texas are capable of adding revenue, rather than draining it, from the Big Ten, so keeping Notre Dame away from the Big Ten keeps the Big East alive and well.

With the Big 12 North teams, I think the Big East could probably take those four schools and add one more (UCF) and come up with a pretty nice football conference with a good East/West balance:

East:
UConn
Pitt
WVU
Syracuse
Rutgers
UCF
USF

West:
Louisville
Cincy
Missouri
Kansas
Kansas State
Iowa State
TCU

Of course, that would require those four teams to stop sucking from the Texas teat, which is a losing proposition for them (and I don't blame them). It is like Frank the Tank blog says: Texas is like a pimp for the rest of the Big 12, but it is a pimp that pays well. And, even if they would join, there still is not a headlining team between those fourteen schools (a USC, Michigan/Ohio State, Alabama/Florida/Georgia/LSU, or Texas/Oklahoma) and they would basically just be a bigger Big East or ACC.

I've been following that rumor and it would definitely interest me, the football programs would be pretty solid top to bottom and basketball could be great. I would think though that it would make much more sense to only take KU, KSU, and Mizz (leaving ISU) and then stay away from UCF. The money potential being added by those Big12 teams wouldn't be enough to make sense of splitting the already meager pie 14 ways.

It should be noted that KU is a basketball-only school. They need ISU for football.............

I still chuckle that next year the Big XII will have 10 teams and the Big 10 has had 11 for the longest time and soon will have 12?

SI

The Big Ten announced that's its done exploring expansion for now.


Big Ten announces it won't pursue expansion - ESPN

Until Texas bats its eye or Notre Dame flashes some leg. ;)

Report: TCU Can Only Enter Big East If They Bring Girls | The Onion - America's Finest News Source

Hawaii joins MWC for football - College Football Nation Blog - ESPN

Hawai'i officially to the MWC in football, Big West in everything else. Question is, who will the WAC going to get another school from to stay at 8?

Rumor has it that Utah State is accepting an invite to the MWC as well and that will sound the death toll of the WAC.

Utah State almost went before, going now wouldn't make any sense because they'd have to find somewhere for their other programs to go and it'd only give the MWC 11 teams.

http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/sports/...rence.html.csp

But if they bring in a 12th school from C-USA, then I guess it works.

Why not Houston, UTEP, or SMU?

Big Ten division names are in: Legends and Leaders

No seriously, what are the division names?

lol

Meh. Which name goes with which division? My guess is Michigan is in the Legends, and Ohio State is in the Leaders.

Legends
Iowa
Michigan
Michigan State
Minnesota
Nebraska
Northwestern

Leaders
Illinois
Indiana
Ohio State
Penn State
Purdue
Wisconsin

Hmmm... those sound more like tribal names from Survivor or something.

I think I would rather be a legend than a leader.

Dola...

I will say that I think they did a pretty nice job of balancing the divisions. I don't look at one or the other and think that one is better or worse (assuming that Michigan and Penn State return to power).

That's stupid. They should have gone like old school hockey and called the two divisions the Schembechler and Hayes divisions, or something like that.

I liked X and O better and the logo doesn't look fit for a high school conference.

That is ridiculous. What makes Illinois a leader and Northwestern a legend?

Michigan - legend...you used to be good.
Ohio State - leader...you still are good.

WTF?

Sounds right to me. :p

I look at the legend side of the ledger and that is MUCH easier than the leader side. Outside of Nebraska, who is going to be tough on the Legend side?

Iowa is a once every 5-6 year compete for the title team. MSU is the same type of team.

On the leader side, you have Penn State which should compete every 2-3 years, OSU which competes every year, Wisconsin which has shown it competes for the title year in year out (worst case 2 out of 3) over the last 20 years, Purdue is a solid squad. Heck, even Illinois has won or tied for the B10 title twice in the last 10 years.

Why not just name them Michigan and Ohio State while you're at it?

Hey, if Minnesota has a great past coach that fits, throw him up there. Don't matter to me, I'm a Pac 10 guy. Just saying that's some stupid division namin' right there.

So you're going to dismiss Michigan and not Penn State, even though they had some rough seasons the last decade? Then you call Purdue solid, but not Northwestern? Also think Iowa and Wisconsin are closer than you seem to think.

I think these Big Ten divisional names are pretty stupid.

I think just about everyone does.

I bet you'd like them if they changed the "Legends" division to "Best". :D

Big Ten continues to be a laughingstock with these stupid names. They are the TNA of college football.

That's a pretty pussy looking logo. With all the money they have they couldn't have hired someone who wasn't a complete fucktard? Stupid logo. Stupid division names. Ugly Trophies.

I usually tend to have a pretty open mind to new things, but that is a stupid logo.

Yes it is. What's with the 1? At least the old logo had an "11" hiding in it. Is there a "2" that I'm not seeing somewhere? Or is this just meant to be a 1x, with the ones digit to be decided later? Glad I bought my Big Ten t-shirt recently, before this change.

lol

The 'g' in 'Big' is supposed to be a g/zero. Yeah, it's pretty bad...