Some funny ACC/Big East related Pictures

[Marmel]

[Marmel]

[Anrhydeddu]

What is going on with the conferences right now?

[Marmel]

This is my personal favorite!

[Marmel]

Coker is hilarious in this one:

[KWhit]

I won't thread-jack this with my typical "We need a college football playoff!" post, but I would like to.

[KWhit]

^^^^

Ignore the post above, please.

[Wolfpack]

Anr: I've seen a Miami Herald article that says "official" invites could go out as early as this coming Monday to all three schools with Miami first in line.

The article also points out that UM wants in during 04-05 rather than 05-06 to reduce the amount of exposure to the left behind Big East schools to one year. The snag to that is that the ACC's football deal expires after 2004-05 which means it would currently be split 12 ways for one year before the re-up which would crimp the amount of money coming in for all schools. The ACC's bball deal is good through 2011, though I suspect that will be renegotiated upward to accomodate the three extra teams. The article does mention Jefferson-Pilot folks (the ones who handle non-ABC regional telecasts) are amenable to renegotiation, which I suspect should happen if the three schools join in 04-05. It also talks of problems with OOC games, but since the in-conference games will remain at eight (unless they're talking that it could go to nine and no one is aware of it), OOC games should be unaffected in '04 unless it's a matchup like FSU-Miami, where both schools likely will need to go fetch a new OOC opponent since their game now is an in-conference matchup.

The other thing that's being bandied about is divisional splits. It's becoming more and more likely it won't be along geographic lines, but generally pairing teams geographically and splitting each pair into separate divisions with the geographic pair retaining a rivalry game across divisions (for the NC schools, UNC and State are one pair and Duke and Wake are the other pair). Thus, FSU and Miami are probably going into separate divisions for football.

[Anrhydeddu]

Thank you, Wolfpack.

[Marmel]

It is starting to get ugly now.

The 5 remaining Big East school have filed a lawsuit against Miami and BC (interesting that SU was not named in the suit) this morning.

[albionmoonlight]

Apparently SU did not "promise" to stay in the Big East, so they are not being sued.

[albionmoonlight]

Dola--

As an idealist who still likes to think that, on some level, college sports is not a professional business no different than the NFL, NBA, etc.--this whole ACC/Big East thing is distressing. I don't think that I can hide from the truth anymore.

[Swaggs]

Originally posted by Marmel

I don't care for this one.

[Wolfpack]

It's been noted that UConn in particular hasn't a leg to stand on if they're citing Shalala's oft-repeated quote of support of the Big East since that remark came six months after the Connecticut legislature passed the bill that appropriated money to the stadium.

Besides, the Big East does have an out clause and if the three departing members are willing to meet it, legally I don't think someone standing at the podium making a public statement can somehow revise conference by-laws and force UM, BC, and the ACC (since Syracuse isn't being targeted) to pony up for damages just because the left-behind schools decided to base their football futures on Miami rather than developing their own programs. It's a stall and nothing more. They probably chose to do it in Connecticut since UConn is taking the biggest hit from all this and a judge there would likely be more sympathetic to them, which might give them some more time to work with, but this sort of action will pretty much eliminate any chance Miami or BC stays in the Big East regardless. The folks who met with Shalala yesterday must've gotten the impression that it indeed was a done deal and this is the last ditch effort to go down swinging.

I expect phone lines to be lighting up in places like Louisville and Cincinnati starting next week when word becomes official as the Big East scrambles to shore up their position after 2004.

To those from the Big East, what sort of justification is needed for the conference to declare a team ineligible for conference championships? My line of thinking is whether the Big East, ultimately unsuccessful at retaining the three schools, punishes them by declaring them ineligible for conference titles in 2003-04, and consequently costs them automatic BCS and NCAA bids. If, for example, Miami went 11-0 and Va Tech 8-3 but Va Tech has the best record among eligible Big East teams, do both teams go to the BCS? Does Miami have to share the BCS money if they go, giving money to schools that took the step of blocking them from the conference title to try to thwart their BCS berth out of spite?

[Anrhydeddu]

They did that the lame-duck year of the WAC where a team with a worse record and lower in the rankings got a bowl bid over a better team because it wasn't one of the schools going to the MWC.

[Swaggs]

Good question on the remaining Big East teams shutting out Miami if they are the BCS-team. I was wondering that myself. It would be particularly damaging to Miami if they had to stay in the Big East for two more seasons, although they would probably still get an at large bid.

There will be a lot of sour grapes when these three teams leave, as UConn has built an entirely new stadium and Va Tech and WVU are both in the process of major upgrades. The financial loss will be huge for these three teams if their television and bowl money is significantly reduced. I'm not sure if there is a good legal case here, but the premise seems reasonably sound for the remaining schools to make some type of financial recovery for damages lost due to Miami and BC backing out of their commitments. I don't see where the ACC can be held responsible, though.

I believe the Atlantic 10 did not give its NCAA Basketball bid to Penn State in its lame duck season before joining the Big 10.

[sterlingice]

Marmel- that last picture is priceless.

SI

[Wolfpack]

I've caught up on all the weekend articles from back home (NC) and it looks like this move was not so much a legal attack as a political one. There are still several ACC members (UNC, Duke, State, UVa) who aren't totally sold on the expansion idea. In short, they're trying to make a poison pill of the lawsuit in order to make three of those schools vote against extending invitations to the newcomers, since those have not been handed out yet.

UNC and Duke both voted against the initial expansion. Virginia, under pressure from the state government, has lobbied for VaTech. State's faculty aren't wild about expansion, but they're not the ones casting the vote, though it has been said that State was the deciding vote that kept the expansion train going.

The interesting thing is that three or four weeks ago, VaTech's president visited ACC headquarters in Greensboro. ACC Commish John Swofford said that the president wanted VaTech in the ACC. The president has denied this, saying that it was merely a visit to determine the ACC's intentions with expansion. (Um, sure)

And I would dare speculate that if any of the other five teams had been extended invites in place of either Syracuse or BC, they'd likely go for it to stay with Miami. Definitely a case of sour grapes IMO.

[Marmel]

More....

[Marmel]

[Marmel]

[Marmel]

[Marmel]

[illinifan999]

Excellent.

[tucker342]

hahaha