Big East realignment: New lineup, new name

Remember how in 2011 the Big 12 was in danger of losing a cluster of schools? No, not the cluster that actually left. The even bigger one.

Texas, Oklahoma, and a couple of buddies were reportedly mere handshakes away from bolting for the Pac-12, thereby sending the four dumb years of television-powered conference realignment into an even dumber tailspin. Luckily for almost all of us, the Big 12 instead lost Colorado, Missouri, Nebraska, and Texas A&M; picked up TCU and West Virginia; and remained afloat.

It is important to gauge how much those of us who aren’t Ricky Stanzi love America. The best way to figure it out is by seeing how many empty platitudes towards your nation of choice you can make.

Those in charge of athletic conferences are amongst the most patriotic, practically on par with Purple Heart recipients. This was just strengthened Wednesday when the old Big East announced its rebranding as the American Athletic Conference.

Tulsa was one of the better football programs in Conference USA since the Golden Hurricane arrived there in 2005 from the WAC, compiling a record of 72-34.

As of March, 2013, here is what the Big East membership will look like at the start of the 2014 season:

The Big East has considered “the Metro” and “the United” as possible naming options for the new iteration of the conference beginning this summer, according to Jeremy Fowler of CBS Sports. The “Catholic Seven” will be taking the Big East title, leaving the conference to create a new branding.

“America 12” had previously been mentioned, and Fowler says that it is still on the table. The new assortment of names range from sounding like a group of comic book heroes to a high school basketball league, which could be fitting considering all of the hoops powers leaving the conference.

The Big East is looking for a new name, and leadership is considering a poll of social media to choose it, according to CBS Sports’s Jeremy Fowler. This is certainly a sound move for the embattled athletic league, as the Internet is a serious place and no one ever makes jokes ever.

In fact, a quick response to Fowler’s initial report on Twitter shows the earnest, businesslike attitude taken on the World Wide Web:

The Big East is officially splitting up. The Catholic 7, as referred to by the programs set to leave, will officially create their own basketball conference on July 1, 2013, the Big East announced in a press release on Friday.

DePaul, Georgetown, Marquette, Providence, Seton Hall, St. John’s and Villanova are the seven schools forming the basketball-only Catholic 7. According to a CBS Sports report, these schools will retain the Big East name and play their conference tournament at Madison Square Garden in New York. The current Big East is reportedly considering America 12 for its new conference name.

The Big East could be changing its name to the “America 12 Conference,” according to ESPN’s Brett McMurphy. The conference has not made an official decision yet, but is looking into changing its name following the departure of the Catholic 7 basketball schools, which will reportedly retain the Big East brand.

The name “Big East” doesn’t particularly fit the conference anymore anyway, as it will stretch from Texas to Florida to the Northeast. The shifts caused by conference realignment have rendered more than one conference name as a poor descriptor, but the Big East had probably the least descriptive name of any FBS football conference.

The Big East -- well, the football conference that will soon be known by another name -- may still be trying to attract BYU, according to CBS Sports’ Jeremy Fowler.

East Carolina athletic director Terry Holland emailed his future conference mates in late December, laying out a plan that would help “court” the Cougars. Included in the plan were a negotiated five-year extension to the conference’s current TV contract and schools’ rights to negotiate separate TV deals for their own home games. Holland expressed a belief that the plan would help draw in BYU and other schools.

But the bigger news could be that Notre Dame might be on its way to the ACC in basketball this year, rather than next. The schedule was originally planned for the Irish to join in 2014, but they could be a year ahead of schedule now that their current conference is on the verge of reformation.

As for football, the only change could be the conference’s name.

It’s possible that the Big East will give up its name to the group known as the Catholic Seven, the basketball schools splitting from the once-proud conference, per CBS Sports’ Jeremy Fowler. We have ideas about what it should be.

There’s been some questioning over which side will get to retain the name: The basketball schools are technically the ones leaving the conference and as such would seem to be the ones most likely to lose the name, but four of those schools were founding members of the league, while only UConn is the only founding member staying. In December, the Big East offered its name to the Catholic Seven -- for the right price. Now, Fowler reports that a provision in the conference’s proposed media rights contract with the NBC Sports Network set aside $2 million for marketing a new name, but ESPN ended up matching the contract with no guaranteed word on whether the naming provision exists.

The Big East -- before the defections of Rutgers, Pittsburgh, Syracuse, Louisville and the Catholic Seven, and the reneging on agreements to join from TCU, Boise State and San Diego State -- rejected a TV contract from ESPN that would have netted $155 million per year over a decade.

The Big East, at the time, rejected the offer to hedge its bets on the open market. Tonight, it appears that what’s left of the conference will leave with what looks like chump change in comparison.

The Mountain West will stand at 12 schools with the addition of San Diego State, giving the conference the necessary number of schools required for a conference championship as well as further prestige as one of the best mid-major conferences. The MWC might be interested in Tulsa, although it’s probably not quite as pressing as before now that the Aztecs and Boise State are staying.

This could mean Tulsa ends up in the Big East over the Mountain West, joining multiple other Conference USA schools like UCF, Houston, Memphis and SMU (who are leaving this year) as well as East Carolina and Tulane (leaving in 2014).

San Diego State will remain a member of the Mountain West Conference, according to Brett McMurphy. The Aztecs were pegged for a move to the Big East, but the league continues to lose schools seemingly on a daily basis.

When SDSU committed to joining the Big East, it was going to line up with Boise State, Rutgers, Pittsburgh, and Syracuse to give the league some semblance of respectability. All four of those schools have since backed out of joining or left. Boise State will be staying in the Mountain West with San Diego State.

Cincinnati and UConn are considering leaving the Big East to go with the Catholic 7 group, according to Mark Blaudschun. The Bearcats and Huskies would place all sports but football in the new conference with the breakaway group from the Big East, and may attempt to become football members of the Mountain West or some other conference.

The Catholic 7 group broke away from the Big East back in December, reportedly tired of being part of a conference that’s seen incredible levels of turnover in the past couple years. UConn and Cincinnati apparently aren’t content to hold pat either, as they both tried to get the spot in the ACC that eventually went to Louisville.

The Big East was looking for a $300 million annual fee from ESPN for broadcast rights this fall, a deal which would have been the highest any conference had ever received per year and far surpasses estimates for how much the league’s rights were actually worth.

At the time, the conference - then with 15 teams, including Boise State and San Diego State - was negotiating exclusively with ESPN to renew the deal the conference had with the network. They asked for $300 million, according to CBS Sports, who earlier had reported that industry insiders believed the league’s rights were worth somewhere in the $60 million to $80 million range. The Pac-12’s $250 million annual deal with ESPN is believed to be the highest contract of any conference.

Without taking a snap for the Big East Conference, Boise State rejoined the Mountain West on Monday. With the health of the conference in mind, the Broncos are lobbying for San Diego State to return as well. As part of their deal to return to the MWC, Boise State has assured that the conference can’t offer their 12th spot to any team but the Aztecs before January 31.

With the ever-changing landscape of college football conferences, smaller schools with growing football programs are hot items. In December of 2011, both Boise State and San Diego State agreed to join the Big East in July of 2013. But the Broncos change of heart has the MWC in the pole position to lure back SDSU. The conference can only negotiate with San Diego State for the remainder of January, but can seek other teams when the month is over.

Well, we almost made it to the end of 2012 without any more conference realignment blockbusters. Even though this one was anticipated, it’s still a very big deal. The Big East is now the seventh-best football conference moving forward.

With the disintegrating Big East roster and its dwindling chances of a good television deal making a conference switch look less appealing, Boise State will reportedly stick with the Mountain West. That the coming college football playoff system also affords the MWC exactly as much access as it does the Big East likely helped the decision as well -- as likely did, you know, geography.

Mountain West Conference officials are denying that Boise State will receive any additional television concessions should it cancel its scheduled move to the Big East and remain a member of the conference, according to CBS Sports’ Dennis Dodd. The report comes as negotiations between Boise State, the Big East and the MWC regarding the Broncos’ future conference affiliation intensify.

Boise State moved from the Western Athletic Conference to the Mountain West Conference in 2011, but quickly accepted an offer to become a football-only member of the Big East effective in 2013. At the time, the Big East held an automatic berth into the Bowl Championship Series and was negotiating a new television agreement, all of which made it attractive to the perennially successful Broncos football program.

Big East commissioner Mike Aresco reportedly reached out to both Fresno State and UNLV about potentially joining the conference, as the Big East looks to survive amidst the conference realignment turmoil.

According to CBS Sports, informal talks have taken place between the Fresno State and Aresco, but talks have been kept secret to avoid “offending people” at various institutions.

Hello Internet.

Once again, college conference realignment has blown up another one of our treasured academically-focused university unions. The Big East has finally turned on itself and imploded, as we’d all been expecting each year since Boston College, Miami, and Virginia Tech left. This week, it was the basketball-only schools that pushed the giant red History Eraser Button.

On the face of it, all the conference realignment action seems to have shaken up the college football landscape. But if you take a closer look, you’ll notice that all the moving around really just amounted to rearranging the same deck chairs.

In 2006, when the BCS entered its second phase to include five bowls and increase their accessibility by non-automatic qualifying conference members, there were six AQ conferences (plus Notre Dame) consisting of 66 teams. By 2014, if nothing else changes, there will be five AQ conferences (plus Notre Dame) consisting of 65 teams.

It’s official: the seven Catholic Big East schools are leaving the conference.

Georgetown, Villanova, St. John’s, Marquette, Providence, Seton Hall and DePaul released a statement earlier on Saturday, stating that the seven Catholic schools voted unanimously to leave the Big East, and form a new conference, via NBC Sports:

With the Big East on the precipice of implosion and no other major conference willing to accept them, Connecticut and Cincinnati are exploring the possibility of starting their own league. This according to a report by The Sporting News’ Mike DeCourcy.

The new conference would be an all-sports league that would combine the disenfranchised members of the former Big East with some of the top programs from the current Mountain West and elsewhere. The proposed members would be UConn, Cincinnati, South Florida, Memphis, Temple, Boise State, San Diego State, UNLV, New Mexico and possibly BYU or Central Florida.

It’s been said that the Holy Roman Empire was neither Holy nor Roman, and not much of an empire. Kinda like the modern-day Big East Conference. And the Big East, as a football power conference, is about to join the Holy Roman Empire.

The seven non-football members of the Big East are expected to pull out - maybe as soon as next week - leaving a rump conference constituted of basically members of Conference USA, circa 2004. While the BCS likely will keep the Big East as an AQ conference in 2013, that’ll simply mark the end of its football relevance.

Last month, the Big Ten added Maryland and Rutgers, two debt-clogged athletic departments with very few major achievements in the last century and non-elite fan support. It did this because of TV markets. New York City! Baltimore! D.C.! We’ll be famous!

Everybody hated the move.