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Just reading the tea leaves like I always do, but barring a Big Ten expansion, the Big East will definitely stay together, despite all of the doomsday scenarios out there.

Even if Louisville defects to the B12, you still have Rutgers, Cincinnati, UConn, WVU, and USF. Not exactly the SEC West, but those teams won't have anywhere to go. Rutgers and UConn= big media market. WVU is a solid program and USF is on the rise.

Question is, how many teams do they take, and whom do they take?

I think UCF is a shoe-in at this point. If they still have interest in TX, then SMU and Houston make the most sense as travel partners. Service academies, ECU, and Southern Miss may also get looks, especially if they want to go to 10 or 12.

12 might look like this:

North: Rutgers, UConn, WVU, Cincy, Army, Navy
South: USF, UCF, SMU, Houston, ECU, Southern Miss

That's not great, but it's a whole lot better than where we are now and there's some huge media markets represented. How well they're represented by those schools is another matter, of course.

The key is perserving AQ status. I'm admittedly not familiar with how that works, but I would imagine it's looking pretty dim for the BE right now.

The only thing that screws this up is if Big Ten goes to 14 or 16 and invites Rutgers and/or UConn.

whoa, whoa, slow your roll

big 10 ain't going to add rutgers & Uconn. they're at 12 until ND is ready.

i thought it was ACC rumored to take UCONN and Rutgers.

If the Big East stays together as you say they will still have 5 of the past 6 Big East Champions.

East Coast Mustang wrote:I think UCF is a shoe-in at this point.

Just as with TCU last weekend, the time to win is very much right now. The attention that beating a team that is a BCS invite will do nothing but bolster our standing in the coming re-alignment.

how is this really any better than some of the existing mid-tier conferences. this is basically c-usa + wvu...

It's better because it has a better brand name and currently a BCS bid, why is the so hard for people to grasp. Better tv contract, better athletics all around.

Hello, money folks. At this point you join any AQ conference even if its for only 2 years. You're much better off being with the big boys when the next realignment round comes than stuck in the purgatory that is CUSA.

what keeps the big east from maintaining bcs status?

SMU2007 wrote:what keeps the big east from maintaining bcs status?

3 more teams trying to leave and nobody worth having joining

We should take whatever we can get, even if is AQ for only two years. Win and keep winning. Everything else will sort itself out.

Big East can't lose their bid until 2014 at earliest.

There you go. That should be our battle cry "We want to be in the Big East till 2014"!

Don't see any teams in that who will help put more than 24-26k into Ford Stadium.......