The Big East let out a massive sigh of relief at the beginning of the week when the University of Texas announced that it would remain in the Big 12 (now ten teams).
It seems Texas decided to stay solely based on money, as the Big 12 has uneven revenue sharing where Texas, Oklahoma, and Texas A & M receive significantly larger pieces of the TV money then the other schools. Also, staying in the Big 12 allows Texas to start its own TV network; with the hope of yes you guessed it, making more money.
The Big East saw its viability and life as a conference flash before its eyes late last week and over the weekend, as teams held their breath waiting for the biggest face change in college sports to take place.
It never did.
So, the Big East is left intact, for now. But not before the Big East’s weakness as a conference was exposed
The Big East currently only has eight members that play football in the conference: Syracuse, Rutgers, Pittsburgh, Louisville, Connecticut, Cincinnati, West Virginia, and South Florida. This is the fewest of any Division I conference. If the Big East hopes to survive as a conference of any significance in college football, they must play offense not defense.
Recently, reports have surfaced that the Big East is prepared to invite Memphis and UCF to join the conference as early as next week. The Big East has denied these reports, which really means very little as they would probably deny the reports either way.
Adding teams is what the Big East should have done as the other conferences were talking about it, but now that they know the Big East is intact they need to keep it that way. There are plenty of attractive candidates for the Big East to add, that would help improve their viability on the gridiron and in the non-revenue sports.
UCF, Memphis, Marshall, East Carolina and UAB are all popular contenders. There’s also the option of the Big East seeking one of its basketball members to promote to the Division I football level, like Villanova, which has had a lot of success recently.
Of those schools, the UCF Knights make the most sense for the Big East. The Orlando TV market is the nineteenth-largest in the nation, and combined with the established Big East market in Tampa, UCF would give the Big East a significant Florida presence.
This not only gives the Big East new TV sets to fill, but also helps the other schools in recruiting the Florida players, something a school like Rutgers has done exceptionally.
It would give South Florida, the odd man out in the Big East right now, a natural rival and a traveling partner for the non revenue sports which is important.
UCF is the largest university in Florida and third-largest in the nation. It’s the only university in the top ten that does not play in a BCS conference.
UCF’s athletic facilities are on par or better then many of the schools in the Big East. Brighthouse Networks Stadium seats a little more than 46,000 fans and the UCF Arena seats about 10,000. Both facilities were built only three years ago and are state of the art.
It’s clear the University of Central Florida is ready to jump into the hierarchy of college athletics and the Big East needs to take the offensive and start adding teams to stay viable in the college athletics world.
It sounds like a perfect match, but Knight fans shouldn’t throw out the Conference USA gear yet. All you can do now is hold your breath and hope the Big East makes what appears more and more to be the most logical decision, and restart the War on I-4 by bringing the UCF Knights on board.
