The Big East Football Conference is undergoing its biggest changes since its founding in 1991. Gone are the perennial powers Miami, Virginia Tech and Boston College, as well as the league’s doormat, Temple. New to the conference are Louisville, Cincinnati and South Florida. Some are calling the changes a great insanity; while others believe that the conference will rebound from its losses and move forward with more strength and wisdom.
Three letters have hurt the Big East Conference in recent years. They are: ACC. ACC, as in the Atlantic Coast Conference, which attracted and later persuaded three Big East schools to jump into the ACC. For the Big East, the three schools represented the league’s top soccer powerhouses, as well as two high-performing men’s basketball teams: Boston College and Miami. In this age of lucrative television contracts and super conferences, the three schools that dropped out took the money and fled.
The purists were left howling over the exits and the ACC trolling of the Big East Conference. Some suggested lawsuits, while others claimed that the schools had no legal obligation to stay.
Once it was confirmed that the three outgoing schools would be leaving, the Big East Conference was faced with a dilemma that could only undermine its ability not only to thrive, but to survive. It had previously been decided that Temple would be expelled because his program was not up to the standards of the Big East Conference, or so it has been said. Still, Temple was not invited to return, and the Greater East began looking elsewhere for schools to fill its depleted ranks. So the Great East addressed the United States Conference.
Louisville, Cincinnati and South Florida, along with Marquette, who does not play soccer, were convinced to leave the United States Conference for the Greater East. For some, this is where the madness begins.
Are the three new schools living up to the programs they are replacing? Absolutely not. Louisville is the closest and likely to be about equal to Boston College in strength, but its soccer program does not compare to Virginia Tech or Miami. Cincinnati compares much more favorably to Temple’s team that left, while South Florida is a new Division 1-A program and was only added to replace Miami as the league’s warm-weather school. Just kidding … I think.
The remaining conference schools are Connecticut, Pittsburgh, Rutgers, Syracuse, and West Virginia. West Virginia is the current conference leader, while Rutgers is taking advantage of a weakened conference and sitting near the top as well. The remaining schools are rebuilding, making the Big East Conference even weaker this year.
Experts and forecasters know that the Great East is reeling and they understand that there is no guarantee that the league’s current setup will produce soccer programs at the level of the most beloved members. In my opinion, give the conference two or three years and you may find that with just a couple of years of excellent recruiting, new leaders will emerge. Perhaps now is the time for Rutgers, Louisville and South Florida to step up, securing valuable television rights and lucrative conference bowl deals.