Big East Expansion: Why Fans Should Not Just "Relax and Enjoy It"

Mr. Marinatto, you must love reading autobiographies. Like the one by former Republican candidate for Texas governor Clayton Williams, who, when responding to a question about rape, said, "If it's inevitable, just relax and enjoy it."

Needless to say, he lost he 1990 election to Ann Richards.

In case readers did not know, John Marinatto, current Big East commissioner, has essentially said the same thing about Big Ten expansion.

Apparently, if it happens to involve a Big East team, the rapist will enter the house through an open door and find the victim already in position.

Big East football fans are supposed to twiddle their thumbs and wait because Mr. Marinatto and and his sidekick Tranghese say that nothing can be done. 

As nonsensical as Clayton Williams' response was to the question of rape, your neurotic approach to raids by other conferences is similarly flawed.

After all, you reason, the Big Ten may not come calling for Rutgers, or Syracuse, or Pittsburgh. Then everything will be fine. Back to Providence. Not to worry. 

Really, Mr. Marinatto? Perhaps, sir, you have been hanging around Providence too long. I hear you're a workaholic but you need to get out of your office. It's a big country out there.

When you and your president friends say there is not one football program worth seriously considering—even though your sidekick was paid by a Memphis organization to advise the Tigers how they join a BCS conference—we fans either laugh at the inanity of that kind of thinking or we want to pound some tables and get real New Jersey-like with you. 

Perhaps it's not the programs out there—it's your thinking that's the problem.

Rolling over is never a good defense.

In fact, there are many fans who think doing nothing but waiting is dereliction of duty. That charge also goes for the conference presidents who need to be paying much closer attention to the Big Ten and doing much more to save the football conference if it comes down to that.

Remember, Mr. Marinatto, that the conflict between the football schools and the basketball schools is so yesterday as to be irrelevant. The big bucks are in football and your small catholic schools, save for Villanova and Georgetown, stopped pulling their weight several years ago.

They have become dead-weight . That includes your much-loved Providence College.

Mr. Marinatto, please do some reading. Many suggestions to expand the Big East football conference have been offered. Replace your gut reaction, "No", with, "Let's explore the possibilities." 

No need to belabor the possible list of schools. By now, you should know who they are.

The Big East conference, even if it needs to be renamed the Big East Football Conference, must survive. Relaxing to enjoy the pillage, should it come, is not the stance befitting a conference commissioner.

By the way, sir, you need to reach out to your conference fans. You need to keep them informed. We are waiting to hear from you. Are you up to it?