Thanks To Jim Delany, John Marinatto Finally Wakes Up

Don't you wish you were privy to the golf course and club house conversations at the BCS conference in Scottsdale? On just the second day Jim Delany back-tracked from Monday's news about accelerated Big Ten expansion and worked rooms better than Bill Clinton and George W. Bush combined.

He convinced slumbering John Marinatto of the Big East to do something.

We would be naive to believe John read any of the excoriating press he has been receiving comparing him to everything from a deer ready to be pounced on by a mountain lion to the rapist's next victim.

John's paradigms about the Big East had been so 1979 Big East basketball driven he couldn't contemplate even doing as much as his predecessor Tranghese. Looks like forcing the small catholics to acknowledge that football money talks and they need to go walking with it needs to be part of a daily league ritual.

Paul Tagliabue, once he clears the dreamlike mist in his head emanating from waiting to be saved when the nose of the Titanic is headed straight for the berg, is the best association Marinatto could make at this time.

Hearing John talk about Delany's influence and brilliance, Marinatto is actually contemplating taking action that, at this late date, is the antithesis of being proactive.

At least he wants to join the game.

Do you think Delaney heard disharmony among Big Ten members concerning his list of candidates, analyzed ad nauseum, which included three Big East schools and one Big 12?

Delaney's wily ways make him one of the best. It's easy to imagine Jim slipping his hand in Marinatto's back pocket, taking the wallet, then asking John, "Bro, where's your wallet?" grinning all the while.

I've been writing for two years that the Big East basketball league has never been bound by it's 16-team configuration.

After the league grew so big that round-robin play was no longer possible, expansion limits could all be worked out—if the conference changed its way of thinking.

Thank you, Jim Delany. I am in that group, probably only about a quarter of Big East football fans, who want the conference—both football and basketball—to survive.

For Pitt, if Big East continuity forbids the Pitt-Penn State football game from happening, so be it. In life, we make choices and live with the consequences.