Feeling Lucky? Should the Big East Play the Conference Realignment Game?

Many of you Big East fans are sitting with the same feeling I have every day when I turn on my computer, “what is the latest expansion news?”   We rush to our trusted sites to see what tidbits we can find. We analyze the same, formulate opinions, and then cordially debate them among and in various blog sites.

The feeling is akin to our head being on the block in front of a crowd waiting to be dismembered from one drop of a guillotine.  The only problem, who is dropping the blade?  The acts of the Big 10 conference?  The acts of the Pac-10 conference?  The acts of none?   Regardless of the same, the teams of the Big East are ducks on the pond as it stands right now. 

Currently, we know that Colorado is going to the Pac 10.  Nebraska is highly rumored to be heading to the Big Ten.  Other prevailing rumors are that five other Big 12 teams are heading to the Pac-10 as well. The remainder and other alleged rumors are a crap shoot.

But do we, the Big East, have to remain exposed?   Is now the time to act by some means to preserve what we have? Do or did we not learn anything from the last offensive against our conference? 

One thing is for sure, which is obvious to us all. The landscape of all college athletics will be changing shortly, regardless of our individual assumption of how the cards might fall in the end. So what can the Big East do? What can we do to preserve our conference? Are we without any bargaining position? In the opinion of this writer, we are not.

Anyone with a pulse knows that Notre Dame is the one of the first three choices for the Big 10.  Now we have interplay of the Pac-10 targeting more Big 12 schools, just as the Big 10 is rumored to be as well.   We have the Big 10 targeting Big East schools too, even though some of those schools are in the worst college football viewing markets, those being Boston and NYC. But who knows what speculation is and what is real in the end. 

The only thing that we do know is that the Big 10 has tried to get Notre Dame to drink the Big 10 Kool-Aid before. We know they have wanted them again and again and again.   We also know that the Notre Dame AD has stated they will stay as a 120-year independent unless their hands are forced. We do know that the Notre Dame AD would like to help “ensure the strength and viability of the Big East” too.

So, why does the Big East give Notre Dame an ultimatum that even the football coaches have, in part, reported to support?  All in or all out!  It is time now to force their hand. It is time to be like the Big 12, probably guided by Texas (of course), and give the Golden Domers that exact ultimatum just noted. Get in for all sports or get out for all sports.

I know there are Big East teams that want to preserve the notion of any tradition they have by playing the Golden Domers.  This is just another means of saying it helps recruiting to play against a once-storied program that has not been remotely relevant for so many decades.  This appears to be shortly a moot point; the realignment of the conferences just very well not make it possible in the future for many current Big East teams to continue the “playing tradition” with the Domers.

In addition, the idea that we need Notre Dame as projected in the current arrangement is a shortcut to thinking.  They do nothing to help the Big East in retaining their BCS affiliation in football.  They do and can take away bowl games from other Big East conference teams, which is crap.  However, the latter has worked to our advantage in past years, as Notre Dame has not been competitive enough to steal any bowl games.  In any event, they should have to earn that right to take a Big East bowl spot, which they would do by coming into the conference completely.

Lastly, Notre Dame is in a rebuilding period.   They are banking on their new coach to bring them back into that rich winning tradition they once enjoyed so many decades ago. However, as conference realignment occurs, and we know it has begun, if ND stays as an independent, they are going to have to get to a BCS game more than every other five  years or so and probably contend for BCS titles if they want to keep their revenue stream for all their athletic programs in the future. Plus, think of the potential logistics nightmare for scheduling for all sports, depending on how the conference realignments end up, and they would stay an independent.

The Big East has the opportunity to throw its hat into the area and have some effect upon many of the issues current in the college football world by giving South Bend this ultimatum. If the effect of an ultimatum would push Notre Dame possibly into the hands of the  Big 10, we very well just might be able to preserve our conference for now and control a bit of our own destiny.  If Notre Dame comes aboard for all sports, they would be a welcomed compliment as the ninth football team and I am sure the Big East schools would allow them to keep most of their monies from their lucrative contract with NBC. 

In any event, there is nothing to lose by giving Notre Dame the ultimatum. We are going to live or die as a conference by the actions of others, so why not throw our own actions into the mix to see how the same stirs the pot?