Coach Leavitt endorses UCF for Big East expansion:

[Guest]

2905 - USF sends more than 300 players to I-A schools every season... some of them would go to a BCS-level UCF without an issue.

From a recruiting standpoint, having a 2nd trip to Florida for Rutgers, WVU, L'ville, etc would be good for them (bad for us)... so UCF & FAU would be better than adding a team in another state with less high school talent and more BCS teams.

Like it or not, UCF would be the best non-BCS team to add from a recruiting standpoint.

The bigger issue, however, is credibility.  Stories about adding Maryland or going back after Boston College or making a run at Penn State -- they would all strengthen the league.  UCF? Memphis? Marshall? Not so much.

The best proposal I have seen is from Desmon Conner at the Hartford Courant -- a mega conference merger with the ACC.

[2905]

Ok so Florida produces 300 D1A players yearly. Lets say 2/3rds of those, or 200, are BCS level talent.

Lets say UF, FSU, UM and USF takes half those 200, the rest of the SEC takes 50 and the other 5 BCS conferences take 50.

Where does that leave UCF if they got a BCS tag? What team do you think is going to be most affected by this?

Sure they might take a recruit from this school or that school, but a majority of the prospects they will be going after are the ones USF will be going after.

And I don't buy this arguement that and extra trip for Big East schools to showcase themselves is going to help their recruiting. There are schools in the SEC that play in Florida either every 2 years or every 4 years and they have absolutly no problems recruiting the state.

[Joe]

There is a reason Leavitt mentioned UCF, because the other coaches and the league see them as a real possibility IF they can't pull another BCS team.

They aren't going to. The money in the next cheapest and smallest BCS league are a lot more than what we get under the combined football/basketball contract.

I met and spoke with college football insider Adam Chapprell a week ago at a conference. He said one thing to me, because of the unbalanced schedule, the cost of scheduling the 5th out of conference game, and the need to maximize a very cheap TV contract that expansion will happen in 2011 or 2012.

He has no clue which way it will go though.

I've said TCU.

[Brad]

The Orlando Sentinel must be feeling this new groundswell to market UCiF:

Big East should look to UCF for expansion

The Big East desperately needs to expand its football ranks. But where does the league turn?

The report in The New York Post last week that the conference was going to gauge the interest of Maryland and Boston College from the ACC brought the idea to the forefront once again.

Both schools have denied any contact with the Big East. Quite frankly, the idea that two schools in a bigger, more lucrative conference would join the Big East is too far-fetched, even if they fit better geographically in that conference's footprint.

But what's not far-fetched is Big East expansion. Let's be clear about one thing: this is all about money, much more than prestige. While finding the "perfect" fit of a school with a football tradition is ideal, the conference needs at least one more team for financial reasons.

First and foremost is scheduling. With eight football-playing teams, the Big East is the smallest BCS conference and suffers from unbalanced schedules.

Some years, teams play three conference home games, and are now having to pay non-BCS conference schools and Division I-AA schools exorbitant amounts to fill out their home schedules.

West Virginia is paying UNLV $740,000 for a game in 2010. That is $300,000 more than it has ever paid for a game. Rutgers is paying Kent State $750,000 for a game in 2012. According to the Newark Star-Ledger, league teams will pay an average of $318,000 for guarantee games this season.

Then there is the looming headache of brokering a new TV deal. Though the Big East's contract with ABC/ESPN expires in 2013, the conference has seen the $3 billion the SEC was able to get from CBS and ESPN and clearly wants in on that type of deal, too. With only eight football teams in its conference, marketing itself in its current configuration is not nearly as appealing.

So what to do? Desmond Conner of The Hartford Courant suggests the Big East join up with the ACC to form a 20-team super conference that would have the entire Eastern seaboard covered. A monolith like that would surely generate the exposure, the interest and the money both leagues desperately desire.

That idea, while innovative, is not going to work. The chances the Big East snares a school from a BCS conference are slim, too. The saying goes the big fish always swallows the little fish, right?

Who is out there that would fit? You know who I am talking about -- UCF. Conference stalwarts have blanched at the idea of adding what currently ranks as the sixth-best team in this state to its lineup. They have asked, "What does UCF add?" UCF would diminish both the football and the basketball ranks, they would say.

But now, even USF Coach Jim Leavitt seemed to be more accepting of the idea, where it was once thought USF would do anything it could to block this move. He was quoted on the West Virginia Rivals.com site as saying, "Heavens no it wouldn't help us. ... But UCF is a Big East issue, not a USF issue. The league office wants to know what an addition would bring. It gets into TV, population and location."

At this point, what choice does the Big East have? It could try to bring in East Carolina or Memphis, but those schools do not nearly have the positives UCF has from a football standpoint. UCF brings a TV market neither of those schools bring (and remember we've already established it's about the money).

With UCF on board, the Big East could lock down the I-4 corridor and a big chunk of Florida when it comes time to market itself for its next TV deal. It can guarantee its other football schools one date in the football-rich state every year, a huge selling point in recruiting. Would adding UCF diminish its standing as the top basketball league in the country? Hardly.

In years past, the argument that UCF's addition brings nothing to the league might have been valid. The Big East has no football teams ranked in the Top 25 this year, so it would be nice to have a powerhouse waltz through the doors and ask to join. It won't happen.

So the Big East must look long and hard at UCF. For the sake of its future.

Read Andrea Adelson's blog at OrlandoSentinel.com/ƒocollegegridiron365 and e-mail her at aadelson@orlandosentinel.com.

[SANJAY]

Given the tie between basketball schools and football schools in the BE, one of three things has to happen to since the basketball schools will not stay in a conference where they are outvoted:

1. Football teams split and form their own conference.  Won't happen, as neither Syracuse nor UConn would ditch their longstanding basketball ties.

2. Have a football only member.  No BCS team would agree to this.  Already tried and failed with Temple.  Although ECU would agree to this arrangement, almost no other school would.  

3. Actually grow the conference to 18 teams by bringing another football member and a basketball member.  Somewhat counterintuitive, but it would keep the conference intact but would allow balanced scheduling in football and round-robin play in basketball by dividing up into divsions.  Add TCU for football and an A10 team for basketball (Charlotte/Dayton/Xavier).

[Joe]

SANJAY,

Your very wrong if you think the split won't happen...

[SANJAY]

SANJAY,

Your very wrong if you think the split won't happen...

I haven't seen anything to lead me to believe that UConn and Syracuse would walk away from their longtime rivalries against Georgetown, Villanova, etc.  You could be right, and maybe both teams will sell out basketball for football, but I haven't read anything to that extent yet.

[Guest]

Sanjay...

I would bet if there were a split there would be some 'traditional rivalry' games that would get scheduled as OOC games every year.

Might not be a bad idea, either... 'Cuse-Gtown in early January rather than March.... would actually make it easier for the football teams that are basketball powers to make the NCAA every year.

The real issue with the split is two fold:

* Losing the basketball TV revenue

* Losing the NCAA tournament points for men and women

If they find a way around that, it could happen sooner than we think.

[South_Florida_Flip]

Actually it was USM that was a big opponenet of USF coming into C-USA.

Their coach was, but he had no vote on expansion. The President's of the C-USA schools are the ones who voted and it became known that the Presidents of Memphis and UAB were our most vocal opponents.

[BDYZR]

Two questions...

1 -  IF the nits were to join the BE, would you not want them to be competitive?

2 - Where in CJL's comments does he lean toward accepting them?