USF's rise from conference expansion road kill illustrates all changes are up fo

[USFishin]

OrlandoSentinel.com

USF's rise from conference expansion road kill illustrates all changes are up for debate

By Iliana Limón, Orlando Sentinel

7:27 PM EDT, June 6, 2010

One day it's Texas, Nebraska and Missouri to the Big 12.

The next day is Texas and a band of five brothers to the Pac-10.

The only certainty in the conference expansion chatter is change. College football expansion plans are fluid, shifting daily as league leaders weigh their options.

Amid a wave of uncertainty and anxiety in July 2003, Big East leaders took a vote on potential new members.

Under the heading recommend or consider in Big East meeting minutes, athletic directors and presidents of the remaining football schools strongly endorsed Louisville. The leaders also were open to adding UCF in football only, Cincinnati in all sports, Temple in all sports, Army in football only and Navy in football only.

Under the heading dismiss, Big East leaders listed South Florida, East Carolina, Marshall, Memphis, Southern Miss and UAB.

Less than two years later, the Big East decided to add Louisville, Cincinnati and USF.

USF's rise from expansion road kill to Big East member illustrates the politics involved in conference realignment.

Louisville and Cincinnati got early invitations and were already Big East members by the time Boston College defected to the ACC.

"We had done a series of due diligence processes, which we had presented to our presidents," said Big East commissioner John Marinatto, who at the time was the league's associate commissioner. "[Louisville Athletic Director] Tom Jurich was now in the room as one of the seven that was left on the football side. As we were outlining who it is that we might want to approach, Tom said there is no discussion. It's USF. USF brings the best and he outlined from a market-standpoint, from an institutional standpoint, from a competitive standpoint all the reasons why we had done due diligence. From our standpoint, it's worked out very well."

Louisville's endorsement of USF ended up keeping longtime rival Memphis out of the Big East. The Cardinal's powerful voice in the Big East could once again prove to be an advantage for UCF if the league needs to add more members. Louisville basketball coach Rick Pitino, a high-profile member of the conference, already suggested UCF as an expansion candidate early this year.

In many cases, early conversations about conference expansion that fuel rampant speculation are nothing like final decisions that determine conference membership. University presidents and chancellors wield the ultimate power and often get involved in negotiations among peers to determine their future. Longtime friendships and bad blood come into play during pivotal realignment conversations.

Today the Pac-10 and Big Ten are marching closer to conference expansion, clearly targeting the Big 12 as their best option to add new schools. Massive conference realignment in 2005 proved the impact of such changes won't be limited to a handful of conferences. By the time all the conference changes were final, 27 total schools and 18 programs that played football changed their league affiliation.

Pac-10 commissioner Larry Scott laid out a host of expansion scenarios to athletic directors on Friday, according to ESPN.com. Scott said the options include a full merger with the Big 12, inviting six schools including Texas to join the Pac-10, adding Colorado and Utah and making no changes, an athletic director told ESPN.com.

Orangebloods.com, the Texas Longhorns' Rivals website, reported Thursday the Pac-10 was poised to invite Big 12 members Texas, Texas A&M, Texas Tech, Oklahoma, Colorado and Oklahoma State to join the league.

Scott said the report was not accurate, but on Sunday he told reporters the Pac-10 board of directors gave him permission to pursue expansion options without having to return to the board for approval. The Associated Press reported Scott expects to make a final decision on expansion by the end of the year before negotiating a new television contract for the 2012-13 academic year.

Iowa State and Baylor presidents released statements during the weekend informing fans they were doing their best to keep the Big 12 intact and hoped for the best.

A block of 15 Texas legislators is pushing for Baylor to replace Colorado among the six teams potentially invited to the Pac-10, Orangebloods.com reported.

The Big 12 is fighting battles on multiple fronts to hang onto its members. The Austin-American Statesman reports Nebraska and Missouri have been given a Friday deadline to say whether they'll stick with the Big 12 or jump to the Big Ten.

Of course, the Big Ten, Nebraska and Missouri officials have all denied any offers to join the league have been extended.

The Big Ten has insisted it will move on a slow timeline, however Ohio State President Gordon Gee's e-mail correspondence with Big Ten Commissioner Jim Delany obtained by the Columbus Dispatch tell a different story. Gee told Delany via e-mail April 19: "The window will soon close on us. Agility and swiftness of foot is our friend." Delany reportedly replied: "We are fast-tracking it but need to know the $ and observe contracts. Also need to make sure we leverage this to increase chances of hr additions."

The Big Ten presidents and chancellors met Sunday and acknowledged to reporters afterward that they would likely have to speed up their timetable for expansion.

The Big East and Conference USA are among the leagues standing on the sidelines, watching and waiting to see how the decisions made by the Pac-10 and Big Ten will impact their future.

It's a familiar, queasy feeling for the leagues, but C-USA Commissioner Britton Banowsky and Marinatto said they feel much better about the whole process after surviving it once before.

Banowsky said he has repeatedly emphasized to Conference USA leaders that it's OK to leave the league, but he asks members to enthusiastically support the conference while they're still with the group and be honest during all conversations about the future.

"We did probably have the most dramatic change of any conference in a short amount of time maybe in the history of all of college athletics," Banowsky said, noting C-USA had to add five new schools in 2005. "We learned a lot of lessons. … To cast this in a loyalty-non-loyalty conversation is really counterproductive because really what you want is the maximum number of participants to feel benefitted from change."

Like the Pac-10 today, the Big East was at a crossroads back in 2003.

The league had to decide whether to drop five basketball schools and become an eight- or nine-team conference, merge its football schools with Conference USA football schools or become a 16-team conference with schools playing football.

Big East Commissioner Mike Tranghese was responsible for keeping the remaining members calm, while Marinatto wrote the plan for making the Big East a 16-team conference.

It was an unpopular plan, and Syracuse Athletic Director Jake Crouthamel said he would resign if the league moved to 16 members.

"They weren't supportive," Marinatto said of the remaining athletic directors. "They thought it was too large to succeed, too unwieldy to function. And it was our presidents who said, the athletic directors voted unanimously voted to not do that, let's come up with a way of trying to keep this together because it's too good of an entity to let fall."

While the Big East is fighting to keep its 16-team conference, Marinatto said he isn't so sure other leagues will embrace the idea becoming superconferences.

"The more that you have, the more difficult it is to manage," he said. "When we went to this format, we had to restructure the way we do business to try to be efficient and effective. … It's a challenge."

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[postmortem]

Tl;dr - thanks Louisville.

[tampabull]

depending on how things shake up we may need louisville to step up for us one more time.