MARTIN FENNELLY. TBO Expansion Article (USF)

[TyBull]

http://www2.tbo.com/...nces-ar-404235/

Published: May 15, 2012

Updated: May 16, 2012 - 8:07 AM

Home / news / opinion /

Fennelly: Enough with revolving college conferences

By MARTIN FENNELLY

Just when you thought it was safe to go back in your conference …

They're back - the conference jumpers and raiders are back.

This time, it's Florida State that might be leaving the ACC for the Big 12, along with maybe Miami, yes, no, possibly, definitely not, though check back with us in 10 minutes, or 10 seconds.

This stuff isn't going to stop until college football is the fourth branch of government.

I don't even know who's in the ACC anymore, or who's running Florida State, given all the mixed messages the school was caught dispatching in and around the ACC meetings in Amelia Island. It should have been Shark Island.

By the way, all this stuff might matter a great deal to your very own University of South Florida, which once again appears to be part of a dying Big East, as Boise State is apparently having second thoughts about joining, just like TCU, which left for the Big 12 before ever playing a Big East game.

Can we just be done with this?

Can we just get to four 16-team super conferences?

Can we just get to a real playoff system?

Can the Alabama football program just jump to the English Premier League because the deal is just too good?

Instead, we have to go through more of this piecemeal conference raiding, rumors rising and falling, survival of the fittest and all that good stuff, schools dropping any pretense of loyalty to anything but dollars.

FSU to the Big 12 makes sense because the money is better - it's that simple and has nothing to do with geography. Part of me thinks Jimbo Fisher and the Seminoles should just shut up and start beating Wake Forest. But nothing will stop the revolving conference, nothing.

USF to the ACC makes sense because the Big East is dying, Syracuse and Pittsburgh are already there (they're still there, right, or when will they be?) and because USF would give the ACC an all-important Florida footprint should FSU leave and Miami goes that way, too, before their 12,000 years probation.

Oh, and it makes sense if the money is better, too.

Here's a shocker: Louisville is rumored to be wanting out of the Big East. Man, if it gets any worse, Greg Schiano might be tempted to go back and finally win the thing. Or maybe Skip Holtz finally can.

And Notre Dame - Notre Dame - has been mentioned as part of the ACC of Tomorrow.

The Big Ten will eventually expand, no matter what anyone says right now. So will the SEC, so will the Big 12, so will the Pac Whatever It Is.

While we're at it, can we just get all the major bowl games out of the way, and begin to clear the way for real playoffs and real money.

That should appeal to the conferences, eh?

At least there's no pretense with the NFL. Give or take a bounty-program punishment or two, or the sad thought of deceased stars' brains being overnight delivered to medical labs, it's always going to be about the money.

College football is getting there. That's where the real winning and losing takes place these days. You'd better not get left behind. USF needs to keep that in mind as the Big East withers.

Florida State is making the shocking discovery that the ACC is a basketball conference. That helped Bobby Bowden to many more 10-win seasons, but football is driving the economic bus right now and the SEC, Big 12 and Big Ten football TV contracts make the new ACC deal look like chump change.

USF, on the other hand, would be wise to leap at it before there's nothing to leap from at all.

The super conferences are coming. The FSU rumors are just the beginning. Maybe Boise State will begin it. But it will happen. It's all about the dominoes. Sooner or later they're going to start falling. What fun.

[ncentonze]

If FSU +1 leaves the ACC, the ACC just needs to take in all the Current BEast teams

Boston College

Clemson

Cincy

UConn

Duke

Georgia Tech

Maryland

Pitt

UM

UNC

NC St

'Cuse

Virgina

VT

WF

Rutgers

USF

Then subtract 1-3 that get plucked to SEC/Big10/Big12 and if it's less than 16 add the new BEast Members (Memphis, Temple, Houston, SMU)

[GaUSFBull]

If FSU +1 leaves the ACC, the ACC just needs to take in all the Current BEast teams

Boston College

Clemson

Cincy

UConn

Duke

Georgia Tech

Maryland

Pitt

UM

UNC

NC St

'Cuse

Virgina

VT

WF

Rutgers

USF

Then subtract 1-3 that get plucked to SEC/Big10/Big12 and if it's less than 16 add the new BEast Members (Memphis, Temple, Houston, SMU)

I see what you did there ... and I like it!

[Brad]

That was pretty dull, uninformative and meandering prose, but at least he wasn't cheapshotting as usual. Need some more real information and analysis, otherwise it's just a timekiller.

Brad via BullPhone

[Costa]

Martin Fennelly is and always will be a hack writer. His articles are always loosely written with no real substance. He just tries to be creative in the way he writes but I find his writing style quite annoying.

[Danm1983]

sounded like a blog or a comedy bit. i got a few chuckles, but i guess how that read is how i think sometimes, just like this that this that this that, maybe not, maybe so. its true though. totally tired of this and dont even care if usf ends up in the FBS-II league with CUSA MAC SB MWC...can we just finish it and play some **** ball

[GaUSFBull]

He's a columnist. They are paying him to write some thoughts on a subject. Little substance is required.

[crambone]

No way the ACC takes us. Our academics aren't up to snuff.

[redfisher78]

He writes as if we arent trying to get out. I know we are. We dont have a whole heck of a lot to offer when you look at the other schools under consideration.

[DELdaBull]

Call me when its August.