2015: Who is the 14th member?

[SteveAztec]

There are many teams in the West that would love a chance to get an invite to the BEast.

As one that has followed West Coast football for over 40 years here is my top 3 that i would like to see the Big East add next. Then next is a list of teams that would love an invite to the Big East and would be a plus for the conf.

My 1-2-3

-BYU (the obvious choice as #1)

-Fresno State (unpopular choice with East Coast fans, but Fresno State and the Central Valley of California has more passion with their sports teams than all of the rest of California combined. And the Valley has millions of TV's)

-Air Force (I don't like this choice. To me they bring very little to the conf)

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Others that would love an invite and would represent very well...

-UNLV (Yes they are horrible right now, but so were the Aztecs 3 years ago...Untapped potential and tons of TV's)

-New Mexico (They own all of New Mexico with their D1 football program)

-Colorado State (I am not thrilled about this one, but it does have some of the Denver Market)

-Nevada-Reno (The sleeper. They have a lot of work to do on facilities and are behind the 8 ball on TV's, but a decent program)

[slick1ru2]

I wonder what "see how Navy did" means. Given the end of the automatic qualifier per conference status for the BCS, a team would pretty much have to wind up ranked in the top four to really be considered eligible for the championship, so that can't possibly be the consideration. Does this mean that USAFA wants to see if USNA turns out to be a doormat, then they do not want to join? Is there an expectation, based on the newly watered down membership that USNA could pull off a conference championship? Then again, if there's no financial motivation between staying where they are vice moving to the NBE, I don't see the advantage.

It probably has to do with how competitive NAVY is in the Big East and whether their recruiting improves as a result. Army wasn't very competitive in C-USA.

This. And of the three academies, Army has had the most problems fielding a competitive team.

Because Army has the most stringent rules on its Cadets. Airforce can go to inactive reserve to try out for NFL, Navy has something similar. Army is a strict two year policy and even then they give you hell for getting out, recruits don't want to deal with that. I think BYU is waiting to see if the NBE TV Deal would benefit them more than their current deal would, if so I think they jump.

The difference isn't that much and the Naval Academy has the lower acceptance rate. Its like 8% and I think The Point is like 13%.

[slbpsi63]

I started to research BYU's future schedules. Independence may push them into irrelevance. If most Big 5 conferences go to a 9 game season ( looks like this is a strong possibility), Then it will be extremely hard to get a full schedule done. Their 3 remaining games will include one FCS team. one lower level FBS team and one open for a good opponent. Here we are 30 days from the beginning of the 2012 season and BYU is only 75% done with the 2013 schedule. They have 8 games scheduled for 2013 and only THREE of them are home games. That means of the last four games needed 3 have to be home games. How are they going to get that accomplished in the next 9-12 months? the 2014 schedule has 5 games scheduled along with 2015. The bottom line is they need to find a conference. The MWC sucks, the WAC is dead. The PAC 12 and BIG 12 don't want them. They are way too conservative for the Pac 12 image. While they might fit in the Big 12, I think they burnt that bridge with their current TV contract and their "You need us more than we need you attitude." I am sure that Texas and Oklahoma were like WTF do you think you are? BYU is on our level. I think we are the perfect fit for them. They want national attention, what better way to accomplish that than by joining the ONLY national conference?