It looks like the Big East football conference is officially done:
Five schools filed a lawsuit Friday to try to prevent Miami and Boston College from jumping to the Atlantic Coast Conference, accusing them of secretly taking part in an expansion plan that could ruin the Big East.
The lawsuit, filed in state Superior Court in Hartford, Conn., says Miami and Boston College professed loyalty to their conference while concocting a “deliberate scheme to destroy the Big East and abscond with the collective value of all that has been invested and created in the Big East.”
Big East schools went ahead with millions of dollars in renovations and upgrades under the assumption they would be part of a healthy conference for years to come, the lawsuit contends.
Go to hell, Miami and BC, but Miami in particular. One more reason to dislike Donna Shalala.
Tony Hooker
If Its any consolation, some of us ACC fans aren’t any happier about it either. Its going to kill ACC basketball, by making sure its impossible for each team to play a home and an away game against all the other teams int he conf. each year.
IB Bill
What Miami and BC may do would be terrible.
But the Big East through excessive expansion diluted its own brand until it became meaningless.
It started in 1980 or so as a basketball conference, but it lusted after football so hard that it may end up with nothing. Even though the Big East did well in football, it didn’t have time to develop a brand as a football conference that it quickly did as a basketball conference.
The schools that ended up in the conference had little to nothing to do with each other, so it’s really no wonder that some universities walk away.
BC, SHU, Providence, St. John’s, Georgetown, Villanova, plus Syracuse, UConn and Pitt were the conference. Notre Dame in the Big East? Makes no sense. Va. Tech? That’s a southern school. Rutgers? Didn’t they turn down the Big East once?
There’s two conferences in the Big East — leftover state schools and Catholic schools.
Big 10, Pac 10, Big 12, ACC, SEC all have the same kind of schools in the conference. But the Big East went in two directions at once. It would’ve been better off building history over time than expanding to infinity. And the first bad move was letting in Miami. There’s a proverb I can’t think of about losing everything you have by trying to get one more.
Nick
Nah, this deal is great- at least for the Big 12 and the SEC. Now Miami and FSU will face the spectre of playing a brutal title game at the end of the season.