http://ncaabbs.com/showthread.php?tid=515398
Wow, in combing through items looking for the apparent suddenness of the Pitt and Syracuse defections, I found this the best read. Seems like this poster was pretty on top of things from past posts. Obviously I cannot verify any of his sources, etc., but he seemed to put the pieces together better than any other explanation. If this is true, it would certainly make it hard to argue that MU having football would have put us in a stronger possession. A long and very interesting read, but the key paragraphs for me were:
FROM LINK:
Until this past year, Pitt was 100 percent committed to the future of the Big East and I would argue that no president has fought harder for the league than has Nordenberg. However I would say that the school's belief in the league and its future began wane last spring over the whole Villanova debacle.
Adding VU for football just was - and remains - among the very the dumbest ideas in the history of major college athletics and I think it shocked, alarmed and disappointed Pitt that so many other schools fought so hard to implement it and that so many other football schools were willing to leak it to the press (cough, Louisville, cough South Florida) in an effort to pressure Pitt into capitulating. Incidentally I believe that West Virginia and Rutgers hold the exact same view on the matter but you will have to ask them.
Pitt wanted to add Central Florida but was willing to settle for East Carolina and maybe even Houston. However as the process dragged along it became clear that some of the football schools and just about all of the basketball schools - minus ND, which always manages to stay above the fray in these matters - were not going to allow any package of teams in the league that did not include Villanova. Pitt (and West Virginia and Rutgers) just couldn't understand that mentality and that caused a deep rift.
END LINK
Why Nova moving up was different from UConn I don't know, but I just can't see that MU football would have been a key to being part of a merger. Believe we are still bound to St. John's, Nova and Gtown.