Nothing screams East Coast like Boise, Idaho...but this is the new reality
Written by: noreply@blogger.com (muwarrior92)
Boise, Idaho....in the Mountain time zone...a state that borders Oregon which, of course, has it's entire coast on the Pacific Ocean....may soon becoming east. That's right, Boise State may soon be part of the Big East conference. The new realities of conference roulette have resulted in even stranger bedfellows and this one may be the most geographically absurd.
With TCU all but gone from the Big East before it played one game in it's new conference, the league is desperate to add teams to keep the automatic bid for the BCS in tact. Meanwhile, Boise State sits in the top five nationally in football but does not play in a BCS league and is tired of having to align every planet and a few stars each year to have the opportunity. Marriage made in heaven? Not exactly, but certain a marriage of convenience for however long it will last. The idea is to make Boise State a member of the Big East in football only. The Big East grabs a program near the top of the football world the last five years while the Broncos and their blue field suddenly have a much more friendly opportunity to play for a BCS championship if things go their way.
The Star Ledger (http://www.nj.com/rutgersfootball/index.ssf/2011/10/big_easts_newest_expansion_tar.html) is reporting today that this marriage is moving fast and we could see something very soon. Pairing up with Boise State would be the Air Force Academy, another school from the Mountain Time Zone. In an interesting twist, apparently the Big 12 also approached the Air Force Academy (http://collegefootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2011/10/09/air-force-ad-interest-high-in-big-east-after-turning-down-big-12/) but the folks in Colorado Springs felt the Big 12 was not a good fit and said no.
http://www.crackedsidewalks.com/2011/10/nothing-screams-east-coast-like-boise.html
As silly as the geography is, I would be fine with Boise State for football only. Anything to stop the awful plan for 16 four-team conferences to freeze out everyone else and create an 8-team playoff of conference divisional winners. I believe when people say they want a playoff, they envision a #1 vs. #8, then #4 vs. #5 etc. of the best teams in the country.
However, the Superconference concept would mean that any top team that lost even one divisional game would likely be left home – while teams much further down would be invited. However, even if there were no upsets, if we just went by the AP ratings you would have five of the top 10 teams miss out in the Super Conference set up:
Loser of #1 vs. #2 LSU-Alabama
#5 Boise State
#1 Oklahoma vs. #6 Oklahoma State loser
#7 Stanford vs. #9 Oregon loser
#10 Arkansas
The Superconference playoff would look like this even if there were no upsets that gave a non-ranked team a spot for upsetting one divisional foe and thus having a tie-breaker to win their division. So the best case would be:
SEC West – Winner of #1 LSU vs. #2 Alabama
SEC East - #15 South Carolina (#15 and in the national quarterfinals unless they slip up once and let an unranked Georgia in!)
Pac 16 South - #3 Oklahoma-#6 Oklahoma State winner
Pac-16 north - #7 Stanford vs. #9 Oregon winner
Big Ten Leaders – winner of #4 Wisconsin vs. #16 Illinois (easy path for Badgers to the national semifinal - just beat Illinois and Michigan!)
Big Ten Legends – winner of #11 Michigan vs. #23 Michigan State
ACC Atlantic – winner of #8 Clemson vs. unranked Wake Forest winner
ACC Coastal - #12 Georgia Tech
(ACC would pray for Clemson to win out so that they didn't have two non-top 10 teams in the "national quarterfinals," with one of them advancing to the "national semifinals")
if you want a playoff, still keep the 6 AQ conferences and get the top 2 other teams, so that Boise State and Alabama both make an 8-team field if they are in the top 5 of the country.
Then, look at this, with Boise State in the Big East and the Big 12 still around with Oklahoma as it's champ, we could actually have the best 8 teams in college football play it off instead of the division winners:
#1 LSU (SEC)
#8 Clemson (ACC)
#4 Wisconsin (Big Ten)
#5 Boise State (BEAST - granted, I can't print "Big East" here)
#2 Alabama (at-large)
#6 Oklahoma State (at-large, couldn't face their conference champ first round so gets Bama instead of Oklahoma)
#3 Oklahoma (Big 12)
#7 Stanford (Pac 10)
This would be great if only to piss off the super conferences that are forming.
I think the main consideration is what Brewtown Andy brought up about the NCAA bylaws that require 8 full-time football members. Boise State, Air Force, and Navy may be great for football, but we need full-timers like Temple, UCF, and Memphis to keep the conference kicking at the FBS level. While I realize they could still qualify for a BCS auto-bid without NCAA conference status, good luck getting to the other bowls, and I'm pretty sure that to the rest of the league, qualifying for stuff that happens before New Year's Day is still somewhat important.
My only concern right now is handing control of the league right back to the football schools. Basketball has a majority. I really think that any talk that leads to 10-12 total football members should include the addition of 2-4 basketball only members as well. Xavier, Dayton, and Butler should be just as much a part of expansion talk as Temple and Boise State.
I still think a 2-2-3 addition would be ideal. Two FB only schools (Boise and 1 service academy), 2 full members for NCAA status (Temple and UCF), and three basketball only schools (Xavier, Dayton, Butler) to get an ideal 19 for a perfect 18-game basketball schedule.