I just saw that Boise State is looking at moving all of its non-football sports to the Big West, which is a good indicator that they might be willing to accept a Big East invite. My hope is still that somehow we find a way to tie up the Big 12 pursuit of WVU and Louivsille and they end up turning to BYU. If not, Boise State would still be a huge add as a football-only, and would be a great move towards keeping the hybrid alive.
http://espn.go.com/college-sports/story/_/id/7153316/boise-state-bronocs-discussing-move-big-west-conference-non-football-teams
Commish out west to court the latest duo "east" of the Pacific Ocean.
http://brett-mcmurphy.blogs.cbssports.com/mcc/blogs/entry/29532522/32956085
after watching Syracuse and Pitt destroy remaining BE teams the last few days, we certainly should be able to lure them with the EASIEST PATH TO THE BCS if we let Syracuse and Pitt leave early. Not that I'm saying we could.
Out of curiosity, if the Big East is looking into inviting Boise State (which I think they should be considering), why would it be for football-only?
Last year their basketball team was 22-13 in the WAC, good for 85th in Ken Pom's rankings. No big wins, but they only lost to UNLV by 3 on the road and only lost to Utah State by 8 on a neutral court. Clearly they're not a Memphis or an Xavier historically (though Memphis was only 87th, according to Ken Pom), but they have some decent teams once in a while. Just looking at last year, I'd prefer Boise State to Providence (maybe not after this year's recruiting class, though), South Florida, and DePaul.
They were terrible for a few years before last year, but in 2004 they were a decent team, too (23-10). Just curious why it's a foregone conclusion that Boise would be a football-only add. It'd be like adding a team a little worse than Virginia, which I guess I don't see as a HORRIBLE addition given the huge benefit you'd get from their football team.
If you add Boise State, Memphis, Temple, and Xavier....a conference could do a lot worse. Unless I'm missing something?
Football only because of cost of travel for non revenue sports would be my guess
Agreed, if they're in for basketball, they'd also be in for track, swimming, softball, and whatever other sports they offer. Sure, the flight from Boise to Hartford is worth it for a paved road to the BCS, but is it worth taking a bus to Tampa for a gymnastics meet?