Army/Navy?

[Tigidal]

Sounds like a lot of the talk the last couple days has been around the BE's first choice being to add Army/Navy to replace Cuse/Pitt should the current national conference landscape reamin pretty static.

Would the academies really play in the BE for basketball too?  It makes decent sense for football... but can anyone imagine the gauntlet the basketball teams would be running through?  Big bounce from the Patriot League.

My only motivation for seeing this happen, would completely selfish... being a DC alum, I'd love to head to Annapolis to witness the carnage in person, every so often.

[Hards Alumni]

Those would be 2 basement basketball teams replacing 2 top tier programs.

I don't think it is a good move for the BEAST or them, personally.

[GGGG]

It seems to me the move of a conference that is looking more backwards than forwards.

[Litehouse]

For football only, I think it's awesome.  If it's for all sports, we might be better off just going on our own with the basketball schools if that's the direction the conference is going.

[brewcity77]

Pretty sure Army and Navy would be added as football-only. The only full members being bandied about are ECU, UCF, and Memphis. And maybe Houston.

[Hards Alumni]

Pretty sure Army and Navy would be added as football-only. The only full members being bandied about are ECU, UCF, and Memphis. And maybe Houston.

And the only school I would consider adding from that group would be Memphis.

[groove]

football only

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2011/football/ncaa/09/21/big-east-navy-airforce.ap/index.html?sct=hp_t2_a16&eref=sihp

[GGGG]

The problem with it from a football perspective is that the BE could lose their BCS AQ status if their performance doesn't improve on the football field.  If that happens, it would likely cause football schools to look even harder about a move.

[Tigidal]

football only

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2011/football/ncaa/09/21/big-east-navy-airforce.ap/index.html?sct=hp_t2_a16&eref=sihp

Good link... Thanks.

[brewcity77]

And the only school I would consider adding from that group would be Memphis.

I like UCF (obviously) and think Houston would be okay. Memphis would be great on the court, but is crap on the field.

I want nothing to do with ECU, however.

[Pakuni]

The problem with it from a football perspective is that the BE could lose their BCS AQ status if their performance doesn't improve on the football field.  If that happens, it would likely cause football schools to look even harder about a move.

I really doubt this. Or at least I doubt the BE would lose its bid over "performance." It may be because one of the bigger conferences wants more bids for themselves, but not because the BE has been significantly worse than some of the other conferences.

As for performance, the Big East is arguably the weakest of the BCS conferences, but not by a ton. This year, the conference is 4-6 against other BCS programs. The Pac 12 is also 4-6, the ACC 5-5, the Big 10 6-7.
The Big East also has the best bowl record of any conference since the BCS began, including a 20-8 mark the past five years (so it's not all Miami and VaTech). They're 3-4 in BCS games since 2004, which is better than the Big 10, 5-8; and ACC, 1-7. None of those wins, by the way, was by Pitt or Syracuse, so it's not as if their departure takes away two of conference's better teams. In fact, those teams combined have just one BE title since 2004. They're going tfrom also-rans in cone conference to also-rans  in another. In terms of losing quality football, their deparure isn't all that bad.

I'm certainly not trying to make a case for how good BE football is. As I said, it's arguably the weakest of the BCS leagues. But it hasn't been so bad that the other conferences could make a legitimate claim that they had to take away their automatic bid for "performance."

[bamamarquettefan]

You're right about the bowl record and vs. BCS, but the BE just hasn't had teams finish ranked high enough to get respect.  I ran this on CrackedSidewalks after the Pitt-Syr news, but if you score each conference based on final football rankings since 2005, the BE was even behind the Mountain West (see below), and a pretty decent drop behind even the ACC and Pac 10.  The bowl record is good, but it's usually the 2nd and 3rd best BE team playing in a bowl against a much lower team that wins, vs. the other BCS conferences going pretty deep.  I root for the BE in these games, but we just haven't had those one or two top 5 teams that really give you credibiilty.  It was key that the MWC lost key members when they did.  I would like UCF, and seems sense to let hoops teams all hit USF and UCF on the same trip, and I like Navy too - but too bad if we can't bring Army in too to make the Army-Navy game a BE showdown.


http://www.crackedsidewalks.com/2011/09/accs-moves-big-east-and-mu.html

Conference   (score based on 30-29-28 system based on final football ranking of all teams since 2005)

SEC   695   1   250   6
Big 12   509   2   439   2
Big Ten   504   3   400   4
Pac 10   397   4   300   5
ACC   363   5   412   3
MWC   246   6   76   NR
Big East   221   7   702   1
WAC   160   8   43   NR
Ind   39   9   0   NR
ConfUSA   11   10   111   7
Horizon   0   NR   95   8
A10   0   NR   93   9
WCC   0   NR   88   10