The Mountaineers are off to the Big 12, leaving the  fading Big East a shell of its former dominant self

SHANE SMITH

With news of West Virginia collegiate sports jumping the sinking Big East ship to the Big 12, it is now inevitable that the Big East Football is going to plummet into the depths of the sports Bermuda Triangle: where one can find the likes of the USFL, XFL, and Ryan Leaf.

The once prominent football conference now must somehow try to rely on teams struggling for .500 records to keep a BCS bid and draw important non BCS teams to the league. The last ditch efforts to acquire Boise State, Army, Navy, and every other team that is relatively appealing will inevitably still fail at keeping the Big East a BCS conference.

After the departure of Miami, Boston College, and Virginia Tech in 2003 to the ACC many were surprised to see the Big East continue to thrive. Louisville, Cincinnati, and UCONN all emerged as top 25 teams. The conference was also anchored by Pittsburgh and West Virginia who were always primed to compete in a BCS game. Slowly but surely the tides turned in the east. Louisville collapsed on itself after Brian Brohm graduated, Cincinnati failed to pick up where Brian Kelly left off, and UCONN became relevant after winning several games due to fantastic luck (my personal favorite was WR Larry Taylors call for a fair catch that the ref’s missed and returned for a TD (Watch below) only to lose their coach to Maryland.

Even Rutgers could brag about the development of Ray Rice and South Florida could brag after hitting the number 2 BCS ranking before imploding on themselves in 2007.

But all of these are a distant past. Cincinnati and UConn both lost 5 star coaches to bigger and better places, USF saw their upstart coach leave under questionable choices, and Louisville and Rutgers were never able to capitalize on their mid 2000’s success.

Now that West Virginia, the most consistent football team in the Big East, is breaking up with the Big East it should be only a matter of time before UConn heads for greener pastures in the ACC (thanks to their basketball, soccer, and baseball programs, not football). This means that the Big East will attempt to remain a BCS football conference with a remaining core of Cincinnati, USF, Rutgers, and Louisville (and potentially UConn).

If you are Boise State and that is the option on the table, wouldn’t you rather hold out for the PAC-12 to become the PAC-16, or the Big 10 to become the Big 14? It seems like a move to the Big East would be a temporary lateral move for the likes of Boise State because competing against Rutgers, Navy, UCF, USF, etc is just as appealing as playing UNLV, Nevada, SDSU, and Hawaii. So with the high probability that Big East will lose their BCS eligibility, the writing on the wall of this becoming a second class conference is very very clear.

While the disintegration of Big East football may not be the worst thing to happen to the collegiate landscape, it is however very sad to see the best college basketball conference suffer such a devastating casualty on account of football greed. College basketball, the Big East tournament, and March Madness are one of the only remaining pure forms of collegiate athletic entertainment that has remained consistent for decades. The 4 day tourney at Madison Square Garden is going to lose pieces that have been essential to its success for over 30 years and that is truly the saddest consequence of the nation’s BCS obsession.

Stay tuned for my next column where I will give my solution to keep Big East basketball one of the purest and most entertaining conferences in the NCAA.

Photo: Getty

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