The whole thing has become an absolute joke. WVU complaining is a bit laughable but understandable. The Big East dissolves, the ACC wont take them, should they have held out and hoped the Big-10 wanted them? Seems like the Big-10 decided to go after the big state schools in MD and Rutgers, would they have taken WVU eventually? The Moutaineers may have panicked and now their WS team had away games at TCU/Texas/Iowa St and played in the conference tournament on a Wednesday night in West Texas!! No wonder they faded out and lost their final 2 games. This is going to happen in lots of sports. How do any of these athletes traveling across the country have a legitimate academic courseload in any of the natural sciences for example. Thursday or Friday labs - forget it. I wonder if the kids go to their science professors and they all blame the football mania, they must. These mega conferences will have trouble competing for some of the serious students out there and probably wont even recruit kids that want certain majors. The NCAA folks and President's who fought to keep the BCS football schools from creating their own nationwide football only conference and governance structure years ago are to blame for all of this. This entire shuffle was somewhat predictable and IS damaging very many other sports. What's the use of having all that football money when you spend entire weeks in hotels and away from campus? At least you have nice gear? Craziness....
Soon there will be 4 BCS conferences of 16 team (ACC, Big16, SEC and PAC 16) they will all compete for the BCS title in all sports. They should all pay their players for being minor league athletes
Big Ten will have Virginia, UNC, Georgia Tech, and then either Florida State or Notre Dame as the 18th and final member, although doubtful on Notre Dame, but anything can happen when the dominoes fall. They are attacking the entire eastern seaboard, but will add Notre Dame if they can get them of course.
The Big Ten was one of the few conferences that didn't make outrageous moves in regards to the type of schools they added to the conference, until they added Maryland and Rutgers. Maryland and Rutgers have zero in common with the type of schools in the Big Ten. Nebraska makes sense to join. It is similar in many regards to Iowa, Indiana, Purdue, Wisconsin, etc. You would think people would have learned from the imploding Big East (RIP). To have a 16 school conference isn't just dumb, it's ignorant. Some teams will be looking to leave when they take their lumps and can't ever get out of the cellar.
Dear OxfordComa, Bless your soul...It appears that you may be trying to apply some appropriate logic and insight here. Big mistake. The moguls making these decisions do not operate in such realms. These realignments are all about potential perceived prestige, money (greed), fear (of being left out), TV markets and exposure, and all focused on football. No where in these decisions is any realistic consideration given to such unimportant silly old fashioned notions as: 1. The proper roll for athletics in the academic life of the university. (Or even that the primary role of a university might actually be about teaching, learning and research.) 2. A careful analysis of where a university's long term athletic interests lie 3. The demands made on "Student"-athletes for practice and travel. 4. A balanced athletic environment. 5. Natural and healthy rivalries where a perspective is maintained. 6. Sportsmanship and the instructive role that athletics can play in teaching life lessons. I believe that any rational person looking somewhat dispassionately at this realignment situation has long-since concluded that the tail is thoroughly wagging the dog and that prestige, greed, and fear are now the primary drivers of these decisions. To argue that the realignment is about getting the proper athletic relationships established is completely laughable. No question there...an open and shut case. (At least the University of Maryland president was honest when he essentially said that moving to the Big 10 was essentially all about money and nothing more. His was one of the more clear admissions that athletics (football money) have become critically important to the university and that academics were beholding to them.) Athletic departments at most large universities have been allowed to completely usurp the image and public perception of the university (not to mention budget.) Take a public poll of most Americans and ask when the names of large universities are mentioned, what is the first thing that comes to mind? Why, naturally, by a large margin, it is their athletic teams reputation! (Mostly football and basketball.) VERY seldom does John or Jane Q. Public ever relate a midwestern or southern large university to the quality of its faculty or students. (Consequently, large American universities (especially those in the midwest -the ones primarily driving this realignment) are the head-scratching laughing stock of educated people around the world who still cling to the notion that universities should be known for intellectual pursuits such as teaching, learning, and research. (That notion is truly un-American in a literal sense.) So, as they say, it is what it is. I appreciate your candid comment that the situation is "dumb and ignorant." Would there be more people in high decision-making roles who were that intelligent! Yours, truly, Soccerhunter
The rule of thumb here, regarding conference realignment. Think like a conference commissioner or university president .... and not like a fan.
The rule of thumb here, is to add up how many National Championships By different teams in each conference are included. The B1G has none. Two conferences have more than one.
This is easy. Imagine you had most of your cerebral cortex crushed by a hammer, THEN make decisions. Seems popular across a number of industries, not just higher ed.
Another update, Notre Dame now likely to jump to the ACC this summer since the Catholic 7 are leaving this year. http://espn.go.com/college-sports/s...ool-negotiate-big-east-exit-according-sources With Pitt and Syracuse coming in that would be 15 members in the ACC (but GA Tech does not carry soccer). In 2014 Maryland bolts and Louisville comes in. Conference play starts in about 6 months. I would think the ACC would have had their fall 2013 conference schedule already done. They will have to make an adjustment should this Notre Dame thing happen. Will be interesting to see if everyone plays 13 conference games, or if they go to divisions or some other format.
Notre Dame officially moves to ACC today. Move was anticipated so I would think they would have thought about scheduling in case this happened. Conference play starts in 6 months and teams are still being moved around, this is crazy.
and it's FAR from over (although Maryland accidentally helped slow the process by suing the ACC over it's exit fee)
The 2013 ACC soccer season is crazy if Notre Dame is in that soon. North Carolina (Ohai, Dunn, Green, Gardner, Haeberlin) Virginia (Brian, Douglas, Stith, Doniak) Duke (Pathman, Anasi, Weinberg, Cobb, Pecht) Wake Forest (Stengel, Nuzzolese, Berry, Bledsoe) Florida State (Fields, Brynjarsdottir, Kallman, Wys) Maryland (Brock, Spivey) Virginia Tech (Meier) Notre Dame (Laddish, Roccaro) all these teams are candidates to be in the Top 10, and will all probably be in the Top 10 at one point or another during the 2013 season. Boston College could have a down year, but hopes to make the NCAA tournament. N.C. State and Miami are hopefuls to make the NCAA tournament. Of course, Pitt and Syracuse are weak, and Clemson isn't much better. You gotta have some bottom-feeders, feeding some wins for the top and middle of the conference. And you could make a case that all these players listed above are good enough to play in NWSL right now, or by the time their collegiate career is over with.
Maryland leaving this group just has to be disappointing for so many fans in so many sports. So Penn St and Ohio St become Maryland's closest conference rivals? OK cool, but who in the Mid-Atlantic cares about Purdue and Iowa and Nebraska and half the Big-1o? I heard someone say the only happy people in this deal actually are the Big10 Football fans from Michigan, OSU, etc in the DC area that get to see their team on the cheap in Maryland's half-full football stadium every other year now. There may be more blue than red when Michigan first visits the Terps. Is the Big-10 really going to get UVA and UNC to leave the ACC? That would help Maryland (and Rutgers) for sure but I don't see it. Those schools don't need the football money as desperately as Maryland do they?
One thing that remains to be seen is what Maryland does with the ACC exit fee. If they can get out of it, then UVa and UNC will think they can do the same thing too. If the ACC doesn't cave in and collects then that may improve the chances of UVa and UNC staying. But if UVa and UNC can see the Big10 $ and know they can get after it without having to pay an exit fee then them leaving could possibly happen.
I'm not sure the exit fee is the deciding factor. With MD, I read that the B1G schools were willing to advance a zero interest loan to the Terps which would come out of the increased revenue from the TV contract, which depends on the number of schools in the conference. So Maryland got to pay the exit fee over time out of greatly increased revenue, the BiG schools get their money, only deferred.
The B1G certainly tried to help Maryland as much as they could, but $50 million is a lot of dough, even with 0% interest and help from your new friends. I definitely think there'a "wait and see" thing going on with the ACC as the exit fee is litigated, and also as the landscape around the ACC changes. Adding Notre Dame as a non-football member certainly strengthens the league even as adding Louisville as a replacement for Maryland kind of stretches things.
You know anyone that would slip me $50 million with 0% interest? I'll take it, and wouldn't think twice about it.
I think you're missing something (or I am). The ACC is charging Maryland $50 million to leave, and the B1G is essentially giving the Terps a 0% loan to pay it. So if I give you a $50 million loan to pay some kind of fine that you already owe (that's exactly $50 mil) it's better than charging interest, but . . .
The part you are missing is that the President of the U of Md. Has a Yale Law degree specializing in contract law,( as well as a doctorate in psych from Michigan) was the Dean of the University of Washington Law School before his current gig, and is on record when the vote was taken that the exit fee is illegal and unenforceable. The "we" in the first sentence is the courts, not the players. So far the university owes nothing, and won't until it is litigated. And if the ACC plays hardball, they may blow up the whole exit fee concept in the courts and lose everything.