By Dana O'Neil Oct 14, The irony is not lost on Val Ackerman. Eight years ago, the Big East served as the carcass of realignment, its very essence picked apart by a combination of power league raiders and desperate football-playing universities. Yet here sits the Big East, if not in the catbird seat about as close as you can get to it in the current world of college athletics.
By doubling down on the identity Dave Gavitt first conjured in , it has removed itself from the chaos. Once the most vulnerable, it is now the most stable conference in the country. It has one football-playing school — at least in theory, if not execution — and you have to think that UConn has been scared straight by its first dalliance with putting football first.
Once picked over, the Big East now gets to pick. Which is where it gets interesting. When the league welcomed back UConn as its 11th member two years ago, Ackerman said there were no plans to search out a 12th school. At the time, it was the truth. Times change. Already a subscriber?
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View Plans Already a subscriber? The Huskies landed at No. Hurley said he would be in favor of expansion if it meant strengthening the level of competition. The addition of UConn was huge. I love the way the league is right now. Too many people claiming they were Big East champions. Every school you go to has a banner. Our Network. Build upon its rich heritage by expanding again? Gross, who was in favor of taking the TV deal, said once that fell through "things were fragile and could fall apart or crumble.
When ACC officials asked whether Syracuse would be interested in joining, Gross said yes without hesitation. Gross made a presentation, and the group voted to accept the ACC invitation. Both Gross and Pederson said they had no idea they would be joining together until the end of the process. Despite the uncertainty and fragility of the Big East, multiple people described feeling "blindsided" that Syracuse and Pitt -- two of the league's most identifiable members, including one founding member -- would leave.
One person said it "shook the conference to its core. Added Jurich: "I know a lot of people's feelings were hurt, especially the schools that had been in that league for a while. They were crushed because they had such a great loyalty and relationships with those schools. Pederson, when asked whether he thought the decision to leave surprised the league, said Pitt was always upfront about the situation.
So maybe there were people that were surprised. It's, 'What are we going to do? How are we going to survive? How do we keep our head above water now that the TV deal is out? From our standpoint, all I cared about was our program. By then, the Big East was pushing hard for Boise State to join as a football-only member -- all while Louisville and West Virginia were jockeying for the last open spot in the Big You couldn't go to the NCAA or the federal government.
It was a game we likened to musical chairs. You don't want to be the one standing when the music stops. Only a few days after Boise State announced it would join the Mountain West, Utah accepted an invitation to join the Pac Then BYU announced it was going independent in football. This was not the Mountain West the Broncos agreed to join. At this point, Boise State had played in two BCS games as an undefeated team and Fiesta Bowls but had never gotten a legitimate shot at playing for a national championship.
Beyond national championships, the Mountain West did not have an automatic spot into the BCS, meaning Boise State would have to go undefeated every year and then hope for a selection as an at-large team.
Kustra felt he had to do something to improve those chances. He had previously lobbied the Pac to no avail. So when the Big East, with an automatic bid into the BCS, called in October to see whether the Broncos would be interested in a football-only partnership, he listened. At the time, Boise State was ranked in the top five. On paper, the move made sense: Boise State needed access to a BCS conference, and the Big East needed to fill gaps and boost its football-playing profile.
As a way to make its move east more palatable, Boise State needed a travel partner from the West, boosting San Diego State into the conversation. The Mountain West had taken one hit after another during realignment and could not afford to lose Boise State, its highest-profile school.
Commissioner Craig Thompson worked the phones to both Kustra and then-San Diego State president Elliot Hirshman, telling them both, "There's a lot of money being dangled in front of your face, but there's not going to be a Big East in the long term," according to a person with knowledge of their conversation. Thompson declined to comment for this story. The moves gave the Big East the largest footprint in the country. But because the conference looked so different, nobody knew whether it would retain its BCS status or what a future television deal would be worth.
Skepticism remained that bringing in Boise State and San Diego State from the other side of the country would actually keep the Big East together. The basketball schools were not thrilled either. Long declined interview requests for this story; Petersen did not respond to repeated requests for comment. Did it fit for everybody? Absolutely not, including us. It didn't, but I don't think you could look at and say it's about fit when you were looking for survival.
Several former Big East officials still believe this alignment could have worked long term at the time. But in April , a plan for a four-team playoff was announced, and it became clear there would be no automatic qualifying designation for the Big East under the new format, taking away a huge advantage the league had over the Mountain West. Marinatto resigned in May with the league in turmoil.
As one friend of his said, "He was just a guy that was the student manager for the basketball team for Dave Gavitt at Providence College and was Mike Tranghese's friend, and was handed the reins by the two of them. And the conference collapsed. That's the weight that he carried with him. Whether he could have done anything differently to keep the league together is a question up for debate, considering all the outside factors that were beyond his control.
Mike Aresco was hired as commissioner in August with an eye toward maximizing television rights. But first, Notre Dame announced it would be taking all of its Big East-affiliated sports to the ACC while remaining independent in football. In mid-December , the seven Big East basketball-playing schools announced a split from the football-playing schools.
A few weeks later, Boise State struck a deal to return to the Mountain West. San Diego State followed shortly after that. Kustra said the Mountain West presidents at the time called him and offered more money from television rights as a way to get Boise State back into the league.
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