With Rutgers and Maryland leaving.

If UCONN leaves, and if the Big 12 takes Cincy and Louisville, then if the Pac 12 wises up and takes Boise and SDSU now, then that kills the Big East.

Will we survive a big east/CUSA merger, personally i dont know.

Lets say for the sake of argument.

If our choices are Sun Belt or MAC

What do you want.

Did Rutgers and Maryland officially go?

C-USA will add more FCS schools. I don't think the MAC wants us back. So out of those two options we would be Sun Belt Bound which I don't think would be all that much different over what we face in new C-USA.. Travel might even be better with Middle Tennessee State and Western Kentucky..

So Aaron what teams from C-USA do you think the BE would take to make the league fall apart? I only see Tulsa, ECU and USM being any possibility.

That would leave Marshall, Charlotte, Old Dominion, UAB, FIU, Tulane, Louisiana Tech, North Texas, Rice, San Antonio and UTEP. C-USA would probably want to stay at 12 so add Appalachian State or Western Kentucky.

What might keep this from happening is Marylands $50,000,000 buyout to the ACC.. Unless the BIG chips in and helps out a lot with that.

Well, for one, i dont get the infatuation with USM. They have a smaller athletic budget than we do.

As Lee Corso would say, "Not so fast my friend!!!" Navy is already slated to join the BE in 2015. They could move up that timeline and replace Rutgers. If UCONN leaves, the BE could revisit trying to get Villanova to move their football program to 1-A.

Another option is the BE makes another run at Air Force. Plus, BYU is still an independent to give SDSU and Boise another travel partner.

The best case scenario for the Herd, outside of joining the BE, would be for Villanova to move up to I-A and Air Force or BYU to join as the 12th member.

Outside of ECU. I don't think the Big East would be interested in any other C-USA member.

I wonder if the Big East basketball only schools will now break off into their own conference? ECU might be fairly attractive from a football standpoint, but their basketball program would not be attractive at all to the BE basketball playing schools.

These moves further reinforces my belief that there needs to be football only conferences and Olympic sports conferences. The football only conference members wouldn't necessarily be members of the Olympic conference of the same name. For instance. A Big East football conference would consist of Louisville, Cincinnati, UCF, SMU, Boise, etc. A Big East Olympic sports conference would consist of Louisville, Cincinnati, Syracuse, Pitt, WVU, Boston College, etc. In other words, the Olympic sports conference would be based on geographical location. Marshall would be in C-USA in football and the MAC in Olympic sports.

I think Boise will be in the Pac 12 before the end of the year.

The ACC is about to implode. While many nationally scoffed at MD's move, they really may have been a step ahead of what is about to happen to that league. 

FSU wants out and wants out now. Stuff is about to go down again and the ACC is the one that is ripe for the pickings. I am not sure a bunch of schools are going to jump at the ACC.

AaronPerkins wrote: I think Boise will be in the Pac 12 before the end of the year.

Not a chance!!! Pac 12 is eyeing BYU and possibly Hawaii.  Boise State is pathetic in academics as well as all sports except football.

The MAC conference will never take Marshall back. You guys screwed them before. The Sun Belt is your best chance if Conference USA goes belly up. Unfortunately, the lack of a strong fan base, small stadium, weak tv market is killing Marshall from expanding into a bigger conference. ECU will go to the Big East after all these years. You guys are relegated to a crap conference.

We screwed them?  We made them relevant.

Chuckko66 wrote: The MAC conference will never take Marshall back. You guys screwed them before. The Sun Belt is your best chance if Conference USA goes belly up. Unfortunately, the lack of a strong fan base, small stadium, weak tv market is killing Marshall from expanding into a bigger conference. ECU will go to the Big East after all these years. You guys are relegated to a crap conference.

What?

Question for Chucky. How much better is the Big East leftovers going to even be than the current CUSA you (assuming you are an ECU fan based on your verbiage) are already in?

I'll answer that.

Big East Left overs
Cincinnati
Central Florida
Houston
Memphis
South Florida
SMU
Temple

BE school probably leaving
Rutgers
Louisville and or Yukon
Boise
San Diego State

C-USA
East Carolina
Alabama Birmingham
Charlotte
ECU *
FIU
Old Dominion
Southern Miss

North Texas
Louisiana Tech
Tulsa
UTEP
Tulane
San Antonio
Rice

Who will C-USA keep?

I'm now hearing Boise and San Diego State possible could pay the BE 5,000,000 and stay in the Mountain West which I think is the right move. So The BE is going to be looking for partners for Houston and SMU but at this point but who from C-USA is going to pay 7,000,000 to make a lateral move? Looks to me like the teams screwed in all this are Houston, SMU, Central Florida and Memphis. Looks like to me the Big Easts best option is to add one and stay at 8. The logical choice would be ECU. but would ECU still be interested at this point?

I think C-USA would have been better off last time around to have only went to 8 or 9. but they added a bunch of 1-AA schools just for numbers.

To answer Aarons question The BE is going to be better at the top and at the bottom. If Tulsa stays in C-USA they will be the top team followed by Louisiana Tech, ECU* & Southern Miss which all could probably compete with the top schools in the BE. then you will have the middle pack Marshall, Rice, North Texas, Tulane, UAB, UTEP and FIU who will all beat up on each other and the bottom feeders Old Dominion, Charlotte and San Antonio.

C-USA is on par with the BE at the top but the deeper you go into the conference the weaker they get.

The BE is pretty equal from top to bottom excluding Temple who will beat up on each other and probably wont produce the highest ranked team in the Gang of Five very often.

The winner in the gang of 5 conference shuffles is Boise if they stay put in the Mountain West and Tulsa if my scenario plays out and the losers are the Big East and what ever schools are dumb enough to go fill the void in the Big East. The Big East will be tough conference to win and be the highest ranked gang of 5 member.

* Outside Favorite for a BE invite

Now with the new BCS rules you are going to have schools looking at where to go to have the best shot to be the highest ranked non BCS school and that place is not in the BE.

Your last post is HUGE. That is why Boise needs to go back to MWC.

Yep, with the new rules raise your hand if you still would like to see Marshall in the Big East.

C-USA should go ahead and give the BE schools their name back. The new big east is gonna look like C-USA of old. No original football members are even going to still be in the BE when this all pans out. Those schools have payed lots of money to just get back where they started.

The only original football playing member of the Big East left is Temple which the conference tossed out at one time.

And will probably toss out again..