R.I.P. Big East
Well, the Confidential is all about the Atlantic Coast Conference. That being said, there is no denying that the ACC has had a huge role in killing the Big East, taking Miami, Virginia Tech, Boston College, Syracuse, Pitt, Louisville, and Notre Dame in the past 10 years or so. That’s a conference unto itself. Thus, today’s news that the Big East will announce the exiting of more schools–the seven basketball-oriented, football-eschewing, Catholic schools–is met with some guilt. That the Big East is dying is unfortunate. Moving forward, however, the question is what happens next?
The general consensus is that the 7 Catholic schools will somehow, someway form a new conference. It might be called the Big East. It might be called something else. Who knows? The consensus also is that additional, similar schools will be invited. If so, this is what the Confidential would like to see:
Catholic Basketball Conference–East: Providence, Seton Hall, St. John’s, Georgetown, Villanova, Fordham
Catholic Basketball Conference–West: DePaul, Marquette, Creighton, St. Louis, Dayton, Xavier
If they wanted to get crazy, they could great a western flank, with Gonzaga, Loyolla Marymount, Santa Clara, and Portland, among others. Either way, this would be the Catholic Basketball Conference–why not?
What about football? What about football. Yikes. These are dark times for UConn, Cincinnati, USF, and Temple. Newcomers UCF, SMU, Houston, Memphis, East Carolina, Tulane, and Navy are not too thrilled either. While some of those schools may eventually get promoted to a top 5 conference, they cannot worry about that right now.
Without making a prediction, this is what the Confidential would like to see is two larger conferences form, centered around geography. They can use the C-USA and MWC labels, as necessary. It is important for the talent to be consolidated into two conferences so that there are more, better games. This is the only way those schools will ever show any separation. Remember, Boise State played a rather unimpressive schedule en route to national prominence. It is up to these schools to schedule strong OOC and follow the same pattern. If a small school in Boise, Idaho, can do it, any school can.
The Confidential 
it was already dead, they just pulled the plug
I’m happy that the Catholic schools finally did this; it’s clear that they had no interest in the football-side and that they wanted to remain true to their basketball roots. Good for them.
It does suck for Cinci and UConn especially, since they had 2 of the stronger basketball programs left in the Big East, but I also think this is a good opportunity for them.
I say that for the remaining teams, just blow the whole damn thing up. I love the idea of having one Super Conference consisting of the “mid-majors” for football.
You can follow the New Big East model (or New Big Ten model) and have divisions based on time-zones/geography that could have a playoff of division champions to rightfully get the final spot in the BCS playoffs. Something like this:
BIg East:
UConn
Cinci
USF
Temple
UCF
East Carolina
Marshall
Memphis
Umass
Old Dominion
UNCC
Navy
Great Lakes (MAC):
Kent State
Bowling Green
Ohio
Miami (OH)
Akron
N. Illinois
Ball State
Toledo
Central Mich.
W. Mich.
E. Michigan
Buffalo
Gulf:
Arkansas St.
Louisiana-Lafayette
Louisiana-Monroe
Louisiana-Tech
Middle Tennessee
Western Kentucky
Troy
Florida Atlantic
Florida Int’l
South Alabama
Georgia State
Georgia Southern
Frontier:
UAB
Southern Miss
Tulsa
Southern Methodist
Rice
Houston
UTEP
N. Texas
Texas State
New Mexico St.
UTSA
Tulane
Big West:
Boise St.
Fresno State
San Diego St.
Air Force
Nevada
Wyoming
Colorado St.
UNLV
New Mexico
Hawaii
Idaho St.
Utah State
And if you wanted/needed to add a 6th division, you can mix these 12 schools in (likely swapping Army for Old Dominion):
Army
Villanova
Florida A&M
Richmond
Stony Brook
Delaware
Delaware State
New Hampshire
Maine
Liberty
James Madison
Appalachian State
The biggest draw is that you could collectively leverage the national media exposure of 60-72 teams having a true National Collegiate Athletic Association, covering every major market in the US and get a much better tv/media contract for these schools…perhaps NBC/Comcast would be so desperate for content that they could possibly even go as high as the $8M/yr that schools like SDSU and Boise St were expecting by joining the Big East.
Best of all, there could be a clause that prohibits these teams from playing against BCS teams during the regular season. Schools like Florida, Alabama, etc…couldn’t fatten-up their schedule against the weaker division schools which would force tougher OOC schedules across the board.