Last weekend was one of the craziest weekends in sports history. The timeline for me, I catch wind of Pittsburgh and Syracuse talking to the ACC Thursday night via personal message on a message board. Friday Night the news breaks from Pete Thamel of the New York Times. Then Saturday morning before all of the football games news breaks that Pitt and Cuse applied to join the ACC and a vote was imminent. Late Saturday night the news broke that there Pitt and Cuse was invited into the ACC with a teleconference Sunday morning. The story in itself moved way faster than the normal expansion process. Usually it seems to be months and months of vetting and inquiring with crazy speculation clouding the process IE the B1G 10 search last year.
As of right now its being reported by Brett McMurphy(of CBS Sports) that WVU's applications to the SEC and ACC has been denied. Now the current league of 7 schools(including Texas Christian, who is set to join in 2012) has 3 options; keep the Big East hybrid together and rebuild, split from the nonfootball schools and build a new league, or merge with the Big XII(assuming Texas, Texas Tech, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, and Missouri leave).
I prefer that the league either attempts to keep the hybrid together-even though the fans generally hate that idea- or split and rebuild. Remember that the league was left off is much, much worse shape back in 2003 when Miami, Virginia Tech, and Boston College left. The league still has 7 members and will keep TCU's BCS points so I'm very sure that the league will keep its Automatic Bid to the BCS.
If the league is to split, they would have to have at least an 8th member in place for whatever year they plan on playing its first year as a new league. The league would still have options to get to 8 and beyond in Central Florida, Eastern Carolina, Memphis, Temple, and Massachusetts. (note, I didn't mention Houston because I believe they would be heading to the Big XII)
The SEC is still on the prowl for its 14th school and its looking more and more likely that it will be Missouri. I could certainly be wrong and the SEC grabs an ACC school, which is very possible.
The PAC 12 definitely seems poised to be at least taking Oklahoma and Oklahoma State. 3 schools has been outspoken against Texas joining and that's Arizona, Arizona State, and Colorado. It will be very interesting to see which way this goes.
The elephant in the expansion room is Notre Dame. There was a few reports out last night that said if they was forced to give up its Independent Status they would prefer to join the ACC over the B1G. Thing is if the Big East remains in its hybrid form, Notre Dame won't be joining a conference for football for a long long time. But if the Big East does split, I picture Notre Dame at least playing its basketball and nonrevenue sports in the new Catholic League.
With that said, I really don't see the B1G or the ACC expanding until Notre Dame decides to join one or the other, or if the ACC loses a school to the SEC.
Its a dog eat dog out there. And unfortunately only the strong will survive this mess that college sports has become. Greed and corruption is killing the game as rivalries are lost and may be never played again. I worry if the Backyard Brawl is going to be played again. Its just a sad state man.
Good luck to everyone's favorite team, and I hope you all make it to the other side.
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