The dominoes teetered a bit, but didn’t quite fall. As Tech fans continued celebrating Tech’s move to the ACC, the leaders of the remaining Big East schools gathered in a New Jersey hotel to ponder what options were available to them and found few palatable ones. So they decided to do nothing.

Well, not exactly nothing, as the meeting brought forth the news that UConn would accelerate its move to the bottom of the BE standings by entering as a full-fledged football participant a year early, in 20 04. There’s a plan: lose Tech and Miami, add the Huskies. How typically Big East.

It must have been a fun gathering, as the first meetings found all 12 presidents and athletics directors gathering in a room. This produced a period of reminiscing as the participants slapped each other on the back and inquired, “What’s new?” since their last meetings two months ago.  I’m sure the sentiments of “Welcome home, Fredo” were genuine and heartfelt. Things got down to business when Chancellor Shaw of Syracuse stood and informed the crowd that he was “glad to share their fate,” not exactly what he was expressing around the middle of June. Commissioner Mike Tranghese, whose best-face public comments opining about how the Big East would remain a strong and viable league were tempered a bit, as behind closed doors he informed what remains of his athletic flock, “Boy, are we in trouble now. Any suggestions?”

The first came from WVU AD Ed Pastilong who, from the football side of the table pointed across to his basketball-only peers and said, “Leave.” To the response of “Leave what?” Eddie in turn replied, “The conference, of course.” The answer to that was “Not a chance,” as the basketball schools had no intention of surrendering the BE name, Madison Square Garden conference tournament or the NCAA Tournament credits that have been accrued by the conference members other than them. Realizing that this was a bit too much wishful thinking, Pastilong then suggested, “If you won’t leave the conference, then leave the room.” This was only slightly more palatable, but the basketball boys complied, filing out, griping all the way, to discuss the joys of traveling with limited budgets to places like Marquette and Xavier. I believe it is safe to assume that the first stirrings of the Papal Conference were held on their side of the hotel. 

The football guys then got down to business and finally brought up the long-awaited BABE. It is a capital idea, folks, but it is coming a little late. Syracuse and Fredo did seem much more amendable to the idea than they did last May when Jim Weaver proposed it; perhaps it is all in the presentation, or the knowledge that a decade of kow-towing to the Providences and Seton Halls of the world and conference finally did indeed produce unmitigated football disaster. In any event, it would seem the BABE it is, info related to Mike Tranghese as he ran back and forth from meeting room to meeting room attempting to discharge his hapless duties of holding together this disparate and unwieldy group.

The load on Tranghese was slightly lessened, however, as July 1^st saw the end of his turn as BCS chairman, a tenure unique among the BCS conference commissioners who rotate the chairmanship, in that no BCS chairman while occupying the position has ever seen his BCS membership jeopardized by his top football programs bolting. And he will soon find himself commissioner of a conference that contains no football-playing members, as the BE six are gone, just as soon as they can milk what’s left of the existing BCS contract. They will be forming a new conference, to be known as the Great East or my personal favorite, the Li’l E. 

The first order of business for the Li’l E was to beat the bushes of the conferences residing on down the athletic food chain and rustle up a couple of schools to get to the required number of eight. The pickings were slim. Conventional wisdom has Louisville and Cincinnati as the two new schools. Yippee! They seem overjoyed in Card-land, as years of trying to worm their way into the Big East appear to finally be bearing fruit. I do seem to recall, however, a column I wrote some time back advising Louisville that if they were ever to find themselves invited into the BE, it would be as replacements for Tech and Miami. Surprise, surprise. Enjoy your good fortune, Cards, and always bear in mind that the Metro days are long gone, and you are only being invited into the Li’l E because Virginia Tech has moved on to something much better. Ditching us from the Metro years ago continues to bite you in the backside. 

It seems a little odd that Louisville and Cincy would be invited into a football grouping, but aside from the forlorn hope that twice-jilted Penn State will leave its excellent deal in the Big 11 behind and come to their rescue, the Li’l E schools don’t have a lot to choose from. The dominant figures in the new conference will be the two Jims Boeheim and Calhoun, and they are putting together a nice little basketball conference. The Cards and Bearcats have much better programs than any of the BE basketball schools, where the collapse of Georgetown [as Tony Bethel passes by on his way to NC State, the thought pops into my head that this transfer sure would have helped with Tech's perpetual point guard problem], the whining by Mike Jarvis of how hard it is to compete with the larger basketball budgets that the BCS schools can afford, the ingrained mediocrity of Providence and Seton Hall and the fact that Jay Wright will bolt Villanova at the first decent opportunity, reveals them to all be in what will be a permanent decline. They will end up marginalized and fighting it out with the A-10 for television scraps as the new conference dominates Big Monday. Calhoun and Boeheim have decided that they have carried those schools long enough. 

The new Li’l E will be a pretty good basketball conference, but football will be second fiddle, again. So what else is new?  If ten years of Big East football has taught us anything, it is that the networks have very little interest in televising games involving any of these schools when they are playing each other. The Li’l E will command a basketball contract greater than its football one, as ABC and ESPN executives study the feasibility of eight- and nine- day weeks in order to find enough weeknights to create exposure for this crowd. Hopefully, somebody will shout down the Old Well on the Carolina campus, down which Doc Ryan has flung himself at the horror of the ruination of his life’s dream, and inform him that the one major conference built on the concept of large television markets is the one conference that has failed and is being broken up. It was the competition, stupid, and the caliber of it in the new Li’l E is going to be lacking.

There is brave talk coming from all concerned that this collection of schools, ranging from pretty good to simply horrid will somehow be able to hang on to the coveted BCS bid and all of the athletic life-giving financial benefits. Perhaps it will, but I would guess that the combination of reduced television exposure causing a further tightening of the belt that will be particularly hard on cash-strapped WVU, coupled with what will be the quick departure of quality coaches such as Walt Harris and Tom O’Brien, who will bolt for greener pastures so fast that they will probably beat Frank Beamer and Larry Coker out of the conference, will combine with the BCS ‘Syracuse Rule’ to make it all a moot point within a few years, anyway.

The best hope for this gang is the lawsuit being brought by Tulane against the BCS itself; it just might force the BCS to add a fifth bowl and open participation and the attendant cash windfall to all conferences whose champion can finish in the top ten or twelve of the final BCS standings, which history shows us won’t be many. With guaranteed bids to the ACC [Orange], SEC [Sugar], Big XII [Fiesta] Big 11 and Pac 10 [Rose] plus television domination, the major conferences will still hold all of the high cards, but the other leagues will have at least some sort of path into the party. 

By the time the dust settles and everybody gets through jumping around, and toughened eligibility rules pertaining to attendance kick in, the result is likely to be fewer conferences around to gripe about lack of BCS inclusion. By the time Louisville and Cincinnati are poached, then the Mountain West grabs whatever it finds desirable, and the remainder form some sort of Gulf Coast Conference, CUSA does not seem to have a bright future as a league.

This has to be particularly troubling to East Carolina, which is beginning to look a lot like the last domino that will be standing. If the Li’l E goes to ten, conventional wisdom has them adding the Directional Florida’s, a move that will certainly scream out ‘mid major.’ The Pirates are facing their conference disappearing around them, and the hope that they might become the ACC’s Number Twelve were quickly dashed by the Governor of North Carolina, who pointedly told them to forget about ACC membership - there was not nearly the political capital to be gained by Governor Easley that there was for Governor Warner, and politicians generally decline to associate themselves with lost causes. If ECU is forced to align with what is left of the MAC, the chain of events set in motion by John Swofford and Donna Shalala would have not only seriously compromised the athletic futures of the remaining BE schools, but virtually destroyed that of East Carolina. Somehow I doubt that is causing Shalala and Dee any sleepless nights.

As we observe the wheeling and dealing, as schools now on the periphery of the BCS desperately attempt to find a way to remain or get in, it is hard not to feel sorry for West Virginia. The Mountaineers are innocent victims in all of this and are facing a grim future through no fault of their own. It is very hard on their fans, who can remember that when the BE football arrangement was formed, they were a superior program to Tech. They have watched as during the preceding decade Tech caught and then passed them, and are now moving on to something better and leaving them behind. The anger and frustration they are exhibiting is understandable, and is no different from what our reaction would be and was when it appeared we would be left behind. There will be another round of conference expansion and realignment, and in a decade or so when the money-losing private schools begin to give up the ghost, there will be openings. WVU needs to make itself as attractive as possible and be ready when those opportunities arise.

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