By now, it’s pretty clear that every Big East football member is as committed to the future and stability of the conference as the next best opportunity. One day after Big East officials met last week in New York to discuss any and all expansion options, West Virginia and UConn issued statements that only placed further doubt about any “allegiance” to the conference.
The question for the seven remaining Big East football members is whether there is a next best opportunity waiting for them at all.
Prior to the meeting in New York, a report surfaced that UConn was aggressively seeking membership into the ACC, which had already accepted Pittsburgh and Syracuse. The ACC reportedly spoke with and/or considered at least 10 schools for expansion; whether or not UConn was part of that group still hasn’t been confirmed.
What is known, though, is that UConn wants in as either the 15th or 16th member -- if that’s the direction the ACC goes. Speaking in front of media outside his capitol building, Connecticut Gov. Dannel Malloy said UConn’s admittance to the ACC could be determined by another school: Notre Dame
“I think there was expectancy built up initially that this was quickly going to be resolved. That’s clearly not the case. The ACC has the first decision to make and that’s whether they’re going to stay at 14 teams or stay at 16. I know that there’s one team, one school that they would like to get into the ACC that would guarantee them going to 16 teams and that’s been speculated to be Notre Dame. I suspect that that’s true. I don’t know how likely that is to happen or not happen. Although, I tend to think it’s not terribly likely.
“Beyond that, then you fall back to the Big East. The Big East then has to rebuild itself to fill the loss of the two teams that left and has to worry about its ability to compete on the major sports of basketball and football in particular, as well as how do we make that work for student athletes.”
Anything is possible when it comes to conference realignment, but I’d be willing to place a large portion of my income on the notion that Notre Dame won’t join any conference, let alone the ACC, unless they absolutely have to for the sake of keeping themselves in the BCS conversation.
Consequently, UConn may be stuck in their safety conference, the Big East. The fact of the matter is that if UConn were a first-tier choice with tremendous value, they’d already be in the ACC, or Big Ten, or wherever.