Signs of the Offseason 2011-06 -- Conference Realignment: Sunday Afternoon in Washington

They Were Not There for the Fall Foliage
The Hartford Courant sports writer Dom Amore has been sending out tweets since 10:00 am this morning about the Big East President's meeting in Washington. After a fortnight that started with the SEC and Texas A∓M formalizing their new relationship and rumors surrounding the two Oklahoma schools, along with Texas and Texas Tech in negotiations with the Pac-12 conference, the conference realignment shifted dramatically east last weekend with the simultaneous announcements by the Atlantic Coast Conference, Pittsburgh and Syracuse that the Panthers and Orange had applied to and been accepted by the ACC for full membership. The conference, staggered by the exit of a second charter member along with a 30 year, multiple conference title holder in basketball tried an initial, football members only meeting in New York City. That the Tuesday night meeting ended in chaos and acrimony strengthened a feeling throughout Division 1 athletics that the conference was taking a last gasp as a player in the BCS football mix. Amore reported (tweeted) that the conference meeting broke up after the projected 3:00 pm deadline. He added the following tweets as part of a post meeting press conference with Big East Commissioner John Marinatto....

1. West Virginia's President did not storm out, as had been rumored around 2pm.
2. BE Presidents voted unanimously to pursue discussions with schools that have expressed interest in joining.
3. Reference to football membership -- "military academies fit the profile".
4. UConn's President Susan Herbst was "terrific in the meeting" and promised to work to strengthen the conference.
5. Presidents will consider bylaws changes to "strengthen the conference" -- up the exit fees.
6. Texas Christian University's President attended and reaffirmed their intent to join the conference next season. According to Commissioner Marinatto, TCU "never wavered" during a very stressful week.

As an observation Amore added that Marinetto apparently felt this was a more positive meeting than the one Tuesday in NYC. "The shock has worn off". Amore followed wth a blog post that indicated the focus for new members will be football playing schools (membership not clear), with a profile that values "high academic standards and strong athletic performance,".

What About Villanova?!
The tweets and Commissioner Marinatto's comments suggest that no invitations were extended today. This leaves fans of Villanova, Temple, East Carolina, Central Florida and Memphis in something of a fog. The Big East Conference issued an official press release shortly after Commissioner Marinatto's press conference ended. Interesting to note that the Presidents were unanimous in authorizing "the Commissioner to aggressively pursue discussions with a select number of institutions that have indicated a strong interest in joining the BIG EAST Conference..." but were not unanimous about "...considering changes to the Conference’s governing bylaws to further solidify the membership of the Conference...". A strong ongoing commitment to the conference is crucial as the conference negotiates with the Air Force and Navy about football-only membership. Those two, rumored to be close to throwing in with the Big East in the days before Syracuse and Pittsburgh defected, were said to be wavering about a membership invitation due to the chaos of the past week. Hopefully the wording will give Commissioner Marinatto the authority to push ahead and successfully close out negotiations with the service academies while working through applications submitted by other institutions.

Signs of the Off season, 2011 -- Trouble in the Big East Conference?

Ahhhh, What Just Happened (part 2)?
The Big East meetings in Ponte Verda Beach, Fla. got off to an interesting start Monday when Connecticut basketball Coach Jim Calhoun opined the Big East Conference would last another 4-5 years, but most likely not beyond. Suggesting he would be in retirement by then ("Apres moi, le deluge" perhaps?), the 68 year old coach (25 years at UConn) believes, according to CBS blogger Brett McMurphy, the split will be along basketball and football lines, with the eight basketball-only schools raiding the Atlantic-10 conference for several more teams to create a conference that would predominantly consist of Catholic universities. Coach Calhoun's analysis, fairly well discussed by conference fans and others over the past four-to-five years surprises only because it has been voiced publicly by one of the conference's coach patriarchs, quite contrary to an unacknowledged (Big East) policy not to speculate about the future composition of the conference membership. SportingNews' long-time sportswriter-come-blogger Mike DeCourcy registered a surprising dissent the next day. Surprising because DeCourcy has been a persistent and vocal critic of mega-conferences since the 16 member Western Athletic Conference imploded after the 1999 season. DeCourcy was an early-and-often critic when the Big East expanded to 16 members in 2005, so why the change in tune? For DeCourcy, money is the grease that keeps the Big East's wheel running smoothly. Perhaps he is right, or it seemed that way through Tuesday night, when the conference Athletic Directors adjourned to their scheduled Wednesday morning meeting, where Commissioner John Marinatto scheduled a discussion on TV contract negotiations, BCS matters, bowl payouts and (football?) scheduling.

Was It Something He Said?
The Wednesday morning meeting (along with the golf outing?) was abruptly cancelled amid a flurry of conflicting public statements, when West Virginia AD Oliver Luck, whose distaste for the Big East Commissioner has become increasingly public since his succeeded Ed Pasilong in June, 2010, led a faction consisting of Pittsburgh and Rutgers out of the Ponte Verda Beach Inn Wednesday morning. Brett McMurphy posted an announcement at 10:30 am, from a "conference spokesman", that characterized the three AD's departure as "unexpected" and suggested Luck departed to deal with a problem related to West Virginia's football offensive coordinator. Luck countered with an announcement (released through McMurphy) three hours later, that contradicted the original announcement. The "West Virginia spokesperson" indicated Luck left early to attend a Rifle Team fundraiser scheduled for Wednesday evening, and not (as suggested by the Big East spokesperson) to attend to Dana Holgorsen's indiscretion. The WVU spokesperson went on to say the departure was not "unexpected", that Luck had never planned to attend the Wednesday morning meeting. I wonder what Texas Christian University Director of Intercollegiate Athletics Chris Del Conte thinks of the scheduling snafu. Perhaps, given his association with Pittsburgh Athletic Director Steve Pederson, he was given an early heads-up of the planned walk out.

Next?
The Wednesday morning agenda items, bowl payout update, the TV contract negotiations, state of the BCS and scheduling issues, have been pushed back to the conference's scheduled Football Media Days, August 1-2 in Newport, Rhode Island. With, according to Big East Commissioner John Marinatto, TV contract negotiations scheduled to expire after the 2013 season, the conference and ESPN have already initiated discussions. The move in turn has triggered a division in the schools, some of whom want to take the conference into the open market in an effort to use market forces to drive up the contract payout.

Signs of the Off season, 2011 -- Conference Realignment

Ahhhhhhhh...What Just Happened?!
Father Donahue's May 11 letter to alumni and students concludes the "quiet period" -- about a month in length -- since the April announcement that the Villanova Board of Trustees would not, as a result of a teleconference with the Big East football membership, take a much anticipated vote to accept an (apparently non-existent) "invitation" to join the Big East as an all sports member. This has been a very strange courtship. This marks the second time since 1996 that Villanova and the Big East have spent time and effort on whether Villanova should upgrade their football program to BCS level (the NCAA's FBS Division) and join the Big East football conference, thereby become an all-sports member. When parties engage in one round of failed negotiations, it is rare that they engage in a second round unless all are in agreement on the basic elements of the negotiation and are committed to a successful conclusion -- an agreement. When the resolution is uncertain, failing twice risks embarrassment, mistrust and ill will among the parties. That makes the twists and turns in this second round all the more interesting, for they seem to suggest that at least one, and possibly all of the three parties engaged (Villanova, Big East Commissioner John Marinatto and the football playing members who will vote to extend the invitation/accept Villanova's application) were either not in agreement at the start of the current process (then why make public announcements?) or missed (or misread or ignored?) critical signals given by the others over the past nine monthes. The awkward manner in which all parties have have muddled through the latest stages of this negotiation, coupled with a malaise that has settled over the Nova Nation as Villanova's review and planning has stretched into an eleventh month, have reminded me more than once of TS Eliot's poem on the melancholy of modern life...

The Love Song of Will D Cat
(with apologies to TS Eliot & Fr. Donahue)

Let us go then, you and I
Where the uprights split the autumn sky
Like a victor in celebration;
Let us go, through half-deserted hallways,
The whisperers having waylaid
Of restless nights over accounting ledgers
And huddled meetings with power brokers;
Using the numbers to shape an argument
Hoping with Luck others will relent
To lead you to an overwhelming question:
Oh, do not ask, "Are we in or not?"
Let us go and take our shot.

In the room the ADs come and go
Talking of John Marinatto.

The chili pot that bubbles and spills
The mesquite smoke that fills the kettle grills,
Finds the breech where lid and cast iron part,
Lingered, waiting for an autumn breeze
That carries it out to tease the revelers,
Slipped through the gap to stretch
And greet the October afternoon,
Or curled another layer on the cooking meat.

And indeed there will be time
To baste then barter burgers for dogs, ribs for pork
The simmering beans and cold hors d'oeuvre and beer
Will there be time? Will there be time?
To prepare the numbers to rally the faces you will face;
Will there be time to discard and revise,
And time binder the plan and present the options?
Time for you and time for me,
And time yet for another hundred indecisions,
And for a hundred more visions and revisions
Before the calling of the question and yeas and nays?

In the room the ADs come and go
Talking of John Marinatto.

And indeed there will be time
To wonder, "Do I dare?" and, "Do I dare?"
Time to tuck away spreadsheets, assume an indifferent air,
Resume the familiar company of frocks and kin...
(They will say: "He would not go all in")
My stadium deal, facilities construction up to my chin
My traditions, rich if modest, but punctuated with wins...
(They will say: "But how his endowments and margins are thin!")
Do I dare
Disturb the gridiron club?
In a minute there is time
For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.

For I know them all already, known them all...
From the diamond, the hardcourt, the pitch, the track
I have measured out my life by the season ticket pack;
I know the voices dying with a dying fall
Beneath the whispers from a farther room,
So how should I presume?

So What is Next?
Father Donahue's May 11 letter did not mark a decision point or deadline date. The Big East Commissioner and Villanova President did not outline/define a next step in this process. Will the three parties simply wait and react to events in the conference landscape this summer? Each appears to have some thinking to do...

John Marinatto -- this negotiation won't be a bullet point on the Big East Commissioner's resume. The (from reports...) tepid reaction from football faction has been interpreted by fans (and general public?) as a fumble by the league office -- why did they not give Villanova a heads up on the plan's problems? The official "non-response" coupled with the ridicule offered by some fans suggests the basketball and football factions are farther apart today than any time since the somber days following the Raid of 2003 and Boston College's defection, a particularly bad state given the uncertainties ahead. The survivors of 2003 rallied around a strong conference commissioner and a couple of seasoned and respected Athletic Directors to forge a covenant and a plan that ushered in some of the conference's finest hours on the hardwood and the gridiron, but within the past year several conference members openly lobbied for consideration by the Big Ten, while the Athletic Director of a third member has repeatedly ignored a conference gag order on Villanova's application, disparaging the commissioner while discussing details of Villanova's application with local media. The Commissioner's ability to forge a consensus on a course of action for the entire conference will depend to a extent on his credibility and standing among the conference membership. And right now that has become one more problem to address.

The Nova Nation -- The dynamics of the parties to the negotiation and the process by which Villanova developed a plan to upgrade their FCS football program to the FBS level will make a good exercise for the VSB, but right now the requirement is to fix the problem, not fix the blame. The Stadium Question has been the first agenda item since the 1996-97 study on a football upgrade. Every discussion in the past 15 years has come to The Stadium Question...and stalled. The process to study and muster resources for an upgrade addressed everyone of the other outstanding issues (media market, practice facilities, scholarships/financial backing), but The Stadium Issue was the weakest part of Villanova's proposal and everyone knew that going into the teleconference. The Nova Nation can muster a bit of righteousness over how indelicately this may have been handled, but the 18,500 seat capacity is on it's face inadequate; and any significant rewrite of the plan has to include an action plan to bring Villanova into a home field that is comparable to the conference's inventory of playing venues. There may well be multiple agendas at work among the football membership, but presenting a small stadium with virtually no concrete plan for scaling up put the Wildcats into the position of relying too heavily on good will and a shared desire to stabilize conference membership as the argument that would carry the day. Instead, the Stadium Question only provided cover to any faction operating with an ulterior motive. The University will most likely not file notification to upgrade with the NCAA by the May 31 deadline. Villanova wants to build a national profile, and competing as an all-sports member in a BCS conference will help the University realize that goal. Villanova has developed and offers championship-level athletic programs for both men and women in a wide variety of athletics; it can do the same with FBS football.

The Football Schools -- a sampling from blogs and message boards around the conference suggests football-first fans are increasingly vocal in their unhappiness with the conference leadership and anxious about their (football membership) options. The 16 (soon to be 17) membership size of the conference however, with only 8 (soon to be 9) slots taken for FBS football programs, limits expansion opportunities. The football schools are anxious because...

1. They don't offer a particularly competitive product. Last per, per West Virginia Athletic Director Oliver Luck, was rock bottom for the conference football schools. No team finished in the Top 25; the conference was 0-6 against ranked opponents and 6-14 against fellow BCS opponents.

2. The lack of sustained success on the gridiron could well result in the loss of standing as a BCS conference.

3. The conference has no presence in the two largest media markets within it's footprint -- New York City and Philadelphia. Pretty weird, no?

Will adding additional all-sport members from a candidate pool of (largely) CUSA teams significantly enhance the conference's hand in TV revenue negotiations and boost the conference's football standing within the BCS fraternity? In the very, very unlikely event the Big 12 Conference implodes this summer the Big East Conference would have limited options -- adding 3-4 new members might bring the football membership to 12, but would push the basketball membership beyond 20.

The Annual Big East Meeting
The May 23-25 meeting will most likely have the football members' concerns very high on the agenda. If Oliver Luck's latest interview provides a clue, the football members will avoid the "Villanova pothole (6th paragraph of the story)" as they thumb through CUSA resumes, looking for that "right fit, provide revenue" candidate.