Everyone claimed money grab when TCU joined the Big East earlier this month. It makes perfect sense for both the Big East and TCU in terms of money/prestige. TCU needed an BCS automatic qualifying conference to get to a BCS bowl with the regularity of Florida, Bama, OU, Texas, and Ohio State like they wanted. The Big East needed TCU to give it a legitimate BCS contender so they could stop being laughed at. (ACC fans, Virginia Tech is saving your butt on this one.)
However, it seems preposterous for a team in Texas to be in the Big East, especially in college sports with classes and travel. In the pros the Dallas Cowboys are in the NFC East and the Atlanta Braves were in the NL West for years, but those travel budgets don't come from college campuses and cost students GPA points.
So the question is how much worse is it for TCU's travel schedule. I'll be looking at it from both a football and other sport (notably Basketball) base, since the Big East will only have 9 football members, but now 17 basketball members. All numbers are based on direct distance, not actual travel distance. Hawaii's a bitch to get to by car.
Mountain West Conference Members (this is membership as of 2012) and Distance from Fort Worth, TX.
Air Force - Colorado Springs, CO - 592 miles
Colorado State - Ft. Collins, CO - 688 miles
New Mexico - Albuquerque, NM - 588 miles
San Diego State - San Diego, CA - 1151 miles
UNLV - Las Vegas, NV - 1047 miles
Wyoming - Laramie, WY - 745 miles
Boise State University - Boise, ID - 1266 miles
Fresno State - Fresno, CA - 1304 miles
Nevada - Reno, NV - 1337 miles
Hawaii (football only) - Honolulu, HI - 3761 miles
Average miles away football - 1247.9 miles
Average miles away other - 968.7 miles
Big East Members distances (non-football marked with "N")
Cincinnati - Cincinnati, OH - 842 miles
Connecticut - Storrs, CT - 1509 miles
Louisville - Louisville, KY - 754 miles
Pittsburgh - Pittsburgh, PA - 1098 miles
Rutgers - New Brunswick, NJ - 1374 miles
South Florida - Tampa, FL - 946 miles
Syracuse - Syracuse, NY - 1352 miles
West Virginia - Morgantown, WV - 1079 miles
DePaul (N) - Chicago, IL - 821 miles
Georgetown(N) - Washington D.C. - 1214 miles
Marquette(N) - Milwaukee, WI - 875 miles
Notre Dame(N) - South Bend, IN - 865 miles
Providence (N)- Providence, RI - 1551 miles
St. John's(N) - Queens, NY - 1403 miles
Seton Hall (N)- South Orange, NJ - 1389 miles
Villanova (N)- Villanova, PA - 1320 miles
Average Miles away for Football - 1119.3 miles
Average Miles away for other - 1149.5 miles
So in fact the average distance to travel to stay in the Mountain West for Football is greater than joining the Big East, though the other sports get screwed a little bit. Though in both conferences they do not have a conference rival within 588 miles of them. So the move to the Big East is not that big of a deal geographically, it just sounds extreme.
A better option for everyone most likely would be for the Big 12 with its ten members to invite TCU and another Texas school (SMU, UTEP, Houston (my vote)) into the Big 12. This would move the two Oklahoma schools to the North Division and Texas would have its own 6 team division. Find a way to keep the Texas-OU game every year, and then you could potentially have a rematch as the Big 12 championship. This would also have the five biggest conferences have 12 schools each and they could finally dump the Big East from the BCS equation in football. Or we could just have a playoff, but that's a debate for another day.
It's all about the $$$ - the Big 12-2 doesn't want to add TCU because they don't really add much in the way of geographic footprint, AKA TV sets, AKA revenue. Even though I agree it makes complete sense from a logical standpoint. Even better, add both TCU AND Arkansas and you have a nice ol' Southwest Conference-style Big 12 South, and the Oklahoma schools can round out the Big 12 North sans Nebraska and Colorado. Arkansas won't say it publicly because the SEC pot is just too sweet, but they are complete outcasts in the SEC in its current setup. No natural rival, no access to texas recruits, and relative geographic isolation.
ReplyDeleteOU might also oppose being "forced" to play texas every year if the other Big 12 North teams didn't have to, as it would theoretically give them a competitive disadvantage (assuming texas doesn't begin regularly pulling off 5-7s). In fact, similar reasoning is likely what killed the OU-Nebraska rivalry; the Huskers were perfectly willing to play OU every year even if out of rotation - it just so happened that when the Big 12 was formed, Nebraska was at it's peak and OU well ... wasn't. Nebraska felt dissed by one of their old friends right from the beginning in the Big 12 so it's no wonder they eventually left.
I agree that TCU to Big 12 wouldn't happen because the Big 12 already owns the Dallas market, but at some point competitive football and basketball should be a goal as that should lead to more money. I also agree that Arkansas would be a great fit, but yeah that SEC money is awesome and now they have a good rivalry finally built with LSU. As a person who spent 7 years in Arkansas, that game played in War Memorial Stadium in Little Rock is intense.
ReplyDeleteYeah, I agree that TCU in the Big East will be an easy joke, but it doesn't really matter. It's not even a funny joke. Legends and Leaders on the other hand...
ReplyDeleteSpeaking of which, I think a North-South split of the B1G Ten would have reasonably even:
North:
Michigan, Michigan State, Wisconsin, Iowa, Minnesota, Northwestern
South:
Ohio State, Nebraska, Penn State, Purdue, Illinois, Indiana
Having written it all the way out, I see that this is almost exactly the divisions they came up with, just switch Wisconsin for Nebraska and you're there. Penn State might be a little north of Iowa, and I'm not sure which alignment would be more even anyway. Not that it really hurts a conference to have uneven divisions. The SEC and Big 12 have had years with laughably uneven divisions, and that didn't stop them from being the best 2 football conferences year after year.
And no matter how clever you've split the teams up, several of the programs will either go into extended slumps or strong spells (a la OU and Nebraska) so it will all change anyway. So, no matter how you look at it, THERE IS NO GOOD REASON TO NAME YOUR DIVISIONS LEGENDS AND LEADERS!
That plus a stupid logo spells long-term decline for the B1G Ten. Of course, how could they have known that the PR firm Pentagram would come up with something so stupid. Wait a sec...
I'm not sure the SEC has had uneven divisions. This year the East stunk, but its not the difference between the North and the South in the Big 12.
ReplyDeleteAt least the SEC East has perennially good teams in Florida and Georgia, and a team that expects to be good in Tennessee, even though they are in a 5 year hole. But Florida and Georgia will be back.
And the SEC West has LSU, Bama and occasionally Auburn/Arkansas, while the Mississippi schools suck. It was an amazing year for Miss State, 8-4.
What's more amazing is that 20 miles from Ole Miss is perhaps the best high school program in the nation in South Panola, but Ole Miss can't get good.
Yeah, over the long haul the SEC is almost perfectly balanced, probably shouldn't have compared to the Big 12. But I still think it doesn't really matter. OU and Texas haven't really suffered from a crappy North Division, I doubt Ohio State would suffer if my invented B1g 10 North were to suck for several years. At least, not as much as they will suffer from being associated with a conference that expects us to say "Legends and Leaders" with a straight face...
ReplyDelete