WVU Claws its Way out of Big East, The Options for SU’s Football Schedule
D.A. | Feb 15, 2012 | Comments 8
Syracuse.com
Should Syracuse follow West Virginia’s lead and bolt the Big East immediately? There is certainly support from Orange fans to “pull a Mountaineers” and ignore the 27-month waiting period. But it’s not as easy for SU, since the situations differ.
WVU was hellbent on leaving for the Big XII in large part because the conference needed to fill a major hole. Missouri and Texas A&M are both headed for the SEC and that leaves two glaring voids in the ’12 football schedule. It cost $20 million (and a lot of Oliver Luck whining), but West Virginia finally got its way. TCU will also join the Big XII this season.
Where does that leave SU and Pitt? Both are ACC bound by the ’13 football season, but unlike the Big XII, their new conference is in no rush to get its two new members in-house. The ACC is stable at its current 12 schools, and has no reason to help pry the Orange and Panthers away before the path is legally cleared. An immediate departure would also leave the Big East with a measly five football schools for this season, but would retain its BCS bid. Gotta love this system.
Which leaves the Electrician John Marinatto in total scramble mode to fix the football schedule. Option 1: Get Boise State to join early. That would leave the Mountain West in FML mode, but hey in conference realignment it’s every man for himself.
Option 2: Let’s mix it up. Every remaining Big East school could play a home and home with its closest geographic opponent (like the always exciting NBA preseason). This means SU would play Rutgers twice. Why not welcome RU back one final time (potentially) to the Dome? (And hopefully avenge the worst football game ever.) The downside would be if the Syracuse “home game” of this series is morphed into a neutral site game at Yankee Stadium or MetLife.
There is talk of West Virginia assisting with helping schedule a Big XII opponent for each team in the Big East. What impetus WVU has to lend a hand to the conference it just fought an ugly PR battle with is debatable.
Option 3: Add an FCS opponent like Stony Brook. The good news? Adding a 2nd non-FBS game is the formula SU used in ’10 to get to the Pinstripe Bowl. (Only one FCS win counts toward bowl eligibility. But the 2nd “breather” on the schedule helped SU build confidence that season, and work on in-game adjustments.) The bad news? It’s ugly football.
Staying in the Big East for a final season is the best option. A farewell tour will be kinda cool, especially in a basketball league where SU was a founding father. One last chance (in conference) to prove Georgetown sucks. One more chance to make fun of UConn for not being smart enough to make the NCAA tournament. Hell, now that SU has this Louisville thing figured out, let’s get them again too.
In a statement yesterday, Dr. Gross said:
“We’ve been following and anticipating the developments and their potential impact on our program, and will respond to inquiries at the appropriate time.”
SU athletics was obviously aware this could be a possibility. Luckily, Nancy Cantor and Dr. Gross have been proactive throughout this whole process. It’s hard to imagine SU forking out $20 million just to leave a year early. It probably means standing pat until 2013. Either way, see ya ‘Neers. Don’t forget that coonskin cap on the way out.
Posted: Craig Hoffman
Filed Under: ACC Realignment • Featured
The Schwartzwalder trophy is ours to keep I assume?
please down off your advertising videos. nothing worst than to have unsolicitated noise coming into my headphones while I am reading and listening to Bob Marley.
Instead of Syracuse playing Rutgers twice,does the university have the option of getting another BCS team to play? What happens if Syracuse say’s no to playing them twice? Would all of the other teams(tennis,softball,lacrosse,track,women’s ice hockey,women’s basketball)that play in the league have to follow the same rules?
The mess that we’re in now is the results of putting a child in place to do a mans job.
Pete – thanks for the feedback. I’ll pass it on to our ad dept. They handle all the formatting, etc. Ron – My guess is its way easier to fill scheduling in all the other sports. Football is a finite amount of Saturdays, and only a few open spots on the sched. Theres prob. a few BCS teams you could get – but the problem is filling those dates for a 7 team conference.
sooner the better
Down here in Atlanta, the buzz on the radio is that FSU is going nuts trying to find a BCS team to play … they were supposed to play WVU, but now have a hole in their schedule!! Why isn’t one of the BE teams trying to set that up or is everyone afraid to play them??
Other than FSU anyone know who else needs a game? Got to be a WAC or Sun Belt team who needs a game and a payday
The problem is we’re so late in the process that all these teams are in total scramble mode. The best case scenario is to add another BCS team but its going to be difficult.