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me Bryan Finck
In recent weeks, Desmond Connor, a columnist for the online version of the Hartford Courant (http://www.courant.com) published an article detailing the plan, which no one at East Carolina would discuss or deny. Here we'll examine the main points of the plan individually.
The first part of this deal would have East Carolina becoming a member in football only. Per the NCAA rule that disallows a university's different sports from competing in different conferences, all of ECU's other sports would have to go to a conference that does not compete in Division I-A (or FBS) football. So baseball, men's and women's basketball, and the so-called Olympic sports would be relegated to playing in a conference such as the Atlantic Sun or Atlantic-10. The coaches of these sports cannot be the least bit happy with that idea. Ask a school such as UCF, who was a football-only member in the MAC for three years, what competing in those type conferences does to a program, and you won't find many positive answers.
The second tenant of the plan, and this would be the hardest part to swallow for the football program, holds that ECU would get zero compensation from league games against Big East opponents, allowing those schools to not have to split the pie any further. The second aspect of this is that ECU would expect no share of BCS revenues until such time as they earn a BCS bowl berth by winning the conference. So basically, they would be fielding a team making less money than they currently make in CUSA and have no prospect in sharing the BCS riches until they can do what they have never done in CUSA. The Pirates have huge confidence in Skip Holtz, but that is asking a lot from any team.
Third, ECU's plan would require them to negotiate their own television deal separate from the Big East's TV package until the conference would want to include them. This isn't too much of a sacrifice because ECU would only have to negotiate its non-conference games, as league games would be covered by their opponent's inclusion in the Big East package. So write this one off as a real non-factor in the plan.
The final aspect of the plan is pretty much the only peg where ECU can hang their hat. It holds that the school would have to show a solid record of putting butts in the seats at all games, be it home, away or bowl games. At least for home games, this has not been a problem for the school and they seem to travel well to boot. Their bowl history is short and the last one had them in Hawaii, but it is not unreasonable to think that traveling well is the least of their problems.
Now the brass-tacks question that the school and its fans should be asking: is this a good or bad idea for the school as a whole? Recruiting for football would get a boost from the fact that ECU could compete for a BCS bowl and national championship. As far as positives go, that's pretty much it. Are ECU's fans ok with a wholesale mortgaging of their athletic department's future for a trial football-only membership in a BCS league? Yes that's right, all of this would be on a try and see basis. What if ECU goes to the Big East under this deal, can't perform up to standards and the Big East decides they want to go in another direction in three years? Granted, they have a chance to go and lite up the world and become the next big thing, but if they don't, the current administration wont be around to answer the tough questions, and their replacements will have a mess of red tape to clean up. Not to mention trying to figure out where to go from there, as CUSA would likely have moved to re-fill its ranks, leaving ECU football without a home.
Depending on your view, this is either a great plan that the Big East can't possibly pass up, or its a total panic move, sacrificing the vast majority of the athletics program at the altar of the almighty BCS. This may end up helping Pirate football, but will tremendously damage the other programs and could totally backfire on the school. The vocal majority of ECU benefactors will be football fans who will support the move, and it just may work for Big East, who will see it as no risk and all reward. We'll see how it plays out over the next few years, as the pieces fall into place for another round of conference musical chairs.
East Carolina's Big (East) Plan, June 15 2008
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