After about a month of speculation and hearsay and an SEC-rejection along the way, West Virginia announced Friday morning their intentions plan to escape the BIG EAST, finally making the saga official. The Mountaineers have formally accepted an invitation to join the Big XII.
A little before noontime on Friday—just after West Virginia’s announcement, BIG EAST Commissioner John Marinatto issued an official statement for the conference, stating that “This move by West Virginia does not come as a surprise… West Virginia is fully aware that the Big East Conference is committed to enforcing the 27-month notification period for members who choose to leave the conference.” If what Marinatto says is true, then that would mean July 2014 would be the earliest that West Virginia could arrive at their new Big XII address. This July 2014, of course, is in direct opposition of the July 1, 2012 date given by both WVU President Dr. James Clements and Athletic Director Oliver Luck as the “expected arrival” date to the Big XII. As always with college athletics, the power of the almighty dollar—not the plight of the “student-athlete”—will ultimately resolve this conflict as well.
Lost in the midst of all this money-grabbing and backstabbing and backroom deals of these realignment wars is the fact that the BIG EAST Conference has lost both participants of their storied “Backyard Brawl” in the course of six weeks. In the frenzy to secure a spot in a super-conference, these institutions of “higher earnings” have gambled away some of the most-treasured rivalries in college sports. Pittsburgh (along with Syracuse) played its ACC hand back in September, while West Virginia, having missed the SEC on the turn, came up Big XII on the river. The BIG EAST is now the small stack with not many hands left to play.
Commissioner Marinatto would disagree with my analogy, I’m sure. In that same press release he expressed confidence—a hollow confidence in my opinion—that the BIG EAST will survive this latest defection and is presently positioned to emerge as a winner once the record finally stops playing in this game of Realignment Musical Chairs. “We are confident that in the coming weeks we will complete our own realignment program, adding a number of high-quality members to remain among the top conferences in both football and basketball.”
With all due respect, Mr. Commissioner, are you trying to convince us or yourself?
Anyway, the pending finality of the “Backyard Brawl” in the BIG EAST has made me disappointed and disgruntled. I’m presently so irate, I feel like going all “Hatfields and McCoys” on somebody. The problem is by the time I would have decided whom that somebody was upon whom to unleash all of my pent-up rage and fury, I wouldn’t even know which conference to find him in.
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