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The following linked site may be rubbish, but it's an interesting read on the hows and whys Pitt and Syracuse may have finally said "enough is enough with the Providence ineptitude".
Actually it all sounds very believable. The Villanova upgrade was a joke. And Providence had to "take care of Providence" (The basketball only schools.) A good league was ruined due to poor leadership.The following linked site may be rubbish, but it's an interesting read on the hows and whys Pitt and Syracuse may have finally said "enough is enough with the Providence ineptitude".
The initial post on the NCAABBS board is utter BS. He is just another poster taking shots at the hoops schools because he doesn't know what he is talking about. There is almost no "inside" information at all in that post. It is mostly his opinions with a justification for why Pitt and Syracuse split that he claims he has inside information about. Cantor and Nordenberg could have gone to the football schools at any point and proposed a split. They didn't, which means the Yinzer post is probably a fantasy.
Most credible reports are that this happened very quickly. Swofford somehow strongarmed Syracuse and Pitt to leave, probably by threatening to take UConn and Rutgers if they didn't move immediately. Rather than approach the Big East and tell them what was happening, which is what anyone with an ounce of integrity would have done, Pitt and Syracuse bolted and screwed their partners for less money than they would have made in the next Big East TV deal.
Swofford is just like BC, all powerful. He can strong arm schools to move just like BC can force the ACC to exclude Uconn. It is hard to deny that the conference football plan to add a TX school and have Nova upgrade was, to be generous, weak. Despite your belief that a mega TV deal was in the works for the BE from Comcast, it was speculative at best and a pipe dream at worst. Cuse and Pitt wanted out because they wanted stability, more guaranteed money and a conference that does not try to serve two masters. I bet they let everyone know they wanted major changes in the BE but they knew there was no chance of it happening. Not when the leadership is beholden to basketball.
I'm at a loss as to what an ACC invitation would do for us.
Thanks, a voice of reason in a sea of panic and rumors.None of what you say is true or makes any sense.
Please show me where Villanova was joining the Big East football conference. If you can show me that, then I will change my tune. If you can't show me that, then everyone can assume that the rest of your theory is as false as your Villanova assertion. Also, FYI, Villanova didn't want to upgrade. they wanted to keep the option, but they were not begging the league to upgrade their football program.
Syracuse was actually one of the staunchest supporters of the 16 team conference and basketball schools, and actually was supportive of Villanova joining the football conference.
TCU was convinced to join the Big East in a large part because of Jamie Dixon at Pitt. Pitt was leading the charge to bring in the Horned Frogs.
Nordenberg from Pitt lead the charge to turn down the ESPN offer of $11MM/year for the football schools because he expected a much bigger offer down the road. In fact, Marinatto's near acceptance of that offer pissed off several of the hoops and football schools. Luck, Pederson (Pitt's AD) and several others had made comments over the summer that they expected the next Big East TV contract to be in line with those of the other BCS leagues.
So you are wrong on every point. Thanks for sharing though.
Cuse and Pitt were not only on board with the Big East, but leading the charge until something changed in the last few weeks. Who knows what that was, but whatever it was spooked them