WVU Has Accepted A Big 12 Offer; Now It’s Time To Release All The Hostages

Also Clay, if your read is correct than why did the Big East recently approach CUSA and MWC about forming a super conference....or present to Boise State about joining. Clearly they think their automatic bid is much much more tenuous than you are painting given their trump cards of a BCS founding member and the DeFillipoESPN comment.

Clay, you may do this for a living, but still think its a bad analysis....everyone but a few fools in Providence are better off if the Big East loses that bid....the Big 5 conferences could gaurentee at least 1 bid to a non BCS conference team a year and maybe a conditional 2nd based on ranking and they still would be better off due to extra Bid money, the Bowls would be better off, and the TV networks would be better off. Even Boise and the Texas teams would be better off being in some mega-conference or in their current conference than having to travel all the way to Northeast to keep the Big East theoretically alive.

As far as congressional outrage, I can't see a huge political outrage....the few big remaining programs (Lvill, uConn, Rutgers) will eventually be taken care off provided they play nicely (uConn is now learning the importance of that given the last lawsuit). 2012 is a presidential election year with 9% unemployment and a 1.5 Trillion structural deficit. Tax increases and entitlement cuts up for discusssion, can't see seniors in Florida giving a crap out South Florida's path to an auto BCS bid vs protecting their entitlements, for example.

There are requirements that conference must meet to maintain it's AQ. A conference must have at least one team to finish within the top 10. The big east did not have a team in the top ten last year. I do not think they will this year either. I am a WVU fan and ever since boston college, virginia tech, and miami left the big east was not deserving to maintain its BCS AQ.

You threaten law suites, but once they started that just about all of the other conferences will sue.

The BCS stripping the Big East's automatic bid is highly unlikely. Why? There are for two primary reasons 1. the Big East would have a whopping insider lawsuit against the BCS that could spell antitrust doom for the cartel and 2. Boston College's athletic director told the Boston Globe that ESPN encouraged it to take Pittsburgh and Syracuse from the Big East

Furthermoret, the BCS does not spell out criteria for leagues to be stripped of an automatic bid.

The only requirement for a BCS bid is that a league have at least eight members. (That's an FBS rule, by the way, not a BCS rule. A league also has two years to rectify any slippage in that regard).

You can read those criteria here.

So what happens if the BCS threatens to pull the Big East's automatic bid?

If I'm the Big East I threaten to file a lawsuit and tell all. Since there are no established criteria for pulling a league's BCS bid, the Big East should view any attempt to take away its bid as impermissible. The primary value of Big East football right now is that BCS bid. If it vanishes then why would anyone want to be in the Big East? So the automatic bid is a definite property interest that is being relied upon by the league. Any rescission of that right is tantamount to collegiate sports war. If there is no established process to take away a right, how can that right be taken away?

Given all the antitrust scrutiny that the BCS is already under, can you imagine what a lawsuit's discovery and depositions would look like if the BCS attempted to pull the Big East's bid? The Big East was there at inception, it knows all the gritty details about how the six conferences came to power and what agreements existed between them to keep the vast majority of the bowl bonanza in their hands. Put simply, the BCS turns on one of its original six members at its own peril.

Do you think it's a coincidence that the Big East managed to keep its automatic bid despite losing Virginia Tech, Boston College, and Miami to the ACC? That poaching drove the conference down to eight weak members after reformation but it didn't hurt the Big East's automatic bid. The Big East remained at eight until the ACC came by again and took another bite out of the Big East to drive it down to six members. Once more the Big East will have to add new schools since eight schools is the minimum number of teams to be considered a conference under NCAA rules.

Once the Big East solidifies eight members, voila, the bid will still be there.

But that's not the only reason the Big East will retain its automatic bid.

This year the Big East also has an additional trump card -- ESPN's alleged role in ACC expansion. Why does ESPN matter when it comes to the Big East's automatic bid ?http://www.mrsec.com/2011/10/wvu-has-accepted-a-big-12-offer-not-its-time-to-release-all-the-hostages/#idc-container

Guess who has the current BCS television contract? You think ESPN might be willing to guarantee the Big East's BCS bid going forward if the conference threatens to file a lawsuit against the TV network for violating ESPN's contractual obligations with the Big East?

Yep, ESPN. Indeed, this is a lawsuit that could break ESPN and the BCS.

The Big East is keeping its bid, you can take that to the proverbial bank.