newjerseynewsroom.com

BY MATT SUGAM

NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM

NEW YORK — When it comes to conference realignment, basketball has gotten lost in the shuffle. Consequently, so has the Big East.

Football is the driving factor and the sport that is causing the seismic shift in the college landscape.

So the Big East has become the beleaguered conference. The basketball driven league lost two of its top four programs to the ACC in Syracuse and Pittsburgh. That has left commissioner John Marinatto scrambling to find replacements for the conference that’s down to six football teams.

On the day when the conference met for its annual men’s basketball media day, the embattled commissioner apparently didn’t have good enough words to describe his conference's situation. So he quoted Dr. Spencer Johnson’s Precious Presim:

“Planning for the future, but we’re focused on the present. Marinato said in his opening statement. “We cherish the past, but we’re focused on the present.”

Presently, everyone covering the conference is transfixed on the current state of the conference and what will become of it in the coming months.

“We’re flexible, we’re creative. We’re looking at various options,” Marinatto said. “The landscape is still unsettled in a lot of respects and obviously everything that happens is a function of what happens nationally as well. We’re prepared.”

While Marniatto would not confirm or deny which schools are in the conference's future plans, the speculation is that SMU, Houston and Central Florida are top candidates to add for all sports, while Navy, Air Force and Boise State could be added as football only schools.

Being able to add Boise State is a major factor in the conference keeping their automatic BCS bid when the conference’s contract expires in 2013.

The Broncos have become regular BCS party crashers as an at-large mid-major and are on track to do so again this season. Bosie’s addition could beef up football’s credibility enough to keep the BCS happy.

But today was about basketball, even if it was about conference realignment, right? Well not really.

Villanova football is in the FCS, so they don’t compete in the Big East. Thought they’ve made it clear they’d like to make the jump to FBS.

But when the school’s head basketball coach had to address the issue, he can’t exclude a school that he shares a city with.

“The bottom line for Villanova is that we want to be in for football. How Temple gets brought into that is not Villanova’s responsibility,” Wright said. “There are people that want Temple in so they use Villanova.

“Villanova wants to be in for football and we all know all the good things that can come from Temple being in too, but that’s not Villanova’s responsibility. Villanova’s responsibility is getting Villanova in for football.”

So even at one of the “basketball schools,” they have the foresight to know that without a major college football team, they could end up on the outside looking in. Like everyone else who has any semblance of common sense, they know that the monster that college athletics has become is fed by football.

No one knows that better than Notre Dame’s head coach Mike Brey.

“When you’ve coached at Notre Dame you know about football driving the bus,” Brey said. “I’ve had five coaches and I let them drive the bus.”

And Notre Dame is the one school that’s had major success as an independent. Between their TV deal with NBC and their draw to the BCS without being affiliated in a major conference, they’ve flourished.

However, with all the changes that are occurring and the outlook of potential super-conferences, that is something that may not last long.

“Can we stay independent in football? Those are discussions we’re really thinking about,” Brey said. “Maybe that time is ending and we’re very realistic that maybe it is ending.”

But no other school in the Big East has the draw of Notre Dame. Both the SEC and ACC reportedly rejected West Virginia — a perennial football power in the Big East.

As for the non-football schools, they’re in an even more precarious position.

“Football is driving a lot of the decisions and dollars associated with television which is driving a lot of the decisions right now,” Georgetown head coach John Thompson III said. “So from that standpoint, particularly being at Georgetown which doesn’t have that level of football, you have less control over your destiny.”

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