Stumbling into the Jamie Dixon hire is the best thing that ever happened to Pitt since Tony Dorsett was a student. Pitt should just let him run the athletic department.

Here is to Jaimie Dixon…he did what Wanny wasn’t able to do…

Bring a winning football program to the Big East!

😉

DaveD

Perhaps he can run the Buccos, too!

Now that this vote is behind Nordenberg and our illustrious AD Pederson, perhaps they can focus on remedying our football program.

I agree…now is the time to fix our FB program for real.

5th largest TV market in the country makes this a no brainer. Next up – Villanova or Univ of Houston or Central Florida.

Division Alignment
SOUTH
TCU
S.Florida
Central Florida or Houston
Louisville
Cincinnati

NORTH
PITT
WVU
UCONN
Rutgers
Syracuse

If Nova comes in then WVU will go to the South Division and Nova to the North. Expect PITT and WVU to play early in the season with the possibility to meet again in the BE championship.

I like this decision if for one reason (as explained in the BE press release…
“Located in one of the top five media markets in the country, TCU also enables the Big East to extend its media footprint, which already encompasses more than a quarter of the country,” league Commissioner John Marinatto said.

Now in of top 35 media markets in the country. It’s all about the benjamins.

You’re right: They should rename the conference to reflect its expansive nature. Something like — I don’t know — “Conference USA”? Yeah, that will work. That will work on many levels.

What a disaster.

I prefer “Conference America – World Police”.

Now Jamie can play his alma mater. TCU

Pan American Conference

I think I have a man-crush on Jamie Dixon.

TCU is in the central time zone. Big East name is fine. It would be called Pac-16 even if Texas and Oklahoma bolted

NCAA requires 12 teams to have a conf champ game.

If the Dallas Cowboys can be in the NFC East, why not?

My excitement (for real, not sarcastic) of TCU coming in, is diminished by the extremely real probability of DW still being here.

I’m still pusing for the Conference of Relocated Athletic Programs aka The CRAP. When we’re good we will be “The Crap” when we’re bad we’ll simply be “Crap”

Who cares what they call the conference, at least this will hopefully keep the NCAA & BCS from stripping us from EVER having a chance at a national title game!

Wilk – the rumor is that if they get to 10 football playing members, they will petition the NCAA to allow them to hold a championship game. I’m not sure why the NCAA would grant such a request, but that is apparently in the plans.

“Expect PITT and WVU to play early in the season with the possibility to meet again in the BE championship.” I like where your heart is, but this statement is just hilarious.

Dan, that was my earlier post as well…Good for the conference, but that means that as long as DW is at the helm, we are now just further down in the BE pack. TCU will win the BE the first year in followed by WV, Louisville and Cincy. We will be in the middle and finish at .500 with Dave saying that the program is in good shape considering he is only in his 10th season. Things take time when you are doing it the right way.

The way things are going with college sports, we should have announced this as a blockbuster trade!

Ladies and Gentlemen, The Big East has traded DePaul to the Mountain West for Texas Christian. Wait for it! As part of a three conference deal, Marquette will be returning to Conference USA, SMU to the Mountain West and Memphis to the Big East!

But, in a strange turn of events, just five minutes later, The Big East traded Memphis back to Conference USA for Tulsa. This came due to the discovery of fool’s gold in Oklahoma.

Shoot, I say let’s raid the ACC and change our name to something that will bring in the cashola. My top 3 conference names:

1- The Incredible American Conference (TIAC)
2- The Conference that needs to dump some basketball only schools(PEEN)
3- The hurry up and join Villanova so we can target Vermont conference(PRUNE)

In all seriousness though, this saves The Big East’s AQ status for the time being. TCU can play football real swell and the basketball team will have recruiting pickup. It will take some getting used to but we have come out and basically told the country that geography is going to be a small bump when we expand again. Now if only our football team can win some games, we could have a blast in 2012 before it all comes crashing down.

Sorry for pokin’ a little fun but I think this is good news and it put me in a good mood. GO PITT!

Isn’t that the truth Pitt it IS. Hey, why not go after Boise St and Air Force. TCU -does- it for me, Houston, Central Florids, Villanova do absolutely -nothing- for me. But, alas, when I’m about to get excited by something related to Pitt, I see Wanny, hair blowing in the wind, telling me, “we’ve got to play better”.

I think this will end up being a good add. TCU will not be recruiting in WPa any more than Pitt is gonna go after Texas high school players. So now we can see who actualy produces better players….. PA or Texas…………

An addenum to my post a few days ago, with scores and quotes.

TCU–55–PITT–13……”Hey, we knew they’d be tough coming in here”, “that is one fast team”, “we are gonna have to play catch up”, “the kids, the kids, have GOT to get focused”

Hey……. if the BE has to split into 2 divisions we can always name them the ESPN division and the CBS division……… and keep everything simple then. Maybe the media will pay extra to have their name on a division……… !?!?

What it has actually become is the Interfaith Conference, now comprised of a majority of religious-affiliated schools.

A fellow alumni suggests the next invite be Yeshiva in order to cover all the bases.

did you see that the U football ranked 3rd in NCAA graduation Rate? Hell, that is more of an accomplishment than any BCS Bowl …. give Shannon a promotion to University president

follow-up the U ranked behind only Army & Navy … that is amazing!

I hope we add Nova, Houston, and UCF to get 12 football teams for a conference championship game and 19 basketball teams for an 18-game round-robin schedule with the top 16 to MSG.

North:

Pitt
WVU
Cuse
Rutgers
UConn
Nova

South:

Louisville
Cincy
USF
UCF
Houston
TCU

Looks pretty good.

@wbb….I would love to see a list of courses offered by the ‘U’ if they have the 3rd highest graduation rate. That would be a hoot, indeed.

What about Cincy? Best passing team in conference. Hear that Antuan.

Great another no tradition football school wins the big eaet, since apparently Pitt and WVU are relegated to drunken uncle coaches. The downfall of collegiate football is sinking it’s teeth. Let’s ban the football team for 10 years and save the revenue; invest it into the science program and ecological sustainability. Pump money into Pymatuning increasing the fertibility of ecological development in Western PA. ANd let’s bring back the men’s tennis team for Jah’s sake.

New Name for the conference that stretches from Storrs, Conn to Tampa, Florida to Dallas, Texas to Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

How about the ‘Big Country’ conference.

I always liked that song ‘In a Big Country’

link to s0.ilike.com

@justin TCU has loads of tradition similar to Pitt’s, going back to the 1930’s with Davey O’Brien, who won the Heisman Trophy, the Maxwell Award and the Walter Camp Award as the best player in college football. The best qb in college football is annually awarded the Davey O’Brien Award.

link to daveyobrien.com

TCU has been to 6 Cotton Bowls (back when it was one of the Big 4 New Year’s Day Bowls), 2 Sugar Bowls, 1 Orange Bowl & 1 Fiesta Bowl, as well as 2 Sun Bowl games and a whole flock of lower tiered bowl games. (much like Pitt)

What’s really interesting in one of those Sugar Bowls they played Carnegie Tech and in the 2 of the Cotton Bowls they played Syracuse and get this, Marquette. (maybe we can get Marquette do to FCS football again).

TCU has also played PITT twice in a home & home in 1959 & 1960. We haven’t beaten them yet, as they won 13-3 and the other game ended tied 7-7.
So we better get prepared.

Welcome to the Big Country, glad to have you !

@ steve,

Temple would suffice on that order as well.

There is no down side to this for the BE…We don’t walk to away games, we fly…The travel distance is way over stated…We needed a 9th team for scheduling. It just so happens that we got one that has lost one game in the last three years and will finish in the Top 10 for the third straight year. A 17th BB school? Big deal we will still play ever team in the conference every year. This is a really great move for the BE. Who on here would tell me that if TCU gets to the BCS NC game that you won’t watch with a little more interest than you would have before this move? Well, the same will be true for the Dallas-FT Worth TV market when BE games are on. It will take a few years, but we will be on in the market gaining the exposure that it brings. Great job BE front office!!!

Word on the street, unscheduled Pitt press conference Wednesday, 1:00 pm. Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

Please Chris Do not TEASE me……please….now what do I do till Wednesday @ 1:00 PM

Sorry tomorrow (Tuesday).

Can’t confirm, but the source is pretty reliable.

Pederson announcing 5 yesr Wanny extension

I hope nova gives a no i think the florida team would bring more to the table in the long run.

Tuesday! ok going to sleep now and I will wake @ 12:45

I don’t think the Big East is ever in danger of having their BCS affiliation taken away.

Sure the teams tend to be mediocre, and the stadiums aren’t always packed, but the teams are mostly in larger TV markets and still draw decent TV ratings.

The BCS values that.

link to sports.espn.go.com

Don’t know how to read this – it sounds like he’s being canned but since he says this kind of stuff all the time he might have just played back the tape…it is curious

ok this is what we do dump the basketball only schools. To the nine football schools we add temple to keep a foot print in philly plus they have a good bb program then we add memphis they play football and we add a great bb team to keep are bb rep up. then we add central floida for the recuting plus they have a lot of potential. That gives us 12 teams for football and we have kept a real good bb leage at same time we would have 8 really good bb programs still.

before you say that wont work who plays the best bb in big east. pitt syracuse u conn wvu louisville and cincy if you add memphis and temple you could not get mutch better think abought it the bb only schools are at the bottom of the big east right now we dont need them. who is at top the football schools. you add the two i want we have a better bb leage than we do now we could still play are champion ship at ms garden