The AC in our house went last night. It’s a balmy 84 in the house at the moment. I’d be doing this in just my boxers but the kids have been traumatized enough by my parenting to this point.

In case you have ever forgotten that as much as the Big East is a basketball conference, the ACC is still a basketball first conference. The ACC Sports Journal has been bothered by the overall mediocrity (or worse) of the ACC since they expanded. Yes, the conference can claim 3 national titles (2 for UNC, 1 for Duke) since expansion but the overall depth of the conference has been rather meh.

Even with back-to-back national champions, the ACC’s NCAA tournament winning percentage has fallen to 59.67 percent; the Big East is now essentially even with the ACC in that category, with a 59.34 winning percentage during that time span. The ACC’s average seed has dropped to 5.21, while the Big East’s has risen to 4.6. And the two leagues have gotten teams into the tournament at an identical 46-percent rate.

Furthermore, just three ACC teams have advanced to the Final Four over the last five years, while four Big East teams have turned the trick. True, the ACC holds a 2-0 edge in national championships. But consider this: Only seven ACC teams – and only one (2006 Boston College) not named North Carolina or Duke – have made it as far as the Sweet 16 over the last four seasons. A whopping 16 Big East teams have advanced that far.

In fact, if you take UNC and Duke out of the mix, the ACC’s post-expansion tournament record is an unsightly 12-18. That’s Atlantic 10 or Mountain West territory.

Interestingly, they do not put the blame on the newcomers.

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Frustrated with the Big East? Feel like the suits in Providence are morons that only look out for the basketball schools? Pining for the ACC or Big 10/12? Just wish the conference would get its act together and make more money on a TV deal? Or start up their own channel? Want the conference to expand in football, but hate the choices?

I’ve been thinking a little bit about this. As much as Pitt, Syracuse, Rutgers, UConn, etc. are stuck right now with the Big East. There are no good choices.

Apologies in advance if this seems a little disjointed. Every time I’ve been about to wrap this up and post, there has been one more link and one more thing that I wanted to add.

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Well ESPN.com and BlueRibbon are putting out their team previews. Really just overviews of stuff mixed in with quotes from Coach Wannstedt (Insider subs).

Since the Big East was first up in teams previewed, Bruce Feldman lists 10 reasons to love the Big East. Pitt players and team grab 3 of the spots (Insider subs).

3. Dion Lewis, RB, Pittsburgh Panthers:
What a revelation the unheralded 5-foot-8 back from Albany was last season, going for almost 1,800 rushing yards and 17 TDs. Lewis’ style evoked comparisons to former Rutgers great Ray Rice. The guy just kept getting better as the 2009 season wore on, rolling off eight straight 100-yard games to finish out the year. His total of 159 rushing yards in the Meineke Car Care Bowl was the most North Carolina gave up all last season and that yardage also was more than every team but one — the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets — ran for against the Tar Heels. Lewis’ speed has continued to improve as well. He was down to a 4.42 40 when the Panthers tested him.

4. Jonathan Baldwin, WR, Pitt:
Another one of our top freaks in college football, Baldwin is a matchup nightmare at 6-5, 228 with sub-4.4 speed and a 42-inch vertical. Teams loading up in hopes of slowing down Lewis subsequently cringe at the thought of what Baldwin might do to their defensive backs.

…

8. The Pitt pass rush:
Dave Wannstedt has two outstanding bookend defensive ends in Greg Romeus and Jabaal Sheard, who have 30 career sacks. The inside of the Pitt D-line has changed. Sadly, for rival offenses, the outside has not.

Over at XtraPointFootball, their preview of Pitt concludes with the Panthers as the pick to win the Big East.

The one common question that is developing, though, is can the interior of the offensive line be relied upon this season? More than Tino Sunseri starting at QB. More than replacing Dickerson and Byham at TE. More than new starters at corner. More than new starters inside the D-line.

Looks like all previews have caught up to Pitt fans for the big question on the team: offensive line.

Interesting info dump on money spent by programs on football. Not totally convinced of some of the conclusions reached, but no surprise that the Big East contains some of the thriftiest BCS programs. Pitt spends less than 25% of what it spends on football, on basketball. Pitt also has one of the smaller total overall gross revenue among BCS teams. That the Athletic Department operates so well and the glamor programs are nationally relevant is a bit more impressive in that respect.

Fair and balanced came to mind when I took a look at Pitt’s home-away split and the home-and-homes.

Obviously WVU is one of the home-and-homes. In addition Pitt has a home-and-home with Villanova. Not a surprise since Pitt and ‘Nova are the really early picks to win the conference this coming season. The third is USF. Not a cupcake, but not a complete toss-up either. Dominique Jones is gone, so it will be interesting to see what JUCOs Stan Heath can develop this year.

HOME: Cinci, UConn, Syracuse, Seton Hall, Marquette, Notre Dame

AWAY: Rutgers, Louisville, St. John’s, Georgetown, Providence

HOME-AND-HOME: WVU, Villanova, USF

Eyeballing that, the toughest road games will be Louisville and Georgetown. I think St. John’s could be a lot tougher under their new coach. The Johnnies have a lot of veteran talent going for their final chance.

It’s kind of hard to be exactly sure who got the hardest or easiest schedule at this point. If you assume that Pitt, ‘Nova, Syracuse and Georgetown will be the top teams. Plus WVU, Marquette, UConn, ND and Louisville will all be in the mix, it isn’t easy to really give any team a true cupcake schedule.

A lot will depend on which teams beat expectations and which flop. The wildcard teams (teams that could be surprisingly good or disappointing) appear to be Seton Hall, St. John’s, Cinci and USF.

Based on home-and-homes I would guess USF caught the biggest break. While they have Pitt, they also have Providence and DePaul on the home-and-home.

Georgetown could well end up with the easiest schedule depending on the wildcards. Somehow they ended up with St. John’s and Cinci as home-and-homes — along with Syracuse. Plus they get WVU, Louisville, Marquette and Pitt at home. They do have road games at UConn, ND and ‘Nova

I think Marquette and Louisville seem to have the toughest roads. They have home-and-homes with UConn. Louisville does get Providence twice but also WVU. They also have road games at ND, Georgetown and ‘Nova.

Marquette has UConn along with ND and the possibly dangerous Seton Hall in the home-and-home. Their road schedule has G-town, Louisville, Pitt and ‘Nova.

Syracuse also has a good case for tough schedule. Home-and-homes with Seton Hall, G-town and ‘Nova. They also have to go to UConn, Louisville, Marquette and Pitt. Plus St. John’s and USF are on the road.

Sorry for going beyond the usual weekend shutdown. Daughter’s birthday, family, the usual. Never even cracked open the laptop after a quick look-around and e-mails on Saturday morning.

So, just going to get some stuff out of the browser tabs.

Let’s start with that which everyone is sick of hearing. The Big 12 survival and Big East stuff.

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When it comes to news regarding college sports, the sports departments of most TV stations come in somewhere ahead of Bleacher Report, message boards, and sports talk radio — but behind the Onion.

So, let’s wait and see a bit on this (via Deadspin).

Local 6 Sports Director David Pingalore is reporting that multiple college football sources have said that the University of Central Florida and Memphis could be invited to join the Big East conference as soon as next week.

Shocking. The same day an Orlando columnist makes the case — again — that the Big East should invite UCF to join there is a rumored story.

And of course, FedEx Chair, big time Memphis booster, and the father of the Memphis QB, Fred Smith has all but openly made an offer to pay the Big East any conference that will take Memphis.

There is no question, that of the options for Big East football expansion, UCF is really the best and only choice.

Just like everyone in the Big East would leave for any other BCS conference, no one in any other BCS conference would leave to go to the Big East

USF fans don’t want to see anyone else from C-USA come to the Big East. Especially UCF. I’m not particularly enthusiastic about Memphis in the conference.

I guess I have a hard time buying any of it right now. The only way they can really expand is to split from the basketball schools — whether completely or in some sort of weird alliance. I just don’t see the Big East leadership with the guts to do that.

The more I think about the Big 12′s survival, the more it reminds me of the desperation of the Big East in 2003 when Miami was getting ready to go to the ACC. There was a lot of desperation by the Big East. The leadership belatedly realized how much they needed the Hurricanes, and how unstable things really were.

Especially when the ACC was willing to add two more Big East schools to go with Miami.

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This was not the scenario anyone envisioned after Friday. Thursday was supposed to be the last chance to save the Big 12. Then Nebraska said goodbye, and all that was left was waiting for the official word from Texas and whether Texas A&M would go its own way to the SEC.

Instead, Dan Beebe pulled a miracle. After a weekend of being portrayed as a moron to a nice guy in the wrong place with no power — he got a fresh renegotiated contract for the Big 12/10 that made it worth Texas’ while to stay.

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Yeesh. Push out an expansion round-up. Head out to do some things with the kids (summer vacation in full swing). Get back and find out that nearly as soon as I posted, that the Big 12 may yet survive.

Orangebloods.com: According to sources, Texas will announce as early as today that UT will commit to a 10-member Big 12.

Or not:

One source said commissioner Dan Beebe’s last-minute plan to save the conference has “zero” chance to succeed. Another source said it is “very unlikely” to succeed.

Who knows at this point. Maybe Texas told the other members that they would stay if everyone agreed to stay and make a contractually binding agreement — filled with punitive penalties, costs to make it extremely prohibitive to leave and an extended unwinding. I would imagine Missouri would balk, and there would have been a good chance at Texas A&M also hesitating.

Here’s the thing. Texas has the position of strength that it can make, say a 5-year commitment to the Big 12/10. They will still be a sought after program by other conferences in five years.

Texas A&M and especially Mizzou cannot be that sure of things. If they make a commitment and then the Big Something does go to 16, they are stuck. They could find themselves missing their chance at the Big Something, the SEC could be set at that point,  and then still see Texas leave them in the remains of the Big 12/10.

I guess, it just seems are too far gone for Texas (and even Texas A&M) to do a 180 and save the Big 12/10.

As the Big 12 is in its slow motion death spiral, the Big East simply waits for the raiding to come east. What? You expected activity from the Big East leadership?

That isn’t the way things roll in Providence. As usual, it appears that the basektball schools are looking forward to the end.

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Expansion speculation round-up a little later. Lots of talk building up to what is expected to be a wild day tomorrow. In the mean time…

There is no doubt that markets and athletics drives conference expansion. Academics matter, but that is more of a tie-breaker. It is something that helps bolster the appearance that conference expansion is also about improving academics in the conference and finding the right fit.

Pitt can obviously sell a lot on the academic side. To wit:

The University of Pittsburgh has been ranked in the very top cluster of the nation’s public research universities in the recently released 2009 edition of The Top American Research Universities. This is the fourth consecutive year that Pitt has earned the highest ranking. Only six other universities were placed in the very top group of public research universities this year—the University of California at Berkeley, the University of California at Los Angeles, the University of Illinois, the University of Michigan, the University of North Carolina, and the University of Wisconsin.

The report clusters universities based on their comparative strength in research, private support, faculty, doctorates, postdoctoral appointees, and undergraduate quality, as assessed across nine objective measures. Reflecting a core belief that “universities of the highest quality tend to do most things very well,” the institutions placed in the top cluster must rank among the top 25 public universities on all nine measures.

(A big hat-tip to SteveG for pointing this out in the comments last week.)

You can find the full 232 page report here (PDF).  The list Pitt cites is on page 16. The next Big East school to show up on that list is Cinci at #26 and then Rutgers at #28.

Keep in mind that that particular list was limited to just public universities. The overall top-25 nationally (page seems to include some different criteria, but Pitt still ranks #25 (the 6th grouping)  in a list that also includes private universities. Still the only Big East school in that list.

That primary list is also a big indicator of just how hard the Pac-10 schools are willing to swallow to get Texas, by taking Oklahoma, OK State and Texas Tech. The Pac-10 has sixschools in the top-50 (Stanford, Cal, UCLA, Washington, USC, and Arizona), and all but Arizona are in the top-15.

Looking over that list if you want to break it down by BCS conferences:

Pac-10: 6

Big 12: 2 (Texas, Texas A&M)

SEC: 2 (Vandy, Florida)

ACC: 4 (Duke, UNC, Virginia, Maryland)

Big 10: 8 (Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, OSU, Northwestern, PSU, Illinois, Purdue plus CIC member Chicago)

Big East: 1

Independents: 1 (ND)

The MWC has no schools on the list. C-USA actually has one: Rice.

In a less rigorous list, there was this article from the Daily Beast that listed Pitt as the 18th most powerful tech college.

Heading out real soon. Taking the family to the ‘Burgh for the Three Rivers Arts Fest, so I’m counting on the conference expansion madness to pause for a day.

Just a few things to mention

The letter from ECU AD Terry Holland to his fanbase is astounding. It is all but an admission that ECU is not going to get a Big East invite anytime soon.

It is my belief that most FBS institutions in the Big East would genuinely like to have a ninth FBS member, but at this time, a ninth member is not an absolute necessity. The desire for a ninth member is not enough of a necessity to disrupt their relationship with the seven non-FBS schools and Notre Dame in all other sports.

If the Big East does still end up losing a FBS member (or members) to expansion in another conference, it will replace that all-sports member or members based on a pre-determined pecking order that addresses the conference’s needs at that particular time. Those needs may range from (1) the best football program available to bolster the Big East’s chances to keep their BCS automatic qualification, (2) the best overall sports program, (3) the best location for travel for all sports, and (4) other perceived needs of the conference membership as a whole.

Replacements for all-sports members in the Big East would have to be approved by all of the remaining members, not just the FBS members. So, if two Big East FBS members are lost to expansion, there would be 14 members remaining in the Big East. Eight of the 14 votes would be institutions which are not playing football in the Big East.

Instead trying to rally the fans to the idea of making C-USA better by getting the remains from the soon to be dead Big 12.

None of this is actually wrong in my view. But the candor is shocking. The best reason I can figure is Holland knows he will be blamed by the fans if they don’t get the invite.

The fact is, every fanbase seems to have an expectation that the AD and the school president can somehow make the case to conferences for them to be picked. If it doesn’t happen, then those leaders failed because of their incompetence — because clearly “School X” is the best fit and choice for “Conference Y” regardless of reality.

Texas and the other four Big 12 South schools will probably announce their move to the Pac-10 sometime Tuesday after the Texas regents meet. My bet is, that the weekend will see a final push by the SEC and Big 10 to Texas to join with them. Unless there is something incredible, I don’t see it happening.

The Big Ten, by all reports will pause at 12, and resume its old timetable plan. Also known as — trying to wear down Notre Dame.

Missouri is still trying to figure out what happened and what is next.

At this point, the Big Ten’s interest in Missouri is the biggest missing piece of the puzzle. A Big Ten source said Missouri has not been eliminated from the conference’s expansion plans but is not considered a high priority at this time. The source said Texas, from the Big 12, and Notre Dame, an independent in football, are clearly alongside each other on the Big Ten’s top tier of targets, followed by Nebraska, soon to become the Big Ten’s 12th member, and then Rutgers, a member of the Big East Conference. Missouri and Maryland, of the Atlantic Coast Conference, and perhaps other less publicized targets, could figure into the mix if the top choices decide against applying for admission or the league expands beyond 14 members.

And, of course, the Big 10/11/12 might do nothing for an even longer time now that it is at 12. They might wait and see if the SEC makes a move that involves poaching from the ACC. If that happens, then the Big East will go the way of the Big 12. Getting teams snagged by the ACC and the Big 10.

But Missouri has never wavered from its roots.

With MU’s future uncertain, Deaton and Forsee shared a tone of conference loyalty, pitching an even stronger case in favor of the Big 12 than Deaton and Athletic Director Mike Alden expressed during last week’s Big 12 athletic directors meetings in Kansas City. While some media outlets in Oklahoma and Texas have portrayed MU as sparking the league’s combustion by flirting with the Big Ten, Forsee pointed to MU’s long history with the conference through all its stages.

“We can’t say it any more strongly than we continue to say it: We have been loyal members of this conference alignment, going back to the Missouri Valley, the configuration of the Big Six, the Big Eight, the Big 12,” he said. “So, there shouldn’t be any question about where we have built our record, where we’ve built our legacy, where we’ve built our fans, where we’ve built everything, including the great rivalries.

“I don’t think we have to justify our loyalty. That’s been in place for 104 years.”

Yeah, but everyone else in the Big 12 thinks that Mizzou has been whining for about 103 years.

In the mean time, head over to Pitt Script and Cardiac Hill (formerly Eye of a Panther) for other expansion stuff and both are on top of the big recruiting gets for Pitt yesterday.

It is just a matter of time. Colorado is already gone. Nebraska should make it official today.

It’s all up to what Texas and Texas A&M do. They still don’t seem to be on the same page.

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You know the real problem for me, with these conference expansion round-ups? It is too easy to lose track of a point that was trying to be made.

There was an actual point to my earlier post and the preamble.

You know, I think I have a vague notion of how this conference expansion, realignment and overall sanity will eventually end. It’s just that the trip there is going to involve a lot of missed exits, detours, mistakes and probably take a lot longer than expected.

So let me make it now.

If you are hoping or thinking that this whole conference insanity will even come close to be sorted out before the end of 2010, you are setting yourself up for a lot of frustration.

There are just too many schools, too many conferences, too many egos, and simply too much money involved for this to fully shake out for some time.

This is part of why I keep putting these expansion round-ups together. To show just how complicated and convoluted the whole process is. To make sure there is some record in a way to show how things are progressing to the eventual end.

If you want Pitt in the ACC, some rejiggered Big Mess (my official name for the idea of combining the Big East football schools with the Big 12 remainders), or Big Whatever — you are going to have to be patient. It is not happening right now.

Like it or not, Pitt is not a major player in this. Pitt is a piece, and has value — more than most in the Big East — but Pitt is not going to be a primary figure for some time.

Right now the major players are the Pac-10/16 and the SEC. There is a tug-of-war for Texas and Texas A&M. That has little to do with Pitt.

The  Big 11/12 is the first force that concerns Pitt, but for them, Pitt is at best a complimentary piece to expansion. A chip to try and coax ND into the conference — as Pitt is their 5th most played opponent (behind USC, Navy, Purdue and Michigan St.).

While Pitt has to wait for what the Big 11/12 does, the moves of the SEC are probably the real key.

What the SEC does is probably more important for Pitt. If the SEC makes moves that either expand their conference to 16 and/or snag some ACC teams, then Pitt truly gets into the expansion game. Pitt would be a top choice for them to replace a lost member and/or to help expand their conference to 16.

The ACC definitely seems disinclined to be proactive at this point, so do not expect some sort of preemptive move on their part.

Best guess, Pitt won’t be making any sort of announcement of leaving the Big East — or some new Big Mess until some time in 2011.

You know, I think I have a vague notion of how this conference expansion, realignment and overall sanity will eventually end. It’s just that the trip there is going to involve a lot of missed exits, detours, mistakes and probably take a lot longer than expected.

As we all know, Nebraska is heading to the Big 11/12. I think the question that most people want answered is: How are they going to tweak their “ten” logo now?

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