DAYTON (OH) -- The college footprint is changing. Fast. And it’s all about football.
The temperature in the room turned up this weekend when Big East members Syracuse and Pittsburgh accepted an invitation to the ACC. The latest rumors focus on UConn and Rutgers joining the same conference, leaving the Big East in a dilapidated condition of potential football irrelevance. With only Louisville, Cincinnati, West Virginia, and South Florida left to score touchdowns, the conference is in jeopardy of becoming the Big Least and out of the BCS discussion entirely.
This isn’t where the dominoes started falling however and the current events are mere aftershocks of what’s happened in the prior weeks and months. Who started the chain of events that’s touched nearly every BCS conference in the country? Your honor, I call the University of Texas to the stand.
After reaching a deal with ESPN to launch The Longhorn Network, the Big 12 took exception to the entitlement posture of Bevo and the Burnt Orange. Texas was looking after Texas, and doing it in manner that put the rest of the Big 12 in a state of weakened competitiveness. While most conferences share revenue, TV contracts, and marketing rights equally among all members, the Horns were out to hook dollars go national. No other league members had exclusive TV deals, and no other Big 12 institutions felt the need to have one.
They say everything is bigger in the state of Texas. Perhaps not the contrition to salvage the animosity of Big 12 members throwing rose petals at the feet of UT’s Texas-sized ego?
Nebraska and Colorado saw the writing on the wall and jumped ship with all options still available. The Buffs went to the newly-designated PAC-12 with Mountain West member Utah, while the Huskers joined the Big-10 to balance the conference at 12 members.
Just recently, Texas A&M threw in the Big-12 towel as well. A long-time Longhorn rival with a little-brother complex as large as Dayton’s, they floored the accelerator and took the first viable Big-12 off-ramp they could find. Apparently headed to the SEC, the Aggies leave behind all sorts of long-standing ties dating back to the Southwest Conference. Yell Practice was a Texas Longhorn rebuttal, later adopted into a generic tradition for all football foes. The Aggies splitting with Texas is like UD splitting with
Xavier. Average Texans are still trying to wrap brain cells around it.
The trickle-down effect finally reached the Big East last week when the aforementioned institutions bailed as well. The Cuse, a charter member of the Big East, leaves behind just as many long-standing ties as Texas A&M. Alongside Pitt, these schools are chasing the same thing Nebraska, Colorado, and A&M are.
How’s it feel to be the athletic director at TCU right now? The Horned Frogs reconciled the barbaric geographical hurdle with the payoff of millions inside the Big East. When this is all over, they may enter a league worse off than the one they left.
It’s all about the cabbage and football is turning college athletics into a prime-time, shallow-puddled farce that aims to stampede and stomp out everyone and everything in its path.
Here’s where the story really twist and turns.
While college football is re-shuffling the deck chairs, college basketball remains just as narcissistic. One day, Dayton’s conference future might rest upon the shoulders of other basketball-only institutions too self-absorbed and money-hungry to leave the financial dependence of BCS football within their own league. For those keeping score, who’s more close-fisted? A football school seeking better football alignment, or the basketball school willing to prostitute their power and influence for football cash?
That’s where the current basketball schools of the Big East find themselves. For the last two decades, they have exerted zero influence at the bargaining table in exchange for a share of the money earned from BCS football institutions of the Big East. The Big East expanded in the early 1990s to include Notre Dame, Miami, FL, and Virginia Tech. Aside from Notre Dame’s non-football membership, the Canes and Hokies were added to bolster football and football only. In 2005, Cincinnati, Louisville, and South Florida were added to meet the requirements for a BCS automatic bid. Marquette and DePaul were merely bonuses swept up in the expansion process.
A few years ago, Big East members Boston College, Virginia Tech, and Miami left for the riches and stability of the ACC, along with the prospects of an ACC Championship Game. The Hokies were a full member of the Big East for just five seasons (2000-2004).
The common thread in everything is the almighty dollar and don’t be fooled into thinking the basketball schools of the Big East are ready and willing to separate themselves from the cash pile of BCS football. While they have acted as pawns to football re-alignment, they have eaten at the trough of football’s riches and are probably better off for it – at least on the hardwood. The dollars of BCS conferences like the Big East make the A10 budget look like the dollar menu at McDonald’s. Any step away from BCS money will be viewed as a step back by the eight basketball schools in the Big East.
What will Marquette, DePaul, Providence, Georgetown, Seton Hall, St. John’s, Villanova, and Notre Dame do? Whatever is in their best interest, and those interests will be as self-serving and financially bent as the motives and actions of departed football members. We only know what we can chart as a pattern of behavior over time. The Big East basketball schools have found long-term comfort in trading power for money. Until we see a departure from that institutional posture, there’s no reason to believe it will change any time soon.
Dayton does not control its own destiny in the same way the Big East basketball members do. The Flyers are powerless to choose the drop zone and only powerful enough to pull the chute and cushion the fall. As it stands in the A10, the league seems unaffected at the moment. The league might encounter residual blowback by dropping in stature when compared to the 16-team mega-conferences, but Dayton remains safe in the A10 as long as the A10 remains untouched.
Are Dayton and Xavier inseparable objects in the universe? Both schools will go to bat for one another, but neither school would turn down a chance to dramatically improve their profile if it meant leaving the other behind.
Former UD athletic director
Ted Kissell once told me when the nationwide conference shakeup finally happens, schools will ultimately look out for themselves and Dayton must be in a strong enough position to command consideration in a new league without the crutch of a confidante. As Kissell steered Dayton into the A10 after two nightmarish seasons in the Great Midwest Conference (his first order of business after taking over for Tom Frericks), he stressed that Dayton had traded credibility of their fan base and NIT championships of the 1960s for the last time. If UD found themselves in the same position years ahead, the Flyers would have to stand or fall on the current strength of the athletic department.
Ted was a great leader and always had his finger on the pulse of college athletics. He met with leaders from other catholic universities and took part in casual discussions about the state of college athletics, conference alignment, and the potential fallout that could place schools like UD in a new context.
When I asked him about the things that would make Dayton’s profile most attractive, he was matter-of-fact about it. The men’s basketball program had to be top-notch. But UD worked under the presumption that all schools fighting for position would have a strong basketball program. Dayton needed a trump card to separate themselves from other schools and that came in the form of improving UD’s Olympic sports. With a greater emphasis on Title IX, and Notre Dame’s high priority on non-profit sports like soccer, volleyball, and baseball, strong D-I schools would seek other schools with a broad-based commitment to all sports. In short, basketball would get UD a seat the table. The entire health of the athletic department would make Dayton stand out from the crowd. The Flyers needed both and the bet was some schools would not make the same commitment.
Kissell and the athletic department transformed a quasi Division-II enterprise in 1995 into the strongest overall athletic department in the A10 by 2010. Dayton has been nationally competitive and conference-contending in many team sports, along with several national achievements in individual sports like Track & Field.
Add the academic renaissance over the last 15 years – aided in major part to the contribution of President Curran – and UD is attractive to a conference when taken as an entire product. Dayton has gone from a regional university to a national university ranked just outside the Top-100.
Dayton is now a major research university in the Midwest with high level graduate coursework. The campus footprint has nearly doubled in size with the land grab and purchase of the former NCR world headquarters. The pending relationship with General Electric is worth millions. The UDRI is highly recognized and UD’s close relationship with technology companies and WPAFB make the university the kind of member that brings the entire package – not that 13,000 fans at the basketball game means less than it ever did.
Ironically, what UD lacks is what UD put the largest priority on: a postseason basketball program capable of reaching the NCAAs four of every six seasons -- including a Sweet-16. The annual A10 derailments have been much publicized. Dayton must bear that cross and do better. It’s a good thing UD is so well-positioned elsewhere at the university, otherwise basketball STILL might not be enough.
Like Ted Kissell,
Tim Wabler is capable and ready to act when needed. He’s a UD grad and worked closely with Ted during all the major upgrades and improvements. Like the fans, he’s smart enough to know other objects in the universe must change course before Dayton is called upon to act. Much of the work is keeping a close ear to the ground and creating contingencies. Then we wait.
As the conference landscape continues to shake out, the Big East remains a focal point for non-basketball schools throughout the country. Until those eight institutions choose full control and autonomy over the Benjamin pile of BCS football, very little trickles down to Dayton or the A10.
In the short term, that’s not a bad thing. The A10 has been good to Dayton and the university has improved the league as much as any league member – while covering the most ground to do it. I believe UD is content in the A10 as long as the changing landscape does not water down the league to UD’s detriment. If and when that room temperature changes, Dayton will be forced to act.
Whether that means joining a mythical Holy Alliance of 12-14 private institutions like fans have been dreaming remains to be seen. Based on what we know, it may not be UD’s choice to make. That falls upon the shoulders of the Big East basketball schools and whether they reach a point where pride and prejudice no longer has a price. Where they go and what they do, others will follow.