The landscape of college football was supposed to change in 2013 as the Big East would become the first truly continental conference with teams from the Pacific to the Atlantic. However, recent reports have made it clear that Boise State is unlikely to complete that move in favor of staying in the Mountain West. Why?
Well, for starters they would only gain automatic access to the BCS for the 2013 season as the Big East would lose it's automatic status with the creation of the new playoff system in 2014, so why incur crazy costs of traveling from Boise, ID to Storrs, CT just to have the same access you currently have. Same could be said of San Diego State, who was scheduled to leave the Mountain West for the Big East next year as well.
The only hold up in moving back west? It could be the fact that both schools are already on the Big East schedule and redoing that could be an issue. However, that may not be BSU and SDSU's problems. In the end the Broncos and Aztecs are expected to make the move back to their old home of the Mountain West relatively soon.
According to the report they are quoting sources as saying "it's not a matter of if, but when," for the Broncos. That move is expected to then fall the domino of San Diego State's move back to the west coast.
Of course television money has a lot to do with the thoughts of Boise State staying in the Mountain West as the Big East can not offer a stable television package to it's membership because it's still very much in flux. The Mountain West on the other hand is in a position, especially with Boise State in it's fold, to find a few lucrative TV deals that should give it more money than the Big East could offer to it's membership.
Just one question in all of this though, can we just call this new round of rumors de-realignment? After all it's becoming a case of what's old is new again with these latest moves.
I mean take a look at what the new Big East will look like. The only members of the new conference in 2013 that haven't been members of Conference-USA at one point or another are Rutgers (leaving for the B1G in 2014), UConn, and Temple. They'll add some more teams that give it a C-USA feel in 2014 and 2015, so can we just have them rename the conference? Especially since the "Catholic 7" schools are leaving the Big East behind? Maybe someone can buy out the Conference-USA name?
Hey, I'm not saying… I'm just sayin, ya know? Then you take a look at the Mountain West conference moving forward and tell me how that's not the WAC we all knew and loved back in the day.
All of this movement and rethinking of movement just goes to show you that despite the more things change, the more they really stay the same and with these recent developments that's highlighted even more than before.
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