Worth discussing

Ok, so there is something out there I do feel like talking about a little bit. First H/T to iBlog For Cookies for starting this discussion, and College Football Resource for continuing it. Now I'm not bringing this up because the Big East was somewhat left out of the discussion, rather because I think the new 12 game schedule is hurting Big East teams considerably more than those from the top five conferences.

The subject (yeah, I need to get to that at some point) is the scheduling of 1-AA opponents. By their count, there will be 74 games between 1-A and 1-AA teams this year. I won't whine about the teams that left the Big East for the ACC, because if WV would have been asked to go to the ACC, we would have jumped on it in a heartbeat. Be honest with yourselves Mountaineer fans, we would have told every team that didn't get invited to stick it! But we didn't, and we are left to deal with the problem of being in a 8 team football conference that is loosing, or lost annual meetings with respectable programs like Va. Tech and Maryland. We have future home-and-home games with Auburn and Michigan St., but those are not set up to be annual meetings, so we will have to continually look for opponents to fill our schedule.

1-A Buffalo backed out of our game this year to take an ass kicking of monumental proportions at Auburn. As well as Central Florida backing out at the last minute last year. Both had to be replaced with 1-AA opponenets. Well, I suppose we could have found a 1-A team that would host a game, but given that contract talks are still in a stalemate between WV and Coach Rod, the loss of home game money is just out of the question.

Possible solutions are few, and not very appealing. The addition of a 9th Big East football team would most likely not be a top program. We would be looking at East Carolina, Memphis, UCF, Navy, or something along those lines. And I really mean it when I say "no offense to those teams", but they don't bring anything to the table that a Penn St., Maryland, or Notre Dame could bring. The other alternative would be to have the NCAA step in and dictate how many games a 1-A team could play against a 1-AA team over say a 5 year period. That's a Pandora's Box I would rather not open. In my mind, the NCAA only does two things well: 1. Fuck Up, and 2. Deny any wrong doing!

There aren't any simple solutions. Just a few pipe dreams of being asked to join the Big 10/11/12, or one of the three dream teams I mentioned above joining the Big East.