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In move that has been months in the making the Big East is expected to formally announce plans for expansion tomorrow. This according to Brett McMurphy of CBS Sports, the relevant passage.

Boise State and San Diego State will join the Big East as football-only members, while Houston, SMU and UCF will join as all-sport members.

With the addition of those five schools - minus the departures of West Virginia, Pittsburgh and Syracuse - the Big East will have 10 football members.

With those five schools on board, Navy is expected to join as a football-only member - possibly as soon as next week - to boost the football membership to 11 schools.

The Big East hopes to add Air Force as its 12th football school - as a football-only member - but the Falcons still remain undecided.

If the Big East can not get Air Force, Temple would be a likely candidate to become the Big East's 12th member.

The new schools are to start participating in 2013. While the coast to coast nature of the conference and the inclusion of some largest media markets in the country will almost certainly help the cause for the next TV contract. I would expect a contract in the vicinity of the 130 or so million per year offered by ESPN and turned down by the Big East in the Spring. That being said I have a feeling that adding Boise State and Co. won't be enough to secure AQ status going forward.

I am also not a huge fan of the prospects of trips to Idaho and California which are almost certain to be on the docket for UC as one of the western outposts of the current Big East crop.

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Well that took about 5 weeks longer than it should have, but invitations have been extended. In the Big East's version of Sophies Choice everyone that is still in the boat is sure to be left with sub optimal options. Here is the official quote from John Marinatto.

Big East presidents voted unanimously today to "extend invitations to specific institutions, including both football-only and all-sports members,'' according to league commissioner John Marinatto, with Houston, SMU and Central Florida receiving the first official requests to join, according to a leading college official.

Those three schools will be invited in all sports. And as is common knowledge by this point Navy, Air Force and Boise State are the three prime choices to join the Big East in a Football only. Responses from from the southern schools is expected to come relatively quickly. But it is going to take time for the Football only invitees to accept. Air Force and Navy being public institutions in every sense of the word have more hurdles to clear than your average run of the mill college.

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I am not going to spend much time with an intro here. I thought about live blogging this, but the gobearcats.com feed really sucked so I held off a minute. If you want to watch it in its entirety the link to the press conference is here. It's 32 minutes long but nothing happens until 13minutes in.

President Williams

* At the start of the search Whit Babcock was a name that continually came up

* Used the phrase rising star at least twice in regards to Babcock

* Views the appointment of Babcock as a launching point for a new era of UC sports.

* Jumped straight to Babcocks extensive fund raising credentials, which was of course the biggest knock for Mike Thomas

* This is certainly fuel to the fire to those that believe that Mike Thomas was told by Williams to find a job soon because he wasn't keeping this one.

* Several members of the Missouri Athletic Department flew in for the press conference

* Has "absolute" confidence in Whit Babcock

Continue reading this post »

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The search for an Athletic Director is over. Whit Babcock currently the Associate Athletic Director at the University of Missouri. The AD's office has been vacant since Mike Thomas left the post for the University of Illinois leaving behind legions of happy fans and Athletic Department employees. Here are the money passages from the UC press release.

"Whit comes highly recommended as an energetic leader and rising star in collegiate sports," Williams said. "He is a person who will build on the excellence of the Bearcat sports and take UC's athletics program into a dynamic future. I am counting on him to carry forward our successful programs for our student athletes, both on and off the field."

And from the man himself.

"I am honored and humbled to become a part of the University of Cincinnati family," Babcock said.  "I'm excited to get started as soon as possible and look forward to meeting our student-athletes, coaches, and fans along with the entire UC community.  I'd like to thank President Williams for this tremendous opportunity.  Cincinnati is certainly a program on the rise and can compete successfully academically and athletically on a national stage."

Some people are already reading too much into this announcement as it pertains to UC's chances of getting to the Big 12. Those particular cards are already on the table, the Big 12 just has to decide whether or not to pick them up. Babcock's hiring will have no impact one way or the other.

The news that TCU is heading for the Big 12 basically cratered half of UC's plans in regards to conference expansion. The UC administration is insisting that the preference is for UC to stay in the Big East, but that they are "fully engaged" in conference realignment. If that sounds like a bullshit, lawyeresque non statement to you, congratulations, you are absolutely right. It's not that hard to read between the lines. Basically UC is fully committed to the Big East but is also imminently aware that the Big East may very well not be a viable home for the Bearcats Football program, or any program if they carry through with the idea of casting off the Football playing members once and for all. UC has prepared for that eventuality and has all its cards on the table with the Big 12. It remains to be seen if that is enough to garner an invite. But there are a couple of things to keep an eye on. One is still Missouri which, as of today, doesn't have the 9 required votes to be invited to the SEC. The other is the rumor that BYU is no longer under consideration, the voracity of the claim is still unproven. And finally the last thing to note is the Big 12 is reportedly undecided whether 10 or 12 is the ideal number. I have no idea what you, as a UC fan, should be wanting to happen. No idea at all. My best guess would be that Missouri getting the SEC invite and for the Big 12 to go to 12 once more would increase the chances of the University of Cincinnati getting the call from the Big 12. But I can't even begin to assign a confidence interval to that scenario.

P.S. The Big East has still not released a statement on TCU taking up with the Big 12

[Silvio rises from his bed. It is a lovely Thursday morning, and he is up and at it at the crack of 11]

Silvio:" What a wonderful morning. I think I will celebrate this occasion with a mini Bunga-Bunga party. Paulo!!!"

[Paulo enters the prime ministers bed chamber at a trot]

Paulo: Yes boss

Silivio: Round up some of the usual girls, I think it's time to celebrate

Paulo: Uh boss, pardon me, but what exactly are we celebrating? You are still on trial for your last Bunga-Bunga party and your approval rating is at an all time low.

Silvio: Ah yes. All of that is true, but don't you know that I live a double life?

Paulo: What Boss

Silvio: Yeah I am prime minister in my spare time and in my other spare time I run a middling American College Conference

Paulo: What

Silviio: Yeah, apparently its the only job that an italian can do properly in America.

Continue reading this post »

The implications of this are terrible for the University of Cincinnati on both fronts. TCU's defection from the Big East weakens the hand of the Big East substantially. The only way for the conference to survive is to basically become Conference USA 2.0, which is needless to say not exactly the best of all worlds. On the other side of things this could be the death knell for the UC to the Big 12 line of thought. There are finite spots available in a new look Big 12, and it still really all depends on Missouri. If the Tigers stay the indications are that the Big 12 will be happy to use TCU to replace Texas A&M and stay at 12. If Mizzou goes the theory is that they will add three to get back to 12. For the record, Mizzou was not invited to vote, a move that all but calcifies the divorce. So three more schools will be getting the call from Chuck Nienas and the names that consistently come up are Brigham Young, Louisville, and West Virginia. UC falls into line after that group in almost every single report on the matter. There has been a ton of speculation that UofL has pushed behind the scenes for WVU and UC to be brought in as a package deal. From all I have heard that is true. But no one is really in a position of power sufficient to dictate terms other than the Big 12. So if the Big 12 decides that they want the Cards and Neers, but not UC, neither of them will turn down the offer to bring things along. My reading of the situation is that the only way UC gets the call is if BYU declines the offer, which is unlikely to happen, so yeah. Welcome back to Conference USA Bearcat Fans.

Statements to the press in this era of 24/7 media saturation are kind of pointless. If you, like me, spent any amount of time tonight to following twitter in search for news about the Missouri Curators meeting tonight you were treated to one of the great anti climaxes of recent sports journalism history. Four hours of build up for Mizzou to basically say "uh, we are going to do what's in our best interests." So Missouri is going to "explore it's options" the phrasing alone implies that Missouri has options (read SEC). To put this all in context there is this, which of course leads to this.

I said Sunday that the next move in the long drawn out saga is for Missouri to make up their mind to stay with the Big 12 or move on to richer, more geologically stable pastures of the SEC. And as the smoke clears Missouri is still the university to watch. Tonight's circus wasn't a guarantee of movement to one or the other. But...all signs point to Missouri heading to the SEC. 

What does this all mean for UC. It's hard to tell, because it depends an awful lot on how the Big 12 retaliates to getting two schools poached in a month. My guess would be that the odds of the Big 12 adding two schools to get back to 10 went down and the odds of going 12 went up. Obviously it is better for the Big 12 to open up more spots because UC despite manifest attractions has never been mentioned at the top of the list. One thing I do know is that this story is going to run for a few more weeks because Missouri "doesn't have a time table." Should be a fun month no?