Schasz Posted October 14, 2003 Share Posted October 14, 2003 According to a story in today's Tampa Tribune, USF expects to get an invite (see link). http://bulls.tbo.com/bulls/MGARXN1BRLD.html Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kwyjibo Posted October 14, 2003 Share Posted October 14, 2003 The weirdest part of all this is that the Big East is kicking out a football member (with an excellent basketball program) in 2005--Temple. They are not great but this expansion into Florida seems ill thought out (both UCF and USF?). I know Villanova does not want to bring Temple (up to their psychic level)--you may have read about the big scheduling feud this year where Nova tried to "big time" their way out of playing Temple--but expanding thousands of miles for other teams seems like classic "grass is greener on the other side of the continent thinking". Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jjray Posted October 14, 2003 Share Posted October 14, 2003 Agree with your point kwyjibo. As the overall level of play of the remaining BE football programs continues to tumble, one has to wonder why they are kicking out Temple. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gister Posted October 14, 2003 Share Posted October 14, 2003 Was Temple only in the Big East for football? Aren't they part of the A10 in basketball? The feud between Villanova and Temple may be one reason Temple would not be accepted for both basketball and football. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kwyjibo Posted October 14, 2003 Share Posted October 14, 2003 Right. Temple is only in the Big East for football. They are not very good but could be better than some of the new invites (they played Cincy and lost in triple OT) if it were not for the Philly turf battle with Villanova. As an aside, I think all these conference discussions mix up potential markets and actual markets (although this works to SLU's advantage usually). While it is nice to claim the whole of St. Louis as "the media market" for SLU it does compete for the scarce attention of St. Louis residents. Its nice to say that A-10 has a share of the New York City market in Fordham but a tiny percentage of a big market is not always greater than a huge share of a small market. The point is to look more closely at "actual interest" (attendence, media measures, etc.) rather than focus exclusively on "potential markets". This is why conferences do not like to have two teams in the same media market because they tend not to look very carefully at the share of attention that each team generates (it is possible that the addition of Temple would generate more actual interest than a team like UCF as a football only member in the Big East--I have no numbers on this just saying that the crude market size analysis is very limited). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thetorch Posted October 15, 2003 Share Posted October 15, 2003 Temple would never get in the big Least for BBall. Their football program is unstable, they are always considering dumping it. When the Bill Cosby money runs out it will no longer be viable. The SF and CF thing is moronic to me. There has been a growing theory that just because SF and CF are in Florida that they one day will have dominat football programs, on par with FSU, Miami, Florida. This is ridiculous, UCF would be a joke in a major conference, and SF is even worse. These two schools are talking their way into the bigtime, and Big Least members foolishly believe that just playing a team in Florida will get them florida recruits. SF in the Big Least will be a perrennial bottom feeder. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Schasz Posted October 15, 2003 Author Share Posted October 15, 2003 Torch, I won't try and argue the merits of USF football because I know what big time college football is, and it is not USF...it's also not Louisville or Cincy. Having said that there are a number of the USF fans that believe the program will be big time in the very near term. I can tell you for sure that they do have one of the finest young HC's in college football in Jim Leavitt. He was strongly in the running for the Bama job before the ill fated Mike Price hire. There are some worried people at USF now as he has not signed his contract extension and the FL Gators have a HC in Ron Zook that many of their backers feel was a big mistake. If the Gator job opens then look for Jim Leavitt's name to be high on the list. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheA_Bomb Posted October 15, 2003 Share Posted October 15, 2003 USF is the largest school in Florida which produces the most football talent of any state in the country. They are building a new football complex and have a very good HC. It is not far fetched to think they could be a top 25 program. UofL is decent in football. They have had some of the best quarterbacks in the NCAA in the past few years. They also have a good young HC Petrino. Neither of these programs are on par with VT or Miami no where close at the current time. Big Least Football without these two is only slightly better than CUSA. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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