It’s Cause and Defect for the Big East

PROVIDENCE, R.I. — On the way to Commissioner Michael Tranghese’s first-floor office at Big East Conference headquarters on Richmond Street, a visitor passes a row of mounted helmets, each representing one of the school’s eight football-playing schools.

That’s right, eight.

For although Miami and Virginia Tech are bolting for the Atlantic Coast Conference next year in what can only be called an audacious, litigious and nearly bloodletting exodus, no one in the Big East has yet taken a one-iron to the lame-duck helmets -- although it should be noted, Tranghese is an excellent golfer.

The Miami-Virginia Tech defections have left the Big East listing and Tranghese scrambling to find replacement schools. This may also explain, at least metaphorically, the grocery store shopping cart parked in the hallway near Tranghese’s door.

Bob, I need a price check on Louisville.

In the growing murkiness of intercollegiate backroom politics, this much is clear:

What happens next in college football -- and basketball -- will have a lot to do with what happens next in the Big East.

“It’s clear to me that the whole ACC-Big East situation created an incredible uproar in college athletics,” Tranghese said in his dimly lighted office, the late-afternoon Providence skyline as his backdrop.

Funny how fast things change. In April, the 59-year-old Tranghese was in his glory after Big East schools Syracuse and Connecticut had won the men’s and women’s basketball titles. In January, Miami had been a play away from winning a second consecutive national title in football.

Tranghese told a friend, “Things are better now in this conference than at any time in my 13 years [as commissioner].”

Less than a month later, the Miami stuff hit the fan.

This was more than two schools leaving one major conference for another.

The Miami-Virginia Tech expansion will resonate for years. It will affect television deals and have a domino effect on conference realignment. It may even kill a conference or two.

The ACC’s almost comic handling of the situation also provided the impetus for non-bowl championship series schools to make their foray against the six major conferences (plus Notre Dame) that run college football.

“It’s too coincidental to ignore,” Tranghese says of the timing.

Led by Tulane President Scott Cowen, presidents of non-BCS schools have used the Big East-ACC mess as evidence that the system needs fixing.

They want a bigger piece of the pie when the BCS contract expires after the 2005 season.

The movement has found traction.

On Sept. 4, the House Judiciary Committee will hold hearings to address possible antitrust violations involving the BCS.

On Sept. 8, leaders of the BCS and non-BCS schools will meet in Chicago to air gripes and grievances.

At issue: The 62 football schools in the major conferences, plus independent Notre Dame, control more than 90% of the television and bowl revenue and the majority of the remaining 54 major college football schools think that’s not fair.

“This is classic cartel behavior,” Bill Greiner, University of Buffalo president, said recently.

Tranghese, in his role as BCS coordinator -- Big 12 Commissioner Kevin Weiberg takes over in 2004 -- says major college commissioners and presidents already were discussing ways to make the system more inclusive for non-BCS schools.

“We met shortly after the Fiesta Bowl to talk about a future model that might better serve everyone,” Tranghese said. “But I think that once this Big East-ACC thing happened, now we have President Cowen and all of his comments. I think it’s stoked the thing up pretty good.”

No one knows how this is going to shake out, but all eyes, for now, are focused on Providence.

Tranghese said several of his employees have not had a day off this year as the Big East sorts through a multitude of issues.

First question: What becomes of the Big East? Its presidents must decide soon whether to stay together under a 16-team umbrella that would have eight football schools on one side and seven basketball-playing schools (plus Notre Dame) on the other.

That would mean adding two schools on the basketball side and two in football.

The other choice is splitting into separate conferences.

“We’ve got to make this decision by early October, I mean separation or stay together,” Tranghese said.

Time is critical because Miami and Virginia Tech opted to leave the Big East in 2004 instead of 2005, leaving Tranghese with significant scheduling problems.

Tranghese maintains that Miami, which originally planned to leave with Boston College and Syracuse, had the right to change leagues, but not the right to hold secret negotiations and deny him the chance to hold his conference together.

“We were never notified by anyone that they were talking,” Tranghese said of Miami’s negotiations with the ACC.

The Big East was left holding the baggage. With Miami and Virginia Tech playing as lame ducks, and Temple getting the boot after 2004, the conference might be renamed the Big Least.

Connecticut, recently upgraded to Division I-A in football, will join the Big East in 2004, instead of 2005, and at least two other schools will have to come from elsewhere in 2005.

Some have called Tranghese a hypocrite for railing against Miami’s defection, knowing he now will have to raid another conference to replace his departed schools.

Louisville and Cincinnati, both members of non-BCS Conference USA, are the likely football candidates, and Marquette and DePaul have been mentioned as basketball additions.

Tranghese said there are big differences. First, he said, conferences have traditionally dipped down to lower-level conferences when seeking to expand. The ACC made a lateral snag from a comparably strong conference.

Ironically, this is arguably the best the Big East has ever been in football, with three schools ranked in the top 10: Miami, Virginia Tech and Pittsburgh.

And, unlike the way the ACC conducted negotiations, Tranghese said, he is in constant contact with conferences that may be affected by Big East expansion.

“I’ve had 25 phone conversations with [Conference USA Commissioner] Brit Banowsky,” Tranghese said. “He knows every single thing we’re talking about. I’ve shared every single thing. He knows it. It’s allowed him to sit there and calculate and evaluate. You can’t do any more than that. I never got those calls.”

What the Big East does will have an impact on others. Conference USA appears ripe for plucking, and the Mountain West Conference, looking to sell itself as BCS-ready, recently lifted a moratorium on expansion and may be eyeing Fresno State and Hawaii from the Western Athletic Conference.

With Miami and Virginia Tech on the move, the Big East’s BCS status also is vulnerable. Champions of the six BCS conferences -- Pacific 10, Big Ten, Big 12, ACC, Big East and Southeastern -- receive automatic bids to one of four lucrative BCS bowl games, the Fiesta, Rose, Orange and Sugar. Schools from non-BCS conferences can gain access to a BCS game only by finishing sixth or better in the BCS rankings.

Tranghese thinks his conference’s BCS status is legally protected through the 2005 season, meaning lowly Rutgers could win a title in the watered-down league next year and go to a major bowl game.

The Big East’s long-term status is tenuous.

“We’ve got to play, and we’ve got to win,” Tranghese admitted. “You know, people want me to tell them what’s going to happen. I say to them, ‘How the hell do I know?’ ”

As BCS coordinator through this season, Tranghese said he does not feel threatened by the current movement to overhaul the system.

He says the BCS was formed in 1998 only in an effort to match the top two teams for the national title every season, that route having been blocked for years because the Pac-10 and Big Ten champions were contractually bound to the Rose Bowl.

“The BCS has become a target,” Tranghese said.

Before the BCS, conferences made their own deals with bowls and television networks.

From 1978 to 1998, the year the BCS was formed, 159 of the 160 schools that played in the Rose, Orange, Sugar and Fiesta bowls came from the six major conferences.

Tranghese argues that the BCS is more inclusive because it allows non-BCS schools access to major bowls and it shares revenue. “We are not in violation of antitrust laws,” he said.

Tranghese even floated the idea of disbanding the BCS.

What happens then?

“The Big Ten and Pac-10 will go to the Rose Bowl, the rest of us will go play major bowls and TV will pay significantly less money,” Tranghese said. “Who gains from that?”

The non-BCS movement, led by Cowen and a “Coalition for Athletics Reform,” wants college football to move toward a playoff system that would include the five non-BCS conferences.

BCS presidents, however, adamantly oppose an “NFL-playoff” format. Tranghese agrees that there is no sentiment for a full-blown playoff, especially in light of last year’s sensational Fiesta Bowl title game between Miami and Ohio State.

“Clearly, the Pac-10 and Big Ten position is well-known,” Tranghese said. “If there’s a playoff, the Big Ten and Pac-10 are leaving and they’re going to go play in the Rose Bowl.”

Some in the BCS feel the non-BCS schools are using the chaos to leverage a better deal as contract negotiations begin next year.

It just might work too, although Tranghese said the BCS has always been willing to listen.

“We invited the [non-BCS] conferences in and said, ‘Give us your ideas,’ ” he said. “Interestingly, no one had any ideas. They just said, ‘We want to be in and we want more money.’ ”

There is no doubt the face of college football is going to change.

But, as Tranghese said, “The devil is always in the details.”