Consolidation. Improved “stability.” An “exciting new venture.” Sure, it sounds like the spin the military might put on the latest budget cuts, but it’s actually the spin the Mountain West Conference is putting on the latest college-conference shakeup: A merger of schools from the MWC and Conference USA to create an as-yet-unnamed superconference starting in 2013. Air Force will be a charter member of the new league, which is slated to have 16 football teams in its first season. According to the release, the superconference will look to expand to 18-24 teams and will be the first to set up…
Browsing: Conference Realignment
During the Jan. 24 teleconference that welcomed Navy football into the Big East starting in 2015, conference commissioner John Marinatto was pretty clear: “I’m not done with regard to our expansion efforts.” Less than a month later, he’s apparently made good. Multiple reports, including one from USA Today, have Memphis joining the conference in all sports as of 2013. If the rest of the conferences’ arrivals and departures go off as scheduled, Navy will enter a 12-team football league, likely split into two to-be-determined divisions, in 2015. Memphis leaves Conference USA to join the Big East, creating a reunion of…
Well, we knew it was coming eventually. But if reports from two major sports news outlets are accurate, the Naval Academy will make it official soon, joining the Big East as a football-only member in 2015. Both CBSSports.com and ESPN.com are reporting an announcement is imminent; CBS says it’ll come Tuesday. The move would give the Big East 11 football members for the 2015 season and be the latest in a series of shakeups: By the time Navy joins up, Pitt, Syracuse and West Virginia will be out and Boise State, Houston, Southern Methodist, Central Florida and San Diego State…
As the rumblings of Navy and Air Force joining the Big East as football-only members become more than rumblings, some fans might wonder why Army has been the odd service academy out. Why wouldn’t the Black Knights want to become a football-only member of a conference without a regional identity? Well, it didn’t work last time. Army finished 10-2 in 1996, with a 10-1 regular-season record tarnished only by a road loss to Syracuse and an up-and-coming Chunky soup spokesman. The next year, the Black Knights announced they’d begin play in Conference USA in 1998. From 1998 to 2004, the…
The insanity of conference realignment in college football may have reached its peak last week when reports named Army, Navy and Air Force as possible future members of the Big East. The scenario had the service academies joining the conference as football-only members. It allows the Big East to fill vacant spots left by the bolting of Pittsburgh and Syracuse (as well as turncoat TCU, and probably Connecticut and West Virginia too), and gave the service academies a coveted spot in a BCS conference. In any other year, the idea of the service academies playing football in a major conference would sound…
