They’ve gotten so good at these meetings, the participants barely leave the airport. Off the plane, through the terminal, into a nearby hotel conference room. Back home by nighttime.

Entangled in a summer of lengthy decisions and tedious meetings, the remaining Big East athletic directors and school presidents can laugh that at least one thing is quick and easy.

‘The security guards at the Newark airport were calling me by my first name last time,’ Syracuse Director of Athletics Jake Crouthamel deadpanned. ‘They’d seen me so many times.’

Newark, it seems, has become a favorite meeting spot. Crouthamel traveled there in early July and again in early August. Both times, he joined a select group of conference officials to debate, discuss and debate again the future of a league that lost two of its most important members – Miami and Virginia Tech – to the Atlantic Coast Conference earlier this summer.

With those departures, the 12 remaining Big East member schools are struggling against an uncertain future. And for the 25th anniversary of the conference they helped build, league pioneers like Crouthamel are stuck in hotel conference rooms deciding how to keep it from collapsing.

‘We’ve had 10 or 12 conference calls already,’ Crouthamel said, ‘and five or six meetings. With more to come.’

By October, the Big East hopes to know its fate. Until then, several options are under consideration. The conference might divide into two smaller leagues – one consisting only of the football-playing schools (Boston College, Connecticut, Pittsburgh, Rutgers, Syracuse and West Virginia), the other including the non-football schools (Georgetown, Providence, Seton Hall, St. John’s and Villanova). In this scenario, Notre Dame would likely retain its independence in football but remain aligned with the six football schools for other sports.

The Big East might instead retain its current structure, and simply add two, four, six or eight more teams. When Miami and Virginia Tech originally defected to the ACC, most observers assumed the league would settle for this plan. But since then, some within the conference have mused that a 16-team (or even a 14-team) conference might be too big. Crouthamel, in fact, said yesterday that he believed any conference with more than 12 members to be oversaturated.

‘That’s the first question that has to be answered,’ Big East commissioner Mike Tranghese said at last month’s league media day. ‘Are we going to move ahead collectively as 12-plus? Or are our members going to elect to separate and move forward as two separate conferences? That’s what our presidents are looking at right now.’

The July meeting consisted of athletic directors and school presidents from the football schools only. During that meeting, they took at least one definitive step: They decided that UConn, a burgeoning Division I-A football program, will join the league a year earlier than expected – 2004 rather than 2005.

In the process, though, representatives from the football schools pinpointed some distinct differences between their interests and those of their non-football counterparts. In general, football-playing schools produce more revenue and gain more exposure. The difference is so stark that it makes coexistence a challenge.

‘With football,’ Crouthamel said, ‘it creates a national presence. It’s not just revenue. It enables you to recruit a little better, and there’s a carry-over. Ask Jim Boeheim how much the football program helps his recruiting.’

Said Nick Carparelli Jr., the Big East’s associate commissioner for football: ‘Schools with football have much larger athletic budgets than those that don’t. Those schools have more money to upgrade their facilities – facilities that are available to all student-athletes. So there’s a trickle-down effect that helps all other programs.’

Many athletic directors, especially those from the non-football schools, would prefer to keep the Big East intact. That’s because the NCAA will not issue automatic bids to a league unless it has six teams that have played together for five years or more. If the non-football schools split, they won’t meet those requirements initially.

‘Our goal all along has been to value and to continue to value the relationships we have with all the Big East schools,’ Seton Hall athletic director Jeff Fogelson said last month. ‘I think our primary goal is to continue those relationships, but I acknowledge it might not be possible.’

Whatever form the remaining six Big East football schools take – either in a small, newly-formed conference or a large, newly-solidified conference – they’ll be forced to add at least two new teams. That, Crouthamel said, might be the only absolute in this whole matter.

In 2005, a new rule goes into effect requiring all football conferences to carry at least eight members. So essentially, the Big East cannot survive in its current state.

Though the Hokies and Hurricanes will play one more season in the Big East before departing for warmer climates, speculation about their replacements has already begun. Several schools currently playing in Conference USA – most notably, Louisville and Cincinnati – have been mentioned prominently as possible replacements.

‘There are no other Miami [caliber teams] out there,’ Tranghese said. ‘We have to find programs with potential, programs that can come in and be competitive.’

Tranghese told the media day crowd at Giants Stadium in East Rutherford, N.J., that if the league split between football schools and non-football schools, he’d quit. ‘I just couldn’t operate that way,’ he said.

As the Big East members ponder their next step, they have at least one nugget of consolation. The current BCS (Bowl Championship Series) contract expires at the conclusion of the 2005-06 football season, and until then, the Big East’s position as a BCS league is secure.

Therefore, sans football powerhouses Miami and Virginia Tech, opportunities at a substantial bowl – and substantial revenue – will beckon for the remaining Big East football members. The Big East has no assurances that its BCS contract will be renewed, yet Tranghese expressed optimism that a league representing markets such as Boston and New York City will always be desirable.

Question is, will the Big East always be desirable for Syracuse? When news of the ACC’s expansion first surfaced, both Syracuse and Boston College voiced a desire to join Miami and depart the Big East. Once Virginia Tech replaced SU and BC in an 11th-hour swap, the Orangemen and Eagles were forced to retreat into the conference they’d tried to leave.

‘We stated very publicly that whatever Miami did, if given the opportunity to follow them, we would,’ Crouthamel said.

‘But if the Big East isn’t where we wanted to be, we would have been searching for another conference proactively.’

Crouthamel was then asked what he’d do if another conference extended an invitation to Syracuse. He paused for several seconds.

‘Right now,’ he said, ‘we have no alternatives to consider.’

Published on August 26, 2003 at 12:00 pm