With Boise State In Tow, Big East Should Turn Attention to BYU
By Kyle Kensing
Boise State made like a procrastinating undergrad with its Mountain West departure and held out to the last moment. The crown jewel of the refurbished Big East is indeed aboard, flirtations with its present conference proving toothless. BSU was an absolutely essential piece for the Big East to maintain whatever relevance it currently has beyond the 2012 season. But merely holding onto a rather low bar is not enough.
The next move for the Big East must be attracting BYU to join the fold.
Now, Brigham Young reportedly passed on an opportunity to join the conference when the Big East began its own version of Manifest Destiny last autumn. However, seven months is a veritable eternity in the ever-changing world that is conference realignment. When the Big East’s courtship of western programs began in November, a playoff was fodder for barstool debate. Today, it’s reality.
That might make the Big East seem an even less attractive option for BYU, given the carrot of an automatic BCS bid can no longer be dangled. However, the new format lends itself to even more exclusivity, dropping the number of elite from 10 teams to four. The tournament has no restrictions on conferences, rather dictating the worthy participants by resume.
A problem independence poses BYU is filling its late season schedule. Whereas a Notre Dame has longstanding rivalries forged that allow it to play power conference opponents in November, BYU faces Idaho, San Jose State and New Mexico State. Piquing the selection committee’s interest with that slate just isn’t feasible. The Cougars do benefit from Notre Dame’s need for some late season games in 2013, and BYU also travels to Hawai’i. But the remainder of the team’s Nov. 2013 schedule is open.
The Big East would offer BYU the opportunity to play teams like Cincinnati, Louisville and Boise State late in the season, when squads are vying for national attention. BSU is particularly intriguing as a potential Thanksgiving weekend rival. Two of the nation’s most consistent teams in recent years, facing for conference supremacy would turn eyeballs on the Cougars — and in turn, the Big East.
Big East football needs positive attention. The league seems an outsider in the new tournament system, unless it can supplement its ranks. BYU aids in that regard. The Cougars have finished with 10 or more wins in five of the last six seasons, and been in end-of-season top 25 polls as many times. If Boise State has been the standard bearer for non-automatic qualifiers, BYU has been just a stride behind it.
A hypothetical BYU-BSU Thanksgiving match-up is just the kind of high stakes, high quality pairing the conference could use as its marquee match-up, and worthy springboard into the inevitable conference championship game.
TV rights are the contentious point that reportedly kept a BYU-Big East merger from happening in the fall. Independence has afforded BYU exclusive rights to negotiate how and where its home games are broadcast. An eight-year contract with ESPN was brokered before last season. That, coupled with BYUTV, gives BYU leverage in negotiations.
The Big East needs another sizable piece as it restructures its TV contract, and working with BYU is the best option. Any Big East is likely to factor in ESPN. Friday night has been regular broadcast territory for the conference, and last season the Cougars twice played Friday ESPN tilts. The similarities in their deals seem workable enough.
The conference has cornered the market on high potential markets: San Diego, Houston, Memphis, Orlando and Dallas join the conference’s existing footprint that covers NY/NJ, Cincinnati, and Tampa. Still, the incoming programs from those major markets are all unproven commodities. BSU breaks the conference’s business model as a smaller market program, but with a track record for success.
Representing the Salt Lake market, BYU offers the best of both worlds as a proven football commodity, and the No. 33 TV market. The benefit is too much for the conference to ignore.