|
The 2010–13 Big East Conference realignment refers to the Big East Conference dealing with several proposed and actual conference expansion and reduction plans among various NCAA conferences and institutions. Following on the 2005 NCAA conference realignment, resulting in the move of 23 teams across various conferences after an initial raid of three Big East teams, the Big East was severely impacted in the follow-up 2010–13 NCAA conference realignment. Beginning in the 2010-11 academic year and continuing into 2013, 13 Big East schools announced their departure for other conferences and 13 other schools announced plans to join the conference (eight as all-sports members, and five for football only), but three of the latter group later backed out of their plans to join (one for all sports, and the other two for football only). Most notably, the seven schools that did not sponsor football in Division I FBS announced in December 2012 that they would leave as a group, which led to a formal split of the conference effective in July 2013. In the end, the "Big East" name was purchased - and continues in use - for the non-FBS schools that left in December 2012. The FBS schools retained the charter of the original 1979-2012 Big East Conference, starting the 2013 academic year under the new name of American Athletic Conference. ==Background== The Big East was founded in 1979 by seven universities in the Northeastern United States—Boston College (BC), Connecticut (UConn), Georgetown, Providence, St. John's, Seton Hall, and Syracuse. The seven founders consisted of five Catholic institutions, one private but secular university (Syracuse) and one public school (UConn). More significantly, only two of these schools—BC and Syracuse—then played football in the top-level Division I-A (now Division I FBS). Another Catholic school, Villanova, joined the following year, and Pittsburgh (Pitt), a quasi-public institution, joined in 1982. At the time of their respective arrivals in the Big East, both Villanova and Pitt had I-A football programs, but Villanova dropped football after the 1980 season, only reinstating the sport in 1985 at the Division III level and upgrading to Division I-AA (now Division I FCS) in 1987.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Villanova Wildcats Historical Data )〕 About a decade after the conference's founding, the members decided to launch a I-A football conference. To that end, the Big East added five schools with I-A programs—Miami as a full member, and Rutgers (which had turned down an invitation to become a charter member of the conference),〔 Temple, Virginia Tech and West Virginia as football-only members. Big East football began play in 1991. In 1995, West Virginia and Rutgers became full members of the conference, and Notre Dame, with an independent football program, joined as a full but non-football member. These moves in the first half of the 1990s led to an unusual conference structure, in which only some of the full conference members played football in the Big East. Another of the 1991 football-only members, Virginia Tech, became a full member in 2000. Temple remained a football-only member until 2004, when it was voted out of the conference due to poor attendance figures, lack of playing success, and inadequate facilities. In the meantime, UConn announced in 1999 that it would upgrade its I-AA football program to I-A; its transition was completed in 2002, and it joined the Big East football conference in 2004. Once the Big East established a I-A football conference, tensions between the "football" and "non-football" schools were a constant issue, though mostly under the surface. Miami in particular had been dissatisfied with the Big East as early as 1999. These tensions came to the surface in 2003, when the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) announced plans to expand from 9 to 12 members, which would allow that conference to hold a potentially lucrative football championship game. Miami, BC, and Syracuse were rumored to be the three schools under consideration; however, Syracuse men's basketball coach Jim Boeheim publicly opposed a move. The five other football schools—UConn, Pitt, Rutgers, Virginia Tech, and West Virginia—filed two lawsuits against the proposal, one against the ACC and the other against BC and Miami (Syracuse was not sued because its administration made no public comments on the situation). Due to political pressure applied by Virginia governor Mark Warner on the ACC and the University of Virginia, the ACC decided to invite Virginia Tech instead of Syracuse. Tech immediately accepted, and filed legal papers to remove itself as a plaintiff in the lawsuits. At the last minute, North Carolina State cast a "no" vote on BC, which meant that only Miami and Virginia Tech were invited to join. By mid-October 2003, NC State had reversed its original "no" vote on BC, and the ACC also extended an invitation to that school. Due to timing issues, BC was not able to join the ACC until 2005, a year after their former Big East brethren arrived in the ACC. These moves by the ACC became the trigger for a major wave of conference realignment. The Big East responded to the loss of three football members by "raiding" Conference USA. Five members of that league were invited to join the Big East, with all five entering in 2005. Three of the new members were public schools with I-A football programs—Cincinnati, Louisville, and South Florida. The other two, DePaul and Marquette, were Catholic schools without varsity football programs. The most recent, and largest, wave of realignment began in 2010, after both the Big Ten Conference and Pacific-10 Conference (now Pacific-12) announced plans to expand to 12 members. These plans triggered a cascade of conference moves, with the Big East as one of the main centers of activity. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「2010–13 Big East Conference realignment」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
|