So why on earth did the Big East boil over in the form of John Marinatto’s resignation?

Well, he was asked to resign by the conference’s school presidents, which is basically a vote of no confidence. I think the school presidents were sick of being reactive, instead of proactive, during the conference realignment process. But part of that falls on them, honestly. In an article published on CBSSports.com earlier this week, the writer pointed out a decision by the presidents of the Big East in 2011 that probably dug Marinatto’s grave. That decision? To turn down ESPN’s offer of $1.4 billion for its football TV rights. That’s billion. As in boneheaded. It’s been nothing but downhill from there. This is why university presidents should never be allowed to make athletic decisions, and vice versa.

Give Marinatto credit for doing all he could to create a viable football league. Sure, the name “Big East” is a joke now geographically, but he did the best he could under the circumstances. According to Mike Tranghese, it was Marinatto who ensured the league survived after Miami, Boston College and Virginia Tech left.

And now? I’m sure the presidents will bring in an outsider and expect gargantuan results that can’t be delivered. I would be stunned if ESPN offered the Big East the type of money for TV rights that it did last year. And in the bloodlust to stay in the BCS – which, by the way, is going away from automatic qualifier status for conferences – they’ve effectively dismembered the best basketball league in college sports.

I’d be stunned if Marinatto’s successor is able to hold this league together for another five years. I’d give it three.

Why is ODU dragging its feet with Conference USA, who will win the Big Ten and why shouldn’t you feel bad for Luke Fickell? Find out that and more after the jump.

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I’ve made jokes about the demise of the Western Athletic Conference. But I never took my own jokes seriously. But now, one has to consider how you write the obituary for the WAC, which seems on a collision course with extinction – at least in terms of football.

News broke this weekend that Utah State and San Jose State are close to signing on the dotted line with the Mountain West, a move that would bolster the league after the departures of Boise State and TCU. Then came the news that Conference USA is nearing completion on a deal that would snag texas-San Antonio and Louisiana Tech to help replace the schools it lost to the Big East.

And you thought you were having a bad weekend? In just two years the WAC has gone from a fairly secure league to one that, theoretically, will only be fielding Olympic sports starting in the fall of 2013.

Why? Well, if these defections hold – and I see no reason for them to fall through – the WAC will be left with three football playing schools for the 2013 season – Idaho, New Mexico State and texas State.

All three of these teams, at one time, jumped ship to join the WAC. Idaho and New Mexico State left the Sun Belt Conference. texas State left the Southland Conference. Now they face the prospect of having no home at all.

So what can the WAC do? What can these three teams do? Here are a few ideas:

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Until today when several news outlets, including CBSSports.com reported that the athletic directors of the Sun Belt Conference voted to extend Georgia State an invitation to join the league in 2013.

I have to admit, I like being right. Last year’s article can be found here.

At the time I made the following case — Georgia State’s location in Atlanta would enhance the Sun Belt’s media package, improve the possibility of creating a 12-team league and would yield a conference title game and give the conference three Top 20 media markets. The Panthers could compete immediately in the Sun Belt. And the head coach, Bill Curry, would provide the same sort of national respect for the league that Howard Schnellenberger created at Florida Atlantic. Now there’s one additional criteria:

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It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that the non-BCS schools don’t know what the heck to do. But the non-BCS superconference is a bad idea.

You know by now that Conference USA and the Mountain West are going to merge for the 2013-14 season. You know as well as I do that, given the membership that will exist at that time, it’s going to create a league with at least 16 schools. That’s unwieldy enough. Remember – the WAC tried that already and failed.

But apparently this new consolidation wants more. Turns out multiple reports have the new league (let’s call it Conference USAXL) seeking to create a league with 18 to 24 teams that would create a coast-to-coast league.

Schools like Utah State are telling news outlets that they’re interested in jumping ship to this new endeavor. That puts the WAC at risk of not just losing members, but folding completely. It barely has enough members to be a conference right now. And now WAC commissioner Karl Benson is reportedly eying a move to be the commissioner of the Sun Belt Conference.

You’re forgiven if you can’t keep up with the upheaval. But there are so many reasons why this is a bad idea. Consider:

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As Memphis accepts its invitation to join the Big East starting in 2013, the Tigers provide the conference what it needs to inflate its football numbers to 12 and enjoy the fruits of a conference championship game starting in 2015. That’s when Navy joins the league, unless it can extricate itself from its own TV contracts before that time.

As the Tigers host their press conference on Wednesday, they’ll talk a lot about how the move will benefit the Tigers in the future. But will it really? And how does the move really impact the Big East? Let’s consider those possibilities after the jump.

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Is Chris Petersen celebrating a bowl game victory or another top recruiting class?

There was a time, however brief, that the Mountain West thought it had enough to crash the party, and it might have made a difference when assessing the 2012 national signing day winners and losers for the Mountain West.

That was back in the middle of 2010. TCU was about to embark on a Rose Bowl-winning season. The league had just lured Boise State away from the WAC, giving the league perhaps the two best non-BCS programs in the country. That, along with Air Force and BYU, seemed to give the MWC enough ammunition to at least make a charge at the BCS gates.

It fell apart fast. BYU chose to go its own way, as Fleetwood Mac would sing, and become an independent. TCU accepted an invitation to the Big East, followed by an invitation to the Big 12 after texas A&M left. Boise State accepted an invitation to the Big East after TCU left for the Big 12.

There is no potential challenge now. The Mountain West is still a good league. Of course, it practically raided the WAC to become a 10-team league, as Fresno State, Nevada and Hawaii join the league this year. It can certainly content to be the best of the non-BCS leagues. But that’s about it.

The potential merger with Conference USA seems curious too. As I mentioned in my C-USA review, that would create a league that stretches from Hawaii to North Carolina. Wasn’t the reason the old 16-team WAC blew up in the first place due to unwieldy travel?

No, the Mountain West, to me, is better off on its own. It would seem to share little in common with Conference USA. But that’s for them to decide, not me.

As for recruiting this year, did all of the upheaval make a difference? Did it impact the winners and losers in the Mountain West? Find out after the jump.

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Scout.com ranked the conference’s overall recruiting haul at No. 8 overall. That puts the conference behind all six BCS leagues, along with the Independents (helped significantly by Notre Dame’s Top 25 class). But, Conference USA was ranked well ahead of the rest of the non-BCS leagues.

But if this were entering the 2013 season, that ranking would certainly take a hit. Houston and SMU – two of the schools bolting for the Big East that season – were ranked 1-2 this year.

Right now there are preliminary talks about Conference USA and the Mountain West conference merging together in some form. There was an agreement of a football-only merger last year, but that was before C-USA and the Mountain West lost members to the Big East expansion. Now there’s re-assessing going on in every way.

The nine remaining members of Conference USA and the 10 members of the Mountain West – including the three that will join the league in 2012 – would comprise an unwieldy football league to be sure, stretching from Hawaii to North Carolina. Is it possible that the league may only be 12 teams and that the potential new league may cut teams in order to be viable? And where would those teams go if that were the case?

There’s absolutely no way of knowing. In fact, the situation has the potential to be more volatile than the Big East’s recent expansion.

But right now, there are winners and losers to assess for 2012 National Signing Day in Conference USA. Find out who won and who lost after the jump.

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Dabo Swinney has the Tigers pointed toward a potential BCS Bowl game.

Matthew Postins files The Walkthrough twice a week during the season at PigskinU.com. Early in the week, it’s a wrap-up of last weekend’s action. Late in the week, it’s a preview of what’s coming up that weekend. And it call comes with news, commentary and Postins’ dry wit and opinion.

The “Other” Tigers. With LSU taking the week off, we can take a little time to talk about the other Tigers in the Top 10. Dabo Swinney and his Clemson Tigers are worming their way into the BCS race.

Clemson is No. 5 in the BCS after drubbing North Carolina on Saturday, and with four games left the Tigers seem to be on a course to get into the ACC Championship game. The Tigers’ schedule doesn’t set up too well, though. Georgia Tech, North Carolina State and South Carolina all loom. In fact, of all of the undefeated teams remaining, I see the Tigers as being the least likely to pull it off.

But what if they do, plus win the ACC title game, and finish 13-0? Are we prepared to be as indignant as we were when undefeated Oregon was left out in 2001 or undefeated Auburn was left out in 2004? Maybe not.

The ACC is only the fifth-best conference among the six automatic qualifiers. Clemson is now the only ACC team without a loss. But let’s not say they haven’t been tested. In fact, they’ve beaten three teams that carried AP rankings either at the time the Tigers played them or during the season – Auburn, Virginia Tech and Florida State. And the Tigers may have to beat Beamer’s Boys again in December. Plus, the Gamecocks may remain ranked, even with the loss of Marcus Lattimore for the season.

So don’t say the Tigers haven’t played anyone. But you can say they can’t play defense.

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The ACC sparks college football’s next great shift. Perhaps the ACC wanted to get some pub before the craziness began. But the additions of Syracuse and Pittsburgh came out of left field. Most of the word the past week had been how the ACC was seeking to up its buyout fee to keep teams, not add them.

The fact that the two teams are a charter member of the Big East (Syracuse) and a Big East member since 1982 (Pittsburgh) underscores the new philosophy of college sports – find me the best deal. While there is no better conference for basketball than the Big East, the conference is No. 6 among the BCS conferences in football. And football pays the bills.

So the Orange and Panthers will migrate south in search of a better financial deal. The ACC gets access to upstate New York and Pittsburgh media markets, which will be handy at the negotiating table with ESPN. And, they’re now the closest to being the first “super conference” of the 21^st Century.

At least for the moment.

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First it was texas. Then it was texas A&M. Then it was Oklahoma. Now it’s Baylor. Yes, it seems that the Bears are holding the cards when it comes to the Big 12. Why? The Bears appear to be leading the way in slowing texas A&M’s departure from the Big 12. It’s in the form of withholding its waiver of claim when it comes to its ability to sue for damages resulting from the move. A&M thought it had the conference in line in the form of a written blanket waiver from the conference office last week. Now, it seems some members of the conference are having second thoughts about letting the Aggies leave scot free.

For Baylor, the stakes are perhaps highest. Thanks to the new TV contract the Big 12 signed earlier this year, the Bears stand to make at least $17 million per year in revenue. The Bears are also the least likely program to move into another BCS automatic qualifying conference. If the Big 12 doesn’t survive, they’ll be consigned to either the Mountain West or Conference USA. I’m not buying the Big East rumors, though that would give TCU a nifty travel partner.

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