Big East Linkage: August 5

Big East Linkage is a news roundup feature on BECB. Feel free to send us any relevant links, stories or posts you think might be interesting to readers at bigeastcoastbias at gmail dot com.

Fall camps are beginning around the Big East. Mengus is currently looking over his Cardinals at a Louisville practice. Back at the BECB West Coast headquarters I'm reading stories and pointing them in your direction.

Tired of Hearing About Expansion?: Neither are we. Cardiac Hill asks the question: if not Villanova, then who? If you aren't sure what prompted the expansion talk again it was this: the idea of the Big East "dream scenario" of poaching Boston College and Maryland from the ACC was floated to the media. Boston College actually has a standing invitation to come back to the Big East from commissioner John Marinatto. Don't act like you're not interested, BC Interruption (they totally aren't).

TV Money (we want it, a lot of it): Jeff Jacobs describes the current state of affairs thusly:

To this point, the Big East has been a little beetle compared to the other five BCS league deals.

The Big East did walk away from about a $1 billion offer. The little beetle wants Pac-12 money. Jacobs doesn't seem to think that the Big East will get it from just adding anybody to get to 12 football teams.

The Transfer Wars Continue: Pittsburgh and South Florida have been going back and forth this season at picking up #allthetransfers. Pittsburgh recently landed their eighth transfer. Skip Holtz wasn't going to take that lying down. Today, South Florida landed TE Michael McFarland from the Florida Gators. McFarland is applying for a hardship waiver and could play this fall if it is granted.

Taking a Look at Notre Dame Basketball: The Rumble in the Garden preview series on Big East basketball teams continues with the Irish. They return about 50% of all of the relevant statistical categories from last year. Notre Dame did lose the Big East Player of the Year in Ben Hansbrough along with Carleton Scott (he will play in Spain) and Tyrone Nash (he will play professionally in Germany). The upshot is that Notre Dame has been good recently at playing through rebuilding years and not fading in the standings.

Big East 2011 Football Preview: Rivals has the latest one available. Like everyone else in the free world, they picked West Virginia to win the league. The "best offensive player" is a bit of a shocker: Connecticut tackle Mike Ryan. They also say to look out for Rutgers as a surprise team (they have them finishing sixth). Louisville is projected to be a disappointment (at fifth).