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.
Sure you heard about Dana Holgorsen's visit to the casino....and the statement about it, but there was other things going on around the Big East too.
Rutgers lost their only 2012 basketball commitment today when Jordan Goodman changed his mind.
Initial Reports Were Wrong: Florida running back Mike Blakely will not be following his teammate Chris Dunkley to South Florida. Instead, Blakely will now go to the Auburn Tigers. He has to sit out the year and will be able to play on scholarship in 2012.
Starting Our Own March Madness: The Big East basketball coaches would like all 17 teams in the Big East basketball tournament next year. We need to just split the football and basketball teams add 15 more basketball teams and start our own post-season tournament. TCU and DePaul as the default play-in game has already been suggested.
Reset the Days Without an Arrest Counter: Pittsburgh's backup quarterback Anthony Gonzalez was arrested for marijuana possession. Gonzalez was suspended indefinitely by Todd Graham. Syracuse wide receiver Jarrod West was also cited for underage drinking at the same time as Gonazlez.
Bulls Scare Off the Gators: That's the story we are sticking to. In any event, South Florida won't be playing Florida in 2015. The teams are still under contract to play but a new date has not been said.
Expansion, UGH: From the Twitter of Brett McMurphy of CBS: "One way to keep Big East from splitting? Source tells me by adding Navy, Army as football members. Story soon." Big East Coast Bias' response is to sack John Marinatto as commissioner right now. He's done. McMurphy followed the tweet up with a story. A source told McMurphy "I believe the will approach the service academies first and if they turn the Big East down, then they'll approach the other candidates." "Other candidates" such as Houston, UCF, East Carolina and Villanova should be contacted first as far as we are concerned.