Some Big East football confab contributors joined in a Twitter chat last night (#BigEastPlayoff). One of the hot topics was strength of schedule and strategic planning of future nonconference games. ESPN.com's Big East blogger Andrea Adelson posted some good insights on the topic today. Strength of schedule is going to be a significant factor is determining the teams who will play for the national championship and related bowl games.
On the topic of the new playoff system, John Ziegler posited on HuffingtonPost.com:
Even more interestingly, how in the world is the Big East conference going to survive under this plan? There is no way that the "Big Five" conferences are going to allow a league like the Big East to get a full share of revenue without having teams which play in the "Final Four." Based on that presumption, a greatly weakened Big East, which has been ludicrously reconfigured in a desperate attempt to chase BCS dollars -- which no longer exist -- will never have a team qualify.
The Big East will be like the person who divorces their spouse and leaves their kids for someone they mistakenly think is rich. They have given up everything that made them unique and now it is hard to see how, at least for football, they don't eventually implode.
The NCAA has hired former Big East associate commissioner Dan Gavitt (son of conference founder Dave Gavitt) as vice president of men's basketball championships.
The good folks at Athlon have created a timeline and history of the Big East Conference. It's a handy one-pager with some good content about the infamous realignment; might want to bookmark it.