by John Atchison

Created on: November 30, 2010

If you’re familiar with the college sports scene then you know that the landscape of it is ever-changing.  No year has this been more apparent than in 2010, where schools are switching conferences faster than a square dancer switches partners in a dosie-doe!  When the Big Ten added Nebraska in the offseason, it set off a domino effect that had teams like Colorado, Boise State, and Utah switching allegiances to other conferences.  On November 29, 2010 the latest switch came to be with the announcement that Texas Christian University (TCU) will now be making the move to the Big East Conference in 2012. 

Long thought of as a Basketball Conference, the Big East does play football, currently with an eight member league.  If you think back about five years or so, Big East football was actually a very marketable commodity that featured powerhouse programs such as Miami, Virginia Tech, and Boston College to name a few.  However when the ACC came a calling back in 2003 and those three schools left, it left a conference that still had some big names like West Virginia and Pittsburgh, but for the most part has been viewed as a non-deserving member of an at-large Bowl Championship Series (BCS) bid. 

Enter into the picture now TCU.  TCU has for about the last 5 years been a National power on the gridiron scene, having been ranked in the top ten in the BCS ranking for at least 3 of the past 5 years.  They have knocked off teams like Oklahoma and Boise State in the recent past, and are on pace this year to finish undefeated for the second year running.  They have faced anyone willing to play them, which in reality has not been many because big time programs are very hesitant to take them on and have their records blemished when they can take on cupcakes instead. 

So TCU makes the move to the Big East.  It is a win-win situation for all parties involved.  From the TCU perspective, there is no hiding their reasoning for making this move, which is not exactly geographically pleasing to the eye.  The Big East possesses that automatic BCS bid which can get the Horned Frogs into the Championship picture with an automatic ticket as opposed to an at-large bid.  It also makes them a major player in the series instead of a team that plays “the little sisters of the poor” as Ohio St President Gordon Gee made public a few days back.  Now they will be playing a power conference schedule and perhaps getting non-conference opponents that can no longer run and hide from them. 

From the Big East perspective, it gives the conference some legitimacy back at a time when its automatic bid is being questioned due to the relative lack of competitiveness against schools from the other power conferences.  None of their teams is in contention for a National Title opportunity and have not done so for a number of years now.  With TCU in the fold, it is not hard to believe that at least in the short term that they will not be on top of that conference and give the Big East a chance to win a BCS title down the road. 

As for other sports, well TCU basketball will not add much to one of the best conferences in the country, but let’s face it, that is not what this move is being made for.  TCU wants to be able to compete on the biggest stage and even more importantly these days to a university, they want to be able to get a bigger cut of that BCS big money pie at the end of the road.  This should be a partnership that works out nicely for all parties involved down the line!

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