College Football - The Ridiculousness of TCU Joining the Big East

Fear The Frog or just the travel?

Sooooo....TCU to the Big East? 

If you turn your head and squint your eyes a little it looks like a great move.  A BCS conference that already extends from Storrs to Tampa adds the only hot, available program that has just completed back-to-back undefeated regular seasons and has two national championships in its history (1930's era, but still) to help boost its struggling football presence.  Maybe TCU is small (only 9,000 students) but even that fits the weird amalgamation of large state institutions that play football (USF, Pitt, Rutgers, Cincy, WVU) and smaller private schools who focus on basketball (Georgetown, Nova, Seton Hall) that make up the Big East.  Add in the bad-ass purple Horned-Frog mascot that helps balance out the absurdity of the Syracuse Fruits and you're golden. So what's the problem?

Well, for one, TCU IS IN FUCKING TEXAS!!  The one that's 1,600 miles from New York City with the flag, the Bushes and the ambitions of succession.  Yeah, that Texas.  The fact that both the conference and the school were willing to extend themselves to such absurd lengths proves one thing - it's all about football and, in turn, the almighty dollar.

Unfortunately, TCU wouldn't come without being added for all sports so for 99% of the people impacted this is an absolute disaster.  We're not going to crap on the academic reputations of the Big East football programs but football teams get special considerations; their games and travel take priority over classes and other academic pursuits.  For most of the other sports, the athletes actually have to go to regular classes because, according to the NCAA commercials, they're going pro in something else other than sports.  How exactly are the Big East men's water polo or women's volleyball teams going to deal with adding a random trip to Texas to their packed schedules?  Sure, they already travel to Tampa but now your just adding an additional unnecessary trip.

Think that's bad?  Every single one of TCU's teams, from field hockey to fencing, now have to travel to the east coast for all of their games.   Even a bigger "money" sport like basketball gains nothing from the deal, adding a tradition less school to an already packed league - now with 17 teams.  Makes no sense. 

But, as we said, football is king and for that reason the league powers are willing to overlook all those other issues if it can enhance the theoretical income that football brings to the schools (check out this story if you want SI's take on who actually gets paid from these arrangements, hint, it's not the schools).  After an off-season that saw the conferences very existence threatened by Big Ten making overtures, a movement by smaller conferences to gain "automatic qualifier" status in the BCS, and an awful on-field performance by all its teams (odds are they're very sheepishly send UCONN to Orange Bowl to get slaughtered), the Big East was desperate to protect both its automatic BCS bid as well as any chance it might have at becoming a big time football power conference.  Accordingly, adding a school well beyond its geographical borders started to become a logical choice and TCU - after being left cold by the moves of the Pac 10 and Big 10 to consolidate power out west - became the perfect partner in desperation.  Sure, they could have added a school like UCF or Memphis (which already plays basketball in the conference) but that wouldn't have gotten them anywhere closer to where they want to be.  Similarly, TCU could have stayed in the Mountain West with Boise State joining (with Utah and BYU leaving) but they wouldn't have gotten anywhere alternating years with Boise for the title of "Non-BCS Team That People Talk About But Never Plays For A National Championship" while passing up their shot at joining a big conference.  No matter how awkward the marriage, the Big East needs TCU and TCU needs the Big East. 

Still, let's not be mistaken, football-wise it helps the conference.  Adding TCU solidifies the conference's BCS ties, gives them another marquee-for-them program, adds some sizzle and, along with the potential addition of Villanova football, brings the league up to a more substantial 10 teams.  Additionally, the Big East will now have a conference presence in 4 of the biggest high school recruiting grounds (Florida, Texas, Pennsylvania and New Jersey) as they seek to close the talent gap with the SEC.  Finally, while TCU isn't Texas, or even Texas A&M, it can't hurt to have a team in the Dallas TV market.

As for TCU its a no-brainer to get themselves into a major conference before their momentum wears off.  It remains to be seen, however, whether they can keep their cache when they're playing BCS-level opponents on the weekly basis and not going undefeated.  Will a 2 or 3 loss TCU team that plays most of its games on the east coast continue be able to recruit against the big boys at home and at the same time extend its reach across the country?  In fairness, they did a ton of work to get to this point but we'll see.  Momentum is a tricky thing. 

So, by adding TCU the Big East has gone all-in on football at the expense of everything else and they're only guarantee comes in the form of frequent flyer miles.  It could be good or could fail spectacularly but at least it will be interesting.