I was VERY worried about our athletic future for sometime before that surprise announcement. It had become increasingly obvious to anyone who was paying attention that the Big East was living on borrowed time and that we needed to get out while we still could. I was terribly concerned that we would find ourselves in the shoes that were ultimately worn - and which are STILL being worn - by Connecticut and Cincinnati.
Pfew!
In the year that preceded our move, the Big East had devolved into a complete mess. Everyone was acting in their own self interests and it was absolutely KILLING the football side of the league. The BCS had made it clear that it saw the Big East as a sort of pseudo member of its cartel - too good and valuable to be left out but not valuable enough to be secure. Obviously that scared the hell out of programs like Pitt and West Virginia.
At the same time, the basketball schools were pushing HARD for Villanova as an all sports member even though VU itself only showed lukewarm interest in playing football at that level. They had no training or game day facilities and really, had no interest in building them. Also, VU's alums were worried that they would spend so much money trying to make football work that it would come at the expense of the Wildcats historically strong men's basketball program.
To quell those fears, Nova's administration had a meeting with their major boosters in which they outlined their plan. They called it, and I was I was joking about this but I'm not, "The Duke Model." Basically, they would play FBS football in name only but would still spend on their program like they were spending at the time. They would not be building FBS level training facilities and they would play their games in an 18,500 seat soccer stadium in Chester - 30 minutes away from the Main Line.
When Pitt, West Virginia and Rutgers got wind of that meeting and VU's plan, they hit the roof. They felt as though they had been lied to and/or misled by the Big East's leadership and had basically been told to STFU and live with it.
That went over like a lead balloon in Oakland, Morgantown and Piscataway.
Complicating matters was the fact that Louisville and South Florida had blocked Central Florida for recruiting purposes, even though it was clear that after Texas Christian - which BARELY got in - the Knights were the best team left on the board.
I knew some people who were loosely involved in at least some of those discussions and they were definitely worried about Pitt's future and that caused me to worry about it too.
By the summertime, I was told that we were "almost certainly" going to the Big 12. However, I was told that it was going to be us, WVU and one of Rutgers, Louisville or Syracuse. I was also told that they may just take everyone of us and go that way. I was also told there was a chance the B12 would insist on just taking us and I thought that was an absurdly stupid idea for all concerned because we would be such a severe geographic and cultural outlier.
Ha!
I didn't want any part of that mess and hoped that we would just work out our issues with the Big East....That is until I was driving home from Myrtle Beach on Labor Day weekend....
My wife and I were driving home through a hellacious storm when we came upon the West Virginia/Marshall game broadcast. The storm was so severe that they stopped the game midway through due to lightning in the area.
To kill time, the broadcasters invited Oliver Luck to join them and they turned it into a call-in show. For the next hour plus they talked almost exclusively about conference realignment and Luck was alarmingly candid in his assessment about the Big East's future and West Virginia's future in that league.
In short, he basically boasted that the Mountaineers were the league's most attractive property and that they were leaving the league as soon as they could. He speculated that it would most likely be for the SEC and that the Big East was basically a dead league walking.
My wife had started to loosely follow realignment issues as well because it had become clear to her how important it was to Pitt's future. For months I had repeatedly told my wife when we talked about it, "We need to stay and work this out." However, about midway through that interview, I turned to her and said, "Forget all that. We need to get the hell out of the Big East ASAP!"
I knew that the house was on fire and there was no saving it. It was time to get the kids and the pets out of the building.
However, I also knew that the B1G was not a realistic option. I just assumed that our only option was the B12, which was still trying to figure out where it was headed. At that point I was 100% on board with the B12 because I thought that was our only real hope.
Then, news broke that Saturday morning that we were going to the ACC with Syracuse and I could not have been happier/more relieved. We blew a huge fourth quarter lead that day against a B1G team primarily because of our head coach's enormous ego. Normally, that would have infuriated me. However, in that context, I could not have possibly cared less because I knew that our long term future had been secured...at least for the foreseeable future.
