You know, we were going to have to redo this graphic anyway to update Boise State’s un-defection and whatnot, but now we’re just running out of room:

Two of the most prominent teams in the second tier of college football will be moving up, as Georgia Southern and Appalachian State are going to join the Sun Belt of the FBS, a source tells SB Nation’s Steven Godfrey. Godfrey reports GSU will make the move in 2015.

Y’all have no idea how long it took to align all those scribbles properly.

Just name the conference after Teddy Bridgewater. He’s who we’re here to see, and by the time he’s drafted there’ll be all new teams in the league and they’d be renaming it anyway. (AP)

React with mild enthusiasm in a manner of your choosing, brothers and sisters: The Big East/ESPN media rights deal is complete. Conference release:

Commissioner Michael Aresco has announced that the current Big East Conference, soon to be renamed and rebranded, has entered into a multiyear, wide-ranging television contract with ESPN to telecast its football, basketball and Olympic sports. Financial terms of the agreement were not announced. The contract will run through 2019-20. 

No news at this time on what will become of the Big East Pinterest account, so those of you planning USF football-themed weddings may want to consult your planners.

Don’t let the outfit fool you: Testudo will have some adjusting to do in the harsh climes of the Big Ten. (AP)

Maryland fans who’ve found yourselves muttering derisively, “Ugh, you could not pay me to go to Iowa” since college football realignment swept the Terps off to the Big Ten: Know that there are those in your school’s administration who disagree with you! From the Baltimore Sun:

The University of Maryland’s deal to join the Big Ten includes not only the lucrative annual payouts that all members receive, but also a significant concession obtained by the school — a subsidy worth tens of millions of dollars from the conference to offset athletic teams’ anticipated higher travel costs, according to multiple sources.

Call it November-road-date-with-Minnesota money.

#BigEast considering opening up to social media for name suggestions to consider, according to league source.—
Jeremy Fowler (@JFowlerCBS) March 08, 2013

Welp, we’re in it now, and wouldn’t you know it — we’ve exhausted our supply of Future Big East Name Jokes. Y’all, just get it over with. All we ask is that any sort of Leaders-and-Legends situation be avoided, and based on this statement released by commissioner Mike Aresco, it seems as though the conference has come to the same conclusion:

“We have not chosen a new conference name at this time and there are no favorites. We are going through a thoughtful evaluation of potential names for our conference, and will select a name in a timely manner through a comprehensive and deliberate process that involves our presidents and athletic directors as well as constituents from inside and outside the conference. We are excited about the prospect of re-branding and look forward to working with our institutions and our fans as we engage in this process.”

A conference determined to engage with the internet is a conference that’s OK with being named the Big Corgi Coalition, and that is a conference we can believe in.

“Oh. Hello. I didn’t see you there. I’m Tommy Tuberville, for the Allstate Conference. We’re in all states, and we’re here for you.” (AP)

Intrepid reader Dan Galindo submits this helpful suggestion for whatever we’re going to have to call the Big East now:

I vote that the unnamed football conference comprised of the remnants of the Big East and the miscellaneous carpetbaggers sell its naming rights. My first thought was the “Nationwide Conference” with sponsorship from Nationwide Insurance. Allstate would also be a suitable insurance-based alternative. If the goal of college football is apparently to make the most money possible (as it appears to be), how far away from this are we really? Obviously most of the soon-to-be-formerly AQ conferences won’t do this in the near future because it is one of the last traditional concerns that has yet to be breached. Therefore, I think this “new” conference can be on the cutting edge while also raking in a few dozen million dollars more a year. Frankly, I can’t believe that no one has proposed it already.

Maybe we go with “Conference Mike TranghEast,” for fond memories’ sake. (AP)

After a couple solid years of making jokes about ManifEast Destiny, we may really have to rename the Big East. If the conference goes through with selling its brand to the just-hatching conference of Catholic basketball defectors — always knew the Big East wasn’t suited for football, didn’t we? — and the Sun Belt remains an independent entity, depriving us of the long dreamed-of SunBEast merger, fresh titling will be called for. The internet is here to help.

• “All-you-can-EAST Buffet” — @TomBraggSports

• “Bandwagons East” — @bbhrusty

• “the Middle East” — @WacJack

• “fEAST for Crows…we can read about the destruction of the Big East AND the family Stark…SIMULTANEOUSLY.” — @purplebuckeye

• “Cats n Corgis Conference (for SEO purposes, obvs)” — @tholzerman

• “Cease and DesEAST” — @ecuamerican

• “(Way) East of Eden” — @cyrisjonfs

• “EASTbound and Down” — IAmSpilly

• “The Big Espagnole” — @TCMcG

• “EastSPN3.Conference” — @MattCox

(We’ve tried all night and most of the morning to make a good Roll Tide joke out of this; if anybody can come up with one, do let us know.)

Cowboys Stadium: Space Camp for football fans, if Space Camp had bizarrely obstructed views of neighboring galaxies. (AP)

Bob Bowlsby, the best conference commissioner based on surname alone, says that although the Big 12 would like a waiver from the NCAA to hold a conference championship game with a 10-team league, that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s going to hold one. From the Associated Press:

“Take a look at the attendance on the conference championship games this year and take a look at the TV ratings,” Bowlsby said. “They aren’t the kind of things that are going to invite you to take that up as a new business proposition.” [...] Bowlsby said Wednesday that proposal is intended to deregulate how conferences are allowed to determine a champion.

Read More…

Nowhere does it say that Miami’s Donna Shalala DIDN’T write her statement while wearing these glasses. (AP)

• Donna Shalala, with the candlestick and maybe also an axe-gun, in the conservatory. Miami has received its NCAA notice of allegations! There’s an LOIC charge in there, and it’s phrased this way so frequently that we now think of it as The Dreaded Lack Of Institutional Control, like that’s its full name. Anyway, Miami president Donna Shalala has some thoughts, and is dispensing them with open contempt for the NCAA and its process. Here’s our favorite one:

Many of the charges brought forth are based on the word of a man who made a fortune by lying. The NCAA enforcement staff acknowledged to the University that if Nevin Shapiro, a convicted con man, said something more than once, it considered the allegation “corroborated”—an argument which is both ludicrous and counter to legal practice.

Followup reading: John Infante examines why a summary disposition in this case is an unlikely outcome. Read More…

Our continued best wishes to Tulane’s Devon Walker for a complete recovery. (AP Photo/Tulane University)

Newsy bits of varying degrees of quality from the weekend that was:

• Good news first. “As a senior, I had only a few more credits to get and it would seem like a waste of time for me to have gone through all the struggles I have and just act like I don’t need it any more or act like it wouldn’t help me in the future.” New Orleans’ WWL-TV catches up with Tulane’s Devon Walker, who intends to return to school this fall and wrap up his cell and molecular biology degree.

• And then deer antler spray news, as God intended. Intrepid internet personality Rick Muscles bought him some Bambi shavings at the S.W.A.T.S. gym, which went about how you might expect it to go:

RM: Please remember: a dude with a hologram taped to his nipple was telling me about my second brain.

SH: In your stomach.

RM: In my stomach.

SH: Go on.

• Phrasing. As Friday evening news dumps go, the revelation that Texas offensive coordinator Major Applewhite was disciplined in 2009 for having a relationship with a student was a doozy, and that’s not even counting what may be the most unfortunately placed “during” in sports history:

Deloss Dodds: ""Major Applewhite engaged in inappropriate, consensual behavior with an adult student one time during the 2009 Fiesta Bowl."—
Bob Ballou (@KEYESportsBob) February 02, 2013

Burnt Orange Nation breaks down the situation over here.

• ‘Crootin! When We Get Interested About Recruiting: When we can up our tally of schools holding Signing Day events at Buffalo Wild Wings (New Mexico State makes three!), when the AJC gets to explain what a bong is and when Jim Mora invites everybody over for hot dish, velvet ropes be damned:

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An important lacrosse thing is happening here. (AP)

When we think of NCAA lacrosse at all, we think of East Coast schools, which is more than understandable; thanks to the prowess of Syracuse, Maryland, Virginia, Duke and North Carolina, there hasn’t been a Division I title game without a current Big East or ACC member school participating since 1987. But it’s the Big Ten that might be edging further into lacrosse territory, and further into Maryland, if it succeeds in wooing away Johns Hopkins as a lacrosse-only member for a brand-new league:

 Being a DI program in a DIII athletic department, Johns Hopkins has flexibility within lacrosse that nearly all of its peers lack — the best interest of the lacrosse team is the leading consideration in potential conference affiliation, not a byproduct of the football and basketball teams’ most lucrative TV deals, as has been the case in many recent realignment choices. As a result, coach Dave Pietramala, athletic director Tom Calder and the rest of the Blue Jay staff can consider the future of the program and its possible conference decision more narrowly than most of their counterparts. In a conversation with IL earlier in January, Pietramala said while his program hasn’t joined a league or been offered an invitation to join a league and no decision is imminent, Hopkins is considering its options to abandon its long-lived independence.

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