Realignment may work out in Big East’s favor

Now that the dust has settled, and the Big East — once looking neither big nor particularly… Now that the dust has settled, and the Big East — once looking neither big nor particularly east, and now looking really big and more Midwest — has settled on its incarnation for the future, the actual winners and losers of the whole debacle are a little different from who they once appeared to be.

Pitt: Winner

Now one of the two dominant programs, along with West Virginia, in a football conference that gets an automatic Bowl Championship Series bid, Pitt might actually go to a major bowl — something they never could have done with Miami in the conference. Plus, there will never again be whining about the strength of Pitt’s basketball schedule, with easily the most competitive basketball conference in history. Add that to three straight Sweet 16 appearances, and Pitt may very well emerge as the national sports power it once was.

Plus, West Virginia, as the other good football school in the conference, becomes the true rival Pitt’s needed since that other school stopped playing us.

Boston College and Virginia Tech: Losers

BC’s sports, on both basketball and football levels, aren’t anywhere near up to par with the Atlantic Coast Conference’s other teams. In football, they’ll get destroyed by Miami and Tech, like they already do, and they’ll pour more money into a program that will also have to compete with Florida State. In basketball, they’ll compete, but BC is still no match for Duke and North Carolina, and they just lost to Georgia Tech. Add that to the now-really long road trips for every game, and there’s no money and no progress being made at BC.

Tech, meanwhile, has been incomprehensibly heralded as a major national football program for the past two years, when they have gone 2-6 against Pitt, Syracuse, West Virginia and Boston College. Yes, they had a great year with Michael Vick. But without Michael Vick, well, they’re just a more overrated version of Pitt. And their basketball team, which is nothing to write home about when playing powerhouses like Rutgers and Temple, will absolutely get crushed by the ACC elite of Duke, North Carolina, North Carolina State and Georgia Tech. Welcome to the big leagues.

Big East: Win some, lose some

Yes, there is a serious loss in the markets of Miami and Boston. And yes, even with the BCS bid, this is a step down from the former arrangement, football-wise, because it will no doubt be a less prestigious bowl. But it will return to its roots — basketball — and be the most phenomenal basketball conference in history. Yes, it moves a little to the West, but at least it’s still more geographically cohesive than the…

ACC: Win some, lose more

Sure, they get major markets and a temporary bump up, so they’re arguably the best all-around conference in terms of major sports –for the time being. But it’s oh so top-heavy. Florida State and Miami who are going to duke it out (no pun intended) for the BCS bid every year, while the other schools pour millions of dollars into programs that simply can’t compete. Basketball-wise, they got weaker, with BC being the only real asset (and not much of one by ACC standards).

But beyond that, the biggest loss for the ACC is the once-hallowed common ground of geographic and academic standing. There once was a time when the ACC was composed of not just great athletic schools, but great universities, headed by the prestige of Duke, UNC-Chapel Hill and the University of Virginia. Add Florida State and you lose some of the mystique. Add VaTech and Miami and everyone forgets it was ever there.

Of course, the ACC and defectors see this differently. They see success on all levels, athletically and economically. They see untold riches brought in for all to share. They see money for nothing and tricks for free. But the Big East has learned a hard lesson about the price of complacency. Soon, the ACC might be joining us in a real school of hard knocks.