Not to sound like I am teaching my strategic planning class, but I would like to think that the BE brass is thinking about the future of the BE.
The first order should be what is their collective vision for the BE in 5 or 10 years.
As we all know, we were formed as, basically, a basketball conference, since then our football competitiveness as been mixed.
We seem to be at a cross roads. We can continue to be reactive, or as we say in AZ act as a pinata. By that I mean we can let other conferences break parts of us off with their bats.
Or we can be the bat and swing at other conferences' pinatas. We will never be the SEC in terms of football, but we can be better.
With other conference in turmoil as to collapsing or expanding, now is an opportunity for the BE to improve, football-wise.
I am all for being aggressive. Identify what FB schools should be targets for inclusion into the BE. In doing so, we must decide if we want to cover the country or just say east of the Mississippi.
Some of the names mentioned have included Kansas, K-State, Duke, Penn State, BC, VT, Maryland, just to name a few. Why not add Texas and Texas A&M into the mix?
Now before you tell me that could lead to a 30 team conference, those schools are just on a wish list, which should be listed in some type of priority order. Remember, our recruiting sites on JJ for each year have more recruits than the number of scholarships available.
If the BE say is a 5 out of a 10 in terms of FB power now, what schools would get us to an 8, with the SEC being a 10.
Can we bring in the schools I mentioned? Would any of those schools want to leave their present conferences? Who knows? The BE should go into this wanting to be a good FB conference and continue to be a great BB conference. Therefore, they should put an aggressive plan together. Be the Bat and not the Pinata!
Do I think the BE would do this, probably not, but I would. Conferences are thinking about raiding! We have BB $ and some very large markets. And yes, we would probably have to lose some schools like SH, Marquette, USF, etc.
Imagine adding Kansas to the BB mix. I would personally go after Duke. Yes, they have strong Tobacco Road ties with NC, WF and NC State, but their FB program is darn poor.
End of sermon!