West Virginia MetroNews: Is John Marinatto Still Working Here?

[TopFrog]

West Virginia MetroNews: Is John Marinatto Still Working Here?

Dale Miller
Morgantown

State legislators in Florida are upset over reports that the University of South Florida is blocking neighboring Central Florida from at least getting a chance to join the Big East and thereby upgrade to a BCS conference. At a recent political meeting St. Petersburg state senator Jack Latvala asked USF president Judy Genshaft if it was true that the Bulls were blackballing the Knights, and her response is more than interesting.

"Those statements that are out in the press are not true. That is not the case," Genshaft said. "I am not stopping any university from coming in. What is happening is the league, or the conference, now is looking at schools and they have looked very much at schools that are not in any of the states that are represented by the Big East schools right now. The ones that they're looking at right now, they do not sit in any state that the Big East schools currently are in."

If that’s true that restrictions of any kind have been placed on conference expansion it is well past alarming and another reason why the sane schools left in the Big East must make a number of fundamental changes, and make them as soon as possible. ...

 

[Despite the odds Frog]

I wonder the same thing. Hello Marinatto where are you? However his actions this late might make it too late to do anything, he might have waited out his chances to do anything at this point. He had an opportunity to get Big 12 schools but waited until the conference came back together and now the same conference that he could of saved the Big East with might now end his football portion of his league...which might be his plan all along.

 

[HFrog1999]

Here's security camera footage of him in the Pitt athletic director's office.

 

[BelushiBob]

Commish Marinade is trying not to piss off his backstop.... the basketball schools. He is the former Providence AD. If all the football programs leave then he is still commish of a basketball league. Basketball = Commish Marinade's Golden Parachute

 

[Stiff Arm Frog]

USF really needs to stop blocking UCF's entry into the Big East. Really, it's only a matter of time before these two schools are in the same conference any way. Either we let UCF and a few other schools join, and we save the Big East. Or we don't expand, the Big East folds, and USF ends up in C-USA. Along with UCF.

Of all the schools refusing entry of market competitors into their own conference, the refusal of USF has got to be the most cynical, self-gratifying, short-sighted, and ruinous in all of college football. The Big East needs UCF to survive, and it needs another Texas school too. TCU has not been dogmatically opposed to adding Houston or SMU. USF needs to grow up and add what would quickly become a great conference rivalry.

 

[Boomhauer]

Commish Marinade is trying not to piss off his backstop.... the basketball schools. He is the former Providence AD. If all the football programs leave then he is still commish of a basketball league. Basketball = Commish Marinade's Golden Parachute

We have a winner. The Big East commish's job would be safer and easier if the football schools left. I'm starting to think this is his preference (certainly the preference of the basketball schools).

 

[Riff Ram]

This was one of the more thoughtful pieces on the BE I've read. Just wonder if it's too late to act, based on what the b12 may be about to do.