TCU in the Big East?

"Bad move bruh!"

When I 1^st heard the news of TCU going to the Big East I was excited for them because now they would get to play in an automatic qualifying conference. I immediately thought of their football program and how this would give them the opportunity to get to a BCS bowl game annually. The Horned Frogs are a great football team from the state of Texas and legitimately have good players. They were just in a non automatic qualifying conference, the Mountain West, which means no automatic BCS bowl birth. Every year they would have to run the table to get into a BCS bowl. One loss kills any opportunity to play in a big time bowl game and earn the $17 million that it normally pays out. So I was excited that they were able to move to the Big East for that reason.

The Big East is a winnable conference for the Frogs every year. They will be the most athletic team from day one. They’ve got a roster full of kids from Texas where they are born to play football. So in that regard I thought that the athletic department made a great move. The school will make more money because of the exposure and the opportunity to go to the BCS without having to run the table and get caught up in a whole lot of debate. So good for the school and it’s athletic department, right?

Wrong. The students will suffer the most from this selfish decision by the school. I now that football is king in Texas but during this whole process they never once thought about how this would effect the student-athlete. Remember, TCU has sports other than football. The travel alone will be ridiculous for kids to deal with. Think about the kids on the basketball team that will have to travel to Providence, Rhode Island on a Wednesday and turn around and go to class on Thursday. That’s more than 1,700 miles one way. Are you kidding me? Think about the amount of money that the university will blow on sports like soccer etc as they travel great distances and nobody’s going to be in the stands to watch them. Keep in mind that traditionally the only two sports on campus that generate any revenue are football and basketball. In this case it’s only football. TCU doesn’t have a good basketball team and the Big East is loaded with 17 teams. These kids are going to be worn out from this schedule.

Lastly, they didn’t for once think about the parents in this situation. Most, if not all of the kids on the TCU rosters are from the state of Texas. How many parents are going to be able to travel to West Virginia etc to see their kids play. Who’s got the money to gallivant up and down the east coast during the season. A buddy of mine said it best, “If my kid received a letter from TCU, I wouldn’t even open it“. For that reason alone the rosters for TCU athletics will soon change from mostly kids from Texas to mostly east coast kids. The athletic director didn’t even think about that. Kids want to win but they want to play in front of their families as well.

I don’t understand why they didn’t discuss moving to the Big 12 because of the departure of Colorado and Nebraska. From a geographic standpoint it makes all of the sense in the world and the recruiting base doesn’t change at all. It’s obvious why they didn’t, because they could easily win the Big East in football every year. Sounds good but again the kids and parents were thrown under the bus in the process.

Holla At Ya Boy!
Jay Graves
Twitter: @jaygravesreport