Compher Makes Intentions Known of ECU's Desire to Move to Big 12
With several American Athletic Conference schools and some from the Mountain West along with BYU being most prominently mentioned as possible expansion candidates for Big 12 inclusion, East Carolina has publicly made their availability known.
East Carolina Athletic Director Jeff Compher chimed in via a prepared statement Thursday afternoon.
“I believe strongly East Carolina deserves to be in the Big 12 as we can deliver the entire state of North Carolina," Compher said.
"We have been positioning ourself to be the next member for the past 12 months and will continue to do so."
The Pirates are in the final planning stages of the next major renovation to historic Dowdy-Ficklen Stadium with a 55 million dollar face lift that will add a new press facility, premium suites and parking along with an additional one thousand seats to the 50,000 seat structure.
Currently ECU plays in 7,500 seat Minges Coliseum that received a multi-million dollar practice facility addition in the past three years. The Pirates also sport new stadiums and facilities for football, soccer, track and softball. The Pirates play golf out of Ironwood Country Club, a Lee Trevino signature course just north of the Greenville metropolitan area.
East Carolina enters this fall with a new head football coach in Scottie Montgomery who comes over from Durham where he was the offensive coordinator at Duke. Montgomery takes over for Ruffin McNeill after the Pirates moved to as high as 16th in the country at one point in 2014.
ECU lost five of the last seven games and to go 5-7 in 2015. That after losing four of six to close out 2014 at 8-5.
Houston, BYU, Colorado State, USF, UCF, Cincinnati, Memphis and UConn have been mentioned most prominently as possibilities while ECU has been mysteriously absent from the conversation. ECU has remained mostly quiet on the situation until today.
The Pirates currently reside in the American Athletic Conference which is an offshoot of the old Big East football conference.
It wouldn't be that surprising if Big 12 expansion ultimately turns into a Big 12 back fill much like the Big East did.
If several Big 12 schools like Texas, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State and Kansas ultimately opt to move to other existing power leagues to consolidate power in four leagues, moving to the Big 12 might prove to be the same mirage that moving to the Big East was. But the Big 12 would still be the best of the rest and at the bare minimum, East Carolina doesn't want to be totally left out of the party.
Currently the college football playoff only allows for four teams among five currently existing designated power conferences, which finds one league left out every year. It is believed that expanding the Big 12 above the current ten teams might enhance their chances to be included in the football playoff.
But simple math tells us that one league is going to be left out every year no matter what in a four team playoff.
Group of Five conferences like the American Athletic Conference and Mountain West have little to no chance to make the playoff due to overall strength of schedule issues. The political push among the power five conferences appears to be to ultimately consolidate that number to four power leagues.
But being left out completely would likely prove to be a death sentence for ECU in football especially if the AAC has to back fill with less prominent programs.
ECU plays in a midsize metro of less than 200,000 people, but they also bring a statewide audience and large alumni bases in Raleigh, Greensboro, Norfolk and Charlotte. That along with interest from those in ACC markets who routinely play the Pirates on a rotating basis in football and an annual basis in baseball, makes ECU an interesting program to follow in the Mid Atlantic and beyond in American Athletic Conference cities like Cincinnati, Memphis, Orlando, Tampa, Philadelphia, Houston, New Orleans and others.
The Pirates bring a solid regional following that is more than adequate for television purposes. They also bring the largest attendance in the AAC in football and baseball over the course of the last ten years.
The situation remains fluid but dicey at the moment. Stay tuned to see if the Big 12 opts to expand and who they decide to choose.
