Posted by Jerry Hinnen
With the Big East now officially reduced to seven football-playing members after the departure of West Virginia, the conference's 2012 scheduling dilemma has reached its crisis point--doubly so if Boise State can't find a way to ride to the rescue. Perhaps nothing illustrates the direness of the league's scheduling situation than earlier reports that Syracuse and Rutgers have considered playing twice in the 2012 regular season, with the Scarlet Knights hosting the Orange as originally scheduled and the Orange hosting Rutgers either in the Carrier Dome or Yankee Stadium.
But even with a yawning Mountaineer-shaped gap in their schedules and not much more than six months until the 2012 season kicks off, Syracuse athletic director Daryl Gross told ESPN CNY radio Tuesday that a second game against the Scarlet Knights was "not an option." As transcribed by Orange blog Troy Nunes is an Absolute Magician, Gross's response to the Yankee Stadium suggestion:
No. Not an option and I guess the simplest way to answer it is just no. It's just all wrong. It's not even an option. We're playing [USC] at the New Meadowlands next year and we have great respect for those folks, what they've set up for us. It'll be like a bowl game for us and we'll have all the trains and buses and everything going down, so that's our New York game. But besides that, we won't be playing ... home and home with members of the same conference.
On the one hand, this will save both the Orange and the Scarlet Knights the awkwardness of playing the kind of home-and-home college football series rarely seen since the turn of the 20th century; aside from New York City-based Orange fans greedy enough to want their team to visit the city twice (or any Syracuse-based diehard hoping for some immediate revenge for last year's 19-16 Rutgers win at the Carrier Dome), it's hard to imagine who at either school might want to play the in-season rematch.
On the other, at least a second game against each other would give the Orange and Scarlet Knights someone to play. As it stands, Boise's late addition to the schedule could be the only thing standing between the two programs and outright desperation, though they could also receive some highly ironic last-minute help from the Mountaineers, of all people--the settlement between WVU and the Big East requires the Mountaineers to "use its reasonable best efforts to help" the remaining Big East members find scheduling partners, including those from WVU's new Big 12 home "if possible."
But whatever solution the Big East, Orange, and Scarlet Knights finds (and our current bet is simply on Boise making the leap in the near future), Gross's comments do make clear what it won't be.
Keep up with the latest college football news from around the country. From the opening kick of the year all the way through the offseason, CBSSports.com has you covered with this daily newsletter. View a preview.
It wasn't even two weeks ago that no less an authority than Boise State president Bob Kustra said 
With very little warning, the ACC made one of the most prominent moves in conference realignment in the middle of the 2011 regular season with the addition of Pittsburgh and Syracuse from the Big East. The bylaw-mandated 27-month exit period was thought to be negotiable, but all signs from Big East commissioner John Marinatto indicate that the league will hold all departing members to full withdrawal process.
PROS: The Cougars are riding a Case Keenum-led high, having won 22 games in their star QB's last two healthy seasons, including the program's first bowl win since 1980 in 2009. But Houston has plenty going for it off the field, too; their location smack dab in the middle of one of the country's largest television markets (this is going to be a repeating theme) and most fertile recruiting grounds should pay the Big East dividends both in their TV negotiations and on the recruiting trail. If the Cougars themselves can capitalize on their new BCS status on the trails in Houston and nearby Louisiana, they could be a power for years to come.
PROS: As with the Cougars, Dallas-based SMU has the advantage of being located in one of the nation's biggest metro markets, a major plus for the television bean counters. But the Mustangs also have an administration that hasn't been shy about throwing its financial support behind its formerly woebegone program, and that's not a "Pony Express" joke; the school opened Gerald J. Ford Stadium just 11 years ago and four seasons back ponied up the cash (that pun's intended) to lure June Jones from Hawaii. Result: three straight bowl bids after a 25-year drought, some of the best recruiting classes in Conference USA, and noticeably increased fan interest and attendance.
PROS: If there's any school that's put its money where its mouth is when it comes to supporting athletics, it's UCF, which opened the $55 million, 45,00-seat on-campus Bright House Networks Stadium four years ago amongst multiple other major facilities upgrades. Though a 5-7 2011 season has been a major disappointment for George O'Leary's program, this is still a team that's won two C-USA titles and earned three bowl bids in the past five years. As the second-largest school in the country in terms of enrollment and the only major college football program in the sizable Orlando market, a move to the Big East and a few years of consistent winning could give the Knights the push on the recruiting trail needed to become a legit BCS contender.
PROS: Long regarded as the "sleeping giant" of the Mountain West, the Aztecs finally went some way towards waking up with a 9-4 2010 season and just their second bowl berth in 19 years--a campaign that resulted in an attendance surge that 