It takes two to tango and Big East commish John Marinatto seemed open to the idea of Pitt leaving the Big East for the ACC in 2013 about a week ago. As expected, Pitt athletic director Steve Pederson recently confirmed that Pitt was interested in leaving after this season as well.
Pederson, of course, said the university would be interested (audio) and even went as far as saying it made sense that they 'could get there', meaning an agreement could be reached.Pederson's main reasoning? That the Big East is more stable with more teams in the fold:
"The Big East has been able to re-form itself now with more teams than when we announced we were going to leave. So they'll have 12 football teams, and they'll be ready to go by 2013, so it does seem to make sense on both ends that we'll be able to get there, and we're anxious to hopefully get that resolved and get everybody moving forward so we can all focus on where we're going to be in 2013," Pederson said. "In (Marinatto's) press conference with Temple (last week), he was ready to have those discussions, so I think we'll be able to get things resolved here."
When it was learned that 2014 was the time Pitt would be able to leave the Big East without penalty, not many people believed it would take that long. The possibility of the school leaving early now sounds more definite than ever. The conference not only has more teams, but even without Pitt and Syracuse, they now have the 12 football schools they need to host a conference championship if that's the goal.
And as I've said before, the Big East surely would like to get something financially out of Pitt and Syracuse leaving. If the two schools are released in 2013, the conference will likely accomplish that goal.
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