I got a chance to speak with new Big East Commissioner John Marinatto last week at Big East Football Media Day. Here are his thoughts on a few topics:
**ON THE NEED TO WIN A NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP IN FOOTBALL
“It would be nice. It would certainly be nice if we won a national championship. I think every conference would love to do that.”
**ON POSSIBLY ADDING A 9TH TEAM FOR FOOTBALL
“We talk about it and we recognize the fact that we’d love to have a balanced schedule and the way to do that obviously is to add a ninth football member. But we don’t want to solve one problem and possibly create another, because now you’re dividing revenues nine ways…If someone did in fact bring quality to our conference and solve that problem and carry their own weight, then we would obviously do it. But until that time comes we’re not going to do something just for one reason.”
**ON THE UPCOMING BOWL NEGOTIATIONS AFTER THE 2010 SEASON
“We need to protect our second-place team in the year that they go to our No. 2 poll outside of the automatic tie-in to the BCS. We’ve got a number of options on the table. We’ve talked to the Notre Dame AD about these. He and I are on the same page. We can’t get into particulars at this point, but we have things in mind…
“No matter how things unfold in regard to this current four-year cycle, we’re going to be in a position where we have opportunitiess for our people. Our three criteria are location, destination and opponents.”