The Big East, in its infinite ineptitude, has gone and done it again. After losing Miami, Boston College, and Virginia Tech to the ACC, they have taken a monumental step toward concreting themselves into mid-major status by adding Cincinnati, DePaul, Marquette, Louisville and South Florida to their already inept college football slate. Syracuse, the lone blip on the college football radar is mired deep into a conference of has-beens, won't-be's, and don't-even-bothers. While the Big East is now an enormous player on the stage of college basketball, the big-time, big-money sport of college football has taken such a backseat that it is now in the bus's lavatory.
Nobody should have any illusions about the fact that the Big East was ever going to be a major conference anyway. It was a duct-taped together conglomeration of teams that felt they needed to be in a conference during the shakeup of the late '80's and early '90's. When Penn State and Florida State joined conferences and , there was a tectonic shift in Division I-A football that caused everybody else to follow suit. Behind Miami and Syracuse, the Big East threw together Virginia Tech, who was only known inside the state of Virginia, Boston College, known mostly for Flutie, Pittsburgh, who fondly remembers the Johnny Majors years, West Virginia, an occasional also-ran, Temple, don’t get me started, and Rutgers, who won the very first college football game ever, lost the second, and went downhill from there. Only Virginia Tech's occasional threats to not collapse again and a brilliant rebuilding job by Butch Davis at Miami stopped the Big Least jokes that followed Florida's trouncing of Syracuse in the 1999 Orange Bowl.
However, with the departure of three of the teams that actually know that the football is the oblong-shaped one, the Big East has decided to add a whole mess of teams from all around the country that are mostly know for basketball. The only team they are adding that can legitimately even threaten to play football is South Florida, and they have only been playing football for three years. Not exactly a sure thing. Perhaps South Florida will be good, perhaps not, but that is a program that is wildly up in the air in the long term. However, there is one team that the Big East could have invited that would have been much less of a risk, would have opened up significant markets, and would have been an exciting addition to their conference.
Lost in the excitement of the loudly proclaimed, but barely worthwhile ACC expansion, there was an item in the news that, quite honestly, was the biggest news I've heard in college football since the Big XII was formed. Florida A&M was petitioning the NCAA to join Division I-A. Florida A&M is poised to become the first traditionally black college to play I-A football. I don't think most people quite understand the weight of this event.
Florida A&M is a perennial powerhouse in Division I-AA. They have amassed a winning percentage above 70% over their history there, won the first Division I-AA championship after the I-A, I-AA split, they are perennial entrants in the I-AA playoffs, and they have won I-can't-remember-how-many black college national championships. They are established, they are good, and they are fearless. They have not shied away from playing Miami and Florida, though they knew full well they had almost no chance against far superior athletes. The FAMU Rattlers already quite a bit of merchandise, despite their I-AA status, and they are only going to improve in that regard once they take the step to the next level.
Florida A&M stands to become a serious destination for recruits, probably at the expense of Miami. Black kids are going to have a couple of choices, they can either go to FAMU, or they can go to the white sands and white people of Coral Gables. I would imagine that a lot of kids would like to go someplace where they are not going to be stared at just because of their skin color. Compare that also with Florida State, which is "up-south" in Tallahassee, and FAMU is going to be a very desirable destination.
Likewise, the Big East could easily bring a lot of good attention to themselves by inviting Florida A&M. Actually asking the first black college in I-A football to join in the party would be a press move extraordinaire. The Big East would get a reputation for being forward thinking on the idea of integration. It's even better than hiring a black coach. Now they are bringing in an entire black school. Would any sportswriter hesitate to laud the Big East for being inclusive? Even if a sportswriter thought that bringing in Florida A&M was a bad idea, would any of them say that? If that sportswriter said so, does he really think that he would be working the day after the story was released? This would also help the Big East keep their BCS bid, as the only conference with a black college in its ranks would get a lot of lenience by the other conferences, lest they find themselves trumped by the race card and blamed even more for their old-fashioned ways, and lambasted with bile that they already receive by the shovel-full because of their records on hiring black coaches. Florida A&M would seriously have to stink it up consistently for a while, say fifteen years, at the next level in order for their inclusion of the Rattlers to become a liability.
While the Big East would only gain considerably by inviting Florida A&M to their conference, there don't seem to be any losers in this equation. The Big East would come out smelling like roses and FAMU would be in a conference that would give them a shot at the title game. It doesn't seem that there are any losers in this equation, right? Wrong. There would be one big loser in this situation:
Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University. Big time.
By becoming the first black college to join Division I-A, they are putting themselves into a position to be not only a player on the major stage of college football, but they have the ability to become an icon for all of black America. Independent status allows the Rattlers to take on all comers and show that they do not need anybody. They would be out on their own and making their way against all odds. They would have freedom of scheduling and they could go out and prove themselves against all competition. That was exactly the formula that made Notre Dame into a national emblem for Catholics everywhere. Looking at the Notre Dame all-time record book is like looking at a who's-who of college football. Every team that has ever played a worthwhile down of college football is on that list. Florida A&M, by staying independent, would have a chance to build a resume like that. Compare that with being shackled to the misfits and rejects of the Big East, and there is no way that Florida A&M would be helped by joining easily the worst conference in the BCS.
Besides, what black kid wouldn't like to see Florida A&M tear through the South like a scythe, cutting down Mississippi and its Colonel Reb, Georgia, formerly the most notorious slave state in the Confederacy, or Alabama, where the former governor, George Wallace, once personally put his body in the way of integration. Florida A&M, with its football team, could beat the white Southerners at exactly the game that they love most on this earth. The Rattlers could be symbols for all of black America, that they can stand on the big stage and steal the spotlight. Even if they do not do well, they will still, eventually, beat those teams if they schedule them enough. And the freedom of scheduling that independent status gives would provide Florida A&M exactly the tool they need to do it with. One should not expect a team of Notre Dame proportions, that would be asking too much from a team before it has even played a down of I-A football. But they could stand up and give it everything they've got. And maybe, just maybe, twenty, thirty, forty years down the road, they can stand at the top of the pyramid and say that they are there to stay.