Rutgers athletic director Tim Pernetti may not be the Big East commissioner, but no athletic director arguably holds more sway over the future of the conference. A little over a year ago, it was Pernetti, West Virginia's Oliver Luck, and Pitt's Steve Pederson dragging the Big East kicking and screaming into a modern age focused on football and television revenue. Luck and Pederson split, meaning Pernetti was all alone on an island. Yet here we stand today, with the league remade in his image, and ready to stare down ESPN in a game of chicken. Pernetti's former colleagues from CBS and CSTV are now in charge of negotiations, and his bold vision for the conference and Rutgers athletics looks poised to come to fruition. We're not out of the woods yet, with ESPN poised to sling every bit of mud possible to lower the conference's asking price. The league finally has competent leadership in place after decades of futility though, and looks poised to prove the naysayers wrong once again.