On the Banks, a Rutgers Scarlet Knights community

I'm excited that Houston is now a Big East city. I'm excited that Dallas is now a Big East city. I'm excited that Memphis is now a Big East city. I'm more excited that those cities are coming into the Big East than I am about those programs coming into the Big East.

Aresco talked about new rivalries, including Villanova vs. Temple, as being central to the continued growth of the league as it looks to stabilize. He is aware that a far-flung football league is an issue, that if fans can't travel, rivalries have a harder time developing.

Because lightning was detected during the match and play couldn't be resumed within three hours from the 1 p.m. CT start of the contest, the matchup is ruled a "no contest" in accordance with NCAA rules.

Since at least 70 minutes of the match were unable to be completed, the statistics from the match will not count and the result will not be reflected in either team's win-loss record.

Sources suggest that if NBC, which is desperate for sports inventory, signs a TV contract with the conference, it would be willing to pay the Big East football teams $10 milllion apiece and throw in an additional $4 million for the 16 basketball schools. One of the network’s ideas may be to run a full day of Big East football, along with Notre Dame home games, from noon to midnight Saturdays on either NBC or its still-growing cable channel.

Memphis and the Big East Conference are in the final stages of negotiations to make the Tigers an all-sports member of the Big East beginning in 2013, college football industry sources told CBSSports.com. [Interesting. -Ed.]

At yesterday's meeting, potential candidates such as Boise State, Central Florida and Temple were discussed, but no consensus could be agreed upon which teams to invite first, or at all.

The basketball factions were adamant about not adding anyone, while the football faction argued that if the Big East is going to survive as a BCS conference, whose champion gained automatic entry to a BCS bowl it is imperative for Boise State, with its high national ranking was a necessity for survival.

The Presidents and Chancellors of the Southeastern Conference met on Monday for its regularly-scheduled fall meeting. While they discussed a wide range of issues dealing with the changing landscape of intercollegiate athletics, no actions were taken with regards to expansion.

According to sources familiar with the process, but not authorized to talk about any negotiations, the Big East is focusing on two areas, with SMU, Central Florida ,Navy and Temple as the primary schools being looked at. Air Force is also being considered, but that seems more remote of a possibility

Then, Pitt Panthur, Bastion Collagge, Mia Mee and Virginia Teck showed up at her office door. They were all on their way to Bennigan's and wanted to know if she'd like to join them. Never one to turn down a good Monte Cristo Sandwich, she agreed and joined them.

Together again, along with an entirely new group of co-workers in a company that has it's eye on the future. Sara tried her best to find that at Big East Corp but they refused. No one could call her disloyal or greedy for looking elsewhere to find it then, right? Right.

Sara had the best Monte Cristo Sandwich of her life that day. And she knew there were many more to come.

"It's now a dog-eat-dog world in college athletics," he said, "and everyone is acting in their own self-interest. It's not about fit or academics or rivalries. It's about football and money, period."

Tranghese said "you can't cast stones" at Pitt or Syracuse because every football school in the Big East "didn't feel secure." He said that through the final years of his tenure in the commissioner's chair, he grew tired of the "belly-aching" from football schools that longed for bigger TV dollars and bowl contracts.

"They simply weren't winning enough games and kept pointing the finger at us to get them more money," he said. "The best way to solve their own problems was to win games, but the Big East hasn't been good enough in football. It was an incredible burden."