Tranghese Says Memphis Role Not A Sign School Will Join Big East
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Tranghese Says He's Just Evaluating
Memphis' Athletic Program |
Former Big East Commissioner Mike Tranghese Thursday insisted that there is "nothing to the speculation" that his new role as a consultant for the Univ. of Memphis (UM) will lead to the school joining the conference, according to Tom Luicci of the Newark STAR-LEDGER. Tranghese said, "All I'm doing is evaluating their athletic program. People are making something out of nothing. My agreement with Memphis is to evaluate their athletic department and to make recommendations to improve their position if there is an opportunity (to join a BCS conference) in the future." He added that if there were a "school on the landscape that made sense as the ninth Big East football team that it would probably have been added to the league by now." Tranghese said his consultant job is "more positioning for the future, because you never know what's going to happen down the road." He added, "But that's all it is" (Newark STAR-LEDGER, 9/18). More Tranghese: "My job is not to get people into other conferences, because if that was what I was hired for, I would not have accepted it. What I said I could do is evaluate and tell you where your program is relative to other programs in the BCS." Meanwhile, Tranghese noted the thing UM "has that you can't buy is incredible fan support." Tranghese: "You can't buy that" (Memphis COMMERCIAL APPEAL, 9/17). ESPN.com's Brian Bennett wrote what UM "has done is grab a connection to the power brokers in the Big East." Bennett: "It will be up to the school to sell itself, and it will be up to the league to figure out whether the Tigers bring enough to the table to warrant inclusion in the future" (ESPN.com, 9/16).
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