Woolard: “We’re in great shape here”

Posted Sep 20, 2011 by Adam Adkins

Updated Sep 20, 2011 at 05:29 PM

University of South Florida athletic director Doug Woolard admits there is great uncertainty regarding all that’s happening with conference realignment in college sports, but he believes USF will be in a solid position when all the dominoes have fallen.

“I think our department is in great shape for that to occur,” Woolard said. “I think from a standpoint of our future, we’re in great shape here.”

USF competes in the Big East Conference, which was shaken over the weekend by announcements that Syracuse and Pittsburgh were leaving to join the Atlantic Coast Conference, which also includes Florida State and Miami.

It’s part of a major evolution in college sports across the country as schools maneuver to create larger “super” conferences, increase television revenue and consolidate Bowl Championship Series (BCS) eligibility.

Conferences that could be the most threatened are the Big East and the Big 12, which has seen at least three schools (Nebraska, Colorado and Texas A&M) leave or announce their intention to leave in recent years.

It’s a fluid situation, to say the least.

The Associated Press reported that three people with knowledge of the meeting say the presidents and athletic directors from the Big East football schools were meeting Tuesday night in New York City to discuss the league’s future.

The remaining Big East football schools are West Virginia, Cincinnati, Connecticut, Rutgers, Louisville and South Florida. TCU is set to join the Big East next season, and its leaders also will take part in the meeting.

Woolard made no mention of the meeting during his interview Tuesday with The Tampa Tribune, and USF officials would not confirm that Woolard and Genshaft were attending.

If Connecticut and Rutgers also bolt the Big East for the ACC, as was rumored earlier this week, the Big East would be left with just a handful of schools that play football at the level that competes in the BCS. The conference is one of six that receive automatic bids to BCS bowl games, but that status could be in jeopardy.

Still, Woolard remains confident that USF will emerge from all the current turmoil in a conference that is eligible to play for the college football national championship.

“We need to be in the BCS. We need to protect our AQ (automatic qualifier) status,” he said. “I think everybody is trying to do that.”

Woolard cited a football program that has enjoyed success (currently ranked in the top 20), massive facility upgrades that have taken place in the past 14 months, and being in the nation’s 13th-largest television market as among the reasons USF won’t be left out in the cold.

USF football coach Skip Holtz said he’s been too busy coaching his team to spend much time on all the conference realignment talk.

“As far as what we should do in the landscape of college football, there are people more intelligent and much more prepared to answer those questions than I am,” he said. “I’ve said this before, if you ever want a question answered, go to the organ grinder, don’t go to the monkey. I’m just a monkey on the end of the chain, dancing on the sidewalk.”

Woolard reiterated that he and USF president Judy Genshaft have had conversations, both within the Big East Conference and at a national level, regarding conference realignment over the past 18 months. He said that while USF currently remains a member of the Big East, the university’s administration continues to track what’s going on with conference realignment across the country.

“I think you’re actively involved with just trying to monitor and just trying to see what’s in your best interests,” said Woolard, who declined to discuss specifics regarding what other conferences USF might have had discussions with, or whether or not USF had applied for membership in another league.

Holtz said he trusts Genshaft and Woolard to make the proper decisions for USF, and shares Woolard’s sentiment that USF is in a good position.

“I feel very confident that this school and this conference (the Big East) have an awful lot to offer,” he said. “Where it’s going, I have no idea. I’m just very intrigued, as everybody else in this room, where everybody’s going to sit when the music stops in this game of musical chairs we’re playing right now.”

Woolard said he can’t predict how things are going to play out.

“It’s unsettling for everybody, but I feel good about what’s happened here and the position that we’re in,” he said. “If there is change, which we can’t control, I feel good in the way we’re positioned as we are as an institution.”