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ByJoe Dorish,Yahoo! Contributor Network Oct 16, 12:22 pm EDT
In order to survive, at least as a football conference, the Big East will soon extend invitations out to six different schools. Reports have thosesix schoolsbeing, Boise State, Air Force, Navy, the University of Central Florida or UCF, Southern Methodist University or SMU, and the University of Houston. Boise State, Air Force and Navy are being invited for football only, while UCF, SMU and Houston will be full members.
The Big East needs new football members because of the defections of Syracuse and Pitt to the ACC. Without Pitt and Syracuse, the Big East is down to just six football members, Rutgers, Louisville, Cincinnati, South Florida, West Virginia and Connecticut or UConn. So all the Big East expansion plans are being driven by football considerations.
I've been a big fan of the Big East ever since the league was formed as a basketball conference back in 1979. One of the founding members of the Big East, Syracuse, is my favorite college basketball team. While I'm sad to see my Orange leave the Big East, I've been a Rutgers football fan since I was a kid and the Scarlet Knights went undefeated in 1976, finishing with an 11-0 record. That Rutgers team, believe it or not, actually won18 consecutive games. So I still have interest in the Big East, especially from a football standpoint.
Big East Wants to Add Teams from Idaho, Colorado and Texas
When most people hear that the Big East wants to add Boise State from Idaho, Air Force from Colorado Springs, SMU from Dallas, and Houston from Texas, they laugh and say it's crazy as none of those teams are near the East Coast. But is it really crazy for the Big East to try and add teams from around the country?
Big East Needs Quality to Retain Its BCS AQ Status
The key for football is that the Big East wants to retain its status as a BCS Automatic Qualifying conference. Retaining itsAQ statusfor the BCS guarantees the Big East will get a piece of the big lucrative money pie college football divvies up each year with its bowl games.
Even before Syracuse and Pitt announced that they were leaving, there were a lot of grumblings about the Big East and its AQ status. The moves the Big East is looking to make though, would actually make the conference much stronger from a football standpoint. The Big East doesn't have to worry about its basketball status, losing the Orange will hurt a little, but Big East basketball is still loaded.
Syracuse and Pitt have gone a combined 59-65 over the last five years (2006-2010), and are a combined 7-6 so farin 2011. Pitt has made three straight bowl appearances, but the Panthers are just 2-4 in 2011.
Two of the six schools the Big East is looking to add, Boise State (6-0) at #5, and Houston (6-0) at #25, are both undefeated and nationally ranked in theTop 25. In addition, adding two of the nation's military academies, Air Force and Navy, would bring a political problem into the equation for removing the Big East from its AQ status.
From that standpoint, the new additions would be a huge plus for the Big East. From the standpoint of locations, adding these six teams would potentially bring in some majorTV markets. Dallas (SMU) is the fifth largest TV market in the country, Houston is 10th, Denver (Air Force) is 18th, Orlando (UCF) is 19th, and Navy potentially brings in both the Washington D.C. ninth TV market, and the 26th ranked Baltimore, Maryland market. The TV markets are important for negotiating TV rights for televising Big East football games.
So for all those people who say the Big East expansion plans are crazy, I'd say the current plan actually makes a lot of sense. If all six teams join as planned, the Big East will likely be able to retain its AQ BCS status, while also vastly increasing its potential reach across some of the largest TV markets in the country. That doesn't sound crazy at all to me.
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