The Big East is juuust about ready to rebuild itself after losing the TCU Horned Frogs, Syracuse Orange, and Pittsburgh Panthers. In fact, they're looking to do it up even bigger this time and go for 12 football schools, which would mean a conference title game. It would also mean adding six new schools.
Big East Expansion: Everything You Need To Know Right Now, Pretty Much
Here’s the latest.*
At least one or two schools out of the Navy Midshipmen, Air Force Falcons and Temple Owls are believed to be among the first batch of additions. The Army Black Knights could also join, but only for football.
That would leave two to four spots. The rest of the same-ish list of candidates has been altered slightly depending on the reporter for a while now, but we want THE LATEST. Tom Liucci of the Star-Ledger reports it could come down to the Boise St. Broncos, Houston Cougars, Central Florida Knights and SMU Mustangs. Liucci also mentions the East Carolina Pirates and Villanova Wildcats (already a non-football member) as lesser lights.
However, both Rich Elliott of the Greenwich Time and Dick Weiss of the New York Daily News report UCF is up first.
All of that’s pretty consistent with what we’ve known, other than the Houston thing. The Big East might really be committed to hanging around Texas despite losing TCU.
Boise State has issued a statement on the reports. In Boise State’s case, that seems less like a sign there’s serious fire and more like an affirmation that Boise State is very polite. Really think they can do better than the Big East if they stick it out.
* For the quick version and something you should read anyway because it’s great, here’s Big East Coast Bias’ breakdown of the candidates.
For more, keep checking Big East Coast Bias. And stay tuned here for more conference realignment news.
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