More Big East Conference Talk

From Star-Ledger - The Big Eat presidents and chancellors held another conference call today and according to a statement, the Big East conference appears to be considering a 12-team football conference model.

With Pitt and Syracuse bolting for the ACC, the Big East could add more football teams without adding more basketball teams if they take schools as football-only members (remind anyone of what Notre Dame does?)

Three teams have emerged through rumors to be possible candidates to add to the conference: Air Force, Navy, and Boise State. Air Force has stated they have interest in joining while Navy and Boise continue to be discussed (although Boise continues to be a long shot at this point). Air Force has contacted other smaller conferences (contacted Missouri Valley) about moving their other athletic programs if the football team was invited and accepted Big East membership.

If all three teams were added, that would give the Big East 9 football members, but they would still have to bring in 3 more schools if they wanted to hit the 12 team mark. This would mean that UCF, Temple and ECU could be added to the mix along with all their athletic programs. They could also added Villanova is they moved their football program to FCS (Army is an option in football as well).

If they aren't able to do that and forced to add all sports with new members, it would make the basketball schedule uneven, but the league was prepared for that scenario when TCU was added last season.

So where does all this rumor and talk lead us? Nowhere for now. While the Big East continues to talk about adding teams and giving Marinatto the vote of confidence (not a wise move) nothing has been done yet as the Big East teams continue to sit around and wait. A lot hinges on the decision of Missouri and its fate with the Big 12 or SEC. If Missouri goes to the SEC, the Big 12 could take more Big East schools, such as Louisville, which would be another death blow to the conference.

So for now, we all have to sit, wait and speculate. With the Big East just talking and Missouri not deciding, it continues to be a black cloud over the football season.