Big East Will Announce the Death of Football Today at 5 PM

As I'm sure many of you have already heard, the Big East has come to agreements with five teams and is prepared to formally introduce these schools this evening at 5:00. Among these schools are three full members, Houston, Central Florida, and Southern Methodist; and two football-only members, Boise State and San Diego State. While some may see this as a good thing for the conference just to be adding teams, you can't help but imagine this is a pretty big downgrade for the BCS as a whole. Let's look at these teams coming in after the jump.

Houston

Houston has made a bit of noise in the past couple seasons that got it some national attention and some significant votes in the polls. Then they did what they always do: flail in the spotlight and turn out to not be as god as they thought they were. This year, they got major attention in the BCS with an undefeated regular season before getting smoked in the Conference USA championship by three touchdowns. Houston tumbled out of contention for a BCS game and is now playing a deflated Penn State team instead. Obviously the national rankings in recent seasons gained interest from the Big East, who is just desperate for any school whose name people have heard.

Southern Methodist

Everyone knows the SMU "Pony Express" death penalty scandal from the late 80s up until about 2007. Apparently now, their two 7-win seasons since then have shown that they deserve to compete at the BCS level. After Texas A&M moved to the SEC, the Mustangs got the wild idea that they could fill the void and replace them in the Big XII. Of course, the Big XII scoffed at the idea, and added the much more deserving TCU instead. After seeing SMU shut down by a real BCS conference, the Big East saw its opportunity and seized the consistently .500 or worse Mustangs to just get another foot in Texas. Supporters suggested "BUT IT'S A GREAT RIVALRY FOR THE CONFERENCE WITH SMU AND HOUSTON", but in reality, 32,000 people came to a homecoming game to see their school play an undefeated rival this past year.

Oh, and Craig James.

Boise State

Boise State is definitely the most deserving team of the five to be in a BCS conference. Unfortunately for the Broncos, it was the Big East that came calling, and not anyone else. But with both sides absolutely desperate for each other, it seems like a match made in heaven for right now. Boise State gets a super easy conference that they'll win every year and never get snubbed from a BCS game until the conference inevitably loses its AQ status; and the Big East gets a team whose name people have heard and don't burst into laughter about. Boise State were snubbed earlier this week when the #7 ranked Broncos weren't invited to a BCS game, probably due to the fact that they lost to the only respectable team on their schedule. They won't have to worry about that anymore, though. Their kicker will be able to miss all the field goals he wants as BSU coasts to an east 8-4 record and goes right to the Big East championship game.

San Diego State

The Aztecs were just breaking onto the scene at the right time when they wen 9-3 in the Mountain West Conference with wins over perennial juggernauts Air Force and Fresno State. Luckily for them, the Big East was getting robbed dry at the same time while they're over there beating superpower Colorado State. Many people are upset over the geography issue here, since San Diego isn't exactly "East", unless you're in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. Geography is the least of the conference's worries right now, though, since no one on this coast wants anything to do with them anyway. This will mean, however, that the schools in the conference are going to be sending their travel budgets through the roof and won't have any money left over to buy out all their unsold bowl game tickets.

Central Florida

Oh, UCF. I don't fully know what words I'm allowed to use on here, but I'm fairly certain many of them are not appropriate for those of you with reading at work or with children in the room. Let's start small. USF had beaten UCF four times in its short stint in Conference USA before moving on to the Big East. Since then, USF fans can hear the UCF proponents yelling from all the way over here that they deserve a spot in a BCS conference just as much as the Bulls. So let's look at the two teams' resumes. Since leaving, USF beat Florida State, Miami, Notre Dame, and Clemson in a span of two seasons. Central Florida hasn't beaten a team with a winning record in over two years. They got a bit of attention last year after winning 11 games, but as Houston showed us this year, that's really not that impressive. In 2008, the university's athletic department was put on three years' probation after being discovered guilty of basketball and football recruiting violations, but that didn't stop them. Earlier this season, it was discovered that UCF AD Keith Tribble was actually PAYING RECRUITS and an AGENT to talk up the school and solidify commitments. That's right, they blatantly violated their probation and showed the utmost lack of institutional control, and they get rewarded with an invitation to a BCS conference. But don't worry, self-proclaimed college football experts will tell you "BUT THE UCF-USF RIVALRY IS ESSENTIAL TO BOTH TEAMS' SUCCESS". But you know better. USF was doing just fine without UCF, forming real rivalries with Florida State and Miami.

Excellent job grabbing Boise State, Big East. If we didn't get them, someone else probably would have given them a look over. As for the other four, Marinatto and the entire executive staff for the Big East deserve to be drawn and quartered to the four corners of the Big East's realm, which now covers the entire nation. I guess they're probably trying to do what they think is right for the conference, but what they've actually done is prolong the pained limping of a conference that doesn't deserve to live. If they really cared about the welfare of this league they'd put it out of its misery.