Big East Mulls Adding Boise St. Football at LinesMaker

Big East Mulls Adding Boise St. Football

NEW YORK —The Big East is con­sid­er­ing adding Boise State foot­ball to help bol­ster the conference’s chances of retain­ing its BCS auto­matic bid, though both sides still need to be per­suaded that it’s the right move.

A col­lege foot­ball offi­cial, who spoke Thurs­day to The Asso­ci­ated Press on con­di­tion of anonymity because he was not autho­rized to dis­cuss the Big East’s plans, says some Big East pres­i­dents are resist­ing adding Boise State and the school itself has reser­va­tions about join­ing a con­fer­ence in flux.

The Big East said ear­lier this week it would like to expand to 12 foot­ball schools and split into two divi­sions, which would allow the league to play a championship.

The offi­cial said that some Big East lead­ers believe the pri­or­ity in expan­sion should be bring­ing in pro­grams that will ensure the Big East remains an auto­matic qual­i­fy­ing BCS con­fer­ence when the cur­rent Bowl Cham­pi­onship Series tele­vi­sion and bowl con­tracts run out after the 2013 season.

Boise State could be just what the Big East needs. The Bron­cos have had one of the win­ningest pro­grams in col­lege foot­ball recently, going 71–5 since 2006.

The BCS has a for­mula for eval­u­at­ing the strength of a con­fer­ence that takes into account the final BCS rank­ings of each team in a league. Even if Boise State joined the Big East next sea­son, its final BCS rank­ing of 10th while play­ing in the West­ern Ath­letic Con­fer­ence last year, and its rank­ing this sea­son while play­ing in the Moun­tain West Con­fer­ence, would count toward the Big East’s ledger when it is reviewed after the 2013 season.

No. 5 Boise State is 5–0 head­ing into this weekend’s game at Col­orado State.

Los­ing its auto­matic BCS bid could cost the reel­ing Big East mil­lions of dol­lars in rev­enue down the road.

Last month, Pitts­burgh and Syra­cuse announced they would be leav­ing the Big East to join the Atlantic Coast Con­fer­ence. That left the Big East with six foot­ball mem­bers: Louisville, Cincin­nati, West Vir­ginia, Rut­gers, Con­necti­cut and USF.

The Big East also has eight schools that do not play foot­ball: Vil­lanova, George­town, St. John’s, Prov­i­dence, Seton Hall, Mar­quette, DePaul and Notre Dame.

The Big East has been hold­ing con­fer­ence calls all week, includ­ing Thurs­day, to dis­cuss expan­sion issues. Com­pli­cat­ing mat­ters in the Big East are the at times con­flict­ing agen­das of the foot­ball schools and the other members.

Aside from Boise State, Navy and Air Force also have been tar­geted as football-only mem­bers by the Big East, and the league is con­sid­er­ing Tem­ple from the Mid-American Con­fer­ence and Cen­tral Florida and East Car­olina from Con­fer­ence USA as mem­bers in all sports.

SMU and Hous­ton from CUSA also are pos­si­bil­i­ties, allow­ing the Big East to regain the pres­ence in Texas it thought it was going to have with TCU.

Hav­ing the Texas schools, along with Air Force, which is in Col­orado Springs, Colo., in a west­ern divi­sion of the league, would give Boise State some rea­son­able road trips. The clos­est cur­rent Big East foot­ball mem­ber to Boise, Idaho, is Louisville—1,879 miles away.

Last week, TCU reneged on its deci­sion to join the Big East in 2012 and instead joined the Big 12.

The offi­cial said Boise State has con­cerns about the com­mit­ment of the Big East’s cur­rent members.

The Big 12 could be in the mar­ket to expand again, espe­cially if Mis­souri leaves for the South­east­ern Con­fer­ence, and Louisville and West Vir­ginia are among the schools it would con­sider adding.

Also, UConn has inter­est in join­ing the ACC if that league expands past the 14 it will have when Pitt and Syra­cuse join. The Big East has said it will hold Pitt and Syra­cuse to the league’s 27 months’ noti­fi­ca­tion rule and the two will not be allowed to join the ACC until 2014.

Related Posts:

• San Diego St. Emerg­ing as Can­di­date for Big East Foot­ball Inclusion
• Board Gives Boise OK to Join Big East
• Big East to Invite Boise State, 3 Others
• Sugar Skips Boise for Hok­ies, Michigan
• No. 22 WVU Eyes Share of Big East Title

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