Big East to Invite Boise State, 3 Others at BetLM

Big East to Invite Boise State, 3 Others

NEW YORK —The Big East plans to invite Boise State, Air Force and Navy as football-only mem­bers, and Cen­tral Florida to com­pete in all sports, after it dou­bles the exit fee for cur­rent mem­bers to $ 10 million.

An offi­cial in the Big East, speak­ing on con­di­tion of anonymity because the con­fer­ence had not autho­rized any­one to speak pub­licly about its plans, told The Asso­ci­ated Press the invi­ta­tions could go out as soon as next week.

The offi­cial also said Com­mis­sioner John Mar­i­natto was in Cincin­nati on Fri­day meet­ing with UCF’s pres­i­dent and its ath­letic director.

Con­fer­ences do not pub­licly invite new mem­bers unless they are con­fi­dent those invi­ta­tions will be accepted.

CBS Sports first reported the Big East would invite Boise State, Air Force, Navy and UCF.

The Big East announced ear­lier this week it wanted to expand to 12 foot­ball schools.

Big East offi­cials made pro­tect­ing the league’s auto­matic bid to the Bowl Cham­pi­onship Series their expan­sion pri­or­ity. That pushed Boise State, which is in its first sea­son in the Moun­tain West Con­fer­ence after a decade in the West­ern Ath­letic Con­fer­ence, to the top of the Big East’s most wanted list, along with the ser­vice academies.

The Bron­cos are 71–5 since 2006, fin­ished 10th in the final BCS stand­ings last sea­son and at 5–0 seem on their way to a top-10 fin­ish. Big East offi­cials believe putting Boise State’s record on the Big East’s ledger when the BCS reviews which leagues should have auto­matic bids beyond 2013 should allow the con­fer­ence to make the cut.

Right now, the Big East has only six schools com­mit­ted to play foot­ball in the league beyond this season.

Pitts­burgh and Syra­cuse have announced they will move to the Atlantic Coast Con­fer­ence, though Big East rules require them to stay in the league for the next two sea­sons and Mar­i­natto has said he will hold the Pan­thers and Orange to that. How­ever, that seems unlikely if the league can grow to 12 teams for next sea­son with­out them.

TCU was slated to join the Big East in 2012, but the Horned Frogs reneged on that com­mit­ment and accepted an invite to the Big 12 last week.

Try­ing to recruit new mem­bers has been tricky for the Big East because its remain­ing mem­bers might also be look­ing for new con­fer­ence homes.

Louisville and West Vir­ginia are pos­si­ble tar­gets for the Big 12 if it needs to replace Mis­souri, which is pon­der­ing a move to the South­east­ern Con­fer­ence, or decides to expand back to 12 teams.

Con­necti­cut has inter­est in join­ing the ACC if it expands again, and there has been spec­u­la­tion about Rut­gers mov­ing, too.

By rais­ing the exit fee, the Big East is try­ing to show the schools it is recruit­ing that the con­fer­ence will be viable in the long run. Boise State, Air Force, which also com­petes in the MWC, and Navy, an inde­pen­dent in foot­ball, all had reser­va­tions about the Big East’s long-term health.

The Big East is still con­sid­er­ing adding Tem­ple, and UCF’s Con­fer­ence USA rivals SMU and Hous­ton. Tem­ple, which was kicked out of the Big East in 2005, plays foot­ball in the Mid-American Conference.

The Texas schools would replace the pres­ence in the state the Big East thought it was going to have with TCU, and help make the move to the Big East more palat­able to Boise State.

Boise, Idaho, is nearly 1,900 miles from the clos­est cur­rent Big East mem­ber, Louisville. Though the trip to Hous­ton is about as far, hav­ing a pres­ence in Texas is allur­ing to Boise State.

Boise State and Air Force would have to find a con­fer­ence to house their other sports. A return to the WAC is pos­si­ble for both, though WAC Com­mis­sioner Karl Ben­son said Fri­day that he has only had hypo­thet­i­cal con­ver­sa­tions with Boise State and Air Force offi­cials about those schools join­ing as non-football members.

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

Notre Dame’s goal is to remain a foot­ball inde­pen­dent, but if the Big East crum­bles the Fight­ing Irish could end up with no place for their bas­ket­ball, base­ball and Olympic sports to com­pete. That could force Notre Dame to finally give up foot­ball inde­pen­dence and put its sto­ried pro­gram in a con­fer­ence, because it’s unlikely another league will give the Irish the same deal they have in the Big East.

Fol­low Ralph D. Russo at http://Twitter.com/ralphDrusso

Related Posts:

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• Big East Mulls Adding Boise St. Football
• Boise State to Appeal NCAA Sanc­tions. And, Hey, Good Luck With That, Broncos.
• Boise State Offense Not Up to Snuff in Spring Game
• Ore­gon State Fresh­man DT Thomp­son Dies

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