Big East adds 5 schools coast to coast

It's no longer your father's Big East. The one-time basketball conference comprised of schools located in the Northeast Wednesday formally announced the addition of five football schools from all four time zones to become, in commissioner John Marinatto's words, "the first truly national college football conference."

Boise State and San Diego State left the Mountain West Conference to join as football-only members, and Central Florida, Houston and SMU of Conference USA joined as all-sports members. The move for all five schools will take effect in the 2013-14 academic year.

"We have, by far, the single largest footprint in intercollegiate athletics," Marinatto said in a media teleconference with the presidents of the five new members. "Four different time zones will allow the conference the potential to schedule four games on a given Saturday back-to-back-to-back-to-back without any overlap. It is a powerful model and one that will be unmatched by any other conference."

Marinatto said expansion talks are continuing with "select schools" he declined to identify, but multiple sources with Big East ties told Newsday that Navy and Air Force chose to wait and see if the league's expansion efforts would be successful.

"Now, it's time for them to reassess," one source with Big East ties said. "There is no Plan B right now."

BYU, which engaged in negotiations with the Big East, is out because its demands regarding TV rights were too high. Should Air Force fail to come aboard, the league would consider other western schools, just as it did San Diego State after BYU dropped out. Navy is considered more likely to join. Negotiations for a new TV deal begin in September 2012.

Marinatto said the conference will have East and West divisions, but no decision has been made yet on the alignment. The ultimate goal is a 12-team model that would permit the Big East to hold a conference championship game, possibly at Yankee Stadium.

The league's bold expansion plan is aimed at preserving its BCS automatic qualifier status through 2013 in response to the loss of Pittsburgh and Syracuse to the ACC and West Virginia to the Big 12. TCU also accepted a Big 12 invite after previously accepting a Big East bid.

The five new members are subject to an unspecified financial penalty should they leave as TCU did. Marinatto said the league still intends to force the three departing members to remain until July 1, 2014 under league bylaws, which means there would be 13 football teams and 21 basketball teams in the 2013-14 season without further expansion.

Dr. Robert Kustra, Boise State president, said the BCS status "is the reason why I'm on the teleconference today.''

Asked if he might use the Big East as leverage to join the Pac-12 or Big 12, Kustra said, "I particularly like the idea of introducing Boise State University's brand of football east of the Mississippi and across this nation. This is indeed the only conference in America in four time zones and a coast-to-coast conference . . . Certainly it's the reason why we're in the conference now and where we intend to stay.''