Navy agrees to join Big East for football
Navy quarterback Kriss Proctor, bottom left, sings Navy's alma mater with teammates and Midshipmen in the stands after an NCAA college football game against Army in Landover, Md. (Dec. 10, 2011) Credit: AP
The U.S. Naval Academy answered the Big East Conference's distress signal by agreeing to come aboard as a football-only member starting in 2015, league and school officials announced Tuesday.
When Pitt, Syracuse and West Virginia announced plans last fall to defect to other conferences, the Big East was floundering and in danger of losing its status as a BCS football conference. But Navy became the sixth school in just over a month to join the Big East, and commissioner John Marinatto said the league plans to add one more school to reach the 12 required for a conference championship game.
"The Academy's decision to make the Big East its first-ever conference home after more than 100 years of football independence underscores the long-term viability of the Big East in its new membership configuration," Marinatto said.
Before joining the Big East, Navy officials indicated the league needed to stabilize through expansion to retain its BCS status. Marinatto accomplished that in December when Central Florida, Houston and SMU joined as all-sports members, and Boise State and San Diego State joined as football-only members. Besides the six new schools, there are five holdover football schools: Connecticut, Rutgers, Cincinnati, Louisville and South Florida.
"Stability was important, and we believe the Big East now has incorporated that," said Vice Admiral Michael Miller, USNA superintendent. "What we see is a very bright future for the conference."
The addition of Navy is critical to the Big East because it also triggered a new bylaw doubling the withdrawal fee from $5 million to $10 million.
"If the Big East stays intact, and I believe it will, that withdrawal fee certainly was a step in the right direction in bringing some confidence to the Naval Academy that we're all in this together," said athletic director Chet Gladchuk. "That condition was important to us."
The Big East also accommodated Navy's request to allow it to continue its annual non-conference rivalries with Army, Air Force and Notre Dame. The Army game still will be the final one of the regular season on the second Saturday in December.
Navy coach Ken Niumatalolo knows he must upgrade recruiting without compromising the service academy's high academic requirements, but joining a conference was a necessity. "It's been great for us being independent, but with the landscape of college football changing, we're out in the open," Niumatalolo said. "We're fending for ourselves. We had to find a home, and we feel like we found a great home in the Big East."
