CBSSports.com's Brett McMurphy is reporting that the Big East is finally set to add new members ... today?
"Boise State, San Diego State, Houston, SMU and UCF will join the Big East Conference in 2013, sources told CBSSports.com.
The announcement is expected to be made on Wednesday.
Boise State and San Diego State will join the Big East as football-only members, while Houston, SMU and UCF will join as all-sport members. Boise State is expected to put its non-football sports in the WAC, while SanDiego State would place its non-football sports in the Big West, sourcestold CBSSports.com."
The Big East is still working with Navy and Air Force to join the league as soon as next week, but Air Force seems still on the fence. If the Falcons balk, McMurphy is reporting that Temple is the leading candidate to re-join the fold.
What will be interesting is just when these schools will join the Big East, specifically as it relates to Syracuse and Pitt's move to the ACC. McMurphy is reporting that even if these five schools all join the conference for the 2013 season, the conference will hold Syracuse and Pittsburgh to the league's 27-month exit requirement. The Big East could then be as big as 15 football playing members for the 2013 season. Awk-ward.
If Pitt and Syracuse are held to the league's 27-month exit requirement, the earliest both programs could move over would be June 30, 2014 (in time for the 2014 football season). However, both programs are monitoring the West Virginia-Big East situation, where A.D. Oliver Luck has made it abundantly clear the Mountaineers are focused on playing in the Big 12 next season.
BC has a home game against Syracuse in 2013, and it's back to the Carrier Dome to play Syracuse on the road in 2014. As it stands now, the Eagles will probably keep its date with Cuse in 2013 and cancel the 2014-2021 games and let the revised ACC schedule take over.
In other realignment news, Frank the Tank has one of the more complete explanations about why the ACC may pass on UConn.
"From a pure football standpoint, UConn is a newbie with a Division I-A program that isn't even a decade old yet. This is a massive negative to the Big 12, Big Ten and ACC that I don't think many realignment observers and UConn supporters fully appreciate. Power conferences want to see a long football history, even if it's a bad one like Rutgers has. (If UConn ultimately gets left behind while other Big East teams leave for greener pastures, it will be for this reason."
Mr. Tank (?) further reasons that if the ACC wanted to add Rutgers and Connecticut to get to 16 schools, this move would have been done already.