Big East Conference Releases 2012 Football Schedule

The Big East Conference took a major hit when the trend of college football conference realignment took place, resulting in the loss of a few premier teams. 

The conference scrambled to fill vacancies and has finally released its schedule for the 2012 college football season.

In addition to that news, ESPN has also announced that 13 Big East games will be televised during the year. 

The Big East Twitter account tweeted out some great details on the schedule, as well as some marquee matchups to watch out for this season.

"

Most-represented conferences on the nonconference schedule are ACC and MAC, with 8 games each. Three games each against Big Ten and SEC

— Big East Football (@BigEastFB) March 27, 2012"

"

Championship Week matchups are Louisville @ Rutgers on 11/29 and Cincinnati @ Connecticut and Pitt @ USF on 12/1. All on ABC/ESPN or ESPN2.

— Big East Football (@BigEastFB) March 27, 2012"

Pittsburgh and Syracuse are still on board with the Big East for 2012, but this is likely their last year in the conference.

West Virginia is off to the Big 12, and Temple steps in, hoping to make some big surprises.

The Big East thought it was going to have TCU this year, but the Big 12 swooped in and took the Horned Frogs away. Because of that, teams had to find replacements. Cincinnati took the easy road and scheduled Fordham, a FCS team.

With only eight teams in the conference, there isn't a whole lot to get excited about.

There isn't really a clear-cut favorite in the Big East this year, but teams that will definitely contend for the top spot are Rutgers, Louisville, South Florida and Cincinnati.