Temple and Villanova Are More Sensible for Big East Than TCU and Central Florida

Reports are starting to surface that the struggling Big East is interested in adding two schools to its current eight-team football conference.

Reportedly, the TCU Horned Frogs out of the Mountain West and the Central Florida Knights out of Conference USA are at the top of the Big East's wish list.

While both are enticing as growing programs, they don’t make much sense geographically for a conference that basically centers around the northeastern region of the United States.

TCU, which is located in Fort Worth, Texas, and Central Florida, which is located on the outskirts of Orlando, would both allow the conference to expand into new large markets. But they would also join the South Florida Bulls, located in Tampa, as the Big East's distant outlier schools, which could make travel planning somewhat of a challenge.

There's also the fact that the Big East, which already has 16 basketball teams, would only be looking to add them as football schools, leaving their basketball programs in limbo.

A more sensible choice for expansion would be Villanova, located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

The Wildcats’ basketball team is already part of the Big East, and the school is right in the heart of Big East territory.

Villanova, currently part of the Colonial Athletic Conference in the FCS, has a developing football program with a lot of recent success under longtime coach Andy Talley, including a victory over Montana in last year’s FCS National Championship game.

The school has expressed interest in moving to the FBS level, but the problem is Villanova Stadium only has a capacity of 12,000, 3,000 less than the required capacity for a FBS school.

In order to make the move to the Big East, Villanova would likely have to add an addition to their stadium or move their home games to a different location—possibly the state-of-the-art PPL Park, an 18,500-capacity soccer stadium located 18 miles south of Philadelphia in Chester, Pennsylvania.

If I were Big East commissioner John Marinatto, I would not only add Villanova, but also their crosstown counterpart, the Temple Owls.

Temple has seen a surge of success over the last few years under coach Al Golden, and they fit pretty much all of the Big East's criteria.

The Owls, who are currently members of the MAC, play their home games at Lincoln Financial Field, the home of the Philadelphia Eagles, and they have strong recruiting bases now established in Pennsylvania and New Jersey.

The only problem they’ve experienced over the years is poor attendance. It’s the reason they were forced out of the Big East back in 2004.

But Golden now seems to be revitalizing the program and bringing some excitement back. They have the talent already in place to compete with Big East teams, as demonstrated by their 30-16 victory over UCONN earlier in the season.

Also, the Atlantic 10 should have no problem allowing Temple’s basketball program to stay if their football program makes the move to the Big East.

So while it’s nice for the Big East to dream about the big markets that TCU and UCF offer, it will be hard to fit them into the Big East puzzle.

Yes, it would be odd to have two teams from a conference in one city, even though it’s been done on a much larger scale out in Los Angeles with UCLA and USC and in Miami with the Hurricanes and FIU, but the city of Philadelphia offers the Big East a nice market in which to grow.

We’ll see how it all plays out in the end, but if I were the commissioner, I would scrap the TCU and UCF idea in favor of adding Temple and Villanova to round out the Big East.