Conference Realignment: Temple's Invitation to Big East is a Desperate Move

When Syracuse and Pittsburgh announced that they were heading to the ACC and Connecticut began to flirt with the conference, the Big East was left with a choice.

They could agree that their conference life was not long for this world and all go their separate ways or they could agree to try to work together to lure other members into the conference.

After some deliberation, they decided that they would rather stick together and try to keep the conference afloat.

Their first move appears to be offering Temple a spot in the league. John Taylor of College Football Talk passed along a report that originally appeared on SportingNews.com:

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"The presidents will reportedly vote on extending an offer to Temple to become a full-fledged member of the conference, including, obviously, in football."

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Temple is certainly a more attractive program now than they have been in the past, thanks to the resurgence of their football team.

But this still feels like a desperate move on the part of the Big East. Rather than take more time to try to put together a "Godfather offer" to lure a bigger-name school, the Big East extended an offer to a school that they were certain would come on board.

It's actually kind of ironic that the Big East is banking on Temple joining the conference to keep them alive. After all, the Big East all but kicked the Owls out back in 2004 when the conference was trying to improve its football profile.

Getting Temple to come back is far from enough to stabilize the league. There is still a chance that UConn leaves and Rutgers may not be far behind.

You have to applaud the Big East for doing all they can to keep their conference alive in major college football, but offering Temple membership in the league is a poor start to their plans to do so.

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