Big East Expansion: Adding More Football Schools Will Only Hurt Conference

If you want to know what's wrong with college football conference expansion, or college athletics in general, look no further than the Big East.

According to The New York Post, the presidents from the Big East's member schools spent two days on conference calls hashing out a plan to uphold the league's Automatic Qualifier status in the BCS in the wake of Syracuse and Pittsburgh dashing for the ACC.

The verdict? Add six more football schools and make it more difficult for current and future members to bolt the conference.

The problem? The Big East's expansion plan will only exacerbate the conference's current woes. The plan, as it stands, is to extend invitations to Air Force, Navy, Boise State and Central Florida, and then seek out another two members from among the trio of Houston, Southern Methodist and Temple.

For those keeping track, that would extend the Big East's reach to Idaho (for Boise State), Colorado (for Air Force) and Texas, creating a strenuous travel schedule for the league's student-athletes, though not unlike the ones endured by those in the Western Athletic Conference and Conference USA.

And that's assuming these schools would all be accepted and/or welcomed. There is still some question as to whether the Big East really wants Boise State, or if Boise State really wants to be in the Big East, given both the tremendous geographical disparity and the lack of a worthwhile media market in Idaho.

The notion of bringing Temple back into the Big East apparently rubbed Villanova the wrong way, bringing up cracks in the pavement running between the Big Five rivals in Philadelphia. The Post article also refers to "factions" within the Big East that don't necessarily favor bringing in two Texas schools.

Factions? And this conference is going to stick together how exactly?

If the six prospective schools are granted full membership, that would put the Big East at 12 football schools and 20 (count 'em) basketball schools.

Which once again begs the question, why doesn't the league just split between football schools and non-football schools? The Post report suggests that was a distinct possibility, that the eight non-FBS schools in the Big East almost did the right thing and walked away from the rest to form their own league.

But, of course, they didn't, perhaps fearing the repercussions of missing out on the conference's football revenue, even if they don't play in the FBS.

So what does the Big East end up with? More schools, more chaos, more divisive issues between its current members and, of course, more demands placed on the backs, shoulders, knees and toes of any kid who wants to compete in the conference.

And let's not forget, more money. They wouldn't be getting themselves into this whole mess if there weren't some sizable profit involved.