Big East Expansion: How Can the League Be Saved?

With this week's news that West Virginia has joined the likes of Pitt, Syracuse, and TCU in leaving the Big East Conference, the biggest question is: How exactly do you save the Big East?

Believe me, it's not by adding Boise State to the mix. Adding the cross country travel to the current chaos in the conference is probably the worst idea on the table right now, but it's not completely out of the question.

To think about how to fix the Big East, you first must look at where it went wrong many years ago.

Football is definitely the biggest sport and generates the most money for schools, so you can't blame the Big East for wanting to become a major player in football many years ago.

But it doing that, the Big East was trying to become something it wasn't. The Big East is and always was a basketball conference first. While basketball certainly doesn't generate the revenue that football does, it's still a money maker for schools.

The old Big East was spectacular.

Georgetown, Syracuse, Villanova, UConn, St. John’s, Providence, and Seton Hall all made Final Fours in the 80's and 90's. The Big East Tournament in Madison Square Garden is still one of the most special weeks of the sports calendar year.

Even in the last decade when other teams like Pitt, West Virginia, and Louisville reigned supreme in the Big East, Big East basketball was special.

As a football guy, I really would have liked to see the Big East become a football power, but in reality they could never be nothing but a mid-major compared to the SEC's and Big 12's of the world.

In the end, you can make the case that football not only killed the Big East basketball, but the conference as a whole.

They started a football league and invited Miami to join in 1991 in all sports just to get their football program.

They had a group of football-only schools and a group of full members. Of the 10 members at the time, Syracuse, Pittsburgh, Boston College, and Miami played football, the other six did not. That was fine and Miami eventually won a national championship under the Big East.

But then the Big East wanted to invite more football-only schools into the conference as full members, causing basketball to take a back seat to football.

After Miami, Virginia Tech, and Boston College defected to the ACC, the Big East had to replenish the football conference and it's been downhill ever since.

One of these schools was South Florida, a bad basketball program and a school outside of the heart of the Big East. The other two, Louisville and Cincinnati, are outside of the heart of Big East country. They also added two non-football schools, Marquette and DePaul, who aren’t even in the Eastern Time Zone.

The last straw was inviting TCU. The Big East, which already had 16 members—one in Florida, and two in the Central Time Zone—was going to 17 and would include a school west of the Mississippi River.

While TCU may have been a quick fix for the football conference, do you really think any of the basketball programs wanted to make that road trip in the winter?

It also affected the scheduling in basketball. With 16 teams in the conference, teams only played three other teams twice in a season. With 17-teams, they would only play two games against the same opponent twice. Do you think a team like Pitt or Syracuse wanted to sacrifice a game against a team like UConn to take a trip into Texas?

If you think Pitt and Syracuse going to the ACC is about football, then you are kidding yourself. It's about their basketball programs. Losing to a Duke or North Carolina does more for your RPI than beating a South Florida, Rutgers, or TCU.

The Big East putting basketball on the back burner forced these schools to look elsewhere.

That's why adding Boise State really doesn't do much for the Big East in football. The travel alone really doesn't make sense and even with the Broncos in the mix, the Big East is still the sixth best of the BCS Conferences..

How do you save Big East football? Unfortunately, the answer is that you don't.

The first thing the Big East should do is downsize. You already have a South Florida who really doesn't belong there. Next is basketball only DePaul. They have no business in the Big East either.

Be what you are. The Big East can still excel as an East Coast basketball conference.

Secondly, you let Pitt, Syracuse, and WVU go. There is nothing to be gained by keeping them. Pick up the pieces and move on.

Finally, looking at Big East football, you kill it off. Out of the original Big East football conference, only two members remain, so it's not like the Big East means anything to anyone.

You take the remaining five leftover members: Rutgers, Louisville, Cincinnati, UConn, and USF (if they decide to keep them) and then invite the top five non-BCS playing schools that will say yes and form a separate football playing conference that isn't necessarily affiliated with the basketball conference.

Since geography doesn't seem to matter anymore, take your pick from this list: Houston, Boise State, SMU, East Carolina, Central Florida, Air Force, Navy, Southern Mississippi, Nevada and Temple.

If you add at least five of them, then maybe the current Big East can have a conference championship game and possibly even keep their BCS automatic berth.

Now adding Boise State and some Conference-USA members doesn't make the Big East any better than it is now, but possibly two separate six team divisions with a title game could do the trick.

Then the Big East must face the facts and realize that they don't have football playing schools with the traditions of an Alabama, Texas, or Michigan. They need to quit pretending that they do and market something that they do have and that's a quality basketball playing conference.