Big East Expansion: Keeping Current Teams from Bolting Key to Adding Boise State

Syracuse, Pittsburgh, and West Virginia are gone from the Big East. Syracuse and Pittsburgh are headed to the ACC and West Virginia is going to the Big 12. 

Things seem to change on an hourly basis when it comes to conference realignment, but those moves seem locked in.

What isn't locked in is just when those schools are going to leave the Big East. That's still a pending matter. Exactly how that matter gets resolved could make the difference in whether or not the Big East survives as a football conference, or at least a BCS conference. 

Syracuse is one of the biggest names in the Big East, but they are undeniably a basketball school. I know that they have produced players like Donovan McNabb, Marvin Harrison, and Dwight Freeney, as well as legends like Jim Brown, but it's a basketball school. It's certainly been that way in recent years.

From a football perspective, the Big East doesn't need Syracuse. They don't need Syracuse now, or for a few seasons while they are a lame duck team. The same is not at all true for West Virginia and Pittsburgh. 

Even if it's just short term and everyone knows it, these are two schools whose football prowess could potentially draw in some of the names that the Big East is trying to bring in, like Boise State. 

No, the Broncos aren't stupid. They know that it's just a temporary thing. That goes for any other potential teams that the Big East may bring in.

But if they come in and produce some good games and good seasons with West Virginia and Pittsburgh sharing a conference, more big schools are more likely to come in from the outside.

Is that provable? No, not at all. It's a matter of opinion, but it really stands to reason. 

Even if everything happens just as I laid it out, it doesn't guarantee that any big name schools will come in from the outside. No, that will take a little luck. But without these schools staying in the Big East on a short term basis, little hope turns into no hope very quickly.