Big East Expansion: BYU Addition Is Just What Big East Needs

Do you remember when the Big East was up in flames and it looked like it would vanish? Somehow that crisis has been averted, and BYU is the remaining piece of the puzzle.

The Big East was purging teams left and right but now has been welcoming some great programs, which ensures this conference will retain an automatic BCS bid. 

It seems that the last item of business will be adding BYU to take the conference to a full 12 teams for football. The Big East would then feel comfortable with its namesake holding true. 

The conference is close to adding as many as six new members: Boise State, Air Force and Navy for football, and SMU, Houston and UCF in all sports.

The Associated Press reports sights have now been set on another team out west. BYU would be the logical choice to join a conference that is spread all over the country now. 

The obvious advantage to adding BYU is that a good portion of the added teams are thousands of miles away from the rest of conference teams. 

It makes sense for the longevity of the conference if programs can be assured of having at least a couple of games take place within just a few hundred miles from them. BYU and Boise State are less than 400 miles apart. 

It is important to remember that none of this is set in stone. While Boise State has been given permission to pursue inclusion in the Big East, their program and others may need to stay in their current conferences for the next year or two. 

As the report points out, "Conference USA bylaws would stand in the way of SMU, Houston and UCF joining in 2012, and it would be less costly for Boise State and Air Force to join the Big East in 2013 instead of next year."

It may take a year or so, but it seems the Big East is far more likely to be a 12-team conference and assured of the BCS bid it is accustomed to rather than become the irrelevant collection of teams it was poised to become.

For the time being, a crisis has been averted and that is no small miracle.