Big East Expansion: BYU Is Out, SDSU Is In and What It Means for Boise State

It appears from the latest reports out of the Big East that the difficulties in coming to an amicable solution over the BYU television contract have reached an impasse.

Ralph D. Russo, an AP college football writer, says the deal that would have brought the Cougars into a newly expanded Big East is all but dead. 

The reason for this breakdown is apparently because BYU wanted to retain all of the television rights for every football home game. This is a pretty bold request, considering that no team in any conference currently retains its own exclusive television rights to home games. 

Still, it seems like some kind of compromise could have been reached.  

One wonders if BYU got cold feet after ESPN reported that the BCS is looking to change its formula soon. In that report, a few random speculations were placed on the table—one of those being that all automatic bids could be eliminated. While no one really believes that will happen, one has to consider the curious timing of it all. 

The only reason the Cougars seemed interested in joining the Big East in the first place was for the lucrative automatic-qualifying conference distinction. With that now in question, it may have been the straw that broke the camel's back. Or in this case, the conference negotiations.       

In his article, Russo wrote the following:

"

Negotiations between the rebuilding conference and BYU have broken off, a person familiar with the negotiations told the Associated Press. The person spoke Tuesday on condition of anonymity because the conference and school have not been making their talks public.

"BYU to the Big East is dead. It's not going to happen," the person said.

"

So, it sounds like the Cougars are done even considering the move to the Big East, and that brings up an interesting question: What happens next?

Well, the backup plan for the Big East seems to be adding San Diego State instead. 

San Diego State will now join Boise State, Air Force, Houston, SMU, Central Florida and Navy in what appears to be the new Big East Conference. 

Anything could happen, however, so we will just have to wait and see.

It will be interesting to see what kind of television deal the Big East lands when they finally finish their expansion. If that new deal dwarfs what BYU currently has, it will certainly bring their decision to walk away into question. 

Either way, Boise State and BYU will play every year until 2023, but it won't be as meaningful as it might have been.