Big East Realignment: What Are the Odds Boise State Backs out by 2013?

This week, the Big East announced plans to add five new football teams—Boise State, Central Florida, Houston, San Diego State and SMU—starting in 2013, but the one school that dominated the headlines was Boise State.

The Broncos have been the darlings of the non-AQ ranks since head coach Chris Petersen took over back in 2006. Over the past few years, the debate has continued to rage on concerning whether or not the boys from Idaho could ever handle playing in a BCS conference.

Well, now it looks like they’ll get their shot, even if it is in the weakest of the six BCS conferences.

From a geographic standpoint, the move makes absolutely zero sense, but as we know, these days in major college athletics, if any move is made, you can bet that potential revenue is always the driving force, and that’s of course the case with this one.

Financially, it makes a lot of sense for the Broncos to join the Big East, a league that has seemingly somehow managed to regroup after experiencing four major defections since September.

The millions to be made from television contracts and bowl payouts had to be enticing to Boise State officials.

The question that has to be asked, though, is will Boise State actually go through with the move when the time comes to make the shift to the Big East in 2013?

In these chaotic times of conference realignment, one year is basically a lifetime, and there’s so much that can still happen in 2012 that can throw the move off course.

We still don’t know if the Big East will keep its automatic BCS bowl bid for the future, given the fact the competition level in the league has been slowly waning in recent years.

Besides the money, the automatic BCS bid is the only other reason Boise State would even think of joining the Big East, and without that automatic bid, the league is useless to the Broncos.

I wouldn’t expect the Big East to lose its BCS bid, considering all the backdoor politicking that goes on in college athletics, but it’s still a possibility.

What’s also important to note is we don’t know yet what the terms of the Big East’s future television contract will be. The conference will renegotiate its future television rights with ESPN starting in September, but if the league doesn’t fetch as much money as it's expecting, that could be a turnoff to Boise State.

So, what does it all mean?

It means let’s be patient.

I seem to remember not too long ago when TCU was going to be the supposed savior of the Big East, and how’d that end up turning out?

The point is, a lot can still happen over the next year, and nobody knows what the next wave of conference realignment could bring.

Who knows, maybe the ACC will swoop in and poach Rutgers and Connecticut, which would really throw a wrench into everything.

So while, yes, right now, the Big East does look like its at least somewhat stable for the future with the addition of Boise State and the four other non-AQ leftovers, things are far from set in stone, and there’s no guarantee the Broncos won’t change their minds by the time 2013 rolls around.