Big Things for the Big East

Yesterday it was announced that the Big East Conference would be adding 5 new teams for football. Boise State and San Diego State are joining Big East football along with new full time members Houston SMU and Central Florida. There are other reports saying that Navy is on the verge of joining the Big East, a formal announcement could be made later on in the week. This is huge news for the college football world because up until this announcement, it was feared that the Big East was going to continue to lose all its teams and dissolve. In wake of Syracuse, Pittsburgh, and West Virginia announcing that they were leaving the Big East for other conferences, 'Cuse and Pitt to the ACC and West Virginia to the Big 12, the conference has been in turmoil over the last few weeks.

With these six additions the Big East looks to be right back in contention as a power conference in football. With 11 members, they would only be one team shy of being a 12 team league, which would allow them to host a conference championship game. In an attempt to follow in the footsteps of other conferences who have recently added championship games, the Big-10 and the Pac-12, adding a conference championship would mean big things from a revenue standpoint for the Big East. It is rumored they are looking into adding Air Force to fill that 12^th spot.

Aside from obvious geographic issues these 6 additions make a lot of sense for both sides. Houston and Boise St. have been itching to move into a BCS conference for years now. With this move both teams have legitimate shots to make it to future national championship games. Boise St has been a perennial powerhouse under coach Chris Petersen, which means this move should be very beneficial for them. Look out for the Broncos to make some noise in the BCS now more than ever.

I think on the whole adding teams such as Boise State and Houston is going to help make the conference stronger on the whole. The Big East is bringing in a couple of teams with some big time talent that have been able to rise to the highest levels of the college football without the backing of a BCS conference. The additions that the Big East has made are going to help motivate the other teams in the conference to get better in order to compete with teams like Boise State. Also, more fans are going to want to go to games if their teams are playing more quality opponents, which in turn will generate more revenue for the conference. With the revenue sharing system that the conference has in place, everyone school in the conference will benefit from the new additions.