Big East Fighting for Survival

Pittsburgh, Syracuse, and West Virginia are out as the first two are headed for the ACC and the latter is heading to the Big 12. The Big East Conference is obviously determined to survive all of this conference realignment mess that the college football world is currently wrapped up in. With a recent announcement coming from conference officials, we all found out exactly how determined the conference is to continue operations.

In a statement made earlier today, the Big East is officially admitting 5 new members. Boise State and San Diego State will be added for football only while Houston, SMU, and Central Florida would be joining for all sports. I understand that the Big East is trying to survive, but how much sense does this move make? Obviously you're picking up two ranked teams, which could help your conference's credibility; however, if they prove to be unable to win consistently against tougher competition, the Big East will find itself in quite a mess and a costly one at that.

With this move, the Big East will become the first truly national college football conference, spanning coast to coast and encompassing 4 time zones. Conference commissioner John Marinatto is no doubt drooling over the thought of having back-to-back-to-back-to-back Big East games on any Saturday he possibly can but just think of the travel expenses these teams will no doubt have to shell out just for a conference game. Travelling 3,000 miles for a football game....potentially on a weekly basis? Bad idea. It's really funny to think about the fact that two of the teams, Boise State and San Diego State, will be joining a different conference for basketball. Boise will join the Western Athletic Conference and San Diego will join the Big West. Am I the only one seeing the irony in the fact that San Diego will play in the Big East for football and the Big West for basketball? If you ask me, I feel like the Big East is just flailing around, trying to find a permanent fix to ensure their survival and frankly I just don't see a future in creating a conference that spans the entire country. This isn't the NFL. College football wasn't meant to see conferences spanning the country. Regional pride is a big part of the sport. When that's taken away, what else is there? C'mon man!