West Virginia move to the Big 12, what's next for the Big East?

West Virginia has accepted an offer to join the Big 12 Conference, college football industry sources told CBSSports.com Friday.

The Mountaineers informed the Big East Friday morning that they were leaving the league. The Big 12 is expected to officially announce the invitation later today.

The Big 12's board of directors voted Friday morning and chose West Virginia over Louisville. The Big 12 will stay at 10 schools, a source said.

On Tuesday, West Virginia had received a verbal offer to join the Big 12, but then the league put the Mountaineers on hold because the league’s board of directors wanted to perform “due diligence.”

The league was split between adding West Virginia or Louisville to replace Missouri, which is expected to leave the league for the SEC.

"The Big 12 Presidents and Chancellors are excited to welcome another outstanding institution to the Conference," said Burns Hargis, Chair of the Big 12 Board of Directors. "The addition of West Virginia, while expanding the reach of the Big 12, brings an impressive institution with esteemed academics and a proud athletic tradition into the Conference. This is another step in building a strong foundation for the future of the Big 12."

"The Big 12 is a perfect fit for West Virginia University," said WVU President Dr. James P. Clements. "It is a strong conference that, like WVU, values quality academic and athletic programs, and has a great tradition of success. This is a very exciting time for WVU and Mountaineer nation. I am confident that the future of WVU athletics has never been more promising."

Missouri still hasn’t officially left the Big 12. The Tigers are still negotiating an exit fee to leave the league. The SEC’s Digital Network, an official website of the SEC, accidentally posted a story Thursday night that Missouri would join the SEC on July 1, 2012.

West Virginia will join the Big 12 in 2012-13, the Big 12 announced. Missouri is expected to join the SEC next season. West Virginia will have to pay a $5 million exit fee. That figure would have been $10 million if the Mountaineers would have informed the league after Navy or Air Force joined the league, which they have not.

West Virginia is the latest team to announce it's leaving the Big East Conference. Pittsburgh and Syracuse are headed to the ACC and Big East commissioner John Marinatto has said both schools would not be able to leave until July 1, 2014.

TCU, which was scheduled to join the Big East next season, will join the Big 12 and begin play next season. The Horned Frogs were not bound by the 27-month requirement since they left the Big East before they officially joined.

With the Big 12 only taking West Virginia - and not taking Louisville as well - the Big East’s chances of retaining its BCS automatic qualifying status in 2014 is greatly improved.

The Big East is seeking a 12-team football league and is expected to issue invitations to Boise State, Air Force, Navy, Houston, SMU and Central Florida. That would increase the football membership to 11 teams.

On Friday morning, UCF's board of trustees voted unanimously to give UCF President John Hitt the authority to make decisions about conference affiliation. A day earlier, Houston's board of regents granted President Renu Khator the authority for the Cougars to change conferences. UCF and Houston are both currently in Conference USA.
On Wednesday, Marinatto and associate commissioner Nick Carparelli visited Air Force officials in Colorado Springs, Colo., and Thursday visited Boise State officials in Boise.

"We appreciate the effort John Marinatto is putting forth stabilizing the Big East," Navy athletic director Chet Gladchuk said Friday morning. "We're in the bullpen watching this unfold, doing our due diligence waiting for the dust to settle. When it does, we'll decide what is best for Navy."

With the loss of West Virginia, the Big East would need a 12th member. Sources have told CBSSports.com that the Big East’s potential Western schools are in favor of adding BYU. It’s unknown if the Cougars would be interested, but the fact the Big 12 will stay at 10 schools may increase BYU's chances of joining the Big East as a football-only member.

Temple also is a very strong candidate as the 12th member.

The Big East could extend official invitations next week. The league’s presidents are scheduled to meet with Marinatto in Philadelphia on Tuesday.
http://brett-mcmurphy.blogs.cbssports.com/mcc/blogs/entry/29532522/32980106

As a college fan, all this movement is starting to annoy me. I wonder how long the poaching will go on.

Derbyblue wrote:
The Big East is seeking a 12-team football league and is expected to issue invitations to Boise State, Air Force, Navy, Houston, SMU and Central Florida. That would increase the football membership to 11 teams.

...

With the loss of West Virginia, the Big East would need a 12th member. Sources have told CBSSports.com that the Big East’s potential Western schools are in favor of adding BYU. It’s unknown if the Cougars would be interested, but the fact the Big 12 will stay at 10 schools may increase BYU's chances of joining the Big East as a football-only member.

Which goes to show that the old geographic conference names lime "Big East" are obsolete, save for name brand value.

I would like to Boise play in the Big 12

The talks between the Big East and BYU regarding BYU joining the conference have been officially ended. The key reason BYU won't be joining the Big East is they were unprepared to give up the television rights to their home games for which they receive between $1-2million a game from ESPN, apparently in earlier negotiations BYU had said they were prepared to give up the rights.



"With BYU out of the picture, the Big East will target San Diego State as a football-only member, a source said. The reason the Big East would seek out the Aztecs is because Boise State wants a Western partner before joining the league.

The Big East had hoped to announce its newest members (SMU, Houston, UCF and Boise State) in the past two weeks, but the on-going discussions with BYU brought the Big East’s expansion plans to a standstill. That’s because the league wanted to announce SMU, UCF, Houston and Boise State as new members together along with either BYU or Air Force or both schools.

Air Force does not plan to make a decision until after the regular season ends on Saturday, a source said. Navy also is waiting for the other schools to join before fully committing to the league. “It’s like everyone standing by the pool, waiting for someone to jump in before everyone else jumps in,” a source said.

Houston, SMU, UCF and Boise State are committed to joining the Big East. Navy also has told those four schools, who CBSSports.com reported were working in concert to join the league, it also is committed to the Big East. With those five schools, the league will still need two more football schools to get to a 12-team league. Those possibilities now are San Diego State and Air Force with the 12-team league split in a West and East division."
http://brett-mcmurphy.blogs.cbssports.com/mcc/blogs/entry/29532522/33459898

A team from San Diego in the "Big East"... these division names would just be getting even more ridiculous!

crazy_dave23 wrote:A team from San Diego in the "Big East"... these division names would just be getting even more ridiculous!

Perhaps they can form a "Big West" to match the "Big East."

Apparently the official announcement on who is joining is expected on Wednesday but whats expected is that San Diego State and Boise State will join as football only schools and SMU, Houston and Central Florida for all sports. They hope they will begin to take part in the conference in 2013, it is expected that Air Force and Navy will join later. On how the conference would look: "Those plans tentatively call for Boise State, San Diego State, Houston, SMU, Air Force and, possibly, Louisville to form the league's West Division. Rutgers, Connecticut, Cincinnati, South Florida, UCF and Navy would comprise the East"

Derbyblue,
The AD at SMU is a friend and former work colleague of mine. I'll be interested to see what he has to say about this!
Looks all a bit of a nonsense from here, traditional rivalries separated and divorced, lots of one-nighters.

From what I've read Kwini those are the schools they are looking to add to keep their automatic BCS spot, it does seem very odd to me that the Big East want to add San Diego State. They are pretty much forced into their actions though with Pitt and Syracuse leaving for the ACC and West Virginia for the Big 12, they would have been down to just 5 school taking part in football.

The having an East and West division may just be rumour but it may come to fruition as I don't imagine San Diego State or Boise State want to be travelling to play South Florida or Rutgers or Central Florida regularly.

One listener on the Dan Patrick Show proposed renaming the Big East to the Big Land of Mismatched Schools.

The Air Force Academy have come out and stated that they'll stay in the Montain West "for now", citing long-standing rivalries and geographical concerns.

Being a Syracuse fan I've followed the Big East since Syracuse was an Independent; incredible that they are conspiring to destroy the Big East - expect Boeheim to retire before he plays ACC basketball.

The Big East should disband their football interests (come on, there's essentially no-one left) and circle the wagons on basketball before it's too late.