With Big East presidents voting unanimously Tuesday to add two more football schools, the league’s first move will be to press Villanova to make the jump to the FBS level, according to someone with knowledge of the conference’s thinking.
The person requested anonymity because he is not authorized to speak for the Big East.
Villanova currently competes in the Big East for all sports except football, where it plays in the Colonial Athletic Association as an FCS member (and is the defending national champion). Big East commissioner John Marinatto approached Villanova officials this summer about moving up to become a football member as well.
TCU and Central Florida also reportedly top the Big East’s expansion wish list.
“Today, our Board of Directors affirmed a set of key strategic initiatives, including expansion, designed to enhance membership stability and maximize our value,” Marinatto said in a statement issued by the league following the vote to expand.
No timetable was set for adding the two football schools.
“I expect a healthy debate on trying to get people to agree on the two teams,” said a person familiar with the league. He requested anonymity because of a league-wide gag order on expansion.
Rutgers athletic director Tim Pernetti referred all expansion questions to the Big East, which also announced in its statement that it “will refrain from commenting further on the expansion process.”
The unanimous vote — which included the eight presidents from the “basketball-only” schools — marked the Big East’s first real proactive move on expansion following a flurry of summer activity in which it was a nervous spectator.
Rutgers and several other Big East schools were reported as possible expansion targets of the Big Ten, which eventually settled on adding only Nebraska. The Pac-10 added Colorado and Utah shortly after.
Until the Big East’s announcement Tuesday, expansion talk had gone into a holding pattern.
“The expansion was driven by football and we’re in the middle of football season,” Rutgers coach Greg Schiano said earlier this week. “That’s one of the key factors (why expansion talk quieted down). The key decision-makers have a lot on their plate, whether it’s athletic directors or coaches or presidents. There’s a lot going on in the academic year right now.”
But the reality is that the Big East had to act – not only to steel itself against a possible raid, but to increase its football inventory for television purposes.
At eight football schools, the Big East is the smallest of the six BCS conferences. The lack of inventory is underscored by the fact that the league has just two games this week: Rutgers-South Florida tonight and Louisville-Syracuse on Saturday.
If the Big East does go to 10 schools it could eventually petition the NCAA to amend a rule that requires a league to have 12 teams to stage a conference championship game.
The Big 12, soon to be down to 10 schools, would be a Big East ally in that petition. But the potential for a championship game was not a driving force behind the expansion vote, according to one of the people with knowledge of the situation.
