Big East Goes Way West
The epitome of irony has been fulfilled in college football with the recent additions of San Diego State and Boise State to the Big EAST Conference. No matter what way you look at it, it is hard to fathom that this would be possible.
The argument of course is that with all the recent departures of big name teams from the conference, they had to promptly increase membership to guarantee that they would be able to keep automatic qualifying status. In other words, to keep making more money than a small non AQ conference, membership was a must.
The additions to the Big East include San Diego State, Boise State, Central Florida, Houston and Southern Methodist, only one of which is considered to be located on the East Coast. If you were to present this logic to a First Grader, chances are that they will call you nuts.
“Since the creation of the Big East in 1979, the (conference) has a record of reinventing itself,” Big East Commissioner John Marinatto said on a conference call. “We have taken another bold and creative step in our history. We are heading west. Our conference will continue to have by far the single largest media footprint spanning from coast to coast in football. The Big East conference will be the first truly national college football conference.’’ From an article by Erik Matuszewski and Curtis Eichelberger.
My take on all of this is that is an act of desperation by a conference that is falling apart at the seams and is so dependent on their AQ status that they would be willing to go to these ridiculous lengths. If this makes commissioner John Marinatto sleep at night, so be it.
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College Sports and the Media 
I agree with you that this is an act of desperation. Seriously, San Diego State and Boise State to the Big East? I can’t even fathom that. I mean it is called the Big EAST for a reason. I really don’t think a “national college football conference” is necessary.
I agree that it is an act of desperation as well. I did not even know San Diego State existed first of all, but also they might as well change their name at this point because they are not the Big East anymore. Of course the SEC is not just the SEC anymore either but they are not nearly as spread out as the Big East will be. I think that they just had to find anyone they could to save the conference so they grabbed the first ones that raised their hands. They are just doing everything to save the conference at this point.
This is awfully similar to Texas A&M and Missouri, two schools not exactly in the Southeast, being added to the Southeastern Conference. It just doesn’t make sense geographically. It stinks that conferences like the Big East have to resort to such measures in order to save their conference and it will be interesting to see how all of this works out.