The Big East added five new schools to the conference in an attempt to rebuild after the loss of Virginia Tech, Miami and Boston College. The three schools left to join the Atlantic Coastal Conference earlier this year.
Cincinnati, Louisville, and South Florida will join the Big East for the 2005-06 season, while Marquette and DePaul will join for all sports except football.
“It’s a very exciting day in the history of the Big East. We are thrilled to be joined by five great institutions,” said Big East commissioner Mike Tranghese.
After losing the three schools to the ACC, the Big East needed to make three additions in order to maintain its Division I-A status.
“There’s a lot of tradition in this league,” Tranghese said. “We have schools who have won national championships, schools whose players have won the Heisman Trophy. We come from one of the most important sectors in this country. I’m very confident we’ll be there in the next go-around.”
Conference officials are hopeful that the new-look Big East will be enough to keep its automatic berth in the Bowl Championship Series.
Their current BCS contract expires after the 2006 bowls, and negotiations for the new contract will begin in a few months.
“We will be one of the six best football-playing conferences in the country,” Tranghese said. “I’m confident that we will be sitting at the table with the five other conferences.”
The BCS was created five years ago by six major conferences in order to create a national championship. The six conferences were the ACC, Big East, Big 10, Big 12, Pac-10, and SEC. Syracuse is the only team left in the new Big East that has finished in the top 15 since the inception of the BCS.
AFTERSHOCKS: After losing five schools to the Big East, Conference USA added Central Florida, Marshall, Rice, SMU and Tulsa to its league on Tuesday.
Central Florida and Marshall will leave the Mid-American Conference while Rice, SMU and Tulsa depart the Western Athletic Conference.
The schools will officially join Conference USA on July 1, 2005.
“While we clearly would have preferred that no Big East expansion occur, that expectation was unrealistic given the actions of the ACC,” Conference USA commissioner Britton Banowsky said. “We are excited about the opportunity to strengthen the conference and feel Conference USA has the potential to be better in many ways.”
The change leaves Saint Louis and Charlotte as the only non-football schools in Conference USA — and Banowsky said they could be the next to leave.
“We hope this concludes the restructuring but realize that there may be more change,” he said.
LOW BLOWS: Miami will be without two defensive tackles when they take on No. 18 Tennessee, and they are placing the blame on the dirty play of Virginia Tech’s offensive line.
The Hurricanes’ attributed at least one of the injuries to a “cheap shot” by Virginia Tech center Jake Grove. Coach Larry Coker cites that defensive lineman Santonio Thomas was injured after a block from behind and below the knees when Thomas was 10 yards away from the play and already slowing down.
“I don’t know what they would do,” Coker said. “We sent the video in. It’s very obvious what happened. It’s not my judgment to make. It’s the conference’s call to make. I don’t expect them to do anything, to be quite honest. It’s a situation where the official missed it.”
Coker sent video of the play to the Big East and called Nick Carparelli Jr., the league’s associate commissioner for football, and John Soffey, the league’s coordinator of football officiating, to discuss the hit.
Grove said he couldn’t see the play unfold and was trying to block Thomas before the Miami lineman turned at the last minute.
“I think he turned to run right as I went to cut him,” Grove said Tuesday. “I was just trying to keep him off the play. I wasn’t trying to hurt the guy. If they feel that way, I’m sorry.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report
