Does anyone else think the Big East is just a ridiculous cluster of football and non-football schools stupidly combined together? Starting with the 2013-14 season the Big East will have 12 football schools spread out literally across the country, and 18 schools that play basketball in the conference, with different football situations. Maybe it's just me, but conferences should be limited to 12 schools at most, and ideally these schools should roughly be in the same geographic part of the country.

The Big East may get better TV contracts now, but they should've taken the contract they were offered and stupidly refused. The chaos in the Big East drove Pitt, Syracuse and WV to leave. Losing those three schools hurt the BE, and yet the BE didn't learn the lesson. And Rutgers, ND, UConn and Louisville are heavily rumored to be seeking other conferences. If all of those schools bolt, the BE would basically turn into a bunch of schools who were new to BCS, and the BE would be devalued and lowered. Eventually if this happened they would likely try to get schools like UMass, Delaware, JMU, App. State, Georgia So. and other schools wanting to upgrade from FCS, or they could try to get schools from C-USA (again) with less success that time.

And to think that since the BCS is going away, these stupid moves are basically pointless. But it's a little too late to fix the confusion now.

With Notre Dame leaving the conference i could see the big east thinking about cutting some of the extra basketball schools loose. with Notre Dame gone the balance shifts to the football schools. I think they would want a bigger piece of the basketball pie. I could see them going to 14 team basketball conference. In 2015 they would be at 17 schools and i could see them kicking schools out that they might have the area tv market covered by other schools.

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Fan of:
Sun Belt Conference
Summit League
Us National Soccer Team

Conferences don't cut schools loose.

Once they're in, you're stuck with them until they want out (or violate the conference by-laws).

The hoops only schools will be Big East members until they don't want to be, which will most likely be long after the football schools decide to run away from them and form their own conference.

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1897-1898 | 1900-06 | 1926-27 | 1929-30 | 1939 | 1942

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I remember some conference required all its members to carry or start a football program within a certain number of years...(the name is eluding me at the moment) causing some of its smaller member to find a new home elsewhere. Still it isn't like SMU, UCF, and Memphis are going to try to kick out Georgetown and Villanova.

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Fan of the Big 12 Conference, the Mountain West Conference and...

I believe it was Conference USA that required all of its members to have football. C-USA had non-football members from 1995-2005 such as DePaul, Saint Louis, Charlotte and Marquette. But DePaul and Marquette joined Louisville, Cincy and USF in leaving for the Big East, while Saint Louis and Charlotte left for Atlantic 10. C-USA added schools with FBS football to have 12 full members that sponsor football.

They didn't go so far as to pass a rule and kick teams out, but it was more like a "look, we're not replacing Marquette and DePaul, we're going 12 football schools. It would probably be in your best interest to call the Atlantic 10 and see if they want you." And the A-10 had already called, so it worked out seamlessly.

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1897-1898 | 1900-06 | 1926-27 | 1929-30 | 1939 | 1942

If the WAC were to completely collapse, that would be the easiest way to facilitate a Big East split. The basketball-centric WAC would actually benefit from having Seattle and Denver, and the incoming Big East schools could be bridged with programs like Creighton and St. Louis:

Seattle, Denver, Creighton, St. Louis, Marquette, DePaul
Providence, Seton Hall, St. John's, Georgetown, Villanova, Xavier

If you want a stronger presence out west, add 2-4 schools from the WCC like San Diego, San Francisco, Portland, and BYU

Three divisions of five could work here as well.