The Big East has acquired all the pieces needed to build a new coast-to-coast conference. Putting them all together, though, is going to take a while.
The conference wanted to rebuild itself into a 12-team football league that can hold a championship game, and Memphis officially became that 12th member on Wednesday when it accepted an invite it has long coveted.
But the new Big East isn’t scheduled to be fully functional until the 2015 football season. As for the next three years, what the Big East will look like is anybody’s guess.
Memphis is the seventh school, and fourth from Conference USA, to sign up since December for future membership in the Big East. The Tigers will compete in the Big East in all sports.
“It certainly is an historic day for us,” University of Memphis President Shirley Raines said during a teleconference with Big East Commissioner John Marinatto and Memphis Athletic Director R.C. Johnson.
Memphis has been trying to upgrade its conference affiliation for years, and the Big East was always the most likely landing spot. The Tigers were snubbed during the Big East’s last massive expansion in 2005 and lost a longtime rivalry with Louisville in the process.
Now with the Big East
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