Big East Football: New Teams Expand the Conference Across the Country
The addition of Boise St, Houston, UCF, SMU and San Diego St. has now expanded the Big East from one end of the country to the other, covering four time zones.
It is the first conference ever to include teams across the entire country and is unique in many ways.
This expansion will not only allow the Big East to showcase its brand across the entire nation, but also strengthened the football conference and will likely allow the league to keep their automatic BCS qualification.
Those qualifications are currently good through the 2013 season, befrore the league will be reviewed for future AQ status.
With the additions of Boise St. and Houston in particular, the conference should have now problem retaining automatic qualifying status.
Boise St. and Houston have been much better in recent years than West Virginia, Syracuse and Pittsburgh. 
Those are the three teams that the Big East is losing to other conferences, but they will be easier to replace than many would think.
As a top ten team nearly every year over the past decade, Boise St. will instantly be the top team in the league.
Winning the conference for the Broncos will not be as easy as winning their previous conferences such as the WAC or Mountain West. The Big East will pose challenges that the other conferences have not and winning on a consistent basis would be not only a bigger challenge for the Broncos, but may also benefit them in the long run.
Houston is also a rising program that was ranked as high as No. 7 just a week ago. They have a great young coach in Kevin Sumlin and the future couldn’t be brighter for the Cougars.
The other three schools are also football programs on the rise as both SMU and San Diego St. are headed to bowl games.
These five programs, particularly Boise St. and Houston will single-handedly make the Big East stronger than it is right now and help it grow and progress into the future.
Now strengthening the basketball program is another question.
