The Big East needs an additional football member for the 2012 season. Boise State must make sure it is the choice.
It is not “too late,” as Boise State President Bob Kustra told me last week.
The timing is, in fact, perfect.
The Big East and West Virginia are finalizing their terms of separation. Published reports indicate the Mountaineers’ exit will cost $20 million — with West Virginia’s new league, the Big 12, kicking in $9 million of that total.
Coincidentally (or not), it will cost Boise State between $7.5 million and $9 million to leave the Mountain West this year. A final amount won’t be known until the end of the school year when the Mountain West determines its per-school distribution of revenue.
Are you thinking what I’m thinking? Of course, you are.
The Big East can use some of its West Virginia money to buy out the Broncos.
Just tell the Big 12 to send its money straight to the Mountain West. And since the SEC is going to pay the Big 12 for taking Texas A&M and Missouri, it’s really just SEC money that ends up filling the Mountain West coffers, via the Big 12 and Big East.
Boise State should squeeze as much out of the Big East as possible, asking its new league to cover all of its moving expenses (including what it would owe the WAC to take its non-football sports a year early) and, perhaps, waiving some of its $2 million entrance fee.
The WAC is prepared to accommodate Boise State for all non-football sports in 2012-13, a league source said, removing one big hurdle to the move.
“It’s too late. I can’t imagine how anyone can pull that off. We would never want to pull it off in a fashion that dealt shabbily with our existing partners in the Mountain West. I don’t think that could ever work,” Kustra told me last week.
Time should not be a factor, not with Texas A&M, Missouri and West Virginia all making moves this summer — and schedules still not released.
Though it would hurt the Mountain West to lose its top football program, it wouldn’t cripple the league. Even without Boise State, the league has nine football-playing members and could move to a round-robin eight-game schedule. The league planned to play eight conference games this year.
So there is no reason for Boise State not to make a deal with the Big East. And plenty of reasons for it to do so — automatic-qualifying BCS status, ESPN exposure, increased TV money, an improved schedule.
As for why the Big East would go for the deal — it needs another team. Without West Virginia, the league has just seven football-playing members for the 2012 season. That doesn’t matter for BCS purposes, but it means a great deal for scheduling.
All of those schools would be scrambling for a nonconference game at this very late date. Rutgers even suggested it might schedule a second game with conference foe Syracuse to fill the void.
As if the league needed another reason for everyone to laugh at it.
Boise State would provide a marquee football school for the rebuilding Big East, one that could at least rival West Virginia as an attendance and television draw for the league.
It makes perfect sense for Boise State and the Big East.
Both sides need to make it happen. Now.
Brian Murphy: 377-6444
