The Big East is bigger, bolder and more broad-based than ever after completing the first phase of its expansion plans today. But can it survive?

There were clearly far more questions than answers about the conference’s future following the announcement today that Boise State and San Diego State were joining for football only while Houston, SMU and Central Florida were being added as all-sports members, all starting in the fall of 2013.

Some of those questions may not be answered for while.

Such as:

• Will the new additions — and two more are expected — help the league when it goes to the bargaining table to negotiate a new TV deal next fall?

• Will the league, in its reconfigured form, be able to retain its automatic entry into the BCS bowl lineup when the current contract expires after the 2013 season — if there are any more automatic BCS qualifiers after that?

• Can a conference so far-flung, with a coast-to-coast membership that now features football-only schools, basketball-only schools and schools that play both, really succeed?

More coverage:



• Syracuse athletic director says he expects to honor wait period before leaving Big East

• Star-Ledger coverage of conference realignment



"This is just a first step," said Nick Carparelli, the Big East's associate commissioner for football. "There's more work to do be done. But what this does is it opens a lot of new TV markets and it gives us exposure in all four time zones in the United States to really enable the Big East brand to grow -- and to get stronger."

Houston president Renu Khator called her school's new conference affiliation "a game-changer for us."

The league isn't done expanding, either. With a stated goal of getting to 12 schools (and two six-team divisions) after Pittsburgh, Syracuse and West Virginia leave, it means the Big East has to add two more schools. For now, Air Force and Navy, as football-only members, are still being targeted as potential candidates to reach that goal, though each is still balking at making a move.

Air Force appears reluctant to want to leave the already-depleted Mountain West, fearing it will lead to the league's demise, while Navy is locked into five more years of a TV deal with CBS that leaves no avenue for escape.

That could move Temple or East Carolina to the front burner if the academies continue to waver.

"Out of respect to the many confidential conversations we've had with potential members and consistent with our ongoing practice, we will not comment on any situations with schools that are not part of our announcement today," Big East commissioner John Marinatto said. "I can only say we are continuing discussions with select additional institutions."

Pittsburgh and Syracuse have already announced they are leaving for the ACC, with West Virginia bound for the Big 12. Under Big East exit penalties, there's a 27-month waiting period before schools can switch conferences, which holds all three in the Big East until June 30, 2014.

West Virginia is suing the league to be released in time to play in the Big 12 next year. The league has countersued.

For now, though, the Big East is intent on moving forward after being crippled for the second time in seven years by a raid. The ACC took Miami, Virginia Tech and Boston College in 2003 and 2004. So today's announcement was Phase 1 in Rebuilding Process 2.

"It's a good first step but it's certainly not over," said Rutgers athletic director Tim Pernetti. "The important thing is the rest of it gets executed the right way."

Carparelli said the new Big East has been well received by TV consultants. That's important because the league is the only BCS conference with a television contract up for renewal a year from now.

"It comes as no surprise that we engaged a number of TV consultants and presented them with this expansion model to see what kind of value they put on it," said Carparelli, "and we've received a very, very positive reaction in terms of the value that it could bring us."

Marinatto said the league would be creative in taking advantage of its new structure, suggesting that being in four different time zones could lead to a lineup of four consecutive games on the same day with kickoffs that cause almost no overlap.



Boise State, the key to an expansion plan that will feature West and East divisions, needed to find a league with an automatic BCS bid after missing out on the BCS for the fourth time this year after finishing in the final top 10. But the current BCS contract expires after the 2013 season and there has been chatter about eliminating automatic qualifiers.

Pernetti said if that's the case the new Big East can feel good because it has strengths in numbers now.

"I think the Big East issue in football was the number of members and inventory," he said. "It gets us a lot of inventory."

Carparelli said all of the incoming members know the BCS system may change, but says they felt better off being part of a league as diverse as the new Big East.

"There will always be a place for this group (in the BCS)," he said. "I can't imagine any BCS system that doesn't inlcude this group of football schools."

Marinatto said that no name change is planned for the new-look Big East.

Tom Luicci: tluicci@starledger.com