If all goes according to plan, the Big East will end up replacing outgoing Pittsburgh, Syracuse and TCU with full-time members Houston, Southern Methodist and Central Florida, while adding Air Force and Boise State in football only.

According to a source with direct knowledge of Friday's Big East conference call, the conference has sent conditional invitations to Houston and SMU for all sports and Air Force and Boise State for football only.

The Big East informed the four schools that if all four agree to join the Big East then the remaining schools would agree to an increase in the exit fee from $5 million to the $10 million range to show a commitment to the incoming schools.

The Big East leaders are scheduled to vote Monday on the exit fee increase, a conference official told the Associated Press Saturday.

However, the six remaining football playing schools won't commit to raising the fee unless all four commit to joining the Big East in football with Houston and SMU joining in all sports.

Meanwhile, the Big East sent a separate all-sports invitation to UCF and are expecting the Knights to accept, the source said.

An official in the Big East, speaking on condition of anonymity because the conference had not authorized anyone to speak publicly about its plans, told The Associated Press that commissioner John Marinatto was in Cincinnati on Friday meeting with UCF's president and athletic director.

The Big East also is working on a separate deal with Navy, the source told ESPN, but the Midshipmen are skeptical.

If Houston, SMU and Central Florida accept for all sports that would restore the Big East to 17 teams in men's basketball, while adding Air Force and Boise State in football only would get the conference to 11 team in that sport, pending a Navy decision.

The Big East was considering adding Temple, but that is a backup plan now, according to a Big East source. Temple, which was kicked out of the Big East in 2005, plays football in the Mid-American Conference.

The Big East announced earlier this week it wanted to expand to 12 football schools.

The two conferences affected by the Big East's expansion plans -- the Mountain West for Boise State and Air Force and Conference USA for UCF, SMU and Houston -- announced Friday they would form a 22-team merged league in football only, with two divisions and a conference championship game.

According to a source with direct knowledge about Boise State's and Air Force's situations, the conferences went ahead with the alliance when Boise State indicated to the MWC that it didn't plan to leave the conference.

The source also said Air Force had soured on the Big East deal a bit when Army decided against joining the Big East and Navy became skeptical of the plan.

MWC commissioner Craig Thompson said on a conference call to announce the alliance he had been notified by the leaders of Boise State and Air Force that they had been in contact with the Big East, but the presidents of those schools also participated in the league's unanimous vote to approve the merger with C-USA.

Conference USA commissioner Britton Banowsky said the president of UCF took part in his conference's vote and that he and Big East commissioner John Marinatto have been in contact about Central Florida.