Big East Gets Into Football With 8-School Conference

PROVIDENCE, R.I. —  A new college football conference was born today, with the official announcement that the Big East was going into the sport and picking up four schools from outside its usual alignment.

The league will include Rutgers, Temple, West Virginia and Virginia Tech and current Big East members Syracuse, Boston College, Miami, and Pittsburgh.

“This is a historic day for the Big East,” Commissioner Mike Tranghese said. “We have an excellent group of institutions that are steeped in football tradition. We’re going to be very aggressive.”

Tranghese said play will begin this fall and there will be a league champion. He also said he would immediately pursue tying in a bowl game.

Tranghese said all eight members of the new league had made a long-term pledge to the continuity of the league and had agreed to significant financial penalties if they tried to withdraw. But he did not specify the penalties.

A Big East football conference means visions of television, bowl bids and secure schedules--and hope that the league’s image-making magic works as well as it has in basketball.

Rutgers, Temple and West Virginia compete in the Atlantic 10 for other sports. Virginia Tech is in the Metro Conference.

The new schools will compete in the league only in football and not in basketball.

The Big East’s other members--Connecticut, Georgetown, Providence, St. John’s, Seton Hall and Villanova--don’t play Division I-A football.

“For 30 years I’ve been trying to get a league formed and I’m thrilled it’s coming,” said William Flynn, the recently retired Boston College athletic director. Just having the Big East name on a football league “gives it a lot of credibility.”