Big East Expansion: Breaking Down A Potential Boise State Invite

There's a new name out there being thrown around in Big East discussions for possible expansion targets. And unlike the standard UCF, Temple, Navy mentions, this one has clout.

Boise State.

This makes sense for the Big East and if TCU can join, there's no reason to not at least reach out to Boise. But like TCU, the Broncos would make a far better fit in the Big 12 from a geographic perspective. The best fit? That would probably be the Pac-12, but they don't appear to be expanding right now.

Big East interest is nice and obviously expected, but means little to me. I'm sure they'd be interest in Alabama, Florida, and Texas, too. But the real news would be that Boise is interested in the Big East.

This is probably too little too late, in my eyes. A move like this when TCU was invited would have been ideal, but how willing would Boise be to join the conference now? The argument could be made that Boise is desperate enough to join simply because they want to be in a BCS AQ, but does that hold true even in the midst of enormous instability?

Then there's the distance factor. Brett McMurphy tweeted several weeks ago that Boise State's name had come up in Big East discussions, but that distance was a factor in it likely not happening. I don't know - that sounds good and all, but if TCU worked, then I have a hard time believing the conference members wouldn't be willing to make a cross-country flight every other year to get such a big fish. But on Boise State's side? Sure, I get it.

The key, obviously, is that the other small revenue non-football programs likely wouldn't play in the Big East and would need to find a home in other conferences out west.

Boise fans are a bit undecided on the possibility.

I'm not saying Boise would never join since there would be good reasons for doing so. There'd be more money. And not only would the Broncos be in an AQ league (there are some, though, that don't even know if the Big East could keep its AQ status) and not have to worry about getting a guaranteed shot at a BCS bowl every year, but they'd also have a better chance of playing for a National Championship since the strength of schedule would be improved. Oh yeah, did I mention the fact that there'd be more money?

But it's just hard to see them jumping at the chance without exploring all of their other options first. That said, if the Big East can find a way to land Boise along with a slew of other teams like Navy, UCF, ECU, etc., that would go a long way to helping shore up the league.