Big East expected to invite Boise State

Associated Press

NEW YORK

The Big East plans to invite Boise State, Air Force and Navy as football-only members, and Central Florida to compete in all sports, after it doubles the exit fee for current members to $10 million.

An official in the Big East told The Associated Press the invitations could go out as soon as next week.

CBS Sports first reported the Big East would invite Boise State, Air Force, Navy and UCF.

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

Big East officials made protecting the league’s automatic bid to the Bowl Championship Series their expansion priority. That pushed Boise State, which is in its first season in the Mountain West Conference after a decade in the Western Athletic Conference, to the top of the Big East’s most wanted list, along with the service academies.

The Broncos are 71-5 since 2006, finished 10th in the final BCS standings last season and at 5-0 seem on their way to a top-10 finish. Big East officials believe putting Boise State’s record on the Big East’s ledger when the BCS reviews which leagues should have automatic bids beyond 2013 should allow the conference to make the cut.

The Mountain West Conference does not have an automatic bid to the BCS. Nor does Conference USA, where UCF currently plays.

Later Friday, those two leagues announced they would “consolidate” their 22 football programs by 2013.

The two leagues expect to merge their football operations into one mega-conference that will probably have between 20 and 24 teams in it when it finally gets going in 2013.

The name? They’ll come up with one.

Mountain West commissioner Craig Thompson and Conference USA commissioner Britton Banowsky said the new arrangement will provide the security that top programs need to keep them from jumping ship.

Both Thompson and Banowsky said it’s too soon to discuss how the sprawling league — which could stretch from West Virginia and Florida to Hawaii and Idaho — would handle scheduling.

“I think definitely the intention is increased television revenue for all members,” Thompson said. “We like the new approach because it’s different. It’s proactive.”