West Virginia leaving Big East for Big 12

Posted Oct 28, 2011 by Adam Adkins

Updated Oct 28, 2011 at 12:18 PM

The Big East has been dealt another blow in conference realignment, with West Virginia deciding to accept an invitation to join the Big 12 Conference.

CBSSports.com was the first to report the story Friday morning, and Big East commissioner John Marinatto issued a statement Friday afternoon on losing the conference’s fourth team in the past few months. Pittsburgh and Syracuse previously announced decisions to join the Atlantic Coast Conference, and TCU, which was set to join the Big East in 2012, announced it instead will join the Big 12.

“The move by West Virginia does not come as a surprise. League officials, members or our conference and the candidate schools to whom we have been talking were aware of this possibilty,” Marinatto said. “We have taken West Virginia’s possible departure into account as we have moved forward with our own realignment plans.”

Marinatto plans to hold West Virginia, Syracuse and Pittsburgh to the league’s 27-month notification period before departing for another conference, meaning all three schools will remain in the Big East until the summer of 2014. All three must pay a $5 million exit fee as well. That could change, though, depending on how the Big East handles its own conference expansion plans going forward.

The Big East is working toward establishing a 12-team football model, and the targets to join the league have been reported as Boise State, Air Force and Navy for football only, and SMU, Houston and UCF for all sports. If the Big East is able to lure all six programs, that would give the conference 11 football members with those six joining existing members USF, Cincinnati, Louisville, Rutgers and Connecticut. CBSSports.com reported BYU and Temple could be the next programs the Big East targets.

Officials from Big East schools are scheduled to meet with Marinatto in Philadelphia on Tuesday for the league’s annual meeting, so it might not be long before the Big East extends invitations to new members.

“We are confident that in the coming weeks we will complete our own realignment program, adding a number of high-quality members to remain among the top conferences in both football and basketball,” Marinatto said.