East Carolina Applies to Join Big East Conference

The Big East leaders met on Tuesday night to discuss the conference's future after the high profile departures of Syracuse and Pittsburgh. The conference is determined to stay together and all members agreed to recruit new schools. With interest initially focused on the service academies of Army, Navy and Air Force, East Carolina University applied directly for membership to the conference.

East Carolina would be leaving behind the smaller Conference USA to make the jump to a larger national conference and increase their national presence. Chancellor Steve Ballard and athletic director Terry Holland said, "While we have formalized our interest in Big East Conference membership as a viable option, ECU will remain focused on competing at the highest level through the efforts of Conference USA."

Though the Big East plans to remain in tact some of the member schools seem to be attempting to switch to conferences with more opportunity. The ACC, which acquired Syracuse and Pittsburgh, has said that it is open to expanding to 16 teams in the future and Connecticut seems keen on being one of the next two added.

The ACC and Big East have long been dominant basketball schools with relatively little success in football. The addition of Big East schools to the ACC would only strengthen their presence in the NCAA Tournament every spring while helping bolster the strength of the football programs.