ESPN College Football

Posted by ESPN.com's Brian Bennett

I hesitated to post this earlier, because it goes against everything I've been hearing all along, and the very topic of expansion makes people seem to lose their minds.

But ... well, it's interesting. From Lenn Robbins in today's New York Post:

With threats on the horizon -- most glaringly, that the Big Ten, with its 11 members, will one day add a 12th -- the Big East is focusing on how it can get stronger.

Two sources said the eight-team Big East would consider adding a ninth member by exploring whether there was interest on behalf of Maryland to jump from the ACC, and for Boston College to rejoin the league.

I've never really gotten behind some people's support for East Carolina, Memphis, Central Florida, the service academies and the like as possibilities for a ninth Big East team. Those schools just don't offer enough in the way of prestige on the football side, and with the exception of Memphis, they would make the basketball side worse.

I've always thought Boston College re-joining the league would be the best-case scenario. The geography makes so much more sense, it balances out the Northeast portion of the league against the teams south of the Mason-Dixon line and it restores natural rivalries. Plus, BC can't possibly think life is great in the ACC. The Eagles have been relegated to awful bowl sites despite getting to the league championship game, and the travel and lack of natural rivals burden the fans.

Maryland makes a great deal of sense geographically as well, though the Terps' strong tradition in ACC basketball makes it seem less likely that they would bolt.

I still find these options doubtful, because the ACC does rake in the cash. Perhaps if the league's football championship game continues to flounder, a school like BC would be more apt to break away.

The Big East still has the problem of having too many basketball members -- already at 16. If a team like Maryland or BC became available, though, I would take that chance in a heartbeat and tell DePaul and/or Seton Hall to take a hike.

For what it's worth, Big East commissioner John Marinatto told me that expansion wasn't brought up this week at the league meetings. He said the conference would of course like to have a ninth football member to help scheduling, but no available school out there provided a fit. He did say, by way of an example, that if Penn State suddenly decided it wanted to stay in an Eastern-based conference, that the Big East would jump all over the opportunity.

Several of the coaches told the Hartford Courant's Desmond Conner that they were in favor of adding a ninth team, and UConn's Randy Edsall said, "Those are some of the discussions we had here as coaches in this session." 

So there's a lot of conflicting information going on. To be sure, nothing's on the immediate horizon. But ... well, it's interesting.

Now fire away with your take on the situation, because I know many of you are passionate about this issue. (Just don't even bother bringing up Notre Dame; that's a non-starter.)