The number eight has different meanings to those within the Big East.

To Associate Commissioner Nick Carparelli, Jr., the Big East doesn’t ‘know any other way’ than to have eight conference members. The league has had eight football teams every year but one.

Then there is West Virginia head coach Bill Stewart. To him, the number eight represents the number of Big East games his team would play, should the conference add a ninth football team. Currently, all Big East teams play seven league games, which mean they play an uneven number of home versus road games.

A ninth team would mean playing four at home, four on the road.

‘It’s a bear,’ West Virginia head coach Bill Stewart said of the current eight-team format. ‘That’s for the guys in the league office who are a whole lot sharper than me to make those determinations, but we would be so much better off if we had the ninth team playing football. Four and four, it just balances it out really good.’

Unfortunately for Stewart and the rest of the Big East coaches, the likelihood of a ninth team joining the league anytime soon is slim. While the coaches have been pleading their case to bring in a ninth team for scheduling and economic reasons, Big East officials say there is currently no movement toward expansion.

‘Ultimately, the only people that can make the decision regarding conference membership are our presidents,’ Carparelli said. ‘And at this time, our presidents have no desire and have showed no interest in changing our current conference membership.’

Big East school presidents have the final say in the matter. They meet two or three times a year, and though Syracuse University Chancellor Nancy Cantor said she did not attend the latest meeting, due to scheduling conflicts, she did not believe expansion was a focal point of the conference.

‘It’s not been that big of an issue, as far as I know,’ Cantor said. The conversations at the presidents’ meetings of the Big East are about the identity and the strength of the conference as it is.’

The Big East started playing football as a conference in 1991 and began with eight members. In 2004, it reduced to seven when Miami and Virginia Tech defected to the Atlantic Coast Conference, but Connecticut stepped in to partially fill the void. By 2005, it was back to eight when Temple was expelled from the league, but Louisville, Cincinnati and South Florida joined from Conference USA.

More recently, league coaches have been in favor of opening the door to a new member. At Big East media day in Newport, R.I., this August, the addition of a ninth team was a hot topic of conversation, as the coaches openly called for expansion.

Most point to the need for balanced scheduling. In the present eight-team format, four teams each season have four home games and three road games. This season, Syracuse, Connecticut, Pittsburgh and Rutgers are the benefactors of the unbalanced schedule. The Big East and Pacific 10 are the only BCS conferences to have an unequal amount of home and road games.

While Louisville head coach Steve Kragthorpe said he doesn’t worry about the competitive disadvantage that four road games brought the Cardinals this season, Pittsburgh head coach Dave Wannstedt is adamant about the need to add a ninth team.

‘I’m a big NFL guy,’ Wannstedt said at Big East media day. ‘I believe in scheduling fairness. I believe in fairness for television, bye weeks, all that stuff. So I’m for balancing things out and making it as fair as possible for everyone. We can’t do that (when we play one fewer conference game). Sooner or later, add somebody.’

Other reasons for a change involve economics and non-conference scheduling. With seven conference games, Big East teams have to fill five non-conference dates each year, the most of any BCS conference. At Big East media day, Stewart talked at length how this arrangement puts Big East teams at the mercy of other leagues. Scheduling other Division I-A teams sometimes require spending upward of $700,000.

The Star-Ledger in Newark, N.J., recently reported that West Virginia is paying UNLV $740,000 for a home game in 2010, while Rutgers will pay Kent State $750,000 for a home game in 2012.

‘It’s just economics,’ Stewart said. ‘We need that ninth team, and we need it for our budget.’

Unfortunately for the coaches, their wish is not an option at this point. Carparelli said that scheduling is probably the least important reason to add a team to the conference. He said to add a team to the conference, it would have to be one that adds value to the league as a whole, and he does not believe that anyone in the Big East sees any potential new members who fit that bill.

The coaches agree with conference officials on this point. Rutgers head coach Greg Schiano and Kragthorpe both said it’s only a good move if the next member into the conference makes the league stronger. Scheduling alone is not a good enough reason. Connecticut head coach Randy Edsall said it would have to be ‘the right fit’ for the conference to make it happen.

To Cantor, academics should be a deciding factor.

‘I think that the most important thing is really the academic fit and a fit with the values of the institutions that are in the Big East,’ Cantor said. ‘Then, of course, people consider travel issues and the geographic fit and coherence.

‘That’s something you really have to think about, the strength and coherence of the group as it is and if adding a team does or does not change that, and that depends on the nature of the fit of the institutions in the conference.’

The question is if any team fits that description. Notre Dame, who is a Big East member for every other sport but football, has been tossed around, but the Fighting Irish have been reluctant to relinquish their independent status.

Conference USA members East Carolina, Memphis and Central Florida have also been rumored. Memphis even hired former Big East commissioner Mike Tranghese as a consultant to its athletic department, in an attempt to join a major conference.

Adding a ninth football team could also throw off the basketball setup, which already has 16 teams. Cantor said that she didn’t think that’s a big issue, because a team could just be added for football membership.

Former Syracuse Athletic Director Jake Crouthamel said only way that would work would be if the teams playing Big East football broke away and formed their own conference, but even that idea has flaws.

‘I think that has to be rethought in the light of football eliminating itself,’ Crouthamel said. ‘That creates some problems, too, because it eliminates a huge television audience in the central part of the county. Having a football conference which also plays basketball, and all other sports, is very critical financially.’

All in all, barring any major surprises, it looks like eight will be enough for the Big East in the next few years.

mrehalt@syr.edu

Published on October 25, 2009 at 12:00 pm