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LA_Mustang wrote:How did they pull off their metoric rise to the BCS? They went from division 1-AA in 2000 to division 1-A as an independent in 2001. They joined C-USA in 2003 and two years later joined the Big East.

The ACC added three members from the Big East Conference during the 2005 cycle of conference realignment: Miami and Virginia Tech joined on July 1, 2004, and Boston College joined on July 1, 2005, as the league's twelfth member and the first and only one from New England. The expansion was not without controversy, since Connecticut, Rutgers, Pittsburgh, and West Virginia (and, initially, Virginia Tech) filed lawsuits against the ACC, Miami, and Boston College for conspiring to weaken the Big East Conference.

This had long led to rumors of instability, and in 2003, ongoing press reports of tensions between the football schools and the basketball schools finally exploded into a months-long public tug-of-war between the Big East and the Atlantic Coast Conference over several Big East members. The end result was that three Big East schools—Virginia Tech, Miami and Boston College—moved to the ACC, while five teams moved to the Big East from Conference USA—Louisville, Cincinnati, South Florida, Marquette, and DePaul. For more details on this topic, see 2005 NCAA football realignment.

The addition of the three football schools, along with Big East non-football member Connecticut moving up to the Big East football conference, ensured that the league would keep the minimum eight teams needed to keep its BCS bid. In addition, two traditional basketball teams, DePaul and Marquette, were added to gain the Chicago and Milwaukee television markets and help the already solid basketball status of the conference.

Currently, the Big East represents the majority of the large, athletically competitive private Catholic schools, with schools like Boston College, Gonzaga, and Xavier being notable exceptions. Public schools UConn, Pittsburgh, Louisville, Rutgers, South Florida, West Virginia and Cincinnati are located in areas with large Catholic communities.