The Big East finally came out and said they are officially looking at expanding and are looking to get to 12 football playing schools. The prime schools on the Big East's radar are the Air Force Falcons and Navy Midshipman, plus the Army Black Knights are mentioned as a possibility as well. Currently the Big East has only six football institutions so they will need to add six more schools to reach that level. This also assumes that West Virginia and Louisville are not heading to the Big 12, because that would mean eight teams and who would join a league like that. Plus, consider who the other three teams would bring the Big East back to 12 teams, Villanova would be in the mix as would some Conference USA teams.
If the Big East goes to 12 teams they are proposing a nine-game conference schedule and that could turn off Air Force, Navy and Army, especially if all three are not in the Big East. Those three schools will not stop playing each other and even if Air Force and Navy go to the Big East and there is a nine-game conference schedule that would really mean that they have only two non-conference games. If Air Force is the only one to join that would mean one non-conference game.
So, there is a glimmer of hope that Air Force may not go to the Big East if not Army and/or Navy do not join in that move since it would limit the non-conference games the schools could schedule. Navy still seems non-committal and wants to monitor the landscape and Army has seem disinterested at this point.
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