With the previously announced departures of Syracuse and Pittsburgh to the Atlantic Coast Conference and West Virginia to the Big 12, the Big East yesterday said it would add five new institutions to the conference that would also establish the league, which includes UConn, as “the first truly national college football conference.”

Boise State and San Diego State, which both play in the Mountain West Conference, will join the Big East as football-only members and three Conference USA institutions – Houston, Southern Methodist University, and Central Florida – will join the conference in all NCAA sports. All these schools will join in 2013.

The Big East faced the same situation in 2003, when Miami, Boston College, and Virginia Tech left for the Atlantic Coast Conference. Each of the new Big East members have played in postseason games in recent years.

“The Big East Conference has faced challenges in the past, and each time has come out stronger than before. That has happened once again,” said Big East Commissioner John Marinatto, during a teleconference Wednesday. “This expansion clearly moves us far beyond our origins in the northeast. With these five new members, our conference will continue to have, by far, the single largest media footprint in intercollegiate athletics, spanning literally coast-to-coast in football and all the major regions in between. In effect, the Big East Conference will be the first truly national college football conference.”

Marinatto said the locations of two new conference members would place the Big East in two of the nation’s largest television markets – SMU is in Dallas, the fifth largest viewing area, and Houston is in the 10th largest. The new conference alignment would increase the Big East’s potential viewership by more than 6 percent, up to almost 28 million households. He said the coast-to-coast span of the conference now would permit scheduling of four nationally-televised games back-to-back without overlap – a factor he said would come into consideration in eight months, when the Big East will negotiate a new television contract with ESPN, the nation’s major cable sports network.

“It’s a powerful model and one that we believe will be unmatched by any other conference,” Marinatto added.

UConn President Susan Herbst said the expansion of the Big East to become a national conference will benefit the University.

“Since UConn is an international university, we see the geographic expansion of the Big East as a way to showcase our academic excellence in an even more sustained way – far and wide,” she said in a statement. “We look forward to Husky teams playing in different parts of the country, exposing our student-athletes to new regions and new experiences, and to broadening our fan base.”

Huskies head football coach Paul Pasqualoni added: “I am very happy and excited with the five new football teams that are joining the Big East Conference. All of them have enjoyed national prominence in recent years in terms of national rankings and bowl game appearances. They also add and reinforce geographical areas that we consider key in recruiting. The Big East is now truly a national conference, and that will bring the league great exposure and notoriety.”

The Big East has its roots as a basketball conference, and over the years has evolved into one of the nation’s most powerful leagues on the court. Marinatto said he expects the three new all-sport members to meet the challenge of Big East competition in basketball as other members have after joining the conference.

“Boise, San Diego State, and Houston, those schools clearly are good for us. We need to get some quality teams that can show they can get into bowls,” said Jim Calhoun, the Huskies’ Hall of Fame men’s basketball head coach, before his team began practice yesterday for tonight’s game against Harvard. “In basketball, I don’t think we can truly replace West Virginia, Pittsburgh, and Syracuse, but, you know, Houston’s got a chance and some of those other schools have a chance to be good.”

In a statement, Geno Auriemma, UConn’s Hall of Fame women’s basketball head coach, said: “I give a lot of credit to the conference office for putting this together. I am really happy for our football schools, and I love Dallas, Houston, and Orlando so I look forward to making those trips. The Big East is the best women’s basketball conference in the country, and it just got better.”