Temple University will return to the Big East Conference as a football member this fall and then join as a full member in 2013-2014.
The addition of Temple for football will bring the number of football members to 13 by the time other new members join the conference in 2013 and Navy arrives in 2015. It is expected that Temple will replace West Virginia, which is leaving the Big East after this year, on the 2012 football schedule.
Big East Commissioner John Marinatto made the announcement Wednesday afternoon at a news conference during the Big East Men’s Basketball Tournament at Madison Square Garden in New York City.
Temple previously was a football-only member of the Big East from 1991 to 2004, before being asked to leave because it was not competitive with other teams in the conference. It has played football in the Mid-America Conference, and the rest of its 22 sports compete in the Atlantic 10.
“We didn’t deserve, truthfully, to be in football competition in those years,” said Lewis Katz, chairman of the Athletic Committee for the Temple board of trustees. “It’s hard to get kicked out. When we started to negotiate, I thought it was a wonderful way to remove a blemish on our football program. We [now] have a real football program. We think we’re going to give the Big East exactly what they deserve.”
Temple’s football team is coming off a 9-4 season that ended with a victory in the New Mexico Bowl. In the last four years, the Owls, who play at Lincoln Financial Field, have won 31 games.
“A lot of work has gone into this,” said head football coach Steve Addazio. “It’s a great vision having Temple coming into the Big East. College football is expanding in a whole new way right now. We’re excited. Philadelphia is the greatest sports city in the country, with Villanova and Temple. We’re not trying to fumble around and find our way into big time college football. This is part of the plan. It’s a landmark day.”
Marinatto noted that Philadelphia is the fourth largest television market in the nation, and its addition for football will place the Big East in more than 31 million homes, which is nearly 28 percent of all U.S. television households. Fourteen conference members will be located among the top 30 television markets and 18 will be in the top 50.
The Big East will begin negotiating its new television package in September, a factor that has been driving the realignment of major college football for the past several years.
Marinatto said the Big East also voted to continue working closely with Villanova University regarding its FBS football future and, in doing so, to take into account its longstanding relationship and many contributions to the Conference over the past three decades to give all due consideration to a football membership application.
The Big East football membership now will be: Boise State (2013), Central Florida (2013), Cincinnati, Connecticut, Houston (2013), Louisville, Memphis (2013), Navy (2015), Rutgers, San Diego State (2013), South Florida, Southern Methodist (2013), and Temple (2012).
