USA Today’s Dan Wolken is reporting that the Big East is likely to add a 12th school and Conference USA member Tulsa is a strong favorite to fill that spot. According to Wolken, the Big East is waiting to finalize its television contract before extending a formal invitation.
Rumors of Tulsa’s exit from C-USA started in January when TU President Stedman Upham told the Tulsa Word that he would like to be aligned with institutions of a similar academic level.
"I also want to be in a conference that we can be proud of academically”. Upham told the paper. “Losing two of the private schools (SMU and Tulane) in Conference USA is damaging to me, in the way I think about the conference”.
With the departure of SMU and Tulane and the addition of eight public schools, Tulsa will be one of only two (Rice) private universities in C-USA past 2014.
If Tulsa leaves, it has been rumored that Western Kentucky and New Mexico State are waiting in the wings to take the Golden Hurricanes spot. While New Mexico St. makes more sense geographically, replacing one school west of the Mississippi with another, Western Kentucky boast a superior football program when compared to the Aggies.
Either way, it looks like C-USA is in for another round of realignment.
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