Big East Conference

St. John's University playing baseball against Georgetown University

This is a list of colleges and universities who play sports in the Big East Conference:

• University of Cincinnati
• University of Connecticut
• DePaul University
• Georgetown University
• University of Louisville
• Marquette University
• University of Notre Dame
• University of Pittsburgh (often called "Pitt")
• Providence College
• Rutgers University
• St. John's University
• Seton Hall University
• University of South Florida
• Syracuse University
• Villanova University

Of the current 15 members, only seven play football in the conference:

• Cincinnati
• Connecticut
• Louisville
• Pitt
• Rutgers
• South Florida
• Syracuse

Notre Dame also plays at the highest level in football, but is independent—not part of any conference. Georgetown and Villanova play football at a lower level; the other schools do not play football at all.

Membership changes

West Virginia University left for the Big 12 Conference in July 2012. Two current members, Pitt and Syracuse, will join the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) in July 2013. Three other schools will leave for other conferences in either 2014 or 2015—Rutgers for the Big Ten Conference, and Louisville and Notre Dame for the ACC. Notre Dame will be moving for sports other than football; the other schools will bring all of their sports, including football, to their new conferences.

The Big East replaced West Virginia in its football conference with Temple University for the 2012 season. Temple will join for all sports in July 2013. At the same time, four other schools—the University of Houston, University of Memphis, Southern Methodist University (SMU), and the University of Central Florida (UCF)—will join the conference in all sports. Boise State University and San Diego State University had planned to join for football, but backed out of the plan and decided to remain in the Mountain West Conference. One year later, Tulane University will join for all sports, and East Carolina University will join for football only. The United States Naval Academy, known for sports purposes as Navy, will join for football only in 2015.

Even larger changes came in December 2012. In that month, the seven members that do not play top-level football—DePaul, Georgetown, Marquette, Providence, St. John's, Seton Hall, and Villanova—said they would leave the Big East as a group and start a new conference no later than 2015. Since all of these schools are run by the Catholic Church, U.S. media soon called this group of schools the "Catholic 7". The group's decision to leave led to Boise State and San Diego State pulling out of Big East football.

References

• "Big East Conference". bigeast.com. http://www.bigeast.org/. Retrieved 2008-06-28.