TCU’s move to the Big East proves Big East Commissioner John Marinatto was no geography major while at Providence College. A Business Management major actually, and Marinatto showed it, pulling off the biggest conference signing and business move of the 2010 conference shakeup mess in college football.
TCU agreed to become the 17th member of the Big East Conference Monday, joining as a full participant for the 2012 athletic season. TCU will be the ninth football competing member. The Horned Frogs also became the ninth program this year to make a move to a different conference, or independence, by 2012.
For those of you thinking it’s geographically challenged that the Big East would welcome a program from a town – Fort Worth, Texas – which claims to be "where the west begins," you’re not alone. I suppose Fort Worth is east of, well, Idaho, as good a reason as ever to take the Horned Frogs over the once rumored Broncos of Boise State.
The decision by both the conference and the school seem to be legitimate, even if TCU is an average of 1,140 miles from the current Big East schools. The Big East has long been considered the weakest automatic qualifying (AQ) BCS conference. TCU, who finished the regular season undefeated for the second straight year, brings credibility to the Big East. It’s a smart move for the Horned Frogs for the reason that another undefeated regular season, starting in 2012, could end with a National Championship game appearance. Although, as proved by Cincinnati in 2009, it isn’t a given.
I’m not willing to crown the Horn Frogs 2012 champions of the Big East just yet, however. The Frogs are without a doubt one of the nation’s current elite teams. They’re also led by 14 senior starters and five junior starters. All of which will be gone by the 2012 season. In TCU’s last rebuilding season, 2007, the Frogs found themselves finish fifth in the Mountain West conference with an 8-5 record.
Chris Peterson (below) is one of the nation’s best coaches, and should be able to recruit a well stocked state like Texas better now that the none-AQ has been stripped from his teams’ label. They’ll be facing schools they haven’t faced this side of the decade, though. As big of an eye-sore as the Big East is right now, who’s to say how the conference will be in two years? Five of the current eight teams are led by sophomore quarterbacks. A two-hour time change to every conference game won’t be easy to overcome week-after-week either.
The Horned Frogs presumably became nervous about their current conference future, the Mountain West, after both Utah and BYU made plans to leave the conference starting next season. The Utes accepted a bid to the 
PAC-10, while BYU chose independence. Boise State agreed to move to the Mountain West, from the Western Athletic Conference (WAC) starting next season, but even the Broncos couldn’t give the conference an AQ bid to a title game.
With TCU’s move to the Big East, the Mountain West has essentially become the new WAC. Current WAC members Boise State, Fresno State, Nevada and Hawaii, are all slated to join the Mountain West by the 2012 season.
You really can’t blame the Horned Frogs for looking for a way out, though. An AQ bid is what all of the none-AQ programs have been searching for since the BCS mess began, even if their move seems to be a little disordered. Moving Texas or Oklahoma into the PACIFIC Athletic Conference, like the conference had talked doing in June, would have been a bit odd as well. The Big East just proved it’s a lot bigger east than most originally thought. It’s just a good thing the conference doesn’t feature a map logo like the ACC.
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