UConn coaches welcomed the news on Monday that Texas Christian University will join the Big East Conference as the 17th member of the NCAA’s largest Division 1-A athletic conference, beginning with the 2012-2013 season.
The addition of TCU, currently ranked no. 3 in the Bowl Championship Series football rankings, continues the evolution of the Big East. Since it began in 1979 with six universities, including the University of Connecticut, it has developed into a national conference with 24 sports that geographically reaches nine of the nation’s top 35 television markets. The Big East has won 28 national championships in six different sports, and 128 student-athletes have won individual national titles.
TCU, located in Fort Worth, Texas, will bring the Big East into the Dallas/Fort Worth market, which is the fifth largest in the country.
“The addition of TCU ensures that the Big East will continue to remain one of the nation’s premier athletic conferences well into the future,” said John I. Jenkins, president of Notre Dame and chairman of the conference’s CEO executive committee. “With TCU, the Big East adds an excellent academic institution that combines outstanding athletic achievement with a commitment to NCAA compliance and the educational success of its student-athletes.”
UConn coaches say they are looking forward to welcoming TCU into the Big East and competing against another quality opponent on the field.
Huskies head football coach Randy Edsall said he’s excited about the move. “I think it strengthens us from a football end and probably strengthens us from an overall sports situation,” he said. “From my perspective as a football coach, you’re getting a tremendous football program coming into the conference. As I said to Gary [Patterson, TCU head football coach], to me from top to bottom there’s not going to be a conference that’s better than what the Big East is going to be in football.”
Geno Auriemma, head coach of UConn’s No. 1-ranked women’s basketball team, said he’s aware of how good the TCU football program is, and the women’s basketball team has consistently been a top-25 program. “I think it adds a lot to our conference,” he said. “From a women’s basketball standpoint, it’s made our league – which is arguably the toughest league in the country – even tougher. We are bringing in another NCAA Tournament caliber team to our conference. That’s another tough road game, and I think it strengthens and expands the top of our league. And maybe, now that we are going down to Texas every other a year, a Texas kid thinks ‘hey, maybe I’d like to play in the Big East.’ The college athletics world is changing, and this is another example.”
Jim Calhoun, Huskies’ head men’s basketball coach, said adding more teams to the conference will likely result in some reconfiguring of the Big East regular season basketball schedule, which already has a limited home-and-home conference schedule because there are so many league teams.
“I just think it’ll make two more conferences, eventually. That’s my gut feeling,” said Calhoun, whose team is ranked No. 7 in the nation this week. “I don’t think they’ll have just one [additional football team]. I think 18 will be the number.”
TCU, known as the Horned Frogs, competes in 20 intercollegiate sports and has produced nationally-ranked programs in football, baseball, men’s golf, women’s golf, rifle, and equestrian.
Individually, 51 Horned Frog student-athletes earned all-America honors. The TCU football squad finished the 2010 regular season with a 12-0 record. A year ago, the football team played in the Tostitos Fiesta Bowl. The baseball team played in the 2010 College World Series.
Additionally, the women’s basketball team was the regular-season conference champion. The men’s and women’s tennis teams were conference tournament champions. The men’s swimming team captured a regular-season league crown. The women’s volleyball team participated in the NCAA Championship.
TCU has an enrollment of 9,142, including 7,853 undergraduates, making it comparable in size to most of the private institutions that are members of the Big East, such as Providence College, Seton Hall, Villanova, and Marquette.
The addition of a TCU as a football member of the Big East is the latest evolution of Big East realignment, which began in 2005, after three football member schools – Miami, Virginia Tech, and Boston College – left for the Atlantic Coast Conference. Five new football members were added: University of Cincinnati, DePaul University, University of Louisville, Marquette University, and the University of South Florida. The Big East has an automatic bid to one of the prestigious BCS post-season bowl games. Villanova, which joined the Big East in 1982 but competes at the Division I Football Championship Series level, is considering a move up to the BCS level of football competition, which would bring that sport in line with its other team competition.
“I realize that some people will question geography,” Big East commissioner John Marinatto told ESPN.com. “Paul Tagliabue, the former commissioner of the NFL and one of our consultants, put it best when he said at a recent meeting, ‘The Dallas Cowboys play in the NFC East. TCU and their fans will be right at home in the Big East.’ I couldn’t agree more.”
During his weekly news conference on Tuesday, Edsall responded to critics of the Big East expansion: “Everybody always wants to look at the negative. That’s ridiculous. It’s ludicrous,” he said. “To me, what you try to do is make your conference as strong as you can. The Big East went out and just made a move that makes the conference stronger, most especially from a football standpoint and from a total sports standpoint. Bottom line is the quality institution you’re getting in, and the quality program which TCU has is, to me, significant.”
