It's a long, complex story ... much of it revolving around Penn State. At the time the Big East was formed (as a basketball only conference), Joe Paterno aggressively pushed his vision of a football conference consisting of PSU, Pitt, Syracuse, Boston College, Maryland, West Virginia, Rutgers, and a few other schools (Army?). Jake Crouthamel, then SU athletic director, was strongly in favor of the idea, but the geniuses running the Big East (aka the Providence mafia) wanted nothing to do with it ... or with Penn State.
Once the Big East added football as a sport and took in Miami, West Virginia, Vtech, etc., to make a football league with Syracuse, Pitt, Boston College, etc... the basketball schools (Providence, Georgetown, SJU, etc), demanded parity with the football schools ... so it became this weird monster with 8 football schools and 8 non-football schools. Somewhere along the way, UConn went from D1A to D1 in football, and Temple was in, out and in again of the Big Easst as a football-only school. And once again.. the non-football schools kept out Penn State.
This is where I think the football schools got robbed. You were providing two-thirds of the league's TV content, so, the basketball-only schools demanding parity was a slap in your faces, IMHO. That inequality was what would hurt the BE the most.
By this time Maryland had joined the ACC and Penn State subsequenntly joned the Big 10, permanently dashing hopes for a true northeastern football conference. By the time the football schools wanted to break away, Miami, VTech and BC had already joined Maryland in the ACC and Penn State had joined the Big 10 ... leaving the Big East in the position of having to add schools such as South Florida, Louiville and Cinci (balanced by adding schools like DePaul and Marquette to keep the basketball schools happy). This is a short-hand version of a continually worsening mess, with all the remaining football schools seeking out of the Big East. As a result, West VA went to the Big 12, Rutgers went to the Big 10, and Syracuse/Pitt/Louiville are heading to the ACC.
I thought adding Louisville and Cincinnati were good moves. Both have been solid all-sports schools. I understand adding USF to keep a presence in FL, but, they seemed too far out of the footprint. Miami was one thing, but, they have 5MNCs. USF is a start up program.
In hoops, DePaul was a horrible add. They've not been a great program in ages. Marquette, like USF, is too much of an outlier. Just like Creighton will be this coming season. Very good programs, but not 'eastern' teams in anyway.
To sum things up: If the Big East founders had more foresight back in 1980 (rather than thinking in terms of only basketball), they could have created a strong football conference. But the leadership in Providence was incapable of thinking that way... and the non-football schools had too much power within the conference to let it happen.
