The BIG EAST Conference formally announced the addition of five prestigious universities to its ranks today, bringing its football membership to 10 and securing a strong core group of FBS schools as it expands into two divisions and works toward its goal of staging an annual conference football championship game.

The University of Central Florida, University of Houston and Southern Methodist University have accepted full membership into the BIG EAST while Boise State University and San Diego State University will compete as members in the sport of football. The BIG EAST Conference Board of Directors, by a unanimous vote of its Presidents, extended the invitations for membership. UCF, Houston and SMU will begin competing in all BIG EAST-sponsored sports in the 2013-14 academic year, while Boise State and San Diego State will start competing in football in the 2013 season.

“Over the last 32 years, the BIG EAST Conference has constantly evolved along with the landscape of college athletics,” said BIG EAST Commissioner John Marinatto. “The inclusion of these five great Universities, which bring a unique blend of premier academics, top markets, strong athletics brands and outstanding competitive quality, marks the beginning of a new chapter in that evolution. We are proud to welcome these schools to the BIG EAST family.

COMPLETE RELEASE

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Some headlines from around the web about the Big East and changes ahead...

BIG EAST EYES TO ADD SIX FOOTBALL SCHOOLS (ESPN.com)
The Big East will consider adding six more football-playing schools to get to 12 members in the wake of three departures in the last month, the league said in a statement Monday. Following a teleconference Monday morning, Big East presidents and chancellors authorized commissioner John Marinatto to engage in formal discussions with institutions it has targeted in expansion, and are considering expanding to 12...COMPLETE STORY

BIG EAST READY TO GO AFTER BOISE STATE (Boston Globe)
The Big East is apparently ready to make one final push to keep its embattled football league together. With the defections of Syracuse and Pittsburgh to the Atlantic Coast Conference, with TCU, who had been scheduled to join the league next season as a full member moving to the Big 12,and with Louisville apparently ready to join the Horned Frogs in moving to the Big 12, the Big East options seemed limited...COMPLETE STORY

AIR FORCE PREPARING FOR MOVE TO BIG EAST (Denver Post)
Get ready to kiss Air Force goodbye. The Mountain West Conference is on the verge of losing a charter member. The Falcons are looking to fly far away to save the Big East from disintegration, with the hope that fellow military academies Navy and Army will join them in the league. "Our interest is high in the Big East. That's fair to say," Air Force athletic director Hans Mueh told me Saturday. "This stuff is moving fast." He expects that the future of Air Force athletics will be decided by the end of October. The plan would have the Falcons joining the Big East only in football, while moving teams in other sports to the Missouri Valley Conference...COMPLETE STORY

NEW SCENARIOS FOR BIG EAST (Philadelphia Inquirer)
In one scenario, maybe even the leading/most sensible scenario right now, it could be good news for Temple and Villanova. Bear in mind that the scenarios can fluctuate faster than an Eagles' fourth-quarter lead...COMPLETE STORY

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Oklahoma is No. 1 in the first BCS rankings, released Sunday night.

The Sooners (6-0, 2-0 Big 12) jumped up to No. 3 in the AP and Coaches' polls after blowing out Iowa State 52-0 on Saturday, and — in part because of previous AP/Coaches No. 1 Ohio State's 31-18 loss to then-No. 18 Wisconsin — hold the coveted top spot in the BCS rankings that determine postseason bowl placement.

Oregon sits at No. 2 in the BCS, followed by Boise State, Auburn and TCU in the top 5. LSU, Michigan State, Alabama, Utah and Ohio State round out the first top 10.

"I understand that the announcement of the poll makes for good conversation among media and fans, but two games into our conference season, it's too early for us to give it any attention," OU coach Bob Stoops told to the Oklahoma Daily. "At this point, it just speaks to the quality of the schedule we've played. And while I appreciate the caliber of those teams, our focus has to be on the games we have remaining. We're not talking or thinking about anything but playing Missouri."

How important is being in the top five of the standings? If history is a guide, 20 of the 24 teams to play in the title game were in the top five in the initial standings. No team has reached the title game from lower than 12th in the initial release (from ESPN.com)

COMPLETE RANKINGS

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As we enter the 4th week of what has been an interesting year of college football so far, I want to spotlight a couple of games that I will be following and give predictions on other games as well.

#1 Bama vs. #10 Arkansas
This is the best game of the week as far as I am concerned. I expect this to be a classic. The giant that is Ryan Mallett will try his hand at the Alabama defense today at home. I haven't seen a QB confuse a defense more with his play action abilities more than Mallett. This kid is a pro when it comes to disguising whether it is a run or a pass. I want to see how Bama will deal with this today. The Arkansas running game hasn't been stellar so far so I expect Mallett to be forced to toss the ball atleast 35x. If his oline can defend the Bama pass rush, then they may have a chance to knock off the champs. On the other hand, Bama's offense isn't a slouch either. Ingram is just getting warmed up and could have another great game, and if another RB is needed Richardson and Lacy provide a combined 7.0 yard per carry average. I just have a feeling that Mallett will put his name well above Denard Robinson in the race for the Heisman after today... Arkansas 35   Alabama 31

#24 Oregon St. vs. #3 Boise St.
I am sure fans in Boise will be scoreboard watching today and the entire campus at Boise will be Razorback fans today. Even if Boise wins tonight, there won't be a chance of them jumping OSU or Bama without those teams losing a game this season. Oregon St. decided to paint their practice field blue this week in an effort to simulate the blue turf at Boise St. I get the idea, but still pretty silly to me. Instead maybe they should have tried to simulate the Boise St. offense. I do believe Kellen Moore is legit as is Boise, but something just tells me that this game will be far from a snoozer. I am picking another upset this week...But it won't be this game... The Rodgers brothers are impressive, but I think Boise will pull this one out in a close one... Boise St. 37  Oregon St. 30

Michigan 45   Bowling Green 27

Florida 31   UK 17

South Carolina 24   Auburn 23

Stanford 27    Notre Dame 21

OSU 56  EMU 7

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Winning NFL picks, odds and power rankings all from our friends at Doc's Sports Service...

I'm not a believer in preseason polls at all. How can you rank any team before they actually play a game? I'm a firm believer that the polls shouldn't come out until around the beginning of October. By then every team has played four or five games, and are about to enter conference play. Preseason polls can really hurt teams that have stellar seasons but started out the season ranked too low to make a move to the top of the rankings. At the same time it can both help and hurt those teams that get top rankings. It can help them in the way that as long as the teams don't lose, they don't drop, even if teams below them are undefeated and beating better teams. But it can also hurt them. If a top ranked team loses, especially early in the season, they could slide pretty far down the rankings and have to fight their way back to the top, hoping to get a lot of help along the way.

With all that said, today the USA Today Coaches' Poll was released. It counts for 1/3 of the overall BCS rankings at the end of the season. Its no surprise that last year's BCS champ, Alabama, sits atop the rankings with 55 of the 59 first place votes. They are returning 10 of 11 starters on offense from last year and are definitely considered to be the favorites to take the title again this year. Behind them sits the the Ohio State Buckeyes, who received four place votes. With Heisman hopeful, Terrelle Pryor leading the charge, the Buckeyes could see themselves back in a national title game come January. Rounding out the top five is Florida, Texas, and the surprise to the party, Boise State. This is the highest the Broncos of the "Smurf Turf" have ever been ranked in preseason polls. While Boise State isn't in a BCS conference, its a very good possibility that they could crash the party this year. Their fate could very well be decided after their first game this year when they take on No. 6 Virginia Tech.

A complete listing of the USA Today Coaches' Poll is listed below:

1. Alabama
2. Ohio State
3. Florida
4. Texas
5. Boise State
6. Virginia Tech
7. TCU
8. Oklahoma
9. Nebraska
10. Iowa
11. Oregon
12. Wisconsin
13. Miami (FL)
14. Penn State
15. Pittsburgh
16. LSU
17. Georgia Tech
18. North Carolina
19. Arkansas
20. Florida State
21. Georgia
22. Oregon State
23. Auburn
24. Utah
25. West Virginia

*For those of us here in Cincy, the Bearcats are on the outside looking in at No. 26. Odds are they will be in the top 25 at some point this season, most likely after the first week if they beat Fresno State and one of the lower rank teams get upset and fall out.

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The bowl games finally start this weekend. Fellow GetSportsInfo.com writer, Jeremy Fischer, and myself have put together our picks including how confident we are in them. In case you've never done a pick 'em game like this before, here's how it works. In addition to picking who you think will win the game, you assign a number to that pick as to how confident you think that pick is going to be right. There are 34 bowl games this year (way too many in most people's opinion, but that's beside the point), so the max number of confidence points you can give to one game is, yep, you guessed it, 34. The game you are least confident in you assign one point too, and fill in everything in between.

A lot of office pools are done like this and make it much more challenging than simply picking a winner for each game. As J-Fish states when it comes to doing a pick 'em game like this, "I have seen many strategies and I prefer the one that calls for using the higher confidence points on the bigger BCS games." He goes on to give his reasons as to why.

"Right or wrong, the larger conference teams get more coverage. The more information that is out there, the better informed pick you can make. The more informed you are, the more confident you'll be about a particular selection." Makes sense right? So picking the BCS bowl games really isn't as difficult as picking some of the more obscure games like the R+L Carriers New Orleans Bowl between Southern Mississippi and Troy that provide more difficulty in not only picking who will win, but deciding how confident you are in that pick.

J-Fish goes on to say, "Unless you fancy yourself as the next Jimmy the Greek, don't over analyze. The amount of games will definitely lead to paralysis-by-analysis." In my opinion, when it comes to picking some of the lower level bowl games, its almost more of a gut feeling when making that selection than anything else.

With all that said, let's get to the picks. What you'll find below is the bowl schedule starting with the first game on the docket all the way to the National Championship game on January 8th. With each pick you'll see both J-Fish's pick as well as my own with a little bit of analysis and how many confidence points (#) we have assigned to the pick we've made. Let's get to it with a look at the BCS games.

January 1st
ROSE - Penn State vs. USC
JFISH: USC (34) - Too much defense.
DICO: USC (32) - Too much USC! PSU hasn't seen anything like the Trojans this year. Ask OSU how things worked out for them. Plus this is a "home game" for the Trojans.

FEDEX ORANGE - Cincinnati vs. Virginia Tech
JFISH: Cincinnati (22) - 1st BCS bowl berth will drive the Bearcats.
DICO: Cincinnati (10) - Special teams could be the difference in this game. Mardy Gilyard for the Bearcats is one of the best in the country in the return game. A chance to finish the season in the Top 10 will push the Bearcats to a win.

January 2nd
ALLSTATE SUGAR - Utah vs. Alabama
JFISH: Alabama (32) - Utah hasn't faced a defense like this.
DICO: Alabama (33) - See JFISH's comments...the Utes will have a hard time stopping the 'Bama offense as well.

January 5th
TOSTITOS FIESTA - Ohio State vs. Texas
JFISH: Texas (33) - Too much speed on defense, and the Horns will be playing angry because of the whole BIG XII, BCS screw job.
DICO: Texas (31) - QB Colt McCoy will be too much even for a good Buckeyes' defense. Terrelle Pryor will see what team speed on defense is all about against the Longhorns.

January 8th
FEDEX BCS NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP - Florida vs. Oklahoma
JFISH: Florida (26) - Tebow/Harvin will find a way.
DICO: Oklahoma (22) - Bradford leads the most potent offense in the country. Even with the loss of DeMarco Murray at RB, the Sooners won't miss a beat. Expect a high scoring affair.

COMPLETE PICKS (ALL 34 GAMES) 

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A brief overview of the local teams' first round opponents:

XAVIER
Thur, Mar 20 - approx. 12:20 p.m. EDT - Wasgington, D.C.
No. 14 Georgia (17-16, 4-12 SEC): This team won as many conference games during the season as they did in the unbelievable weekend in Atlanta for the SEC tournament. After winning two games on Saturday over Kentucky and Mississippi State, the Bulldogs finished business by beating Arkansas on Sunday afternoon in the finals.  Guard play always rises to the top come tourney time and the Bulldogs are led by their point guard Sundiata Gaines. The senior leads the team in most of the key stat categories. The Bulldogs have made a miracle run and have come a long way since the Jim Harrick era left a black cloud over the program. This team dropped 6 of 7 to end the regular season, but they are already the media darlings and being tagged as Cinderellas.

KENTUCKY
Thur, Mar 20 - approx. 2:30 p.m. EDT - Anaheim, CA
No. 6 Marquette (24-9, 11-7 Big East): The Golden Eagles won 7 of 9 to finish the regular season and knocked off Notre Dame before falling to Pitt in the Big East tournament. They finished the season ranked No. 24 in the Coaches' Poll and No. 25 in the AP.  Kentucky gets a tourney rematch against a team that broke their hearts just a few short years ago in the Elite Eight. While Marquette no longer has Dwayne Wade, Jerel McNeal is no slouch. He leads a powerful backcourt attack that is going to present a challenge for the Wildcats. The Golden Eagles don't have much in the paint though and may have a tough time handling the surging Perry Stevenson. The sophomore will have to put up a Florida-type effort if UK is going to have a chance to advance.

LOUISVILLE
Fri, Mar 21 - approx. 9:40 p.m. EDT - Birmingham, AL
No. 14 Boise State (25-8, 12-4 WAC): The Broncos are coming off a tenacious victory in the WAC championship game, edging New Mexico State 107-102 in triple overtime.  Boise State has proven they can win away from home (14-3) and the team can put points on the board (81.2 ppg, 12th in DI). The WAC's leading scorer and rebounder, Reggie Larry (14 double-doubles), leads a powerful frontcourt attack. The Cards are tough to match up with themselves, but they better not overlook this capable 14-seed.

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