There have been quiet denials, but the talk about Memphis joining the Big East just doesn’t go away and now a local TV station is reporting “serious talks” about admittance.

Ever since the Memphis Tigers got left behind in the Great Bum Rush to leave Conference USA– also known as the Big East expansion in 2003– Tiger fans have had one singular goal. To follow their old rivals from Louisville, and Cincinnati to the greener pastures of the Big East.

And here’s where it gets interesting.

Sources have confirmed to FOX13 Sports that University of Memphis officials have been in serious talks with the Big East about joining the conference.

The immediate thought is that it cannot possibly be true because then the Big East has 17 teams and that is just too big. Then again, maybe this is the first step toward the split of football schools and non-football schools.

Non-football: Seton Hall, Providence, Georgetown, Villanova, Marquette, DePaul, St. John’s.  

Football: West Virginia, Connecticut, Cincinnati, Syracuse, Louisville, Pitt, South Florida, Rutgers and then Memphis.

Now football has its eight-game conference schedule and could go back to the traditional round robin, home-and-home 16-game schedule for basketball. The non-football schools only have a 12-game conference schedule – unless it ushered in an unprecedented three-game series between schools to go to 18 games. Regardless, it needs work.

But we’re forgetting someone, yes? Notre Dame wouldn’t join the football side and shed its independence, so it would thereby side with the non-football sect in basketball, where it’s just a better fit with the other private schools. Now it’s a traditional round robin, home-and-home 14-game schedule, which isn’t perfect, but still makes for a pretty attractive basketball league.