Adding the Horned Frogs and, later rather than sooner, a 10th football team to the Big East puts member institutions into a scheduling pinch. Oh, it makes the home-away balance better with nine teams and eight opponents. It reduces the payouts for buy-in games (like UNLV, which was a pretty useless endeavor for WVU).

Yet it also changes non-conference scheduling. There are, obviously, fewer spots for exposure opportunities. It potentially compromises games already scheduled or … ahem … series that are to be renewed. So says Oliver Luck.

“The conference told us going back a couple months, because this didn’t happen overnight, to keep our schedule open for two potential members,” Luck said. “We have to keep that in mind because it does have an effect on everything.

“South Florida, for example, has said it’s not going to schedule any games without a clause in there that says South Florida can drop the game without any type of penalty. Certainly it’s something that’s going to cause some things to change.”