About a decade after the conference 's founding , the members decided to launch a I-A football conference . To that end , the Big East added five schools with I-A programs — Miami as a full member , and Rutgers ( which had turned down an invitation to become a charter member of the conference ) , Temple , Virginia Tech and West Virginia as football-only members . Big East football began play in 1991 . In 1995 , West Virginia and Rutgers became full members of the conference , and Notre Dame , with an independent football program , joined as a full but non-football member . These moves in the first half of the 1990s led to an unusual conference structure , in which only some of the full conference members played football in the Big East . Another of the 1991 football-only members , Virginia Tech , became a full member in 2000 . Temple remained a football-only member until 2004 , when it was voted out of the conference due to poor attendance figures , lack of playing success , and inadequate facilities . In the meantime , UConn announced in 1999 that it would upgrade its I-AA football program to I-A ; its transition was completed in 2002 , and it joined the Big East football conference in 2004
independent
NCAA Division I FBS independent schools
2010–13 Big East Conference realignment