We’ve done the Big East’s Top Five Teams of the 2000s and Five Greatest Games of the 2000s and we’ve gotten little argument yet. Now what about the moments that shaped and defined the league this past decade? Without further ado…

The Big East’s Five Major Off-Field Moments of the 2000s In chronological order…

June 25, 2003 – The ACC invites Virginia Tech and Miami to join its league, Virginia Tech accepts and five days later, Miami does too. ACC commissioner John Swofford initially wanted Miami, Syracuse and Boston College, and Virginia Tech’s administration was ready to stay in the Big East if BC would sign a paper committing to the league. Father William Leahy, BC’s president, refused. Virginia Gov. Mark Warner, meanwhile, put intense pressure on the University of Virginia to include Virginia Tech. Syracuse was dumped, Virginia Tech saw no choice and N.C. State chancellor Marye Ann Fox needed four months to change her initial “no” vote on BC. In October, BC got its official ACC invite and in July 2005, the Eagles officially left the Big East too. 

Nov. 4, 2003 – The Big East announces Conference-USA members Cincinnati, Louisville and South Florida have accepted membership in its conference. The three – and basketball schools Marquette and DePaul – were formally admitted to the league on June 30, 2005.

June 22, 2005 – The BCS issues a new eligibility test in a not-so-subtle warning to the Big East. Formerly, the BCS required a conference’s champions to have an average ranking of 12 or higher over a four-year period. After the ACC raid, the new rules – or the “Big East Test,” as the media dubbed it – made retaining a BCS bid contingent on Top 25 finishes, bowl results and average BCS rankings. Later, commissioner Michael Tranghese would admit “the magnitude of my worry (at that test) was off the charts.”

Aug. 29, 2006 – On the heels of West Virginia’s stunning Sugar Bowl win over Georgia, in the Georgia Dome, the Big East signed its biggest, fattest TV contract. Set to run from 2007-2013, and net $250 million, it carved out a Thursday night spotlight for the Big East, which the league paid dividends on immediately. On successive Thursdays that November, first West Virginia-Louisville (4.91 million households) and then Louisville-Rutgers (4.62 million households) drew ESPN its second- and third-highest college football audiences ever, for any night.

June 5, 2008 – Michael Tranghese announces he’ll retire the following June after 19 years as the Big East’s commissioner and 38 in the league office. Tranghese was the Big East’s first paid employee in 1979, he directed the creation of the Big East Football Conference in 1991 and he held the league together after the ACC’s potentially-devastating raid. He is still the only man to have ever served as chairman of the NCAA Men’s Basketball Committee and lead administrator of the Bowl Championship Series.

Honorable Mention: Dec. 10, 2009 – Four days after undefeated Cincinnati was shut out of the national title game, Brian Kelly – citing the desire to compete for national titles – accepts the Notre Dame job. Kelly continues a trend of Big East coaches leaving the league for ostensibly “bigger” leagues (see: Mark Dantonio, Rich Rodriguez), cementing the Big East as a stepping stone conference.