Welcome to the new Big East. The unwieldy 12-team football conference will take form in 2013. The first couple years (at least) won’t be so fun for Temple. Administrators have placed the Owls in the Western division, until Navy and (hopefully) a 14th team join in 2015. That division will not have a team within 1,000 miles or even the same time zone.

Here’s how the new division alignment should look, with the driving mileage distance from Temple.

East: Central Florida (992), Cincinnati (574), UConn (244), Louisville (673), Rutgers (59), South Florida (1,042)

West: Boise State (2,441), Houston (1,547), Memphis (1,015), San Diego State (2,701), SMU (1,465), Temple

To provide some perspective, the length of Temple’s shortest division trip, Memphis, roughly coincides with the longest possible trip in the Big Ten (Lincoln to State College) and the SEC (College Station to Columbia, SC). It’s about the same drive as Ann Arbor to Gainsville.

One team was going to get left with this miserable travel burden. It’s no surprise that team was Temple. Considering geography Louisville makes the most sense. Considering competition, the conference would want to have Louisville and Boise State in separate divisions. Temple is the team with the least leverage and the least probability of being a flight risk should there be further realignment.

[Photo via Presswire]