Big East Adds Liberty To Lineup Vs. Possible SEC Team

Big East Adds Liberty Bowl to Lineup

4/27/2010 11:44 AM ET

By Brett McMurphy, NCAA Fanhouse

The Big East is adding the AutoZone Liberty Bowl to its bowl lineup over the next four seasons, sources told FanHouse.

Based in Memphis, Tenn., the Liberty Bowl will share the fifth selection from the Big East with the Papajohns.com Bowl. The Big East's opponent in the Liberty Bowl will either be an SEC team or the Conference USA champion.

AutoZone Liberty Bowl executive director Steve Ehrhart told the Commercial Appeal earlier this month that the Big East could play an SEC team in his bowl.

"It's just a very tricky, very complex formula," Ehrhart told the Memphis newspaper. "It just depends on certain years what teams are available, and [if] we wanted a certain matchup like West Virginia vs. Ole Miss. It's something we'd try to work out with the conferences and our TV partner ESPN.

"We have always appreciated our relationship with Conference USA and still in most future scenarios a Conference USA team will be in our bowl. The deal with the Big East hasn't been signed yet, but I feel like it's going to work out."

The Birmingham News reported a few weeks ago that the Papajohns.com and Liberty bowls will share the SEC's final two bowl picks. The two bowls will rotate who gets an SEC team when that conference doesn't have enough bowl-eligible teams. When there are enough SEC bowl-eligible teams, the bowls will work together to make their picks.

The addition of the Liberty Bowl completes the Big East's bowl lineup. The Big East champion receives a BCS bowl bid, followed by Champs Sports (vs. ACC), Meineke Car Care (vs. ACC), New Era Pinstripe (vs. Big 12), Liberty/Papajohns.com (vs. SEC or C-USA) and Beef 'O Brady's-St. Petersburg (vs. C-USA).

"By all accounts the Big East bowl lineup is stronger than it's ever been," Big East commissioner John Marinatto said in a statement Tuesday. "We have aligned ourselves with great bowl games in first-class destinations."

Last year, the Big East's bowl lineup consisted of BCS, Sun/Gator, Meineke Car Care, Papajohns.com, International and St. Petersburg. The International Bowl folded and the Sun and Gator dropped their affiliation with the Big East.