The Old Big East should have remained in tact for at least one TV contract to see what the offer would have been with ESPN with pressure from the C7 leaving and knowing what they were negotiating with FS1. Bring in ECU FB only as originally offered, and offer Villanova a free football move up with minor modifications to their stadium to get to minimum requirement of 15k for seating, and offer G'town a minor annual FB stipend of $100,000 to help compete in the Patriot League. Nova would need 2 years to transition and could contract larger attended games in Philly Stadiums when needed as they build their program and attendance numbers, and could have worked out their permanent stadium issues down the road. They would come in as a full FB member with Navy when they arrived. That would have taken the major leaders for separation out of splitting the league. The league would have remained BB centric just as the BE of old while rebuilding the FB program with it new members.
BE - FB East - Nova, Temple, ECU, UCF, USF, UConn.
BE - FB West - Memphis, Navy, Houston, SMU, Tulane, Cinn.
To keep the C7 together and happy for BB and Olympic Sports:
BE - BB - North - UConn, Nova, G'town, Seton Hall, St. John's, Providence, DePaul, Marquette.
BE - BB - South - Temple, UCF, USF, Cinn, Memphis, Tulane, Houston, SMU.
This makes a 6 - 9 bid league for the NCAA Tournament and keeps the BE name in the in the forefront all year long for football (fall), basketball (winter), and strong southern baseball (spring). It also keeps and puts the BE in the NE, Mid-Atlantic, DC, Chicago / Midwest, Florida, New Orleans, and Texas TV markets for contract negotiations.
Unfortunately under this scenario Tulsa remains in CUSA at this time.