They did it in response to an existential crisis, not so different from what these football programs are going through now. Now, just like then, outside forces are conspiring to permanently relegate these programs to the dust heap for no reason other than they aren't a member of the country club. There are differences in the situations (the schools that formed the Big East were focused on basketball instead of football competition, and were all independents at the time,) but not many. The conference was not formed because all those schools wanted to associate, but because they felt they had to do it or face permanent irrelevancy under the status quo. Everyone at the time considered the Big East to be an insane idea that would never work too. "Nobody will give a crap about this conference they just made up out of whole cloth!" "Where are they going to get a media deal; nobody will broadcast that crap!" "It won't last five years!" It went on to become the most successful and lucrative basketball conference in the country at its zenith, with media rights deals at the time that rivaled or bested the SEC, Big 10, Pac 12, Big 8, and ACC. And, just like what I expect we will eventually see happen with the Big 10 and SEC, because it happens to every capitalist project that expects unfettered growth year over year eventually, the original Big East conference died because it got away from its original mission and started trying to conflate its strategy for basketball success with football success, which are two very different beasts. That notwithstanding, I think the time is ripe for a major outside the box move. There are proud, successful football programs that are valuable brands with big fanbases that are currently being relegated not because they are bad, but because they aren't in the country club, and the programs that are want to shut them out permanently. That's an untenable position to be in.