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PETE YOUNGAD Lee Roy Selmon has been talking to conference officials since at least July.
TAMPA - South Florida athletic director Lee Roy Selmon and Big East Conference officials have been in contact since at least July, records show.
Phone records obtained by the St. Petersburg Times through a public records request indicate Selmon called the office of Pittsburgh athletic director Jeff Long on July 21 and again in August; the Big East offices in Providence, R.I., on two occasions; and Boston College.
USF reportedly is the leading candidate to replace BC in the Big East. Last weekend BC said it was leaving for the ACC in 2005, and Big East commissioner Mike Tranghese said USF is his top choice to replace the Eagles.
Selmon said his Big East contacts have been brief and "collegial" and nothing more, and that the only person affiliated with the Big East who he has spoken with this week is Long.
"I've known Jeff a long time. We met years ago," Selmon said. "I think we first met at the Hall of Fame Bowl (in Tampa) when he was at Michigan. He was at Oklahoma a number of years. Of course when he was at Oklahoma I conversed with him."
Selmon played football for Oklahoma and Long came to Pitt this year after more than two years as Oklahoma's senior associate athletic director. Asked about his August calls to the Big East, Selmon said he briefly spoke with Tranghese.
"They were collegial calls that I placed, nothing of substance," Selmon said. "Really it was nothing more than that. Their hands have been busy with so much going on. I was just saying hello.
"We have not had any official contact from the Big East. We, of course, enjoy all of the speculation that is going on out there."
Selmon said he never reached anyone at Boston College.
USF's Conference USA brethren, Louisville and Cincinnati, are expected to replace departing Big East members Miami and Virginia Tech, who announced they were leaving for the ACC earlier this year. Official invitations are expected when the Big East presidents meet Nov. 4 in Philadelphia.
Tranghese was in Chicago on Wednesday and Thursday for a meeting of the commissioners of the six conferences that comprise the BCS. Potential changes to the lucrative BCS could determine whether USF remains in C-USA, currently a non-BCS league, or moves to the Big East, whose BCS status is threatened by the defections, especially that of Miami.
Selmon said he has spoken with USF president Judy Genshaft since the C-USA board of directors meeting earlier this week, but not about the conference situation.
"We've just spoken briefly and nothing (about conference realignments)," Selmon said. "What (C-USA commissioner) Britton (Banowsky) released was all that there was. The conference is looking to strengthen itself in whatever way necessary when the (Big East) sorts itself out."