Published on August 5, 2012 at 3:08 pm NEWPORT, R.I. — Doug Marrone insisted it didn’t feel awkward to be sitting at Big East football media day knowing next season, his team will be in the Atlantic Coast Conference.“I have no feeling toward that,” Marrone said. “I don’t get it. I guess maybe because our focus is so much on getting our players ready to compete and getting ready to play a schedule. Or maybe it’s me, I’m not built that way.”The Syracuse head coach repeatedly said he doesn’t think about anything beyond this season, and is now only focused on training camp.Looking too far ahead to the Orange’s time in the ACC isn’t something he wants to do.It was a popular topic Tuesday, but Marrone stuck to the same answer.AdvertisementThis is placeholder textThough SU will no longer be a member of the Big East, the program will still be a part of the tradition of football in the northeast under Marrone.“You’re talking about a guy that played at Syracuse, and I always looked at it as northeastern football,” Marrone said. “I’ve always been a believer in eastern football. For me, it’s very difficult with all the changes. Years ago, not the ones going on now.”Temple returns to Big East with reenergized programJohn Paquette called coach after coach to the front of the Bellevue Ballroom in Newport’s Hotel Viking. Six drab, generic,cliché-filled speeches followed with only South Florida’s Skip Holtz’s bringing some life to the podium.Then Steve Addazio marched to the microphone from the back right corner of the room. As if giving a pep talk, he spoke about the change in the Big East as well as his program.“It’s a new Temple,” Addazio said. “It doesn’t resemble anything of where it was six, seven, eight years ago.”As Addazio was quick to point out, Temple enters the Big East coming off three winning seasons, during which the team went 26-12, earned a win in the New Mexico Bowl and completed a $10 million football facility.As members of the Big East from 1991-2004 the Owls didn’t record a winning season and went 29-126. In 2004, Temple was expelled from the Big East due to poor performance, attendance and a lack of investment in the program by the university as a whole. The Owls competed as an independent for two years before moving to the Mid-American Conference for the last five seasons.But the dark period in the Big East in the Owls’ history isn’t lost on the current Temple players.“I wouldn’t say burying it would be the best idea. I think we can help use it as motivation,” Owls kick and punter Brandon McManus said. “ … We’re excited to try and make Philadelphia a college football town.”Big East looks to prove itself nationally West Virginia is gone, and Syracuse and Pittsburgh are leaving after this season.Houston, Southern Methodist, Central Florida, Memphis, Boise State and San Diego State are set to join in their place with the latter two doing so on a football-only basis. Navy is scheduled to do the same in 2015.But Tuesday, coaches and officials focused on the season when talking about the strength of the conference on the national landscape.“By any objective criteria you choose the Big East has been, is today and will continue to be one of the top conferences in the nation,” said Nick Carparelli, senior associate commissioner of the Big East. “ … There is nothing in this sport that can be done in any other league that can’t also be done in the Big East.”The league also announced a marketing plan to better brand the league in years to come. Details of the plan were not released.In the past two seasons of Big East play, five different programs have earned a share of the conference title. In 2010, it was Connecticut, Pittsburgh and West Virginia. Cincinnati, Louisville and West Virginia did the same last season.“I think you’re going to find out in the next year and many years to come that we’re a player on the national scene,” Cincinnati head coach Butch Jones said of the Big East. Comments Facebook Twitter Google+ read more