Report: Temple to the Big East in 2012 ‘is Done'

As our policy has been to never get too bent out of shape about any conference realignment rumors, we obviously present this with a grain of salt.
That said, as OwlsBlog.com editor John Lamb put it on Twitter: "Thamel AND McMurphy? Where there's smoke there's fire."
For reference, "Thamel" would be Pete Thamel of the New York Times and "McMurphy" would be Brett McMurphy of CBSSports. They are both reporting that Temple is close to joining the Big East as an all-sports member and that a deal could be done by the end of the month.
In specific, McMurphy has written that one source told CBS that "Temple to the Big East in 2012 'is done.'"
Thamel added in his piece that Temple has received an offer from the merging C-USA/MWC super PAC and that Temple will have to make its intentions known to that conference in the next month.
As for the local guys, the Inquirer's Mike Jensen reminds us that while Temple might be able to get out of the MAC in short order, it remains to be seen how long it would take to leave the A-10 (if, of course, this is all really happening).
We've been commenting for months after every Big East expansionary plan's exclusion of Temple that all it would take was one more school to leave the conference and TU would be right back on the list of candidates. Now, it turns out, all that was needed was for a school already leaving -- West Virginia -- to just expedite its exit.
Again, none of this is official and we're just going to yawn until we get the official releases (because we're like that with realignment), but the news certainly comes from the places Temple fans would want it to in terms of potential validity.
We'll update as necessary.
Smoke, fire.