The Big East Conference has a fairly customary 27-month exit process that requires schools to wait for over two years before joining a new conference after they've made that decision. It's a pretty long lame-duck period for a school that already knows it's future and the Conference that needs to make alternate plans while it can. If Pittsburgh and Syracuse were to adhere to this mandate, they wouldn't be able to join the ACC until 2014, which is an awfully long time for these teams and both conferences to wait.
However in the case of Pitt and Syracuse, that may not be the case. According to Jack Lambert of the Business Journal, Pittsburgh and Syracuse may not be forced to hold out for 27 months before joining the ACC.
Anderson said on Wednesday that he does not envision the process taking the full 27 months. He said the Big East has asked both Pittsburgh and Syracuse to stop coming to conference meetings and that the conference has signaled to their partners that “the transition could be sooner.”
There's really no reason to keep these teams in the Big East longer than they need to be there. Obviously the 2011-12 season is already underway, but if they can get the red-tape out of the way I don't see why they can't join the new Conference as early as next year. It would be good for the ACC and both schools obviously, and it would give the Big East a chance to move on quickly.