Northeastern football is never really coming back, in my opinion. Too many programs, too few players, too little resources/support.
There's some chance that Penn State could come back, because they theoretically have the big boy resources to throw behind the effort. Obviously a school like Michigan can overcome geographic disadvantages with unlimited support and resources and a very top brand. Penn State is the only northeastern school that could semi replicate that.
The athletes are too far away, and the recruiting game has gone national AND the calendar has moved up. A ton of kids are committed before they're even allowed official visits...a school like Georgia or Florida has dozens of elite recruits with a three hour drive that can visit over and over from the time they're in the 8th grade. I get a kick out of Northeastern schools talking about there being plenty of talent in Pennsylvania and New Jersey. Neither of those schools produce 10 blue chip athletes a year. ONE team could sign every blue chipper in BOTH states this year and not had a top 10 recruiting class last year.
So there aren't enough Northeastern kids to realistically build a national championship level team, especially once the national programs like Ohio State, Michigan, Alabama, USC etc come in and skim theirs.
So a northeast team would have to recruit nationally. We can set aside PSU, because their resources and attendance and brand are on a different level, but other than that what northeastern team is going to sign kids that have to travel by a half dozen warmer weather, 70-100k attendance programs, to play in front of 30k fans? How are any of those programs going to build facilities that are remotely comparable to schools in other areas with the country?
People in the Northeast just don't care that much about college football, so they not only do they not play it, or dump stupid amounts of money on their kids football development, they don't buy tickets and they don't go to games and they don't donate massive sums. That's not a character flaw...in any other context, they're the reasonable ones. It's nothing to be ashamed of but might as well own it.
That's not to say that EVERY team in the Northeast has to be terrible EVERY year. I think its possible for ONE Northeast team to be a fairly consistent Top 25 player. I think it's possible for another one to be regularly 5-8 wins. And the rest will stink. I don't think any of those schools will be a national title contender ever again. However, once a decade or so, that top 25 team will have just the right mix of seniors and catch some breaks, and have a chance to make a deep run into the season undefeated and climb toward the top of the polls, and by the same token, that 5-8 win team some odd season will get out to 8-1 and get a little national attention...and then they'll slip back.
The ACC is a bit overinvested in the Northeast with Pitt, SU and BC, but they're all here and that doesn't bother me. It would be nice if we had both the top 25 team and the 5-8 win team, and Rutgers (and the G5) schools remained trash.