The Big East and Eastern Football

[elimunelson]

None of this matters in 2025. Money would have broken it apart if perfect scenarios came about in the 80s.

Penn st and Miami still leave for greener pastures

 

[TexanMark]

None of this matters in 2025. Money would have broken it apart if perfect scenarios came about in the 80s.

Penn st and Miami still leave for greener pastures

Most likely but not necessarily...a powerful Big East (with Miami, Penn State and Maryland) in the mid 90s might have picked off FSU, Clemson, etc...

 

[HRE Otto IV]

Most likely but not necessarily...a powerful Big East (with Miami, Penn State and Maryland) in the mid 90s might have picked off FSU, Clemson, etc...

Nah. Most likely we are in the same situation as we are now except we have WV and Temple in the conference instead of Louisville and Wake, with the new conference name instead of the ACC name.

 

[Dick_in_MI]

Most likely but not necessarily...a powerful Big East (with Miami, Penn State and Maryland) in the mid 90s might have picked off FSU, Clemson, etc...

That’s kind of where I’m at as well. I think there is at least a chance of picking off FSU, probably not Clemson, but who knows what else might have transpired in that alternate universe had PSU joined.

Still, The Big East was always an unholy alliance between all sports schools and “everything except football” schools. The latter always voted as a bloc against the all sports schools. I always root against them now for that very reason. They were against PSU but fine with DePaul, Marquette, et al.

That very problem would have likely led to the demise of whatever the Big East may have become even with PSU. But not necessarily. We will never know.

 

[sufandu]

Interesting, really. If you look at it... we really did not fit the Big East either. But which group do we really fit better with as of 1980-1981:

(A) St. Johns, Georgetown, Seton Hall, Providence, UConn, Villanova
(B) Penn State, Pitt, Rutgers, BC, Temple, West Virginia

And we chose (A). Add Miami and Syracuse to (B) and we have a conference that would have competed with every conference.

Yeah, in football it would've been right there. Basketball not so much.

 

[longtimefan]

Most likely but not necessarily...a powerful Big East (with Miami, Penn State and Maryland) in the mid 90s might have picked off FSU, Clemson, etc...

Ped St. would have ended up in the B1G regardless. Their peer schools are the huge land grant universities of the Midwest. They are, in reality, a Midwestern, not Eastern, school. All the extra $$$ just makes it sweeter.

 

[orangefog]

I heard that nearly all of the other ADs insisted on no child molestation, and that was a deal breaker for Joe Pa. Of course, the B1G had no problem with it.

 

[Dick_in_MI]

That would have been Syracuse and BC. They were the ONLY football schools in the BE back in 1982.

Where would we have gone back then?

The solution was so obvious, I'm surprised I didn't think of it sooner. SU and BC could have formed their own conference!!

Between '82 and '90, SU had a 6-3 record vs. BC. So, we schedule 3 OOC games and play BC every week for the other 8 games. Most years, we win the conference and most years we are bowl eligible. To top it off, it would have satisfied the Sack Mac Pack that we were now a winning program. Winning-ish anyway, and at the end of the day, isn't that all that matters?

OK, so BC would have had to fire a few coaches but them's the breaks. The Big 2 would have been legendary and not entirely for all the wrong reasons. OK, mostly for the wrong reasons, but not entirely!

What a time it would have been to be alive. Wish I had a spare flux capacitor lying around so that I could go back and advocate for it.

 

[OrangeXtreme]

The solution was so obvious, I'm surprised I didn't think of it sooner. SU and BC could have formed their own conference!!

Between '82 and '90, SU had a 6-3 record vs. BC. So, we schedule 3 OOC games and play BC every week for the other 8 games. Most years, we win the conference and most years we are bowl eligible. To top it off, it would have satisfied the Sack Mac Pack that we were now a winning program. Winning-ish anyway, and at the end of the day, isn't that all that matters?

OK, so BC would have had to fire a few coaches but them's the breaks. The Big 2 would have been legendary and not entirely for all the wrong reasons. OK, mostly for the wrong reasons, but not entirely!

What a time it would have been to be alive. Wish I had a spare flux capacitor lying around so that I could go back and advocate for it.

Would there have been Sombreros?

 

[Dick_in_MI]

Would there have been Sombreros?

Hard to say. I am so overwhelmed with the genius surrounding the basic premise that I haven’t thought that far ahead.

 

[HtownOrange]

Hard to say. I am so overwhelmed with the genius surrounding the basic premise that I haven’t thought that far ahead.

Apologies if this bursts your bubble but didn't Rutgers try this with the Middle Three Conference? Lehigh, Lafayette, and Rutgers. Though, I fully concede that BC is tougher competition. And, of course, anything involving Rutgers is questionable at best.

 

[WoadBlue]

The football schools should have split when Penn State was blackballed. The writing was on the wall.

Dave Gavitt founded the BE for basketball only because he knew that the northeast region could have promoted a truly Big Time basketball league, that would be embraced nationally as truly top level, but the same could not be done with football. Even with Penn St. Even with going outside the northeastern states, as far away as Miami. If the basis of the football league was the Northeast, that league would not make it.

JoePa had come to the same conclusion.

If it had been done in 1960 and had both Army and Navy as well as PSU, it could have lasted and been well received for a long time.

 

[WoadBlue]

100%. When the ACC expansion investigation committee came to Syracuse in 2003, Jake was, at best, ambivalent to the possible move. IIRC, Buzz Shaw wasn't particularly welcoming to the committee either.

Boeheim and most prominent basketball boosters also did not want Syracuse in the ACC. I was surprised that BC faced almost no booster opposition to leaving the BE.

 

[WoadBlue]

That’s kind of where I’m at as well. I think there is at least a chance of picking off FSU, probably not Clemson, but who knows what else might have transpired in that alternate universe had PSU joined.

Still, The Big East was always an unholy alliance between all sports schools and “everything except football” schools. The latter always voted as a bloc against the all sports schools. I always root against them now for that very reason. They were against PSU but fine with DePaul, Marquette, et al.

That very problem would have likely led to the demise of whatever the Big East may have become even with PSU. But not necessarily. We will never know.

Those votes make sense. Those schools do not have D1 football, which means their top sport is not football. Which means what they need is very different from what a school playing D1 football needs.

When the BE added a football division, it chose to become a 2 headed monster. And that would necessarily mean death eventually. Fortunately, the league has not died but has gone back very successfully to what it was founded for: BASKETBALL.

 

[orangefog]

Boeheim and most prominent basketball boosters also did not want Syracuse in the ACC. I was surprised that BC faced almost no booster opposition to leaving the BE.

Maybe because nobody cares about BC?

 

[orange79]

Maybe because nobody cares about BC?

Well, both Superfans™, but other than that...