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Message: [QUOTE="Townie72, post: 785971, member: 780"] No one misses the Major Eastern Indy period more than I do. But you can't make a real conference out of eitght teams unless you want to be the Ivy League. There never really was an opportunity to make the East into a great football or all sports conference. The problem is that there weren't enough schools at any time who would have made up a really competitive conference. The universe of schools that might have made it up include: Syracuse Penn State Pitt BC Army Navy WVU Rutgers Conn Temple Maryland was never an Eastern school. It has always been in either the Southern Conference or the ACC. So constructing a fantasy Eastern Conference with Maryland seems to me to be a fantasy. Army and Navy were fine in the 1950's and 1960's, but they both de-emphasized football starting in the early 1980's. Their admissions standards prevent them from recruiting the size and kind of athletes it became necessary to have to compete. Rutgers played a 1AA schedule through the 1970's with Lehigh and Lafayette as their "rivals". Even when they improved their schedule, it too until 2005 for them to be competitive. UConn was IAA until a few years ago when they were attracted by the lure of big money for upgrading. Temple has been a train wreck since the 1930's. So the Eastern Conference that might exist would be: Penn State Pitt WVU Syracuse BC Rutgers Temple UConn Three points: 1. This is still the Northeast where football is far from King. It's a cult sport overpowered by the NFL, kids soccer games, shopping and raking leaves. 2. This isn't exactly a "Murderer's Row" of powerhouse football teams. It resembles the Big Ten without Ohio State and Michigan. For basketball it's pretty bad. 3. Most importantly, eight teams isn't enough, You can't get to a real 2013 Conference with 8 teams. Where do you get the additional teams from and keep it an "Eastern Conference"? VT? Nope that's in Virginia and they are happy where they are since its where they always wanted to be? Miami? If they weren't in the ACC they would be in the SEC. To get to 11 or 12 teams you'd have to start casting the net wider and wider and letting in smaller market teams. The Eastern Conference was never going to happen. [/QUOTE]

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