(02-28-2017 11:18 PM)CrazyPaco Wrote:  

(02-28-2017 11:08 PM)megadrone Wrote:  

(02-28-2017 10:56 PM)CrazyPaco Wrote:  

(02-28-2017 10:40 PM)Fighting Muskie Wrote:  

(02-28-2017 09:23 PM)gosports1 Wrote:  does anyone know (or remember) if the schools other than BC and Cuse) targeted by Paterno were on board and ready to go but scrapped plans when BC bad Cuse said no? I know most of them were already in the same conference with PSU, but did they agree to form new league or was it all dependent upon BC and Syracuse?

Rutgers and WVU were loyal to Penn St and would have been on board. Rutgers even turned down a Big East invite in the beginning hoping the Penn St land would win out.

Pitt was a different story. After years of playing little brother to the Nitany Lions they were quick to jump onboard the Big East after Penn St was rejected.

Pitt was no little brother in 1981.

No one wanted in a conference construed financially as it was being put together and no one wanted in a conference run by Paterno. The world at large now has a better idea about what kind of man he was.

Pitt was the only school in the northeast that wasn't at the time, at least for football. Not to place the blame on Pitt, but Pitt had the football clout to cry foul to what Paterno wanted for football.

Why do you think Pitt went with the Big East option allowing everyone to maintain independence. It was the better option in 1981, as shortsighted as it may have been for those nonclairvoyants. An eastern football conference wasn't happening under Paterno or his financial model (which on the football side was no difference than independence), and Paterno was never joining a conference led by Pitt. Based on what Paterno pulled with the Eastern 8, there was little trust and zero guarantee PSU would uphold any obligations. There was essentially no trust and mutual disdain between the two schools (not just the fans), and you absolutely would have needed to have both Pitt and PSU on the same page. The deck was stacked against an eastern conference by what had been going on for the past decade.

I agree. It would have been the precursor to Texas' relationship with the rest of the Big 12 had it happened, unless Pitt was able to keep Paterno in check (and the notice that he was leaving the Eastern 8, slipped under the door at a tournament, makes me doubt that Pitt could do that). My only point was that Pitt was the only school that could really stand up to Paterno and check his ego. And they did. And went to the Big East after the Big East rejected State Penn.

One would have needed a crystal ball to see how dominant football, broadcasting and the bowl system would become in the next 15 years to say the rejection of Paterno's conference was a bad move. I know that Rutgers alumni were moaning our initial rejection of the Big East for decades (myself included), because our AD at the time felt obligated to stick with Paterno's hopes for a conference. And we somehow ended up in the Big East anyway (and then later, hitched to Penn State in the Big 10). Funny how things work out sometimes.