esayem Wrote:Ever think that maybe BC likes being the lone northern outpost of the ACC? It surely is a unique position to be in from a basketball standpoint, which is talent heavy in the northeast. Besides, don't you think USF sticks out?

Tampa has a lot more in common with the NE culturally than Boston does with Tobacco Road. There is a large group of northeastern transplants in the Tampa area. Culturally is it like northern city. Tobacco Road is old south and has very little in common with the Yankees from Boston. BC jumped because they panicked and thought the BE would lose their BCS status.

animus Wrote:All of cities in the northeast don't care about college football.

For good reason. The college game hasn't gotten any press up north until fairly recently. The national media gave the Pitt Panthers national championship team more coverage than the Pittsburgh media. Pro sports so dominates the older urban regions that college ball never took hold. Now it's starting to, and those towns will come onboard when their teams start having success. Rutgers is a good example. Look at the way their attendance has climbed.

Yeah your right. Pitt these days has some coverage in the media. There is alot more coverage than when i was growing up in the 80's. College Basketball and the NFL is kings in the northeast which explains why as much as we hate it college bball is the king of the B.E. That could change is there is a split. Only time can tell. I think if they built the dome in NYC and had the Big Apple Bowl as a BCS bowl things could change. But it didn't.

bitcruncher Wrote:

animus Wrote:All of cities in the northeast don't care about college football.

For good reason. The college game hasn't gotten any press up north until fairly recently. The national media gave the Pitt Panthers national championship team more coverage than the Pittsburgh media. Pro sports so dominates the older urban regions that college ball never took hold. Now it's starting to, and those towns will come onboard when their teams start having success. Rutgers is a good example. Look at the way their attendance has climbed.

The bolded part of your post is very true. The reason is that for years, the south did not have very many major league teams because most of the bigger cities were located in the north and out west. So the southern cities did not have very many choices for pro sports, especially fb. So they watched and loved their college fb teams. That is why today that folks say that college fb is a religion in the south.
I think it was in the 60s that many of the southern cities started to really grow into large urban centers, and with that growth came the major league teams. But by that time college fb had such a stronghold on the south that it was not going to go away or lose its popularity among the locals. But college fb is starting to make some major inroads in the northeast which is very good for the BE.

When I'm in Georgia I can tell the UGA game day. Everybody has those red plags with the "G" on them driving around in a traffic jam. I see very little in Atlanta to show that they even have a pro team called the Falcons. When I drive through neighborhoods people have their college flags: Clemson, Ga. Tech, hanging off their homes. College sports is just gigantic in the south- from what I have seen.
Football is religion. People tell me they know families that have moved just so their kid could play football at a certain high school or under a certain coach. I guess if I thought my kid had a multi-million dollar payday down the road- I'd move too.

BUt it is true that the northern teams like the Yankees and Knicks are like 100 years old. A lot of southern cities just got pro teams in my lifetime, like: the Miami Heat, Orlando Magic, Memphis Grizzlies.

frogman Wrote:

esayem Wrote:Ever think that maybe BC likes being the lone northern outpost of the ACC? It surely is a unique position to be in from a basketball standpoint, which is talent heavy in the northeast. Besides, don't you think USF sticks out?

St. joes, Umass, temple--BC doesn't want to even schedule these guys.

BC and UMass play basketball home and home every year, and they played in football last year, I think BC won by a TD.

I think if Holy Cross and NYU never cut back their sports, or the Ivy's didn't stopped caring about sports, eastern college athletics would look much different.

Hey if we get into another world war look out for Army and Navy to dominate.

esayem Wrote:

frogman Wrote:St. joes, Umass, temple--BC doesn't want to even schedule these guys.

BC and UMass play basketball home and home every year, and they played in football last year, I think BC won by a TD.

UMass BB beat them by 3 and the game was played in Boston. Providence, another northeastern rival, beat BC by 9 last year. OF course, Umass beat Syracuse twice last year. My point was the A10 is developing more BB clout than the ACC in the northeast and BC won't do much to change that. ACC BB used to be respected in the northeast.

I'm not just hating but I see BC falling off the charts in both BB and FB- I think FB peaked after joining the ACC- that must have helped recruiting for a northeast team. Now there's more BCS competition in the northeast.
BUt the talent is in the south. We need to expand to twelve, adding three schools from the deep south. We already have the best schools in the northeast and we have some hungry schools in the south begging to join. What's the hold-up?

BC fans would tell you that the ACC opens up recruiting territory for them that they never previously had access to in the South & Mid Atlantic states.

Temple? Why not just upgrade Seton Hall football while you're at it?

Temple will never be good in football. In 2008 they will lose most of their out of conference games and might squuek out two wins in conference. Then the coach will leave for greener pastures.

There is no football future at Temple. The Big East should stay away if a split ever happens. And I don't think we'll see a split in the next ten or even twenty years. Status qoo is doing just fine and BC can stay in the ACC forever.

Maybe the SEC will come calling for WVU? I think that is far more likely than Temple ever being involved with the Big East ever again.

Let's Go Mountaineers!

baci-baci Wrote:Temple? Why not just upgrade Seton Hall football while you're at it?

Temple will never be good in football. In 2008 they will lose most of their out of conference games and might squuek out two wins in conference. Then the coach will leave for greener pastures.

There is no football future at Temple. The Big East should stay away if a split ever happens. And I don't think we'll see a split in the next ten or even twenty years. Status qoo is doing just fine and BC can stay in the ACC forever.

Maybe the SEC will come calling for WVU? I think that is far more likely than Temple ever being involved with the Big East ever again.

Let's Go Mountaineers!

Wow, it wouldn't be the Big East, it would be a NEW conference. Why would anyone hire Temple's coach if he won two games in the MAC???

cuseroc Wrote:

bitcruncher Wrote:

animus Wrote:All of cities in the northeast don't care about college football.

For good reason. The college game hasn't gotten any press up north until fairly recently. The national media gave the Pitt Panthers national championship team more coverage than the Pittsburgh media. Pro sports so dominates the older urban regions that college ball never took hold. Now it's starting to, and those towns will come onboard when their teams start having success. Rutgers is a good example. Look at the way their attendance has climbed.

The bolded part of your post is very true. The reason is that for years, the south did not have very many major league teams because most of the bigger cities were located in the north and out west. So the southern cities did not have very many choices for pro sports, especially fb. So they watched and loved their college fb teams. That is why today that folks say that college fb is a religion in the south.
I think it was in the 60s that many of the southern cities started to really grow into large urban centers, and with that growth came the major league teams. But by that time college fb had such a stronghold on the south that it was not going to go away or lose its popularity among the locals. But college fb is starting to make some major inroads in the northeast which is very good for the BE.

You've got the foundation for a southerner's love of college ball down pat. But you missed the red part. The college game IS starting to take root in The BEast viewing area. Just wait a few years.

I just hope the Orange step it up before too much longer. We need ALL BEast's to stand up and be counted.

Ho hum ... another Temple hater suddenly joins the board ... what a surprise.

MichaelSavage Wrote:BC fans would tell you that the ACC opens up recruiting territory for them that they never previously had access to in the South & Mid Atlantic states.

A West Virginia fan really cares what BC fans say?

Anyway, their last 5 classes have had one guy from South Carolina, one from North Carolina, and two from Georgia - and only the QB Tuggle from GA was a three-star recruit at Rivals, and BC's recruits are always overinflated at Rivals.

Outside of New England the four areas they recruit the hardest are New Jersey, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Florida. Gee, I wonder which league has teams from all four of those regions that might actually help them recruit better in areas they already have some success in?

Of course, BC fans will never admit to that.

Cheers,
Neil

bitcruncher Wrote:

animus Wrote:All of cities in the northeast don't care about college football.

For good reason. The college game hasn't gotten any press up north until fairly recently. The national media gave the Pitt Panthers national championship team more coverage than the Pittsburgh media. Pro sports so dominates the older urban regions that college ball never took hold. Now it's starting to, and those towns will come onboard when their teams start having success. Rutgers is a good example. Look at the way their attendance has climbed.

True, but that attention can fade as quickly as it came.

Probably, the main stumbling block for the northeast metro regions not caring more about college football is the fact that its teams are off in different conferences. Which is why it is important the WVU, Rutgers, Pitt, Syracuse, and UConn do well enough to grab that interest and keep it. By virtue of doing this, the northeast metro regions will adopt Louisville, USF, and Cincinnati just as they have adopted West Virginia and Miami in the past.

Cheers,
Neil

What outsiders forget about Boston College is that it is a small, private, expensive Catholic university. There are basically two types of BC fans: people who went to BC, and extremely hardcore Boston sports fans who have an appetite for sports that inexplicably isn't met by all the professional teams. Neither group is very big. People who attended any of the many, many other local colleges generally cheer against BC. This phenomenon appears to be unique to the Northeast, if not New England. I have family in Kentucky, not one of whom graduated from the University of Kentucky, who are all rabid UK fans, even against their own schools. It's definitely not like that here. Doesn't matter that BC was the only FBS option up until recently, we don't rally around them because they're difficult to like and we have many other sports options at the pro level. And of course BC doesn't travel well, who except an extremely loyal BC grad is going to buy last second airline tickets to friggin' Jacksonville to watch the ACC Championship Game when the Patriots are playing for playoff position the next day? At best they'll save their money for the BCS bowl game if BC wins. Who cares about the conference championship? This is Boston, nobody here grew up hoping one day we'd win the ACC. Do people living on Tobacco Road dream of one day winning the Big 12?

Here's where the New England schools really screw up though: we don't play each other. BC won't play UConn, UConn won't play UMass, UMass won't play Holy Cross (in basketball), and so on. UConn screams and cries about having to sometimes schedule an extra home game in the 8 member Big East football conference, and yet they won't play us. Like we wouldn't make the 1 hour drive to Hartford in force for that, no return game required. Unfortunately, the attitude up here is that you need to squeeze everyone else out of the game entirely, and it's stupid. Kids up here don't grow up caring about playing football locally because we have no local rivalries. BC is off playing some southern fried school, UConn is practically in New York and playing in West Virginia, and UMass is in Division II if you ask the average idiot. There's nothing even close to Clemson-S.Carolina here, or USC-UCLA, or Kentucky-Louisville. Nobody wearing their colors or putting flags on their cars. We need local teams playing local teams for that. The Beanpot Hockey tournament is an example of that. It's essential for creating a passion for college football, and for getting kids growing up here caring about playing for one of the local colleges someday. If you take all the states with at least 1 FBS program and divide their population by the number of local FBS schools, the 3 states with the highest population per program are New Jersey, Massachusetts and New York. And of the states with no FBS schools at all, the three highest populations are New Hampshire, Maine and Rhode Island. There's plenty more untapped potential here, it's just a matter of getting people to care about college football. That's never going to happen when the only local representative is some small exclusive Catholic school that plays most of their games in Dixieland.

LastMinuteman Wrote:What outsiders forget about Boston College is that it is a small, private, expensive Catholic university. There are basically two types of BC fans: people who went to BC, and extremely hardcore Boston sports fans who have an appetite for sports that inexplicably isn't met by all the professional teams. Neither group is very big. People who attended any of the many, many other local colleges generally cheer against BC. This phenomenon appears to be unique to the Northeast, if not New England. I have family in Kentucky, not one of whom graduated from the University of Kentucky, who are all rabid UK fans, even against their own schools. It's definitely not like that here. Doesn't matter that BC was the only FBS option up until recently, we don't rally around them because they're difficult to like and we have many other sports options at the pro level. And of course BC doesn't travel well, who except an extremely loyal BC grad is going to buy last second airline tickets to friggin' Jacksonville to watch the ACC Championship Game when the Patriots are playing for playoff position the next day? At best they'll save their money for the BCS bowl game if BC wins. Who cares about the conference championship? This is Boston, nobody here grew up hoping one day we'd win the ACC. Do people living on Tobacco Road dream of one day winning the Big 12?

Here's where the New England schools really screw up though: we don't play each other. BC won't play UConn, UConn won't play UMass, UMass won't play Holy Cross (in basketball), and so on. UConn screams and cries about having to sometimes schedule an extra home game in the 8 member Big East football conference, and yet they won't play us. Like we wouldn't make the 1 hour drive to Hartford in force for that, no return game required. Unfortunately, the attitude up here is that you need to squeeze everyone else out of the game entirely, and it's stupid. Kids up here don't grow up caring about playing football locally because we have no local rivalries. BC is off playing some southern fried school, UConn is practically in New York and playing in West Virginia, and UMass is in Division II if you ask the average idiot. There's nothing even close to Clemson-S.Carolina here, or USC-UCLA, or Kentucky-Louisville. Nobody wearing their colors or putting flags on their cars. We need local teams playing local teams for that. The Beanpot Hockey tournament is an example of that. It's essential for creating a passion for college football, and for getting kids growing up here caring about playing for one of the local colleges someday. If you take all the states with at least 1 FBS program and divide their population by the number of local FBS schools, the 3 states with the highest population per program are New Jersey, Massachusetts and New York. And of the states with no FBS schools at all, the three highest populations are New Hampshire, Maine and Rhode Island. There's plenty more untapped potential here, it's just a matter of getting people to care about college football. That's never going to happen when the only local representative is some small exclusive Catholic school that plays most of their games in Dixieland.

This is very well stated 'Minuteman. As for your UK relatives, you have my deepest sympathies...

LastMinuteman Wrote:What outsiders forget about Boston College is that it is a small, private, expensive Catholic university. There are basically two types of BC fans: people who went to BC, and extremely hardcore Boston sports fans who have an appetite for sports that inexplicably isn't met by all the professional teams. Neither group is very big. People who attended any of the many, many other local colleges generally cheer against BC. This phenomenon appears to be unique to the Northeast, if not New England. I have family in Kentucky, not one of whom graduated from the University of Kentucky, who are all rabid UK fans, even against their own schools. It's definitely not like that here. Doesn't matter that BC was the only FBS option up until recently, we don't rally around them because they're difficult to like and we have many other sports options at the pro level. And of course BC doesn't travel well, who except an extremely loyal BC grad is going to buy last second airline tickets to friggin' Jacksonville to watch the ACC Championship Game when the Patriots are playing for playoff position the next day? At best they'll save their money for the BCS bowl game if BC wins. Who cares about the conference championship? This is Boston, nobody here grew up hoping one day we'd win the ACC. Do people living on Tobacco Road dream of one day winning the Big 12?

Here's where the New England schools really screw up though: we don't play each other. BC won't play UConn, UConn won't play UMass, UMass won't play Holy Cross (in basketball), and so on. UConn screams and cries about having to sometimes schedule an extra home game in the 8 member Big East football conference, and yet they won't play us. Like we wouldn't make the 1 hour drive to Hartford in force for that, no return game required. Unfortunately, the attitude up here is that you need to squeeze everyone else out of the game entirely, and it's stupid. Kids up here don't grow up caring about playing football locally because we have no local rivalries. BC is off playing some southern fried school, UConn is practically in New York and playing in West Virginia, and UMass is in Division II if you ask the average idiot. There's nothing even close to Clemson-S.Carolina here, or USC-UCLA, or Kentucky-Louisville. Nobody wearing their colors or putting flags on their cars. We need local teams playing local teams for that. The Beanpot Hockey tournament is an example of that. It's essential for creating a passion for college football, and for getting kids growing up here caring about playing for one of the local colleges someday. If you take all the states with at least 1 FBS program and divide their population by the number of local FBS schools, the 3 states with the highest population per program are New Jersey, Massachusetts and New York. And of the states with no FBS schools at all, the three highest populations are New Hampshire, Maine and Rhode Island. There's plenty more untapped potential here, it's just a matter of getting people to care about college football. That's never going to happen when the only local representative is some small exclusive Catholic school that plays most of their games in Dixieland.

Well said

omnicarrier Wrote:

bitcruncher Wrote:

animus Wrote:All of cities in the northeast don't care about college football.

For good reason. The college game hasn't gotten any press up north until fairly recently. The national media gave the Pitt Panthers national championship team more coverage than the Pittsburgh media. Pro sports so dominates the older urban regions that college ball never took hold. Now it's starting to, and those towns will come onboard when their teams start having success. Rutgers is a good example. Look at the way their attendance has climbed.

True, but that attention can fade as quickly as it came.

Probably, the main stumbling block for the northeast metro regions not caring more about college football is the fact that its teams are off in different conferences. Which is why it is important the WVU, Rutgers, Pitt, Syracuse, and UConn do well enough to grab that interest and keep it. By virtue of doing this, the northeast metro regions will adopt Louisville, USF, and Cincinnati just as they have adopted West Virginia and Miami in the past.

Cheers,
Neil

And there in lies the crux of my irritation with Syracuse. If the Orange were successful, instead of mired in mediocrity at best, it would help tremendously. WVU has carried the torch for The BEast lately. But I wonder what kind of interest we'd have if someone in a much larger market lead the way.

I'm not complaining. I like WVU being the top dog. But the conference needs all the traditional eastern powers strong, and not perpetually dwelling in the cellar.