in the early 80s the BE decided it was better to lose BC/Cuse rather than "invite the devil into the conference"

how would things have played out?

The Metro Conference looked at sponsoring football in the early 1990's. According to Wikipedia, the proposed 16-team super conference looked as follows:

North Division - Boston College, Cincinnati, Pittsburgh, Rutgers, Syracuse, Temple, Virginia Tech, West Virginia
South Division - East Carolina, Florida State, Louisville, Memphis State, Miami, South Carolina, Southern Miss, Tulane

Florida State and South Carolina still would have left - the ACC and SEC were too tempting. However, with no Big East, there would remain a push for an eastern football conference. The Metro had football members with Cincinnati, Memphis, Tulane, Louisville, Virginia Tech, and Southern Miss. The Atlantic 10 had football members with Rutgers, West Virginia, and Temple. I'm going to guess that the Big East football members, given the choice, would decide to side with the Atlantic 10 football teams due to the old rivalries they have with those members. I'm probably giving the Atlantic 10 too much credit here, but I'm going on a limb and saying that they sponsor the football. The A10 adds Virginia Tech, Miami, and East Carolina to the nine remaining members (Penn State still leaves) to get to 12 basketball and 9 football (* denotes football only, ^ denotes basketball only):

Atlantic 12
Boston College*
Pittsburgh*
Syracuse*
West Virginia
Temple
Rutgers
Virginia Tech
Miami
East Carolina
George Washington^
UMass^
Duquesne^
Saint Boneventure^
Rhode Island^
St. Joseph's^

Oh look at that....an even split between football and basketball schools. I wonder how that will turn out.

The Metro splits up with the creation of the Great Midwest, then the eventual reunion with Conference USA.

UMass, as a I-AA in a I-A conference, studies and decides to make the move up make the conference 10 football members. Boston College is unable to block the move as a football-only, but this move has them looking again at moving to the ACC. Without an invite in hand, UConn may not move their football program to I-A until much later.

The Big East would have kept Syracuse, Pitt, and Boston College, while adding Notre Dame. That is until the ACC decided to raid for more football members. Does East Carolina have the same clout in their state that Virginia Tech has in their state to earn an invite - or at least block expansion - by putting pressure on UNC and NC State? This is a part where I'm not sure. Does the ACC go to 12 with VT and East Carolina, go to just 10 with Miami, or not expand at all?

If the conference is successfully raided by the ACC, infighting occurs between basketball and football members about the priority of the conference. Superconference scenario wins out again.

I guess what I'm saying is...inviting East Carolina to the Atlantic 10 / Big East football conference might have saved the Big East basketball conference? Whoa.

1) Cuse, BC, and Pitt decide to stay in BE and carry on as football indies, or

2) Cuse, BC, and Pitt join with others (probably including Miami, WVU, VT) and start either an all-sports conference or a FB-only conference (IIRC, those were still permitted at the time), or

3) Long shot possibility: Syracuse gets an invitation to the ACC and joins around the same time FSU did.

(03-17-2014 06:26 PM)john01992 Wrote:  in the early 80s the BE decided it was better to lose BC/Cuse rather than "invite the devil into the conference"

how would things have played out?

The Paterno Conference forms with Penn St., Pitt, WVU, SU, BC, Temple, Rutgers and 1-3 more from among UMD, VT, Cincy and Louisville.

The Big East adds 2 from among UMass, Holy Cross, St. Joe's, Duquesne and St. Bonnie's.

1990 comes and PSU leaves the Paterno Conference to join the B1G, and are replaced by Miami.

if that had happened it would mean that BC and Syracuse agreed to Penn state's terms. i think we all know what FB lineup that would have meant. At least for a couple of yeras b4 psu went off to the B1G. interesting to speculate if the all sport/fb conference would have been able to hold off the ACC (and in fact be the aggressor)

On the BB side. I would guess UConn would be less likely to move up
so we have
UConn
Providence
St Johns
Seton Hall
Villanova
Georgetown
maybe making a play for

Holy Cross/or UMass?
Duquesne? they had more success back then i believe

Gavitt may have had the wisdom/vision(?) to do something unexpected like go the midwestern route ala notre dame

oh well i feel like im starting to babble

I'd say that UConn would still be a part of the Big East and never upgraded. Perhaps, the Big East would've raided the A10 back in the 80's/90's as the league continued to grow and get stronger.

I think Pitt, BC, Syracuse, Miami, VT, Temple, WV, and Rutgers would've started an all sports conference w/ possibly FSU, S. Carolina, Louisville, and/or other schools like Cincinnati, and Memphis. Perhaps this league would've prevented a PSU from joining the B10, but I doubt that.

(03-17-2014 07:57 PM)gosports1 Wrote:  if that had happened it would mean that BC and Syracuse agreed to Penn state's terms. i think we all know what FB lineup that would have meant. At least for a couple of yeras b4 psu went off to the B1G. interesting to speculate if the all sport/fb conference would have been able to hold off the ACC (and in fact be the aggressor)

On the BB side. I would guess UConn would be less likely to move up
so we have
UConn
Providence
St Johns
Seton Hall
Villanova
Georgetown
maybe making a play for

Holy Cross/or UMass?
Duquesne? they had more success back then i believe

Gavitt may have had the wisdom/vision(?) to do something unexpected like go the midwestern route ala notre dame

oh well i feel like im starting to babble

think about it.......

gtown
villanova
uconn
umass

they could have built a solid FCS conference

(03-17-2014 07:27 PM)BullsFanatic Wrote:  The Metro Conference looked at sponsoring football in the early 1990's. According to Wikipedia, the proposed 16-team super conference looked as follows:

North Division - Boston College, Cincinnati, Pittsburgh, Rutgers, Syracuse, Temple, Virginia Tech, West Virginia
South Division - East Carolina, Florida State, Louisville, Memphis State, Miami, South Carolina, Southern Miss, Tulane

Florida State and South Carolina still would have left - the ACC and SEC were too tempting. However, with no Big East, there would remain a push for an eastern football conference. The Metro had football members with Cincinnati, Memphis, Tulane, Louisville, Virginia Tech, and Southern Miss. The Atlantic 10 had football members with Rutgers, West Virginia, and Temple. I'm going to guess that the Big East football members, given the choice, would decide to side with the Atlantic 10 football teams due to the old rivalries they have with those members. I'm probably giving the Atlantic 10 too much credit here, but I'm going on a limb and saying that they sponsor the football. The A10 adds Virginia Tech, Miami, and East Carolina to the nine remaining members (Penn State still leaves) to get to 12 basketball and 9 football (* denotes football only, ^ denotes basketball only):

Atlantic 12
Boston College*
Pittsburgh*
Syracuse*
West Virginia
Temple
Rutgers
Virginia Tech
Miami
East Carolina
George Washington^
UMass^
Duquesne^
Saint Boneventure^
Rhode Island^
St. Joseph's^

Oh look at that....an even split between football and basketball schools. I wonder how that will turn out.

The Metro splits up with the creation of the Great Midwest, then the eventual reunion with Conference USA.

UMass, as a I-AA in a I-A conference, studies and decides to make the move up make the conference 10 football members. Boston College is unable to block the move as a football-only, but this move has them looking again at moving to the ACC. Without an invite in hand, UConn may not move their football program to I-A until much later.

The Big East would have kept Syracuse, Pitt, and Boston College, while adding Notre Dame. That is until the ACC decided to raid for more football members. Does East Carolina have the same clout in their state that Virginia Tech has in their state to earn an invite - or at least block expansion - by putting pressure on UNC and NC State? This is a part where I'm not sure. Does the ACC go to 12 with VT and East Carolina, go to just 10 with Miami, or not expand at all?

If the conference is successfully raided by the ACC, infighting occurs between basketball and football members about the priority of the conference. Superconference scenario wins out again.

I guess what I'm saying is...inviting East Carolina to the Atlantic 10 / Big East football conference might have saved the Big East basketball conference? Whoa.

I think this is pretty spot on and it probably would have worked out better for everyone. Pitt, BC, and Syracuse would have had a solid football home without sacrificing the Big East or each schools basketball traditional rivalries. Notre Dame would have still joined, maybe even with partner like Marquette, in 95.

The Atlantic 10 would have filled in the FBS gap with no problem as ECU could have been added with Miami and Va Tech to give the A10 6 full time FBS members (which was the minimum at the time). Getting ECU into the Big East proved to be impossible. They would not have had that problem in the A10, especially if ECU gave them the magic number 6. Along with the Big East 3, they would have had a solid 9 team football conference. I still think the ACC would have come a calling on Miami, and Va Tech due to politics, so it would have been interesting to see if any of the Big East 3 would have jumped as Big East basketball would not have become "tainted" by so many non traditional basketball schools.

I do wonder if the A10 FBS conference would have tried to recruit Louisville. But if the Big East and Louisville couldnt make things work in the early 90's I doubt Louisville would have joined a basketball conference like A10 when forming CUSA 1.0, a basketball powerhouse, was realistic option.

One other major change you would see if this what if was reality. The 2001 proposed CAA - Socon Merger would have gone through as the A10 would not have snatched Richmond away, which killed that deal. If that merger had gone through, the CAA, SoCon, Big South, and America East would all look very different.

(03-17-2014 07:27 PM)BullsFanatic Wrote:  The Metro Conference looked at sponsoring football in the early 1990's. According to Wikipedia, the proposed 16-team super conference looked as follows:

North Division - Boston College, Cincinnati, Pittsburgh, Rutgers, Syracuse, Temple, Virginia Tech, West Virginia
South Division - East Carolina, Florida State, Louisville, Memphis State, Miami, South Carolina, Southern Miss, Tulane

Florida State and South Carolina still would have left - the ACC and SEC were too tempting. However, with no Big East, there would remain a push for an eastern football conference. The Metro had football members with Cincinnati, Memphis, Tulane, Louisville, Virginia Tech, and Southern Miss. The Atlantic 10 had football members with Rutgers, West Virginia, and Temple. I'm going to guess that the Big East football members, given the choice, would decide to side with the Atlantic 10 football teams due to the old rivalries they have with those members. I'm probably giving the Atlantic 10 too much credit here, but I'm going on a limb and saying that they sponsor the football. The A10 adds Virginia Tech, Miami, and East Carolina to the nine remaining members (Penn State still leaves) to get to 12 basketball and 9 football (* denotes football only, ^ denotes basketball only):

Atlantic 12
Boston College*
Pittsburgh*
Syracuse*
West Virginia
Temple
Rutgers
Virginia Tech
Miami
East Carolina
George Washington^
UMass^
Duquesne^
Saint Boneventure^
Rhode Island^
St. Joseph's^

Oh look at that....an even split between football and basketball schools. I wonder how that will turn out.

The Metro splits up with the creation of the Great Midwest, then the eventual reunion with Conference USA.

UMass, as a I-AA in a I-A conference, studies and decides to make the move up make the conference 10 football members. Boston College is unable to block the move as a football-only, but this move has them looking again at moving to the ACC. Without an invite in hand, UConn may not move their football program to I-A until much later.

The Big East would have kept Syracuse, Pitt, and Boston College, while adding Notre Dame. That is until the ACC decided to raid for more football members. Does East Carolina have the same clout in their state that Virginia Tech has in their state to earn an invite - or at least block expansion - by putting pressure on UNC and NC State? This is a part where I'm not sure. Does the ACC go to 12 with VT and East Carolina, go to just 10 with Miami, or not expand at all?

If the conference is successfully raided by the ACC, infighting occurs between basketball and football members about the priority of the conference. Superconference scenario wins out again.

I guess what I'm saying is...inviting East Carolina to the Atlantic 10 / Big East football conference might have saved the Big East basketball conference? Whoa.

I disagree. The formation of the Raycom Conference would have soon rivaled or surpassed the ACC as it was constituted at the time. Had they moved quickly enough to form prior to the ACC's invitation of Florida State, there may have been sufficient reason for FSU to stay put and see how the new conference played out. Bowden would have had something to say about remaining in a conference with Miami, which had won two of the previous three national titles. FSU had just finished a string of four top five rankings in the final polls. FSU and Miami would have represented a top two teams to rival any conference in the country at the time.

Also Miami had participated in eight College World Series during the 80s and FSU had gone to four during that period. While that wouldn't have been enough by itself to keep them in the new conference, the ties to Miami through football and baseball might have caused them to consider staying.

Louisville had won a recent basketball national title in 1986, while Memphis and Syracuse had been in the Final Four in 1985 and 1987, respectively. Pittsburgh was still considered a football power. All in all, I think that the conference would had enough going for it that it would have been successful. Sure, the SEC could have swooped in and taken South Carolina, but by then, I think the conference would have established an identity as a solid football conference with some outstanding basketball and baseball programs. When South Carolina left, they could have added Houston, a recent SWC school, and kept right on going.

The point is -- if they had moved quickly enough to secure FSU and Miami as members, the ACC doesn't get to add them and the Raycom Conference is possibly the fifth AQ football conference and what happens with the A-10 doesn't enter the equation. The new Metro Conference becomes a recognizable player in all three major sports.

remember in the 1980s the ACC was not considered a power conference.

Deleted.

(03-17-2014 07:29 PM)Wedge Wrote:  1) Cuse, BC, and Pitt decide to stay in BE and carry on as football indies, or

2) Cuse, BC, and Pitt join with others (probably including Miami, WVU, VT) and start either an all-sports conference or a FB-only conference (IIRC, those were still permitted at the time), or

3) Long shot possibility: Syracuse gets an invitation to the ACC and joins around the same time FSU did.

#3 You do realize that the ACC called Syracuse before they called FSU, right? That "long shot" is pretty much exactly what happened, only Syracuse declined.

(03-17-2014 07:27 PM)BullsFanatic Wrote:  The Metro Conference looked at sponsoring football in the early 1990's. According to Wikipedia, the proposed 16-team super conference looked as follows:

North Division - Boston College, Cincinnati, Pittsburgh, Rutgers, Syracuse, Temple, Virginia Tech, West Virginia
South Division - East Carolina, Florida State, Louisville, Memphis State, Miami, South Carolina, Southern Miss, Tulane

Florida State and South Carolina still would have left - the ACC and SEC were too tempting. However, with no Big East, there would remain a push for an eastern football conference. The Metro had football members with Cincinnati, Memphis, Tulane, Louisville, Virginia Tech, and Southern Miss. The Atlantic 10 had football members with Rutgers, West Virginia, and Temple. I'm going to guess that the Big East football members, given the choice, would decide to side with the Atlantic 10 football teams due to the old rivalries they have with those members. I'm probably giving the Atlantic 10 too much credit here, but I'm going on a limb and saying that they sponsor the football. The A10 adds Virginia Tech, Miami, and East Carolina to the nine remaining members (Penn State still leaves) to get to 12 basketball and 9 football (* denotes football only, ^ denotes basketball only):

Atlantic 12
Boston College*
Pittsburgh*
Syracuse*
West Virginia
Temple
Rutgers
Virginia Tech
Miami
East Carolina
George Washington^
UMass^
Duquesne^
Saint Boneventure^
Rhode Island^
St. Joseph's^

Oh look at that....an even split between football and basketball schools. I wonder how that will turn out.

The Metro splits up with the creation of the Great Midwest, then the eventual reunion with Conference USA.

UMass, as a I-AA in a I-A conference, studies and decides to make the move up make the conference 10 football members. Boston College is unable to block the move as a football-only, but this move has them looking again at moving to the ACC. Without an invite in hand, UConn may not move their football program to I-A until much later.

The Big East would have kept Syracuse, Pitt, and Boston College, while adding Notre Dame. That is until the ACC decided to raid for more football members. Does East Carolina have the same clout in their state that Virginia Tech has in their state to earn an invite - or at least block expansion - by putting pressure on UNC and NC State? This is a part where I'm not sure. Does the ACC go to 12 with VT and East Carolina, go to just 10 with Miami, or not expand at all?

If the conference is successfully raided by the ACC, infighting occurs between basketball and football members about the priority of the conference. Superconference scenario wins out again.

I guess what I'm saying is...inviting East Carolina to the Atlantic 10 / Big East football conference might have saved the Big East basketball conference? Whoa.

SU would have never joined the Metro. SU would have either stayed in the BE and remained a football indy, SU would have joined Joe Pa, or SU would have joined the ACC. MY guess is hat #1 is the most likely, followed by #2, followed by #3.

(03-18-2014 12:35 AM)Zombiewoof Wrote:  I disagree. The formation of the Raycom Conference would have soon rivaled or surpassed the ACC as it was constituted at the time. Had they moved quickly enough to form prior to the ACC's invitation of Florida State, there may have been sufficient reason for FSU to stay put and see how the new conference played out. Bowden would have had something to say about remaining in a conference with Miami, which had won two of the previous three national titles. FSU had just finished a string of four top five rankings in the final polls. FSU and Miami would have represented a top two teams to rival any conference in the country at the time.

I agree with this. I am not sure if the conference would have gotten full to 16, as I am not sure if Syracuse, Boston College, or Rutgers would have ultimately made the move, which means Temple or ECU would have been left out if they stayed at 12, but that conference would have been far stronger than the ACC in football at that time, and not likely to be the big draw to bring them in. The other thing to remember is the SEC was not as strong (comparatively speaking ot other conferences) as it is today. Even more than that, it is even possible that if this all went down, when the SWC started ot break up, some of those teams may have looked to join the Metro. Then you might have even seen the other four teams be Arkansas, Texas, Texas A&M, and Texas Tech. Just for example (not sure that would have happened, but maybe).

Remembering that that conference was being designed by a TV network. So it would have made a lot of money. More than the current other conferences at the time.

If the Big East decided not to sponser football? Well that would have been after FSU, Arkansas, and SC all moved. Miami was holding out to be in a basketball league so if it was clear beforehand a Big East invite wasn't coming they may not have snubbed the SEC. They had interest from the SWC as well.

Bottom line, the Big East wasn't going to give more power to the A10 or Metro by allowing them to house their football programs.

(03-18-2014 07:45 AM)nzmorange Wrote:  

(03-17-2014 07:29 PM)Wedge Wrote:  1) Cuse, BC, and Pitt decide to stay in BE and carry on as football indies, or

2) Cuse, BC, and Pitt join with others (probably including Miami, WVU, VT) and start either an all-sports conference or a FB-only conference (IIRC, those were still permitted at the time), or

3) Long shot possibility: Syracuse gets an invitation to the ACC and joins around the same time FSU did.

#3 You do realize that the ACC called Syracuse before they called FSU, right? That "long shot" is pretty much exactly what happened, only Syracuse declined.

Syracuse didn't really decline. According to Gene Corrigan, they asked to be publicly pursued. The ACC didn't want to do that.

But the first vote for expansion was a tie between FSU and Syracuse. There is a very good chance the ACC would have went to ten team immediately with Syracuse and FSU.

(03-18-2014 07:45 AM)nzmorange Wrote:  

(03-17-2014 07:29 PM)Wedge Wrote:  1) Cuse, BC, and Pitt decide to stay in BE and carry on as football indies, or

2) Cuse, BC, and Pitt join with others (probably including Miami, WVU, VT) and start either an all-sports conference or a FB-only conference (IIRC, those were still permitted at the time), or

3) Long shot possibility: Syracuse gets an invitation to the ACC and joins around the same time FSU did.

#3 You do realize that the ACC called Syracuse before they called FSU, right? That "long shot" is pretty much exactly what happened, only Syracuse declined.

Why in the world would they have done that? They wanted to get on the map as a football league.

There was talk way back then about a conference of all the major independents and it very well may have been

PSU
Pitt
WVU
SU
RU
Temple
South Carolina
FSU
Miami
ND
BC
VT

I doubt it would have made much difference. If the BE never went after football schools it's would have simply lost its major football schools back in the early 90's. That's why football was added--to prevent the football schools from seeking a better home.

(03-18-2014 08:38 AM)esayem Wrote:  If the Big East decided not to sponser football? Well that would have been after FSU, Arkansas, and SC all moved. Miami was holding out to be in a basketball league so if it was clear beforehand a Big East invite wasn't coming they may not have snubbed the SEC. They had interest from the SWC as well.

Bottom line, the Big East wasn't going to give more power to the A10 or Metro by allowing them to house their football programs.

That's not what the OP said. He said, "decided not to pursue football schools in the early '80's."

The first football add was Pitt in 1981 as a blocking move to prevent the formation of an all sports conference which would have looked to pull Syracuse and BC, thereby threatening the big East's core group.

Had the Big East not taken Pitt, the Eastern all sports conference likely would have formed at that time.