http://www.pennlive.com/sports/index.ssf...al_feature

Some amazing quotes here including a few from his own 1992 article predicting Rutgers to the Big Ten. Also some stuff in there about Texas "not being ready" for Big Ten membership in 1989.

Check this out:

We were both getting a drink the evening before the festivities at what used to be called in the day a "hospitality room." Delany looked like he was coming back for seconds and I intended to myself. Who's turning down free alcohol after a commuter prop-plane trip?

The question on everyone's mind for two years had been: Who will be the 12th school? There had to be a 12th member, right. After Penn State's admission in 1990, the conference couldn't possibly stick with a prime number much longer.

Of course, Notre Dame was the one the Big Ten wanted. If it could somehow be persuaded to abandon its independent status and come aboard, there would be divisions and a football championship game like in the new SEC and a perfect figurehead member for the West to counterbalance Penn State in the East.

Only problem was, the Irish didn't at all look interested. They had a fat new TV contract with NBC they weren't relinquishing. And the Big Ten wanted all members to share television revenue equally.

That's where my question to Delany came in. I introduced myself and my newspaper. He was cordial and fun to talk to. So, I said, what about an Eastern addition like Rutgers? An Eastern partner for Penn State. A big state school who fit the Big Ten profile. That big NYC-metro market untapped for college football. And now that PSU was aboard, Jersey was even contiguous.

Only problem was, I said, if you added an Eastern school and split into divisions, you'd have to break up a rivalry somewhere. No, at the time, no one could have conceived of Leaders and Legends.

I never expected a substantive response. But Delany surprised me: "You don't have to go East-West. You can go North-South." And then he ticked off the prospective divisions in that direction while my mind spun. Yes, the commissioner was a bright guy, I thought. He's considering all options at all times and he does have his eye on the East.

I filed that moment away and then wrote about it a few weeks later when I got home. The centerpiece of my 3-part series in early November 1992 was Rutgers. I really believed the Scarlet Knights made sense and I knew Delany did, too.

In the next few months, I actually got a couple of phone calls from then-RU AD Fred Gruninger, checking to see if I'd heard anything new. Which was pretty funny to me because I was about as plugged-in as Pee-Wee Herman at the Alamo. Who could've predicted almost two more decades would pass before the Big Ten finally added a 12th school -- and then it would be Nebraska?

By far the luckiest program in all of realignment. 150 years of lousy football rewarded with an invitation to the wealthiest conference.

Who the hell cares?

(09-12-2014 03:39 PM)BearcatJerry Wrote:  Who the hell cares?

(09-12-2014 03:43 PM)Strings74 Wrote:  

(09-12-2014 03:39 PM)BearcatJerry Wrote:  Who the hell cares?

LOL... Well played, sir...Well played.

(09-12-2014 03:38 PM)CoogNellie Wrote:  By far the luckiest program in all of realignment. 150 years of lousy football rewarded with an invitation to the wealthiest conference.

Great Post!

At that time Rutgers would've been an absolutely preposterous candidate. They were literally battling with Temple every year for the mantle of worst major college football program in the country.

They were an odd choice in 2013 but in 1992 the B1G may as well have gone with Holy Cross.

(09-12-2014 03:50 PM)Dr. Isaly von Yinzer Wrote:  At that time Rutgers would've been an absolutely preposterous candidate. They were literally battling with Temple every year for the mantle of worst major college football program in the country.

They were an odd choice in 2013 but in 1992 the B1G may as well have gone with Holy Cross.

To be fair it was a year or so later that he big east added them, temple, and virgini tech, three schools who had all struggled the last decade. Look at Colorado's situation when the PAC 12 offered them. So it's still feasible.

Plus you have to realize a bad team in a good market is perfect if you are a team like Ohio state or Michigan. "Easy" win but expands your recruiting and marketing base.

And if you're a middle tier team, if you are smart you realize that for every great team that comes in, someone who is currently in the middle, will fall to the bottom. We saw that in the big east basketball conference. I think that is also why the sec was perfectly happy with Missouri, and Texas and Oklahoma will be perfectly fine if TCU and/or West Virginia continue to struggle.

Rutgers was on the Big Ten's radar then, and after the admission of Nebraska.

RU was smart and expanded the stadium. RU without a doubt saw what needed to be done and did it. Around 2005 the feeling around the program was that an invite was more likely to happen than not. Everyone likes to make fun of RU for their performance, but sometimes being smart makes up for that. And RU and their previous presidents and AD's were prescient[/align].

Location, Location, Location. That and the magical year of 2006.

The Scarlet Knights are in the conference they belong in.

And they just might surprise some, especially some Syracuse and UConn fans.

Cheers,
Neil

I know Joe Pa loved Rutgers. He'd been arguing for an eastern travel mate for years, he was talking up Pitt too. Penn State lost a lot of eastern rivals with their move to the B1G. Maryland and Rutgers certainly fill a little of that void but the primaries were always Pitt, Syracuse, and West Virginia.

(09-12-2014 06:27 PM)Big Ron Buckeye Wrote:  I know Joe Pa loved Rutgers. He'd been arguing for an eastern travel mate for years, he was talking up Pitt too. Penn State lost a lot of eastern rivals with their move to the B1G. Maryland and Rutgers certainly fill a little of that void but the primaries were always Pitt, Syracuse, and West Virginia.

That is one reason why I would not rule out WVU to the B1G. Make them the 15th school for travel buds.



B1G East: OSU, WVU, Penn St, Rutgers, Maryland
B1G Central: Michigan, Michigan St, Purdue, IU, Northwestern
B1G West: Illinois, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, Nebraska

(09-12-2014 05:49 PM)omniorange Wrote:  Location, Location, Location. That and the magical year of 2006.

The Scarlet Knights are in the conference they belong in.

And they just might surprise some, especially some Syracuse and UConn fans.

Cheers,
Neil

I agree that Rutgers is a great fit for the BIG. But i won't be surprised to see Rutgers hold there own in that league. Winning 8-10 games a season is what I expect from Rutgers. Maybe even better some years. They have the natural recruiting area and their coach seems to be decent. Depending on what division they are in there could be a couple of automatic wins there many years.

(09-12-2014 03:50 PM)Dr. Isaly von Yinzer Wrote:  At that time Rutgers would've been an absolutely preposterous candidate. They were literally battling with Temple every year for the mantle of worst major college football program in the country.

They were an odd choice in 2013 but in 1992 the B1G may as well have gone with Holy Cross.

Your timing is a little off. Back in 1992 the Doug Graber coached Rutgers was a decent team that just couldn't get over the hump. For example, in 1992 RU beat Pitt, WVU and VTech. In 1991 they beat BC and Mich St.

It was only after they fired Graber and hired Terry Shea that they became not one of the "worst major college football program in the country" , but instead had a 3-4 year stretch where they were one of the worst teams in the history of college football.

(09-12-2014 06:40 PM)cuseroc Wrote:  

(09-12-2014 05:49 PM)omniorange Wrote:  Location, Location, Location. That and the magical year of 2006.

The Scarlet Knights are in the conference they belong in.

And they just might surprise some, especially some Syracuse and UConn fans.

Cheers,
Neil

I agree that Rutgers is a great fit for the BIG. But i won't be surprised to see Rutgers hold there own in that league. Winning 8-10 games a season is what I expect from Rutgers. Maybe even better some years. They have the natural recruiting area and their coach seems to be decent. Depending on what division they are in there could be a couple of automatic wins there many years.

Are you talking basketball?

(09-12-2014 04:19 PM)adcorbett Wrote:  

(09-12-2014 03:50 PM)Dr. Isaly von Yinzer Wrote:  At that time Rutgers would've been an absolutely preposterous candidate. They were literally battling with Temple every year for the mantle of worst major college football program in the country.

They were an odd choice in 2013 but in 1992 the B1G may as well have gone with Holy Cross.

To be fair it was a year or so later that he big east added them, temple, and virgini tech, three schools who had all struggled the last decade. Look at Colorado's situation when the PAC 12 offered them. So it's still feasible.

Plus you have to realize a bad team in a good market is perfect if you are a team like Ohio state or Michigan. "Easy" win but expands your recruiting and marketing base.

And if you're a middle tier team, if you are smart you realize that for every great team that comes in, someone who is currently in the middle, will fall to the bottom. We saw that in the big east basketball conference. I think that is also why the sec was perfectly happy with Missouri, and Texas and Oklahoma will be perfectly fine if TCU and/or West Virginia continue to struggle.

I don't think you realize just how bad Rutgers was at that time. Really, Temple of today is the best comp except that the Owls of today are significantly better than RU was at that time. And nobody is beating down the Temple Owls' door. There is no comparison between the Scarlet Knights and either Virginia Tech or Colorado.

After watching the Buffalo game tonight against Baylor, surely Buffalo should certainly be on the B1G radar. They fit the current football profile...

(09-12-2014 08:37 PM)Dr. Isaly von Yinzer Wrote:  

(09-12-2014 04:19 PM)adcorbett Wrote:  

(09-12-2014 03:50 PM)Dr. Isaly von Yinzer Wrote:  At that time Rutgers would've been an absolutely preposterous candidate. They were literally battling with Temple every year for the mantle of worst major college football program in the country.

They were an odd choice in 2013 but in 1992 the B1G may as well have gone with Holy Cross.

To be fair it was a year or so later that he big east added them, temple, and virgini tech, three schools who had all struggled the last decade. Look at Colorado's situation when the PAC 12 offered them. So it's still feasible.

Plus you have to realize a bad team in a good market is perfect if you are a team like Ohio state or Michigan. "Easy" win but expands your recruiting and marketing base.

And if you're a middle tier team, if you are smart you realize that for every great team that comes in, someone who is currently in the middle, will fall to the bottom. We saw that in the big east basketball conference. I think that is also why the sec was perfectly happy with Missouri, and Texas and Oklahoma will be perfectly fine if TCU and/or West Virginia continue to struggle.

I don't think you realize just how bad Rutgers was at that time. Really, Temple of today is the best comp except that the Owls of today are significantly better than RU was at that time. And nobody is beating down the Temple Owls' door. There is no comparison between the Scarlet Knights and either Virginia Tech or Colorado.

Yep. I may be the king of stretching the limits when it comes to expansion theories but there is no denying Rutgers was BAD.

Rutgers it is rarely mentioned got a new 40k stadium in 1994 and before that played in a 31,219 WPA build dump. It was promise of a "starter" power conference stadium that got Rutgers in the door of BE football.

Even with the new stadium Rutgers attendance was dreadful, maybe 20k announced in most years. This is playing in an attractive Big East conference. Once the winning started however in the mid 2000's it was a night and day transformation and forced a stadium expansion.

Temple's boot from the BE was kind to Rutgers because both schools used to compete for the same recruits. The second TU was out Rutgers fortunes quickly turned in football. They definitely didn't parallel VT's rise. If anything it was a public school version of TCU-SMU where when SMU was out of the game TCU picked up momentum.

VT starting in the 60's dedicated themselves to becoming a football school. They went out and put 35,000 seats in the ground, left the Southern Conference and played a major independent schedule. They earned respect of fans by their performance on the football field. Beamer Ball became a trademark style of play winning by athletic D and special teams. They would have made it to a power conference with or without the Big East.

(09-12-2014 06:49 PM)krup Wrote:  

(09-12-2014 03:50 PM)Dr. Isaly von Yinzer Wrote:  At that time Rutgers would've been an absolutely preposterous candidate. They were literally battling with Temple every year for the mantle of worst major college football program in the country.

They were an odd choice in 2013 but in 1992 the B1G may as well have gone with Holy Cross.

Your timing is a little off. Back in 1992 the Doug Graber coached Rutgers was a decent team that just couldn't get over the hump. For example, in 1992 RU beat Pitt, WVU and VTech. In 1991 they beat BC and Mich St.

It was only after they fired Graber and hired Terry Shea that they became not one of the "worst major college football program in the country" , but instead had a 3-4 year stretch where they were one of the worst teams in the history of college football.

Graber was totally screwed by Fred G. He had three seasons where by today's standards RU would have gone to a bowl. If he had the institutional support Schiano enjoyed, we would have turned the corner in '93. Yet golf coach turned AD Fred could not understand that big time football meant more than being curb stomped once a year by state penn. Graber had nothing to work with and still was able to put a decent product on the field.

He was able to pull off a great comeback win vs VT back in '92. A great day when we won on alumni weekend, had midnight madness that night and I met my future wife at a Halloween party. Graber almost pulled off a second great comeback win the next year in Blacksburg. Urban legend is that beating RU by 7 saved Frank Beamer's job.

(09-12-2014 03:38 PM)CoogNellie Wrote:  By far the luckiest program in all of realignment. 150 years of lousy football rewarded with an invitation to the wealthiest conference.

Yeah, they got a LOT of mileage out of playing the first college football game ever and by their location on the Raritan.

(09-12-2014 06:27 PM)Big Ron Buckeye Wrote:  I know Joe Pa loved Rutgers. He'd been arguing for an eastern travel mate for years, he was talking up Pitt too. Penn State lost a lot of eastern rivals with their move to the B1G. Maryland and Rutgers certainly fill a little of that void but the primaries were always Pitt, Syracuse, and West Virginia.

Of course, Joe Pa loved Rutgers. It was a guaranteed win! Same with Maryland (and not to the same extent) Syracuse, West Virginia, etc.