In the end the ACC & Swofford got the merger on his terms...lost Maryland but more then made up for it in getting Notre Dame in everything but Football & Hockey.
Big East Conference Commissioner Mike Tranghese, who publicly scolded Atlantic Coast Conference Commissioner John Swofford last month for talking to Big East schools about expansion, first explored the possibility with the ACC as early as 1997.
Sources said Tranghese had conversations with Gene Corrigan, then commissioner of the ACC, about several possibilities. Most prominent was the merging of the two conferences for football.
A year later, after Swofford had replaced Corrigan as the ACC's commissioner, Tranghese initiated a meeting at the Atlanta airport to explore the possibility again. At that time, he was concerned about the Big Ten raiding the Big East.
Swofford, Florida State Athletic Director Dave Hart and then-North Carolina State Athletic Director Les Robinson represented the ACC. Tranghese, Miami Athletic Director Paul Dee and Syracuse Athletic Director Jake Crouthamel represented the Big East.
"The idea of expansion or some type of merger was there before 1998," Dee said. "It was nothing new when it came up this time. In 1998, the conversation was about an attempt to get the leagues together for football."
http://articles.sun-sentinel.com/2003-05...r-swofford
Former NC State AD Les Robinson in this article nailed it 10 years ago...amazing:
Robinson, a member of the Division I-A basketball committee, believes college athletics is headed toward five mega-conferences: the ACC, SEC, Big Ten, Big 12 and Pac-10.
Tranghese, and Aresco to a lesser extent, deserves a lot of blame for how the BE wound up, but it should be noted he was dealing with a hybrid conf that had long ago split in spirit if not physically and a not insignificant portion of conference schools led by a pseudo-General to delusions of grandeur. He had no choice but to promise what they wanted to hear (they would find someone who would) but surely knew there was no chance in hell of delivering.
Tranghese, despite being in a virtual no-win situation, was an innovative thinker.
The merger for football only would have resulted in the first 16-team football mega-conference but would also have secured the ACC's round robin schedule for basketball.
Cheers,
Neil
This is what a Big East-ACC merger would have looked like in 1997-98 had it went through...
Florida State_________Miami
Clemson_____________Penn State
NC State____________Syracuse
Wake Forest_________Boston College
Maryland____________Virginia Tech
Virginia______________West Virginia
Georgia Tech_________PITT
North Carolina________UConn
Duke_______________Rutgers (or Temple)
That would have been an awesome conference.
(05-17-2013 06:29 AM)LUcanesfan Wrote: [ -> ]This is what a Big East-ACC merger would have looked like in 1997-98 had it went through...
Florida State_________Miami
Clemson_____________Penn State
NC State____________Syracuse
Wake Forest_________Boston College
Maryland____________Virginia Tech
Virginia______________West Virginia
Georgia Tech_________PITT
North Carolina________UConn
Duke_______________Rutgers (or Temple)
That would have been an awesome conference.
Penn State was already part of the Big Ten by that point, so it would have been Temple.
(05-17-2013 06:29 AM)LUcanesfan Wrote: [ -> ]This is what a Big East-ACC merger would have looked like in 1997-98 had it went through...
Florida State_________Miami
Clemson_____________Penn State
NC State____________Syracuse
Wake Forest_________Boston College
Maryland____________Virginia Tech
Virginia______________West Virginia
Georgia Tech_________PITT
North Carolina________UConn
Duke_______________Rutgers (or Temple)
That would have been an awesome conference.
Penn State might possibly have bolted back then (not now though), but if they did both Rutgers and Temple would have been out and Maryland would have slid over to the right column.
Cheers,
Neil
You're right AntiG... If the Big East (or the ACC for that matter) let Penn State in, the Big 10 would've stayed a Mid-western conference. Penn State reached out to the BE, but was not let in due to its poor basketball. I don't know why the ACC didn't let them in though. Location maybe? IDK.
(05-17-2013 05:44 AM)Maize Wrote: [ -> ]In the end the ACC & Swofford got the merger on his terms...lost Maryland but more then made up for it in getting Notre Dame in everything but Football & Hockey.
Big East Conference Commissioner Mike Tranghese, who publicly scolded Atlantic Coast Conference Commissioner John Swofford last month for talking to Big East schools about expansion, first explored the possibility with the ACC as early as 1997.
Sources said Tranghese had conversations with Gene Corrigan, then commissioner of the ACC, about several possibilities. Most prominent was the merging of the two conferences for football.
A year later, after Swofford had replaced Corrigan as the ACC's commissioner, Tranghese initiated a meeting at the Atlanta airport to explore the possibility again. At that time, he was concerned about the Big Ten raiding the Big East.
Swofford, Florida State Athletic Director Dave Hart and then-North Carolina State Athletic Director Les Robinson represented the ACC. Tranghese, Miami Athletic Director Paul Dee and Syracuse Athletic Director Jake Crouthamel represented the Big East.
"The idea of expansion or some type of merger was there before 1998," Dee said. "It was nothing new when it came up this time. In 1998, the conversation was about an attempt to get the leagues together for football."
http://articles.sun-sentinel.com/2003-05...r-swofford
Since the founding of the BCS, I thought that between the Big East and ACC there was one truly big-time level football conference, merging the best from each. TrainedGeese seems to have realized it before anyone else. Kudos, though it happened via not a merger but an acquisition, LOL.
(05-17-2013 06:41 AM)omniorange Wrote: [ -> ] (05-17-2013 06:29 AM)LUcanesfan Wrote: [ -> ]This is what a Big East-ACC merger would have looked like in 1997-98 had it went through...
Florida State_________Miami
Clemson_____________Penn State
NC State____________Syracuse
Wake Forest_________Boston College
Maryland____________Virginia Tech
Virginia______________West Virginia
Georgia Tech_________PITT
North Carolina________UConn
Duke_______________Rutgers (or Temple)
That would have been an awesome conference.
Penn State might possibly have bolted back then (not now though), but if they did both Rutgers and Temple would have been out and Maryland would have slid over to the right column.
Cheers,
Neil
Agreed. Fortunately for Rutgers this didn't happen back then and we got on our feet again. Now we're safe and sound in a CFP AQ conference. Although it may have been Temple and UConn that were out not Rutgers and Temple.
Things have a way of working out in the long run.
(05-17-2013 07:44 AM)brista21 Wrote: [ -> ] (05-17-2013 06:41 AM)omniorange Wrote: [ -> ] (05-17-2013 06:29 AM)LUcanesfan Wrote: [ -> ]This is what a Big East-ACC merger would have looked like in 1997-98 had it went through...
Florida State_________Miami
Clemson_____________Penn State
NC State____________Syracuse
Wake Forest_________Boston College
Maryland____________Virginia Tech
Virginia______________West Virginia
Georgia Tech_________PITT
North Carolina________UConn
Duke_______________Rutgers (or Temple)
That would have been an awesome conference.
Penn State might possibly have bolted back then (not now though), but if they did both Rutgers and Temple would have been out and Maryland would have slid over to the right column.
Cheers,
Neil
Agreed. Fortunately for Rutgers this didn't happen back then and we got on our feet again. Now we're safe and sound in a CFP AQ conference. Although it may have been Temple and UConn that were out not Rutgers and Temple.
UConn would have been out since it was still an FCS/Division I-AA @ the time.
(05-17-2013 07:24 AM)quo vadis Wrote: [ -> ] (05-17-2013 05:44 AM)Maize Wrote: [ -> ]In the end the ACC & Swofford got the merger on his terms...lost Maryland but more then made up for it in getting Notre Dame in everything but Football & Hockey.
Big East Conference Commissioner Mike Tranghese, who publicly scolded Atlantic Coast Conference Commissioner John Swofford last month for talking to Big East schools about expansion, first explored the possibility with the ACC as early as 1997.
Sources said Tranghese had conversations with Gene Corrigan, then commissioner of the ACC, about several possibilities. Most prominent was the merging of the two conferences for football.
A year later, after Swofford had replaced Corrigan as the ACC's commissioner, Tranghese initiated a meeting at the Atlanta airport to explore the possibility again. At that time, he was concerned about the Big Ten raiding the Big East.
Swofford, Florida State Athletic Director Dave Hart and then-North Carolina State Athletic Director Les Robinson represented the ACC. Tranghese, Miami Athletic Director Paul Dee and Syracuse Athletic Director Jake Crouthamel represented the Big East.
"The idea of expansion or some type of merger was there before 1998," Dee said. "It was nothing new when it came up this time. In 1998, the conversation was about an attempt to get the leagues together for football."
http://articles.sun-sentinel.com/2003-05...r-swofford
Since the founding of the BCS, I thought that between the Big East and ACC there was one truly big-time level football conference, merging the best from each. TrainedGeese seems to have realized it before anyone else. Kudos, though it happened via not a merger but an acquisition, LOL.
We should have listened to Les Robinson...he nailed it to a tee with the (5 Mega Conferences) and actually naming them...
(05-17-2013 07:44 AM)brista21 Wrote: [ -> ] (05-17-2013 06:41 AM)omniorange Wrote: [ -> ] (05-17-2013 06:29 AM)LUcanesfan Wrote: [ -> ]This is what a Big East-ACC merger would have looked like in 1997-98 had it went through...
Florida State_________Miami
Clemson_____________Penn State
NC State____________Syracuse
Wake Forest_________Boston College
Maryland____________Virginia Tech
Virginia______________West Virginia
Georgia Tech_________PITT
North Carolina________UConn
Duke_______________Rutgers (or Temple)
That would have been an awesome conference.
Penn State might possibly have bolted back then (not now though), but if they did both Rutgers and Temple would have been out and Maryland would have slid over to the right column.
Cheers,
Neil
Agreed. Fortunately for Rutgers this didn't happen back then and we got on our feet again. Now we're safe and sound in a CFP AQ conference. Although it may have been Temple and UConn that were out not Rutgers and Temple.
Sorry, I slept UConn being part of the two columns. I was thinking 16 teams only which was the ACC 9 and the BE 7 minus Temple at that time as the Tranghese suggestion which meant UConn would have never been in.
Anyway, it doesn't matter now and as you say, Rutgers has indeed made the big time.
Cheers,
Neil
(05-17-2013 06:29 AM)LUcanesfan Wrote: [ -> ]This is what a Big East-ACC merger would have looked like in 1997-98 had it went through...
Florida State_________Miami
Clemson_____________Penn State
NC State____________Syracuse
Wake Forest_________Boston College
Maryland____________Virginia Tech
Virginia______________West Virginia
Georgia Tech_________PITT
North Carolina________UConn
Duke_______________Rutgers (or Temple)
That would have been an awesome conference.
Nope for WVU; never would have been approved by the triangle.
Grant of Rights might be new for most the conferences, but the Big Ten has been doing them a long time. Penn State would not have been a member of the merged conference in 1997-1998. There would be worry on the part of the Big Ten of them deciding to go though eventually though (just as there was after all the ACC moves in the last couple of years), which probably would have prompted them inviting an east coast school to get to 12 early.
According to Les Robinson, it was only Miami, Syracuse and Boston College considered at that time:
http://jacksonville.com/tu-online/storie...4915.shtml
Robinson, now the athletics director at The Citadel, said a meeting was held in Atlanta in 1998, in which Tranghese talked with ACC commissioner John Swofford -- among others -- about the possibility of forming an all-basketball Big East Conference.
In order to do that, the Big East would have allowed Miami, Syracuse and Boston College to join the nine-member ACC.
"From those talks, we considered the three [schools]," Robinson said. "But the ACC ain't getting that large. It's too big and too large. Then there was discussion about taking Miami, going to a 10-team league."
Here we go with the re-writing of history.
(05-17-2013 11:46 AM)NJRedMan Wrote: [ -> ]Here we go with the re-writing of history.
So, um ... I'm very interested in reading RedMan's view of history..
(05-17-2013 11:28 AM)Hokie4Skins Wrote: [ -> ]According to Les Robinson, it was only Miami, Syracuse and Boston College considered at that time:
http://jacksonville.com/tu-online/storie...4915.shtml
Robinson, now the athletics director at The Citadel, said a meeting was held in Atlanta in 1998, in which Tranghese talked with ACC commissioner John Swofford -- among others -- about the possibility of forming an all-basketball Big East Conference.
In order to do that, the Big East would have allowed Miami, Syracuse and Boston College to join the nine-member ACC.
"From those talks, we considered the three [schools]," Robinson said. "But the ACC ain't getting that large. It's too big and too large. Then there was discussion about taking Miami, going to a 10-team league."
Robinson had a lot to say after Tranghese went on his tirade against the ACC and Swofford.
But the article linked in the original post has all the details necessary to discerned what actually happened.
BE and ACC representatives meet to discuss Tranghese's idea of a merger of football only.
Robinson said the ACC did case studies on Miami, Syracuse and Boston College, the three schools with a chance to move now (NOW being 2003 not 1998 when the meeting being discussed happened), and Tranghese was aware they were done.
He also said several ideas were discussed (going back to what was discussed at the 1998 meeting) from a complete merger of schools that played football to the move of only a few schools with Miami, Syracuse and Boston College (the three NOW in 2003, but not the only three discussed back then in 1998) the most prominently discussed.
Anyone who believes that Tranghese would keep Pitt swinging in the breeze simply doesn't understand how much "perceived" integrity meant (and still does) mean to this man.
Now, if by chance the ACC was willing to discuss for football only taking Miami, BC, SU, Pitt and one other from amongst WVU, Rutgers, or VT then he could keep that "perceived" integrity in tack for the most part. But again, no way would he have left Pitt swinging in the breeze.
Now from the ACC side there is this:
When the straw vote failed, primarily because of basketball, the issue appeared to die. In Robinson's mind, UM was open-minded then, so he isn't surprised the issue has new life and the 'Canes are involved
Basketball was never an issue with Tranghese's proposal.
It was only an issue because the ACC knew they weren't going to go for it and the discussion from the ACC side (not the BE/Tranghese side) was expansion to 12 (with three schools, the most prominently discussed being Miami, SU, and BC, but obviously others were discussed as well which I imagine would be VT and Pitt), expansion to 10 (Miami alone) or stay put as is.
The latter won the day (in 1998) due to basketball.
Cheers,
Neil