(01-04-2019 05:16 PM)The Cutter of Bish Wrote: Neil, I got the impression that some of the animosity between WVU and other Big East members, specifically someone like Syracuse, was how that it was known they were shopping for other homes, like the ACC and supposedly the Big Ten, but then still tended to stand with the non-fb schools with certain issues.
WVU, like others in the Big East, eventually found their way into the conference quite the hard way. At first as football-only, and then, with some network money/coaxing, their full membership. The football issue in a basketball-first conference, and how it trickled down monetarily, created all of these different factions that only enhanced or highlighted these rifts.
All of those now former Big East schools have some blood on their hands for any number of reasons. Hopefully, these schools can move on and work together in some non-conference capacity with some of these problematic personalities out of the way. And it extends beyond Luck, WVU, and Cuse to whatever crap issues existed between Pitt and Penn State, and others in that northeastern cluster.
Looking at it from somewhat of a distance, although I understood you to be a fan of PA football, which I took to mean PSU, Pitt, Temple, and perhaps Nova and maybe even WVU, I don't expect you to have the same knowledge or passion about the topic at hand. I know you have hinted in the past that you are convinced that had JoePa's Eastern Conference come about everything would be fine now. I disagree with that opinion strongly but if it is your opinion fine. There is no way to prove it either way.
In regard to your actual post above, perhaps you didn't know that West Virginia did the most open "shopping around" in the late 00s through the early 10s for a home in the SEC. As for WVU finding its way into the conference "the hard way", nobody held a gun to their head to make them join the Big East football conference in the early 90s or accept full membership a few years later when SU, Pitt, BC, and Miami went to bat for them. I'm glad they did, but they ultimately made the decision that was best for them at that time. It was a huge step up considering being an independent in football was going to be impossible in terms of schedule, games being shown on TV, make $$$, etc., unless your name was/is Notre Dame.
As for SU, when we didn't get the invite in 2003 we came back and Jake Crouthamel and President Shaw made it public that we would not accept the 12th spot in the ACC if offered but that we would keep our conference options open.
After saying the above, though asked to, Syracuse didn't join the stupid lawsuit brought by Pitt, WVU, Rutgers, and UConn (VT as well prior to their leaving for the ACC as #10), a lawsuit filed against the ACC, Miami and eventually BC (please note SU was never a defendant in that suit at any time even though it was believed we would be #11 or #12 at the time it was filed) since neither the schools nor their lawyers could find any evidence that we did anything against conference by-laws.
When SU returned, Jake (a real AD) rolled up his sleeves and started the work necessary to give options to the presidents of the league. The main option being splitting and forming a new league which the presidents (plural, not just SU's) voted down.
Why was it voted down? Because Tranghese had talked with the other conferences' power brokers and learned that the new conference, despite who was likely to be added, would lose their BCS auto-bid outright once the split occurred since the BCS contract specified which
named conferences would receive an auto-bid. Imagine recruiting after losing your two top programs and the BCS auto-bid? On top of that TV made it clear that a new separate conference of 8 or 9 wouldn't get as much money as the other proposal of 8/8. And lastly the football schools would have lost their NCAA BB units they had earned in the previous 6 years.
So the presidents voted to go 8/8 with the get out of jail free card (if after 5 years the football schools were dissatisfied, they could split and take the NCAA BB units with them). The 8/8 split won the day and Tranghese actually credited the WVU president the most for his efforts in selling it to the football schools. Our AD Jake said if that option was chosen he would retire, which is what he did the next year. In terms of the bb schools impeding potential monetary gains for then Big East football schools, I suggest you check out how much the AAC makes in comparison with the Big East from 2005-2012. Because that is the type of money a split BE conference was looking at. And one doesn't need to be an insider to know this. Common sense should suffice. Btw, give the bb schools some credit. They were willing to accept TCU into the conference. You should give them credit for that.
As for "blood" on all of the northeastern schools, this is true, but in my mind the biggest amount of that blood rests with PSU. While other geographical areas had the MAJOR football program(s) within it bringing about solid geographical conferences that still exist to this day as power conferences, JoePa was only ever concerned with PSU and JoePa and that was it.
Cheers,
Neil