Wahoowa84
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RE: CHALLENGE: Create the Ultimate Eastern College Sports Conference
(10-21-2020 10:17 PM)Nerdlinger Wrote: (10-19-2020 01:04 PM)Wahoowa84 Wrote: (10-19-2020 09:49 AM)Nerdlinger Wrote: (10-19-2020 08:02 AM)Fighting Muskie Wrote: The ACC has too much of a country club mentality back then to make this a reality.
the scenario I think would have been the most interesting is if around 1952-53 if instead of coming to an agreement with UNC and forming a breakaway conference if SC and Clemson had gained entry into the SEC while Maryland became more closely associated with the Eastern Independents to their North.
Then I think the chances of a Paterno Conference become a greater reality and I think that group could poach the SoCon’s best.
The scenario presented in the OP involves ACC defections later than the '70s -- more like in the 2000s and 2010s. The alternate Big East in this timeline is a strong football-first conference that manages to attract both Miami and Florida State in the early '90s, leaving the ACC without a dominant football school and resulting in the general irrelevance of the conference. Maryland is actually first to defect to the Big East, along with Clemson and Georgia Tech in the 2000s. After NC State wisely accepts an SEC invite in the 2010s, the Big East drops Temple (for similar reasons as it did in 2005 in our timeline) and invites the old school ACC core of Duke, UNC, and UVA, who begrudgingly accept.
Big East (1976): Boston College, Notre Dame, Penn State, Pittsburgh, Rutgers, Syracuse, Temple, West Virginia
ACC (1976): Clemson, Duke, Maryland, NC State, North Carolina, Virginia, Wake Forest
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Big East (1992): Boston College, Florida State, Miami-FL, Notre Dame, Penn State, Pittsburgh, Rutgers, Syracuse, Temple, Virginia Tech, West Virginia
ACC (1992): Clemson, Duke, Georgia Tech, Maryland, NC State, North Carolina, Virginia, Wake Forest
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Big East (2005)
Eastern: Boston College, Georgia Tech, Maryland, Miami-FL, Notre Dame, Rutgers, Virginia Tech
Seaboard: Syracuse, Clemson, Penn State, Florida State, Pittsburgh, Temple, West Virginia
ACC (2005): Cincinnati, Duke, Louisville, NC State, North Carolina, South Florida, Virginia, Wake Forest
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Big East (2015): see OP
ACC (2015)
East: Central Florida, East Carolina, Memphis, South Florida, Temple, Wake Forest
West: Baylor, Navy*, Rice, SMU, TCU, Tulane
Notes
Cincinnati to Big Ten
Houston to Pac-16
Louisville to SEC
What makes your scenario hard to stomach are not the movements in the 1990s and later...it is that Penn State and Notre Dame would have to have been fully committed to building a conference with their programs at the center.
Yet Notre Dame, 40 years later, still has zero (little) interest in the well being of a conference. Maybe COVID is teaching the Irish that conference participation is not all horrible...but the impact of actions by Fielding Yost to Jim Delaney still seems to weigh heavily on Notre Dame.
Also Penn State looked down on the rest of the east coast football programs. Paterno needed 2:1 scheduling deals and was paranoid about having a competitive edge over his regional rivals.
It takes a lot of self-confidence and foresight to build a conference. Notre Dame and Penn State would have been the right tent-poles, but leaders in those universities were completely opposed to such strategic thinking.
I would say that this alternate timeline came about because Penn State and Notre Dame each happened to have different leadership that resulted in more strategic thinking.
Those strategic thinkers would have had to 1) undo the legacy of Knute Rockne (who built ND’s brand as national barnstormers) and 2) stand-up to Joe Paterno (who was god-like revered at PSU). It works in theoretical discussions, but not in the real life world of CFB. Those two programs would have been stable tent-poles for a prosperous eastern conference.
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CHALLENGE: Create the Ultimate Eastern College Sports Conference
