(02-11-2021 12:59 PM)bill dazzle Wrote:  Maybe it's just me ... but the nickname "Meatball" for John Marinatto does not seem clever or original. Yeah, he has an Italian surname and likes to eat meatball sub sandwiches. I get it. But ... its just seems lame at this point. The man is out of the spotlight. Show some mercy. I see his father died in 2017 in Providence at the age of 100.

Dislike for JM still runs deep 10 years after the fact. It's sad, because his actual mistakes were few and much of what happened was beyond his or anyone's control.

As for nicknames, by far the best IMO is something a wag on the Big East board (forget who) called Aresco just a few months after he was hired, during late 2012 when the last batch of schools was leaving the Big East. They called him "TheRestGo".

Still cracks me up, LOL.

(02-11-2021 03:13 PM)quo vadis Wrote:  

(02-11-2021 12:59 PM)bill dazzle Wrote:  Maybe it's just me ... but the nickname "Meatball" for John Marinatto does not seem clever or original. Yeah, he has an Italian surname and likes to eat meatball sub sandwiches. I get it. But ... its just seems lame at this point. The man is out of the spotlight. Show some mercy. I see his father died in 2017 in Providence at the age of 100.

Dislike for JM still runs deep 10 years after the fact. It's sad, because his actual mistakes were few and much of what happened was beyond his or anyone's control.

As for nicknames, by far the best IMO is something a wag on the Big East board (forget who) called Aresco just a few months after he was hired, during late 2012 when the last batch of schools was leaving the Big East. They called him "TheRestGo".

Still cracks me up, LOL.

Well, the ladies call me "The Chinless, Limerick-Penning, Eccentric and Devilish Rapscallion." Sadly, I have not been able to parlay that distinctive moniker into success with said ladies.

On a serious note, seems you're probably correct on Marinatto.

I kind of like the Aresco name.

(02-10-2021 03:54 PM)GoldenWarrior11 Wrote:  

(02-10-2021 12:35 PM)bullet Wrote:  It was a league run out of Providence for Providence, Seton Hall, St. John's, Villanova and Georgetown.

I strongly disagree.

From a distance, I did not see a favoritism towards the non-football schools either.

In hindsight, I think the Big East would have been wise to have grabbed four western schools for football only upon the initial ACC raid. Utah, BYU, and Boise State almost certainly would have jumped to a BCS league along with one more (SDSU, USAFA, etc) ... and been incubated with the league to stay following the 2nd raid (minus Utah who would gave left when the Pac-12 called).

I am biased and we felt we (Memphis) would have benefitted greatly from that same incubation. It was mostly our own fault for not being nearly committed to our football program as we should have back then... (read: not much $$$ left after Calipari's demand were appeased).

I will say that the AAC being higher profile along with FINALLY giving the football program a priority has been nice.

(02-10-2021 10:06 PM)UTEPDallas Wrote:  I honestly think the best days of ECU football are behind (the same applies to Southern Miss). The Pirates and Golden Eagles were a good option for any recruit who didn’t get a scholarship to an SEC, ACC and Big East school and wanted to play Div I-A football but now they’re surrounded by new FBS schools. In the case of ECU, the rise of UCF and having Old Dominion, Charlotte, Appalachian State, Liberty, Georgia State and Georgia Southern moving up and competing for the same recruits is not having a positive impact on the football program.

I don’t disagree. ECU was able to do what they did because of location and a better understanding of the operations than those in the Big East, especially south of the Mason-Dixon (or just south of Virginia). ECU was held down and out so those others could catch up and figure things out while still maintaining their advantage. Nothing screamed it more than the USF grab, imo. That “need” to be in Florida after UMFL left. ECU didn’t really ever need that because they had been making their trips with other ACC and SEC schools.

What concerns me is that this will likely happen to the ODU’s, App State’s, Coastal Carolina’s, and Georgia Southern’s too unless one/any gets a major conference invitation (never happening). The pecking order is set. Non-majors serve the majors. Once that transfer component is fully ratified, it won’t just be good coaches schools can count on losing any given good season. Whole teams and programs could get gutted. A fully functional intra-divisional development league.

i think he did what he could given the circumstances. He could have been more aggressive with not only other leagues attempts to steal members but also with BE members themselves In my view the FB schools were looking to get out for years back even before his time to at least when BC left. The FB schools weren;t committed to each other. Even when the GE expanded to 16 the FB schools IMO were looking for a way out. Self interest is fine but i wonder what would have happened if the FB schools held together , contractually if necessary . Perhaps if they did it would have been the B12 that collapsed. If WVU(and any BE backups)said no the B12 where would they have gone to find someone? If Cuse and Pitt said no to the ACC, would the ACC have looked to the B12 with maybe Texas and Kansas? Would that have stopped MD from going to B10. Maybe the BE would have been the aggressor and together with the B10 and ACC picked apart the B12.Was he capable of that? Were the BE FB schools even interested in that? We'll never know. Maybe he was too nice and didnt want to be responsible for such upheaval as i seem to remember some suggesting at the time.

Marinatto did reach out to BC about potentially returning the the BE.

He also was ready to take Missouri, Iowa St, Kansas, and Kansas St had the PAC 16 gone through.

So Marinattto wasn’t completely passive as far as recruiting more football schools go.

I do think he waited too long to try and bolster things but part of that was the presidents’ fault—USF was bitterly blocking UCF.

(02-14-2021 07:43 AM)Fighting Muskie Wrote:  Marinatto did reach out to BC about potentially returning the the BE.

He also was ready to take Missouri, Iowa St, Kansas, and Kansas St had the PAC 16 gone through.

So Marinattto wasn’t completely passive as far as recruiting more football schools go.

I do think he waited too long to try and bolster things but part of that was the presidents’ fault—USF was bitterly blocking UCF.

Unnecessary turf wars...one thing about the Big East that never changed

(02-10-2021 10:06 PM)UTEPDallas Wrote:  

(02-10-2021 06:48 AM)The Cutter of Bish Wrote:  You would have had WVU and VT screaming “no” on ECU, but you’re spot on with their strength during the 90’s. It’s precisely the politics that was at the core of the conference. The basketball schools didn’t like WVU and really pushed against VT to the point where the Hokies had to buy into the Big East (back when these guys parked basketball in the A10). And it was like nobody wanted ECU, though they played a Big East-lite schedule and demonstrated they could hang with the Big East and ACC.

There was a pedigree, and ECU was not of that class. And once Louisville got in, well, that’s how we got here.

Didn’t ECU apply to the Big East multiple times and they were told no every time? I never understood why. They were a regional team with a history of playing other independent teams and they were solid in football. Was it the directional name? Its basketball program? A saturated market in North Carolina? I even thought it was pathetic they were only given a football only invite to the Big East in late 2012.

I honestly think the best days of ECU football are behind (the same applies to Southern Miss). The Pirates and Golden Eagles were a good option for any recruit who didn’t get a scholarship to an SEC, ACC and Big East school and wanted to play Div I-A football but now they’re surrounded by new FBS schools. In the case of ECU, the rise of UCF and having Old Dominion, Charlotte, Appalachian State, Liberty, Georgia State and Georgia Southern moving up and competing for the same recruits is not having a positive impact on the football program.

Yes, ECU had a weird kind of monopoly of sorts for a while, isolated on the Carolina coast and being really the only school between VT and South Carolina that cared most about football. Things have changed in that regard and it is hard to see ECU regaining lost ground.

FWIW, I always liked ECU and thought the old Big East should have added them back in the 90s or 00s. Sad that they finally got the coveted invite only because the Big East was collapsing.

And that's a good connection made to USM as well. They had the same sort of situation down on there part of the gulf coast. But with schools like Tulane and UAB upgrading their programs, and even improvements made by schools like USA and Louisiana Tech, they've kind of lost their niche as well.

(02-09-2021 02:57 PM)GoldenWarrior11 Wrote:  There is zero doubt in my mind that if Penn State organized, or gained admittance, into an Eastern All-Sports League in the 80's, they still bolt and head to the Big Ten when they did - which would have inevitably caused the other Northeastern programs to splinter and move off into other leagues. Penn State was always going to be drawn to the Big Ten due to the academic and AAU associations, and the athletic brands within the Big Ten were always going to be superior to that of the Eastern All-Sports League/Big East. The peer associations of Michigan, Ohio State, Wisconsin, Michigan State, Iowa, et al. were just going to supersede associations with Boston College, Syracuse, Pittsburgh, UConn et al.

I agree with that. The Big East was always Dead Man Walking.

Miami did not have the capability by itself to anchor the Big East, and it left in 2003.

The Big East needed the twin anchors of a fully committed Penn State and a committed, full member Notre Dame to survive.

(A 12 football member BE football conference, with Penn State in one division and ND in the other, would have been a strong one)

Due to a number of factors, it had neither.

Without such anchors, it was never going to get, in its actual configuration, the type of TV deals needed to survive long term.

Everything else was just re-arranging deck chairs.

(02-14-2021 09:08 AM)solohawks Wrote:  

(02-14-2021 07:43 AM)Fighting Muskie Wrote:  Marinatto did reach out to BC about potentially returning the the BE.

He also was ready to take Missouri, Iowa St, Kansas, and Kansas St had the PAC 16 gone through.

So Marinattto wasn’t completely passive as far as recruiting more football schools go.

I do think he waited too long to try and bolster things but part of that was the presidents’ fault—USF was bitterly blocking UCF.

Unnecessary turf wars...one thing about the Big East that never changed

Except for Rutgers. Too bad Seton Hall never fought to keep them out. Imagine a world where they never become a full Big East member. Are they in the Big Ten now? If not, who is?

From what I heard, Seton Hall did resist Rutgers when they came back up for consideration for all sports. Or, at best, resisted the bloc of then football-only members looking to enter as all-sport participants.

I suspect that even with Seton Hall and others being pills to them, they probably buy their way in the same as Virginia Tech eventually did. I doubt they get stiffed the same way Temple did, because Rutgers at least demonstrated some financial commitment to their venues and athletic spending and infrastructure when Temple didn't there for a span. But, if forced to wander the wilderness? MAC to an eventual AAC spot, I'd wager. The same journey as Temple. Not much different. Probably still have communication open with the likes of the Big Ten, but maybe new ones with the ACC? The stuff they had with the Big Ten goes way back some.

There is a bunch of coulda, woulda, shouldas here. What if JoePas league was formed on the early 80s? What if the eastern indies started a new all sports league and added Louisville and FSU from the metro instead of forming a Big East Conference in the first place. Then there's UConn being promoted in 04ish. Then the stupid idea to promote Villanova. Many of the issues of the Big East really happened prior to him becoming commissioner. Perhaps many of the issues on the football side happens even if there was an all sports league created back in the 80s. Marinotto became the captain of the Titanic after it it the iceberg. Moses could've taken control of the Big East and couldn't have saved the conference. It was doomed to fail since day 1.

(02-14-2021 10:21 AM)TerryD Wrote:  

(02-09-2021 02:57 PM)GoldenWarrior11 Wrote:  There is zero doubt in my mind that if Penn State organized, or gained admittance, into an Eastern All-Sports League in the 80's, they still bolt and head to the Big Ten when they did - which would have inevitably caused the other Northeastern programs to splinter and move off into other leagues. Penn State was always going to be drawn to the Big Ten due to the academic and AAU associations, and the athletic brands within the Big Ten were always going to be superior to that of the Eastern All-Sports League/Big East. The peer associations of Michigan, Ohio State, Wisconsin, Michigan State, Iowa, et al. were just going to supersede associations with Boston College, Syracuse, Pittsburgh, UConn et al.

I agree with that. The Big East was always Dead Man Walking.

Miami did not have the capability by itself to anchor the Big East, and it left in 2003.

The Big East needed the twin anchors of a fully committed Penn State and a committed, full member Notre Dame to survive.

(A 12 football member BE football conference, with Penn State in one division and ND in the other, would have been a strong one)

Due to a number of factors, it had neither.

Without such anchors, it was never going to get, in its actual configuration, the type of TV deals needed to survive long term.

Everything else was just re-arranging deck chairs.

I think that might be a bit too pessimistic about the old Big East. In 2011 ESPN offered the Big East a TV deal that was very close to what the ACC signed for a few months earlier. IIRC, football schools would have made about $14m a year, about the same as ACC schools were getting from their 2010 deal, despite the fact that the ACC had two putative tentpoles in FSU and Miami and the Big East had none.

The ACC was only able to boost its money upwards from that by taking Pitt, Syracuse and then Notre Dame and Louisville from the Big East.

Hindsight is 20-20 and we'll never know what would have happened going forward had the Big East not been raided in 2011, but the quality on the court and gridiron was there, and the money on the table was as well.

Still, even had the ACC not raided the Big East in 2011, with both making around $14m per school they both would have quickly fallen behind, as the Big 12 and PAC soon signed deals paying around $20 million per school and the B1G and SEC were already around that mark.

Twenty years ago, some of us argued that long run, there was only one true "power level" configuration of football schools between the ACC and Big East. The ACC took the initiative and managed to strip the Big East so as to bring that configuration under its umbrella. But it may have been possible for the Big East to do the same to the ACC. We'll never know.

(02-14-2021 01:44 PM)quo vadis Wrote:  

(02-14-2021 10:21 AM)TerryD Wrote:  

(02-09-2021 02:57 PM)GoldenWarrior11 Wrote:  There is zero doubt in my mind that if Penn State organized, or gained admittance, into an Eastern All-Sports League in the 80's, they still bolt and head to the Big Ten when they did - which would have inevitably caused the other Northeastern programs to splinter and move off into other leagues. Penn State was always going to be drawn to the Big Ten due to the academic and AAU associations, and the athletic brands within the Big Ten were always going to be superior to that of the Eastern All-Sports League/Big East. The peer associations of Michigan, Ohio State, Wisconsin, Michigan State, Iowa, et al. were just going to supersede associations with Boston College, Syracuse, Pittsburgh, UConn et al.

I agree with that. The Big East was always Dead Man Walking.

Miami did not have the capability by itself to anchor the Big East, and it left in 2003.

The Big East needed the twin anchors of a fully committed Penn State and a committed, full member Notre Dame to survive.

(A 12 football member BE football conference, with Penn State in one division and ND in the other, would have been a strong one)

Due to a number of factors, it had neither.

Without such anchors, it was never going to get, in its actual configuration, the type of TV deals needed to survive long term.

Everything else was just re-arranging deck chairs.

I think that might be a bit too pessimistic about the old Big East. In 2011 ESPN offered the Big East a TV deal that was very close to what the ACC signed for a few months earlier. IIRC, football schools would have made about $14m a year, about the same as ACC schools were getting from their 2010 deal, despite the fact that the ACC had two putative tentpoles in FSU and Miami and the Big East had none.

The ACC was only able to boost its money upwards from that by taking Pitt, Syracuse and then Notre Dame and Louisville from the Big East.

Hindsight is 20-20 and we'll never know what would have happened going forward had the Big East not been raided in 2011, but the quality on the court and gridiron was there, and the money on the table was as well.

Still, even had the ACC not raided the Big East in 2011, with both making around $14m per school they both would have quickly fallen behind, as the Big 12 and PAC soon signed deals paying around $20 million per school and the B1G and SEC were already around that mark.

Twenty years ago, some of us argued that long run, there was only one true "power level" configuration of football schools between the ACC and Big East. The ACC took the initiative and managed to strip the Big East so as to bring that configuration under its umbrella. But it may have been possible for the Big East to do the same to the ACC. We'll never know.

If the Big East had taken the TV deal would ESPN have wanted to pay the ACC more when they were paying the Big East $14M?

(02-13-2021 11:00 PM)gosports1 Wrote:  i think he did what he could given the circumstances. He could have been more aggressive with not only other leagues attempts to steal members but also with BE members themselves In my view the FB schools were looking to get out for years back even before his time to at least when BC left. The FB schools weren;t committed to each other. Even when the GE expanded to 16 the FB schools IMO were looking for a way out. Self interest is fine but i wonder what would have happened if the FB schools held together , contractually if necessary . Perhaps if they did it would have been the B12 that collapsed. If WVU(and any BE backups)said no the B12 where would they have gone to find someone? If Cuse and Pitt said no to the ACC, would the ACC have looked to the B12 with maybe Texas and Kansas? Would that have stopped MD from going to B10. Maybe the BE would have been the aggressor and together with the B10 and ACC picked apart the B12.Was he capable of that? Were the BE FB schools even interested in that? We'll never know. Maybe he was too nice and didnt want to be responsible for such upheaval as i seem to remember some suggesting at the time.

If Pitt had said no to the ACC, it would have been because it had decided to go to the wounded B12 with WVU and one of either Louisville or Rutgers. In such a scenario, the ACC could have no more pulled UT than it can now and Syracuse could in no way have said no to the ACC. Even at that stage, there was no way Pitt could have said no to the ACC because it was clear the BE was finished as a viable and equitable football power conference and the ACC was certainly a better place than the B12 (at least for the University of Pittsburgh).

WVU and others were actively seeking an exit before Pitt, and that was known to all BE leadership. Despite the repeated stories of how this rejected ESPN contract was this or that, it was clear to all leadership that it was not going to be enough to allow the league to keep pace with the other power conferences going forward and the BE's place in the major bowl hierarchy (as the BCS was transforming into the playoff and NYD6) was also going to be lost. What they were facing was a rapid decent into non-power status and complete lack of willingness among any football playing schools, at least those that thought they might have options, to stay together to work on building an unsure thing, which at one point there was at least some hope to do with the addition of TCU. What precipitated this lack of commitment was an open rift over membership additions that, in the eyes of various football school leaderships, indicated that growing football side in a way to give it a chance to maintain major conference status was going to be impossible (and yes, this largely comes down to adding UCF vs Villanova's "Duke plan").

The ONLY thing that could have saved the Big East, circa either 2002 or 2010, was ND joining in football. Schools would have willingly stayed within the orbit of ND. Not just because of the Irish brand, but because ND is trusted and respected (unlike PSU) and would have brought the commitment, and thus security, to the conference's future that no one else would have been able to.

In the what-if hypotheticals, the real one is what if ND joins BE in football by, say, 2000? Then I think you are looking at a scenario where the conference raiding is going the other direction.

(02-14-2021 03:03 PM)solohawks Wrote:  

(02-14-2021 01:44 PM)quo vadis Wrote:  

(02-14-2021 10:21 AM)TerryD Wrote:  

(02-09-2021 02:57 PM)GoldenWarrior11 Wrote:  There is zero doubt in my mind that if Penn State organized, or gained admittance, into an Eastern All-Sports League in the 80's, they still bolt and head to the Big Ten when they did - which would have inevitably caused the other Northeastern programs to splinter and move off into other leagues. Penn State was always going to be drawn to the Big Ten due to the academic and AAU associations, and the athletic brands within the Big Ten were always going to be superior to that of the Eastern All-Sports League/Big East. The peer associations of Michigan, Ohio State, Wisconsin, Michigan State, Iowa, et al. were just going to supersede associations with Boston College, Syracuse, Pittsburgh, UConn et al.

I agree with that. The Big East was always Dead Man Walking.

Miami did not have the capability by itself to anchor the Big East, and it left in 2003.

The Big East needed the twin anchors of a fully committed Penn State and a committed, full member Notre Dame to survive.

(A 12 football member BE football conference, with Penn State in one division and ND in the other, would have been a strong one)

Due to a number of factors, it had neither.

Without such anchors, it was never going to get, in its actual configuration, the type of TV deals needed to survive long term.

Everything else was just re-arranging deck chairs.

I think that might be a bit too pessimistic about the old Big East. In 2011 ESPN offered the Big East a TV deal that was very close to what the ACC signed for a few months earlier. IIRC, football schools would have made about $14m a year, about the same as ACC schools were getting from their 2010 deal, despite the fact that the ACC had two putative tentpoles in FSU and Miami and the Big East had none.

The ACC was only able to boost its money upwards from that by taking Pitt, Syracuse and then Notre Dame and Louisville from the Big East.

Hindsight is 20-20 and we'll never know what would have happened going forward had the Big East not been raided in 2011, but the quality on the court and gridiron was there, and the money on the table was as well.

Still, even had the ACC not raided the Big East in 2011, with both making around $14m per school they both would have quickly fallen behind, as the Big 12 and PAC soon signed deals paying around $20 million per school and the B1G and SEC were already around that mark.

Twenty years ago, some of us argued that long run, there was only one true "power level" configuration of football schools between the ACC and Big East. The ACC took the initiative and managed to strip the Big East so as to bring that configuration under its umbrella. But it may have been possible for the Big East to do the same to the ACC. We'll never know.

If the Big East had taken the TV deal would ESPN have wanted to pay the ACC more when they were paying the Big East $14M?

I doubt it. ESPN had just signed that ACC deal, and they have never been known to just pay a conference more just out of the goodness of their hearts.

A deal's a deal. And that hasn't always worked in ESPN's favor, e.g., the Longhorn Network.

(02-14-2021 01:44 PM)quo vadis Wrote:  Twenty years ago, some of us argued that long run, there was only one true "power level" configuration of football schools between the ACC and Big East. The ACC took the initiative and managed to strip the Big East so as to bring that configuration under its umbrella. But it may have been possible for the Big East to do the same to the ACC. We'll never know.

It was always going to come down to one conference or the other winning out in football. The ACC had a built-in advantage in that tug-of-war: For geography and other reasons, the ACC was always the better conference for Miami, and then it also became important that it was the better conference for Virginia Tech. Miami and VT would not turn down the ACC to stay in the BE; it was only a question of whether and when the ACC would invite them.

Could Big East football have continued if the Big Ten didn't threaten the ACC to the point that the ACC decided to add Pitt and Syracuse as reinforcements? Maybe, maybe not. The Big 12 was going to add after losing four members within about two years, and Big East members were the obvious ones to go after. If the ACC hadn't invited Pitt and Syracuse, then Pitt would have moved to the Big 12 with WVU and Syracuse might have tried to get in there as well.

(02-11-2021 08:19 PM)MemTGRS Wrote:  

(02-10-2021 03:54 PM)GoldenWarrior11 Wrote:  

(02-10-2021 12:35 PM)bullet Wrote:  It was a league run out of Providence for Providence, Seton Hall, St. John's, Villanova and Georgetown.

I strongly disagree.

From a distance, I did not see a favoritism towards the non-football schools either.

In hindsight, I think the Big East would have been wise to have grabbed four western schools for football only upon the initial ACC raid. Utah, BYU, and Boise State almost certainly would have jumped to a BCS league along with one more (SDSU, USAFA, etc) ... and been incubated with the league to stay following the 2nd raid (minus Utah who would gave left when the Pac-12 called).

I am biased and we felt we (Memphis) would have benefitted greatly from that same incubation. It was mostly our own fault for not being nearly committed to our football program as we should have back then... (read: not much $$$ left after Calipari's demand were appeased).

I will say that the AAC being higher profile along with FINALLY giving the football program a priority has been nice.

Every decision that the football schools wanted required time and arm twisting to get the basketball schools on board. Schools like WVU and Rutgers and VT couldn't get in right away. They tried to bring Connecticut, Villanova and Navy in rather than football schools. Decisions had nothing to do with football.

(02-14-2021 03:06 PM)CrazyPaco Wrote:  

(02-13-2021 11:00 PM)gosports1 Wrote:  i think he did what he could given the circumstances. He could have been more aggressive with not only other leagues attempts to steal members but also with BE members themselves In my view the FB schools were looking to get out for years back even before his time to at least when BC left. The FB schools weren;t committed to each other. Even when the GE expanded to 16 the FB schools IMO were looking for a way out. Self interest is fine but i wonder what would have happened if the FB schools held together , contractually if necessary . Perhaps if they did it would have been the B12 that collapsed. If WVU(and any BE backups)said no the B12 where would they have gone to find someone? If Cuse and Pitt said no to the ACC, would the ACC have looked to the B12 with maybe Texas and Kansas? Would that have stopped MD from going to B10. Maybe the BE would have been the aggressor and together with the B10 and ACC picked apart the B12.Was he capable of that? Were the BE FB schools even interested in that? We'll never know. Maybe he was too nice and didnt want to be responsible for such upheaval as i seem to remember some suggesting at the time.

If Pitt had said no to the ACC, it would have been because it had decided to go to the wounded B12 with WVU and one of either Louisville or Rutgers. In such a scenario, the ACC could have no more pulled UT than it can now and Syracuse could in no way have said no to the ACC. Even at that stage, there was no way Pitt could have said no to the ACC because it was clear the BE was finished as a viable and equitable football power conference and the ACC was certainly a better place than the B12 (at least for the University of Pittsburgh).

WVU and others were actively seeking an exit before Pitt, and that was known to all BE leadership. Despite the repeated stories of how this rejected ESPN contract was this or that, it was clear to all leadership that it was not going to be enough to allow the league to keep pace with the other power conferences going forward and the BE's place in the major bowl hierarchy (as the BCS was transforming into the playoff and NYD6) was also going to be lost. What they were facing was a rapid decent into non-power status and complete lack of willingness among any football playing schools, at least those that thought they might have options, to stay together to work on building an unsure thing, which at one point there was at least some hope to do with the addition of TCU. What precipitated this lack of commitment was an open rift over membership additions that, in the eyes of various football school leaderships, indicated that growing football side in a way to give it a chance to maintain major conference status was going to be impossible (and yes, this largely comes down to adding UCF vs Villanova's "Duke plan").

The ONLY thing that could have saved the Big East, circa either 2002 or 2010, was ND joining in football. Schools would have willingly stayed within the orbit of ND. Not just because of the Irish brand, but because ND is trusted and respected (unlike PSU) and would have brought the commitment, and thus security, to the conference's future that no one else would have been able to.

In the what-if hypotheticals, the real one is what if ND joins BE in football by, say, 2000? Then I think you are looking at a scenario where the conference raiding is going the other direction.

Maybe. But the fact is the Big East was stronger than the ACC during that time frame, especially at the top. WVU won more BCS bowl games than the entire ACC won from 1998-2012. During most of that time (between the loss of BC and the 2010 realignment) it was stronger than the Big 10 on average.

(02-14-2021 04:49 PM)quo vadis Wrote:  

(02-14-2021 03:03 PM)solohawks Wrote:  

(02-14-2021 01:44 PM)quo vadis Wrote:  

(02-14-2021 10:21 AM)TerryD Wrote:  

(02-09-2021 02:57 PM)GoldenWarrior11 Wrote:  There is zero doubt in my mind that if Penn State organized, or gained admittance, into an Eastern All-Sports League in the 80's, they still bolt and head to the Big Ten when they did - which would have inevitably caused the other Northeastern programs to splinter and move off into other leagues. Penn State was always going to be drawn to the Big Ten due to the academic and AAU associations, and the athletic brands within the Big Ten were always going to be superior to that of the Eastern All-Sports League/Big East. The peer associations of Michigan, Ohio State, Wisconsin, Michigan State, Iowa, et al. were just going to supersede associations with Boston College, Syracuse, Pittsburgh, UConn et al.

I agree with that. The Big East was always Dead Man Walking.

Miami did not have the capability by itself to anchor the Big East, and it left in 2003.

The Big East needed the twin anchors of a fully committed Penn State and a committed, full member Notre Dame to survive.

(A 12 football member BE football conference, with Penn State in one division and ND in the other, would have been a strong one)

Due to a number of factors, it had neither.

Without such anchors, it was never going to get, in its actual configuration, the type of TV deals needed to survive long term.

Everything else was just re-arranging deck chairs.

I think that might be a bit too pessimistic about the old Big East. In 2011 ESPN offered the Big East a TV deal that was very close to what the ACC signed for a few months earlier. IIRC, football schools would have made about $14m a year, about the same as ACC schools were getting from their 2010 deal, despite the fact that the ACC had two putative tentpoles in FSU and Miami and the Big East had none.

The ACC was only able to boost its money upwards from that by taking Pitt, Syracuse and then Notre Dame and Louisville from the Big East.

Hindsight is 20-20 and we'll never know what would have happened going forward had the Big East not been raided in 2011, but the quality on the court and gridiron was there, and the money on the table was as well.

Still, even had the ACC not raided the Big East in 2011, with both making around $14m per school they both would have quickly fallen behind, as the Big 12 and PAC soon signed deals paying around $20 million per school and the B1G and SEC were already around that mark.

Twenty years ago, some of us argued that long run, there was only one true "power level" configuration of football schools between the ACC and Big East. The ACC took the initiative and managed to strip the Big East so as to bring that configuration under its umbrella. But it may have been possible for the Big East to do the same to the ACC. We'll never know.

If the Big East had taken the TV deal would ESPN have wanted to pay the ACC more when they were paying the Big East $14M?

I doubt it. ESPN had just signed that ACC deal, and they have never been known to just pay a conference more just out of the goodness of their hearts.

A deal's a deal. And that hasn't always worked in ESPN's favor, e.g., the Longhorn Network.

So taking the ESPN deal might have allowed the Big East to keep Syracuse since the ACC wasn't expanding, but Pitt was likely gone either way as the Big 12 was interested in them and only stopped when the ACC got them