The ACC’s decision to add Pitt and Syracuse was motivated by a few different factors:

1. ESPN told them they could

2. It was a fencing off move to keep the Big 12 off their turf. The ACC was well aware of the Big 12’s numbers game—they had 8 members, they needed 2 to get to 10 or 4 to get to 12. Preemptively taking Pitt and Cuse was a way to send a message—you can have Louisville, Cincinnati, and/or WVU but the East Coast is ours.

3. There was legitimate concern that the SEC would try and raid the ACC.

(02-15-2021 08:48 AM)solohawks Wrote:  

(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:  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

No question, the Big East was besieged from all sides. An 8 team football conference derided as the Big Least actually had members coveted by three other Power conferences.

Lots of discussions here about the ultimate fate of the Big East and Marinatto's role in it. Ultimately, the Big East's fate was sealed when college football became the ultimate driver of college sports instead of basketball. which more or less happened once the courts ruled against the NCAA in the landmark NCAA v. Board of Regents of the University of Oklahoma and then when Notre Dame broke away from the CFA to negotiate their own TV deal with NBC. The seats of college football power were largely located in the SEC, Big Ten, Pac-10, Big 8 and the SWC, who consolidated into the Big XII. The Big East not being a football conference knew they needed to grab a life raft and created football conference, but that Frankenstein conference only included two inaugural members (BC and Syracuse) along with Pitt (who joined a year later), Miami (who used it to jumpstart its basketball program that had only restarted ~5 years earlier after dropping the sport in 1971) and 4 football-only members. Needless to say, there wasn't much history or allegiance between these members, so it was kind of doomed to fail.

So in the end, as others have said, nobody could have really held the Big East together as a football conference. In many ways, it was only a matter of time before the non-FBS schools to say "enough is enough" and return the conference to their roots. Marinatto is something of a whipping boy here because he was the "captain of the Titanic" as somebody said, but in this case, he kind of did the best he could. Most of those who continue to hold bitter feelings are people who recognize the schools they root for are in a worse spot than they were before. As a USF fan, I can understand that, but the truth is that we didn't capitalize on the brief access we had to being in a BCS conference and thus our current fate is pretty much of our own doing. UConn kind of got bullied into moving up to FBS, and hindsight being 20/20, they would likely not have done that again which would have left them in the Big East (where they are now). The school who truly has the biggest gripe is Cincinnati, who really DID take advantage of their opportunity, just not as much as Louisville (leaving out the accounting irregularities that came out afterward).

USFFan

(02-15-2021 11:07 AM)usffan Wrote:   As a USF fan, I can understand that, but the truth is that we didn't capitalize on the brief access we had to being in a BCS conference and thus our current fate is pretty much of our own doing. UConn kind of got bullied into moving up to FBS, and hindsight being 20/20, they would likely not have done that again which would have left them in the Big East (where they are now). The school who truly has the biggest gripe is Cincinnati, who really DID take advantage of their opportunity, just not as much as Louisville (leaving out the accounting irregularities that came out afterward).

USFFan

The bolded is my feeling as well. We did do some decent things during the Big East years, like upgrade facilities, especially for hoops and Olympic Sports, which pretty much had to be done. But we were not hyper-aggressive in developing our football infrastructure to be "P-Ready", like Louisville did.

And I say infrastructure, not success on the field, because for much of the time in the Big East, USF was better on the field than Louisville.

The Northeast never had enough schools looking to play high level football to make a stable League:

the 8 Ivies, Holy Cross, and Villanova weren’t in any condition to be playing top flight football.

Army and Navy were long past their days of national relevance.

That left BC, Syracuse, Pitt, Penn St, WVU, and two barely passable programs in Rutgers and Temple.

Even if those 7 had a conference with Miami and VT, Miami and VT were always going to be flight risks because the ACC was a better geographic fit.

If ND was the 10th football program in that conference, maybe they stick together but getting them to join is stay was not likely to happen.

(02-15-2021 11:33 AM)Fighting Muskie Wrote:  The Northeast never had enough schools looking to play high level football to make a stable League:

the 8 Ivies, Holy Cross, and Villanova weren’t in any condition to be playing top flight football.

Army and Navy were long past their days of national relevance.

That left BC, Syracuse, Pitt, Penn St, WVU, and two barely passable programs in Rutgers and Temple.

Even if those 7 had a conference with Miami and VT, Miami and VT were always going to be flight risks because the ACC was a better geographic fit.

If ND was the 10th football program in that conference, maybe they stick together but getting them to join is stay was not likely to happen.

That left BC, Syracuse, Pitt, Penn St, WVU, and two barely passable programs in Rutgers and Temple.

Six out out of seven made the big time in P5 conferences.

(02-19-2021 10:12 AM)panite Wrote:  

(02-15-2021 11:33 AM)Fighting Muskie Wrote:  The Northeast never had enough schools looking to play high level football to make a stable League:

the 8 Ivies, Holy Cross, and Villanova weren’t in any condition to be playing top flight football.

Army and Navy were long past their days of national relevance.

That left BC, Syracuse, Pitt, Penn St, WVU, and two barely passable programs in Rutgers and Temple.

Even if those 7 had a conference with Miami and VT, Miami and VT were always going to be flight risks because the ACC was a better geographic fit.

If ND was the 10th football program in that conference, maybe they stick together but getting them to join is stay was not likely to happen.

That left BC, Syracuse, Pitt, Penn St, WVU, and two barely passable programs in Rutgers and Temple.

Six out out of seven made the big time in P5 conferences.

I’m not sure what exactly you’re gloating about. The point I’m illustrating here isn’t that the Northeast didn’t have quality programs, it’s that there weren’t enough to have a conference and political infighting meant that the ones that did weren’t going to work together.

Yes 6 of those 7 are currently in P5 conferences but 6 schools does not make a conference.

(02-19-2021 10:12 AM)panite Wrote:  

(02-15-2021 11:33 AM)Fighting Muskie Wrote:  The Northeast never had enough schools looking to play high level football to make a stable League:

the 8 Ivies, Holy Cross, and Villanova weren’t in any condition to be playing top flight football.

Army and Navy were long past their days of national relevance.

That left BC, Syracuse, Pitt, Penn St, WVU, and two barely passable programs in Rutgers and Temple.

Even if those 7 had a conference with Miami and VT, Miami and VT were always going to be flight risks because the ACC was a better geographic fit.

If ND was the 10th football program in that conference, maybe they stick together but getting them to join is stay was not likely to happen.

That left BC, Syracuse, Pitt, Penn St, WVU, and two barely passable programs in Rutgers and Temple.

Six out out of seven made the big time in P5 conferences.

Yep and my Philly boys were the one left out :(
You don't think the fact that the Big East rejected us basically told everyone else we weren't good enough?

A lot of folks point to The Big East terminating their football affiliate relationship with Temple and just condense it down to “Temple sucked, so they got kicked out”.

The truth is far more complicated than that. Villanova wanted them gone and Villanova had lots of friends willing to vote with them.

There was also NCAA rules working against them. There was legislation passed, presumably in response to the way that Big East football was originally formatted in 1990, that said you needed 8 full members who sponsored football to be an FBS conference. UConn was in the process of upgrading, giving them their 8th, so Temple was superfluous. Villanova and friends weren’t going to let Temple have full membership replacing one of the spots vacated by Miami, VT, and BC.

So Temple ended up being the odd man out.

Yes, they had poor attendance and didn’t win very many conference games but neither did Rutgers. If it was truly about being good at football and putting butts in seats Rutgers had done nothing from 1990-2004 to merit inclusion either but they got upgraded to full member status in 1995.

(02-19-2021 12:12 PM)Fighting Muskie Wrote:  A lot of folks point to The Big East terminating their football affiliate relationship with Temple and just condense it down to “Temple sucked, so they got kicked out”.

The truth is far more complicated than that. Villanova wanted them gone and Villanova had lots of friends willing to vote with them.

There was also NCAA rules working against them. There was legislation passed, presumably in response to the way that Big East football was originally formatted in 1990, that said you needed 8 full members who sponsored football to be an FBS conference. UConn was in the process of upgrading, giving them their 8th, so Temple was superfluous. Villanova and friends weren’t going to let Temple have full membership replacing one of the spots vacated by Miami, VT, and BC.

So Temple ended up being the odd man out.

Yes, they had poor attendance and didn’t win very many conference games but neither did Rutgers. If it was truly about being good at football and putting butts in seats Rutgers had done nothing from 1990-2004 to merit inclusion either but they got upgraded to full member status in 1995.

Rutgers was also a state flagship and an AAU member. Temple is neither. So there was bound to be more support for Rutgers from administrators.

(02-19-2021 12:12 PM)Fighting Muskie Wrote:  A lot of folks point to The Big East terminating their football affiliate relationship with Temple and just condense it down to “Temple sucked, so they got kicked out”.

The truth is far more complicated than that. Villanova wanted them gone and Villanova had lots of friends willing to vote with them.

There was also NCAA rules working against them. There was legislation passed, presumably in response to the way that Big East football was originally formatted in 1990, that said you needed 8 full members who sponsored football to be an FBS conference. UConn was in the process of upgrading, giving them their 8th, so Temple was superfluous. Villanova and friends weren’t going to let Temple have full membership replacing one of the spots vacated by Miami, VT, and BC.

So Temple ended up being the odd man out.

Yes, they had poor attendance and didn’t win very many conference games but neither did Rutgers. If it was truly about being good at football and putting butts in seats Rutgers had done nothing from 1990-2004 to merit inclusion either but they got upgraded to full member status in 1995.

Think your reaching with the above bolded statement in red. I believe only the FB schools voted on FB issues in the BE once Miami, Rutgers, WV, and VT were added and it became a conference sport. That said much of Temple's problem was self inflicted from the President's office who wanted to eliminate FB altogether at the time they were kicked out. He basically called the BE bluff on the requirements to stay in the league while using BE FB money on other projects at Temple. Once that president was eliminated Temple began the long trek back to BE membership through FB independence and a stay in the MAC for FB only.

(02-19-2021 12:38 PM)CitrusUCF Wrote:  

(02-19-2021 12:12 PM)Fighting Muskie Wrote:  A lot of folks point to The Big East terminating their football affiliate relationship with Temple and just condense it down to “Temple sucked, so they got kicked out”.

The truth is far more complicated than that. Villanova wanted them gone and Villanova had lots of friends willing to vote with them.

There was also NCAA rules working against them. There was legislation passed, presumably in response to the way that Big East football was originally formatted in 1990, that said you needed 8 full members who sponsored football to be an FBS conference. UConn was in the process of upgrading, giving them their 8th, so Temple was superfluous. Villanova and friends weren’t going to let Temple have full membership replacing one of the spots vacated by Miami, VT, and BC.

So Temple ended up being the odd man out.

Yes, they had poor attendance and didn’t win very many conference games but neither did Rutgers. If it was truly about being good at football and putting butts in seats Rutgers had done nothing from 1990-2004 to merit inclusion either but they got upgraded to full member status in 1995.

Rutgers was also a state flagship and an AAU member. Temple is neither. So there was bound to be more support for Rutgers from administrators.

Yes, flagship status is very important. It's no accident that of all the state flagship universities that play FBS football, only three - Wyoming, New Mexico and UConn - are not in P5 conferences.

(02-19-2021 12:56 PM)quo vadis Wrote:  

(02-19-2021 12:38 PM)CitrusUCF Wrote:  

(02-19-2021 12:12 PM)Fighting Muskie Wrote:  A lot of folks point to The Big East terminating their football affiliate relationship with Temple and just condense it down to “Temple sucked, so they got kicked out”.

The truth is far more complicated than that. Villanova wanted them gone and Villanova had lots of friends willing to vote with them.

There was also NCAA rules working against them. There was legislation passed, presumably in response to the way that Big East football was originally formatted in 1990, that said you needed 8 full members who sponsored football to be an FBS conference. UConn was in the process of upgrading, giving them their 8th, so Temple was superfluous. Villanova and friends weren’t going to let Temple have full membership replacing one of the spots vacated by Miami, VT, and BC.

So Temple ended up being the odd man out.

Yes, they had poor attendance and didn’t win very many conference games but neither did Rutgers. If it was truly about being good at football and putting butts in seats Rutgers had done nothing from 1990-2004 to merit inclusion either but they got upgraded to full member status in 1995.

Rutgers was also a state flagship and an AAU member. Temple is neither. So there was bound to be more support for Rutgers from administrators.

Yes, flagship status is very important. It's no accident that of all the state flagship universities that play FBS football, only three - Wyoming, New Mexico and UConn - are not in P5 conferences.

You forgot UMass, Nevada, Hawaii, and depending on how you view it, Buffalo.

(02-19-2021 02:15 PM)HartfordHusky Wrote:  

(02-19-2021 12:56 PM)quo vadis Wrote:  

(02-19-2021 12:38 PM)CitrusUCF Wrote:  

(02-19-2021 12:12 PM)Fighting Muskie Wrote:  A lot of folks point to The Big East terminating their football affiliate relationship with Temple and just condense it down to “Temple sucked, so they got kicked out”.

The truth is far more complicated than that. Villanova wanted them gone and Villanova had lots of friends willing to vote with them.

There was also NCAA rules working against them. There was legislation passed, presumably in response to the way that Big East football was originally formatted in 1990, that said you needed 8 full members who sponsored football to be an FBS conference. UConn was in the process of upgrading, giving them their 8th, so Temple was superfluous. Villanova and friends weren’t going to let Temple have full membership replacing one of the spots vacated by Miami, VT, and BC.

So Temple ended up being the odd man out.

Yes, they had poor attendance and didn’t win very many conference games but neither did Rutgers. If it was truly about being good at football and putting butts in seats Rutgers had done nothing from 1990-2004 to merit inclusion either but they got upgraded to full member status in 1995.

Rutgers was also a state flagship and an AAU member. Temple is neither. So there was bound to be more support for Rutgers from administrators.

Yes, flagship status is very important. It's no accident that of all the state flagship universities that play FBS football, only three - Wyoming, New Mexico and UConn - are not in P5 conferences.

You forgot UMass, Nevada, Hawaii, and depending on how you view it, Buffalo.

I don't think anyone in NY views Buffalo as the state flagship

(02-19-2021 10:55 AM)schmolik Wrote:  

(02-19-2021 10:12 AM)panite Wrote:  

(02-15-2021 11:33 AM)Fighting Muskie Wrote:  The Northeast never had enough schools looking to play high level football to make a stable League:

the 8 Ivies, Holy Cross, and Villanova weren’t in any condition to be playing top flight football.

Army and Navy were long past their days of national relevance.

That left BC, Syracuse, Pitt, Penn St, WVU, and two barely passable programs in Rutgers and Temple.

Even if those 7 had a conference with Miami and VT, Miami and VT were always going to be flight risks because the ACC was a better geographic fit.

If ND was the 10th football program in that conference, maybe they stick together but getting them to join is stay was not likely to happen.

That left BC, Syracuse, Pitt, Penn St, WVU, and two barely passable programs in Rutgers and Temple.

Six out out of seven made the big time in P5 conferences.

Yep and my Philly boys were the one left out :(
You don't think the fact that the Big East rejected us basically told everyone else we weren't good enough?

No I think Temples record year after year told everyone they were not good enough.

If Temple was crushing it in FB they would have been invited.

(02-19-2021 03:00 PM)Arch Stanton Wrote:  

(02-19-2021 02:15 PM)HartfordHusky Wrote:  

(02-19-2021 12:56 PM)quo vadis Wrote:  

(02-19-2021 12:38 PM)CitrusUCF Wrote:  

(02-19-2021 12:12 PM)Fighting Muskie Wrote:  A lot of folks point to The Big East terminating their football affiliate relationship with Temple and just condense it down to “Temple sucked, so they got kicked out”.

The truth is far more complicated than that. Villanova wanted them gone and Villanova had lots of friends willing to vote with them.

There was also NCAA rules working against them. There was legislation passed, presumably in response to the way that Big East football was originally formatted in 1990, that said you needed 8 full members who sponsored football to be an FBS conference. UConn was in the process of upgrading, giving them their 8th, so Temple was superfluous. Villanova and friends weren’t going to let Temple have full membership replacing one of the spots vacated by Miami, VT, and BC.

So Temple ended up being the odd man out.

Yes, they had poor attendance and didn’t win very many conference games but neither did Rutgers. If it was truly about being good at football and putting butts in seats Rutgers had done nothing from 1990-2004 to merit inclusion either but they got upgraded to full member status in 1995.

Rutgers was also a state flagship and an AAU member. Temple is neither. So there was bound to be more support for Rutgers from administrators.

Yes, flagship status is very important. It's no accident that of all the state flagship universities that play FBS football, only three - Wyoming, New Mexico and UConn - are not in P5 conferences.

You forgot UMass, Nevada, Hawaii, and depending on how you view it, Buffalo.

I don't think anyone in NY views Buffalo as the state flagship

I don't view Buttgers as the state flagship either. At least Buffalo's named after a city in the state.

(02-19-2021 04:00 PM)schmolik Wrote:  

(02-19-2021 03:00 PM)Arch Stanton Wrote:  

(02-19-2021 02:15 PM)HartfordHusky Wrote:  

(02-19-2021 12:56 PM)quo vadis Wrote:  

(02-19-2021 12:38 PM)CitrusUCF Wrote:  Rutgers was also a state flagship and an AAU member. Temple is neither. So there was bound to be more support for Rutgers from administrators.

Yes, flagship status is very important. It's no accident that of all the state flagship universities that play FBS football, only three - Wyoming, New Mexico and UConn - are not in P5 conferences.

You forgot UMass, Nevada, Hawaii, and depending on how you view it, Buffalo.

I don't think anyone in NY views Buffalo as the state flagship

I don't view Buttgers as the state flagship either. At least Buffalo's named after a city in the state.

So what that YOU don't consider it? It simply IS. Legally it's called "Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey." It's one of the 9 original colonial colleges, older than the country itself. The fact that it's not called University of New Jersey or the like sets it apart from the other state universities!

(02-19-2021 12:50 PM)panite Wrote:  

(02-19-2021 12:12 PM)Fighting Muskie Wrote:  A lot of folks point to The Big East terminating their football affiliate relationship with Temple and just condense it down to “Temple sucked, so they got kicked out”.

The truth is far more complicated than that. Villanova wanted them gone and Villanova had lots of friends willing to vote with them.

There was also NCAA rules working against them. There was legislation passed, presumably in response to the way that Big East football was originally formatted in 1990, that said you needed 8 full members who sponsored football to be an FBS conference. UConn was in the process of upgrading, giving them their 8th, so Temple was superfluous. Villanova and friends weren’t going to let Temple have full membership replacing one of the spots vacated by Miami, VT, and BC.

So Temple ended up being the odd man out.

Yes, they had poor attendance and didn’t win very many conference games but neither did Rutgers. If it was truly about being good at football and putting butts in seats Rutgers had done nothing from 1990-2004 to merit inclusion either but they got upgraded to full member status in 1995.

Think your reaching with the above bolded statement in red. I believe only the FB schools voted on FB issues in the BE once Miami, Rutgers, WV, and VT were added and it became a conference sport. That said much of Temple's problem was self inflicted from the President's office who wanted to eliminate FB altogether at the time they were kicked out. He basically called the BE bluff on the requirements to stay in the league while using BE FB money on other projects at Temple. Once that president was eliminated Temple began the long trek back to BE membership through FB independence and a stay in the MAC for FB only.

The long and short of Temple's expulsion from the BE was after the first ACC raid, Temple went to the BE meeting and demanded the vote. Temple thought that it could bluff its way into full membership. Its administration thought the BE needed Temple more than the BE thought it needed Temple. So the all in or all out vote, didn't go its way.
Villanova made a similar miscalculation when it thought it could force the other BE football schools to subsidize the cost of its move up.

I remember WVU having to play at Franklin Field/against Temple because the Vet was being used for something else and the wvu coaches complaining how bad the turf/facilities were. Getting rid of Temple was more then just wins/losses

Jackson

(02-09-2021 05:49 PM)bill dazzle Wrote:  I'm old enough to remember when Penn State men's hoops (this was in the 1970s and 1980s) were truly an afterthought to football. The program was not even remotely known on a national level and rarely enjoyed much more than modest success. No doubt, Penn State inevitably and eventually was bound for the Big Ten — whether it had done a stay in an all-sports Northeast league or not.

Another consideration is that at the time back in in the 80's the two dominant recruiting schools in the Midwest were outside of the B1G; Notre Dame and Penn State.

That is who the B1G thought they needed to become the #1 football conference and they were even willing to take in Penn State by itself as an 11th while giving ND a few more years to come on board.

Penn State in the 80's was on a mission to have one of the largest stadiums in college football. They had outgrown Pitt, Syracuse and WVU. In the 60's they were on the same level but the 70's changed everything.

Penn State is kind of like Texas A&M. They only had 48,000 seats as late as 1976. They are just too big to be in an entry level major conference anymore. XII isn't really entry level but the SWC was and the BE definitely was taking in newbies like Virginia Tech and Rutgers.