(09-09-2017 10:57 PM)TripleA Wrote:  

(09-08-2017 10:52 PM)Fighting Muskie Wrote:  Can anyone recall for me why the Great Midwest Conference formed?

As I recall the Metro had just lost South Carolina and Florida St but why did Cincinnati and Memphis feel the need to bolt and join the Midwestern Catholic schools and UAB?

Did it have something to do with a feud with Louisville?

I couldn't recall the details, so I asked around at Memphis. Before the Great Midwest, the Metro tried to become a Super Conference:

The Metro was active too, commissioning Raycom in early 1990 to do a study on the viability of adding football to the conference and expanding. Raycom’s report was very encouraging and led the Metro athletic directors to pursue a 16-team “Super Metro” conference in which all 16 teams would play basketball, but “only” 12 would play football. The Super Metro would have included West Virginia, Pitt, Boston College, East Carolina, Syracuse and others with Metro members Cincinnati, Florida State, Louisville, Memphis, South Carolina, Southern Mississippi, Tulane and Virginia Tech. The league that would quickly become a football and financial powerhouse. In May of 1990, Raycom presented their information to the Metro athletic directors during the Metro’s yearly meetings in Destin, Florida. The Metro ADs left the meeting enthused and committed to building the Super Metro.

But the Super Metro concept had a number of problems, other than its obvious unwieldy size: Florida State, one of the lynchpins of the Super Metro, wasn’t interested. During the summer of 1990, FSU was wined and dined by the ACC and the SEC, and despite having pined for SEC membership for years, the Seminoles were impressed enough with the ACC’s presentation that in September of 1990, the Noles announced that they were leaving the Metro to join the ACC as the ninth member of that league, starting in 1991.

http://virginiatech.sportswar.com/articl...1978-1990/

Then So Car went to the SEC. Louisville still wanted to make an all sports conference work, but UC and Memphis could never come to an agreement, b/c UL supposedly insisted on a bigger share of revenues.

So UC and Memphis finally gave up, stayed indy in football, and formed the Great Midwest with DePaul, Marquette, St. Louis and UAB.

The Metro was left with 4 schools, and UL finally joined the GMC in 1995. Then a lot of them eventually morphed into CUSA.

Keep in mind this piece was written from Virginia Tech perspective....

VaTech at the time moved its football to The Big East and wanted to keep its basketball in CUSA. Louisville was one of the programs that said no. Louisville knew as soon as The Big East made room for them in basketball they were gone any way. Forcing them to move their basketball to The A10 instead of letting them squat in CUSA for 5 years has made Louisville the enemy to many VaTech fans, so be it. At the time it was the right thing to do.

Louisville was never a member of The GMC. Louisville went from The Metro to CUSA.

What is often forgotten during these how did we end up here and there discussions is Louisville had an opportunity to join The Big East in 1979 but decided against it because of basketball money. Denny Crum and Bill Olsen felt UofL was better served becoming a big fish in The Metro than jumping to The Big East. Louisville fans spent the next 25 years complaining about this decision. Tom Jurich has said the first question he heard in 1997 was "when are you going to get us into The Big East".

Strange how things work out. The question isn't why didn't The Metro Conference play football. The question is what decision did Louisville make that got it into The ACC that Memphis and Cincinnati didn't make? I believe it was never joining The Great Midwest Conference.
CJ