(01-11-2018 05:00 PM)McKinney Wrote:  

(01-11-2018 04:43 PM)MKPitt Wrote:  I know it’s incredibly unlikely but I sometimes wonder what would have happened if the Eastern 8/A-10 (original members: PSU, Pitt, Rutgers, WVU, Villanova, GW, UMass, Duquesne) had decided to add football when it was formed in the late ‘70s and Syracuse, BC and Temple joined to be in a conference with Penn State and Pitt instead of Pitt and Villanova leaving the Eastern 8 for the Big East. Would PSU have left for the B1G? Does Maryland join? Do the football schools eventually break away? Does the Big East become a power basketball conference without Syracuse and Villanova being members? Do UMass and GW become the “powers” instead of UConn and Georgetown? A lot of things could have changed.

This would have been the hypothetical original line-up:
All Sports: PSU, Pitt, Rutgers, WVU, Syracuse, BC, Temple (potentially add an 8th team, maybe Maryland but not likely that would have been possible at the time).
Basketball: Villanova, GW, UMass, Duquesne

Unlikely that we would have become a "power". The University of Massachusetts system was a total mess during the 70s, we removed flagship status from Amherst and fell asleep at the wheel in athletics (and academics). In '78 we made the choice to go from the College Division (already a poor choice we had outgrown in the prior two decades) to I-AA.

We should have gone I-A and been another voice in favor of Paterno's Eastern Conference. At that time we were already competing with I-A or University Division teams with wins against Boston College, Holy Cross, Rutgers, Harvard, and Dartmouth among others.

It would be interesting how football/conferences would have develop if UMass, and had New York designated flagships and went all in on a school.