(11-04-2011 08:52 PM)USAFMEDIC Wrote:  

(11-04-2011 08:05 PM)Lolly Popp Wrote:  The problem with the Big East goes back to before its formation. In the 1970s, Penn State wanted to get the Eastern Independents together in one conference, but also wanted unfair advantages and concessions in football, which killed the deal. Pitt was coming off the 1976 national championship and was every bit the equal of the Nittany Lions. So the idea went nowhere at that time.

The second problem came when the Big East was formed. Dave Gavitt and Providence wanted to create the greatest basketball league in NCAA history, based on capturing all the big Northeast markets. Rutgers and Temple were original target schools, but both said no, because they were loyal to Joe Paterno and his plans. Those rejections completely changed the direction of the Big East.

As you know, Seton Hall and Villanova were the second choices in the New Jersey and Philadelphia markets, and the problems began. If the Big East had only included Providence, St. John's, and Georgetown as Catholic schools, it could have still worked out. UConn might have upgraded earlier. BC, Syracuse, Rutgers, and Temple would have eventually gotten Penn State and Pitt voted in.

What happened in real life was Penn State applied in 1982. Five teams voted yes and three voted no (believed by some to be Seton Hall, Villanova, and Georgetown). Problem was they needed six to get in. Then, to prevent Paterno from luring BC and Syracuse to a new conference, the Big East voted to add Pitt instead. This bit of egotistical treachery was basically the point of no return.

A new President took over at Penn State in the late 1980s and decided he wanted them in the Big Ten. At that point, the Big East opted to grab Miami for all sports, to substitute for the star power lost due to Penn State's move. Then they added Rutgers, Temple, Virginia Tech, and West Virginia as football-only members, joining the Hurricanes, BC, Syracuse, and Pitt in the gridiron hybrid.

A huge opportunity was also missed in 1994. CBS offered the football schools a contract to break away, form their own all-sports league, and expand. Instead, they compromised by adding Rutgers and West Virginia for all sports, plus Notre Dame in everything but football. Temple and Virginia Tech got screwed, although the Hokies did eventually get basketball membership, shortly before leaving.

You know the rest, with the ACC pulling off a raid in 2003, followed by the chaos of this year. So the reason the Big East is where it is, in my opinion, is because of bad decisions and half-baked compromises. Rutgers and Temple should have said yes in 1979. Penn State should have been admitted in 1982. The football schools should have taken the money from CBS and broken away in 1994.

Thanks for all the effort. Awesome post. Glad I asked. I think a lot of us just know the details and history of the BE. I cannot believe they turned down Penn State. That rates right up there with Coke refusing to pay $29,000 for a bankrupt Pepsi...

No, it doesn't. Adding Penn State to a basketball conference made little or no sense at the time. And trying to get to an all sports conference via a basketball conference would only have left us with the same mess of a hybrid that we have today.

What's more, Penn State never would have stayed in the Big East even if they had been admitted. Bryce Jordan arrived at Penn State the following year with the express purpose of taking them to the Big Ten. Membership in the Big East would not have changed that.

(11-04-2011 08:53 PM)Melky Cabrera Wrote:  

(11-04-2011 08:15 PM)USAFMEDIC Wrote:  

(11-04-2011 07:44 PM)Melky Cabrera Wrote:  

(11-04-2011 06:54 PM)USAFMEDIC Wrote:  I know there are lot of opinions regarding the status of the BE....

What I would like to know is this....what went so wrong that teams started leaving in the first place? Something must have been out of place, or unaddressed by the conference leadership. I see the BB schools voting on FB issues as a major problem, but what else? Was it simply money? This should have remained a top conference. Schools with lots of money. Massive recruiting base. Huge TV markets....You have cities with larger populations than most SEC/Big XII states. I don't get it.

I know you BE folks know the deal here. Sound off

Rather than dealing with this question in isolation, it would probably be more enlightening to like at the Big XII as well. It's not like this has happened in isolation & that the Big East is the only conference affected.

The Big East has lost 3 members & one additional school has had a change of heart after initially accepting membership but before ever becoming part of the conference.

The Big XII has lost 4 members over the past year & a half. In addition, they had 4 other members on the verge of leaving for the Pac 10/12 not once but twice within a year.

I know all about the Big XII. I am asking what happened to the BE. I think at least the Big XII is working out their issues and will be fine now. Up until the WVU situation, the Big XII had nothing to do with the BE problems. If the BE didn't have issues then maybe the Big XII would still be sitting at eight schools without Misouri...

I was trying to make a point, which you seem to have missed.

All of this has taken place in a climate which has torn apart not one conference but two. And we can trace it back a decade and a half when it killed the Southwest Conference.

To put this at the feet of the Big East is to ignore everything else that has been going on.

Luck always plays a little bit of a role in anything that happens in life. A year & a half ago, every credible report had 5 schools leaving the Big XII & joining Colorado in the Pac-10. If that had happened, the Big East would have been absorbing Big XII members. But something went wrong at the 11th hour, the Big XII reorganized & we are left with current circumstances that have resulted from a chain of events, most recently triggered by the Big Ten's announcement of expansion 2 years ago.

I gotcha... point taken. The irony of it all is that if the four Big XII schools had gone to the PAC 12/16, KU, Kansas State, and Iowa State, and possibly Mizzou, would have all probably gone to the BE. TCU would have stayed. WVU might have went to the SEC...who knows. They might have chosen to stay, and all would have been great. BE FB would have been good and BB would have been SICK. I know Mizzou took heat for the B1G fiasco last year, but this year we werent looking until A&M started the drama and the other four announced they were looking. Mizzou warmed up to the SEC in the mean time, and I feel was just too far into the process of leaving when the PAC thing fell apart. I am not sure at first even Mizzou saw the SEC thing coming their way.

(11-04-2011 08:52 PM)Native Georgian Wrote:  

(11-04-2011 08:40 PM)Melky Cabrera Wrote:  1. Penn State left the old Eastern Eight with the intent of organizing an all sports league in June, 1979. So, yes, they began this effort "in the 1970's" but only in the last 6 months of the 1970's. The effort rightfully belongs in the early '80's.

4. The new president at Penn State was Bryce Jordan & he did not take over in the late 1980's. He began in 1983, a little over a year after Penn State was rejected by the Big East. He stated from day one that it was his intention to take Penn State to the Big Ten & he made that his mission throughout his presidency. Even if Penn State had been admitted to the Big East - then a fledgling conference in its early stages - there is no way that he would have been deterred from his goal by such an association that didn't include football & didn't include the research component (CIC) that accompanies Big Ten membership.

Penn State's "command decision" to get into the Big Ten at all costs was only made AFTER Paterno's attempt to create a Northeastern-based all-sports conference failed, and only AFTER Penn State was rejected by the Big East.

I will always believe that if a Northeastern-based all-sports league had been formed in 1978/79 with Penn State at its center -- (in terms of geography, demography, and media-attention) -- then Penn State would have remained there and been very content. Obviously, we will never get the chance to play that scenario out, so no one will ever know for sure.

You can believe that all you want but you will be doing so in the face of everything we know about Penn State.

Moreover, you are connecting two completely unrelated scenarios - 1978/79 Gavitt's successful Big East formation & Paterno's failed all sports conference formation and 1982's failed Penn State candidacy for the Big East. The 2nd event would never have led to the earlier failed effort.

The failure of Paterno's all sports effort simply demonstrated that the candidates simply didn't have enough in common to come together as a conference. Penn State wanted to much power & preferential treatment while the others didn't have enough going for them to force PSU to compromise.

PSU's 1982 candidacy for the Big East was not the potential start of something it was the end of something. It was Paterno's admission after 3 years of all sports independence that the all sports conference was nto going to come together in the East & that he needed somewhere to park his other sports. He had given up on the all sports conference & was not seeking it in the Big East.

Jordan's quest for the Big Ten was not a sports move. He was a university president, an academician. His background was Texas. It was big school & big time athletics. But most of all his desire was big research dollars. It was also an attempt to find an identity for Penn State which had spent generations in the shadow of the Ivy League & was not regarded academically the way it is today.

Penn State football was also not regarded athletically then the way it later came to be viewed. It had long been viewed as the regional football power in the East, but it had only just won its first national championship, a year after Clemson. It took their 2nd championship 4 years later to cement their stature & to make them more significant than Clemson.

Anyone who thinks that Penn State was the salvation for Eastern football is whistling in the dark.

(11-04-2011 07:40 PM)Melky Cabrera Wrote:  

(11-04-2011 07:29 PM)Jackson1011 Wrote:  I also think that is going to be a major challenge for BE bball in the future because the East's most popular hoops team, Syracuse, is now no longer in the league either

Jackson

Syracuse has been supplanted by UConn as the region's premier hoops program.

He said popular, not successful. Nobody likes UConn.

(11-04-2011 09:31 PM)Jeepers44 Wrote:  

(11-04-2011 07:40 PM)Melky Cabrera Wrote:  

(11-04-2011 07:29 PM)Jackson1011 Wrote:  I also think that is going to be a major challenge for BE bball in the future because the East's most popular hoops team, Syracuse, is now no longer in the league either

Jackson

Syracuse has been supplanted by UConn as the region's premier hoops program.

He said popular, not successful. Nobody likes UConn.

Arrgghhh! :muttering:

(11-04-2011 07:40 PM)Melky Cabrera Wrote:  

(11-04-2011 07:29 PM)Jackson1011 Wrote:  It all goes back to not having Penn St. If the orginial league had Miami and Penn St all of this would have never happened and the hybrid would have worked. You can't have a major Eastern Football League exist without the region's most popular team. It would be like having a SWC without Texas

I also think that is going to be a major challenge for BE bball in the future because the East's most popular hoops team, Syracuse, is now no longer in the league either

Jackson

Syracuse has been supplanted by UConn as the region's premier hoops program.

No doubt Uconn has outperformed Cuse on the court but they still cannot match the Cuse fanbase as far as a following is concerned. Much like Penn State football fans will fill up regional stadiums, Cuse basketball fans will take over an arena if the venue does not cut sales...cough...Georgetown...cough. Check out games against Seton Hall, St. Johns, Gtwon, or USF in recent years. Hasnt been pretty for the home team.

(11-04-2011 09:37 PM)snowycuse Wrote:  

(11-04-2011 07:40 PM)Melky Cabrera Wrote:  

(11-04-2011 07:29 PM)Jackson1011 Wrote:  It all goes back to not having Penn St. If the orginial league had Miami and Penn St all of this would have never happened and the hybrid would have worked. You can't have a major Eastern Football League exist without the region's most popular team. It would be like having a SWC without Texas

I also think that is going to be a major challenge for BE bball in the future because the East's most popular hoops team, Syracuse, is now no longer in the league either

Jackson

Syracuse has been supplanted by UConn as the region's premier hoops program.

No doubt Uconn has outperformed Cuse on the court but they still cannot match the Cuse fanbase as far as a following is concerned. Much like Penn State football fans will fill up regional stadiums, Cuse basketball fans will take over an arena if the venue does not cut sales...cough...Georgetown...cough. Check out games against Seton Hall, St. Johns, Gtwon, or USF in recent years. Hasnt been pretty for the home team.

Still wearing those orange colored glasses, I see.

(11-04-2011 09:41 PM)Melky Cabrera Wrote:  

(11-04-2011 09:37 PM)snowycuse Wrote:  

(11-04-2011 07:40 PM)Melky Cabrera Wrote:  

(11-04-2011 07:29 PM)Jackson1011 Wrote:  It all goes back to not having Penn St. If the orginial league had Miami and Penn St all of this would have never happened and the hybrid would have worked. You can't have a major Eastern Football League exist without the region's most popular team. It would be like having a SWC without Texas

I also think that is going to be a major challenge for BE bball in the future because the East's most popular hoops team, Syracuse, is now no longer in the league either

Jackson

Syracuse has been supplanted by UConn as the region's premier hoops program.

No doubt Uconn has outperformed Cuse on the court but they still cannot match the Cuse fanbase as far as a following is concerned. Much like Penn State football fans will fill up regional stadiums, Cuse basketball fans will take over an arena if the venue does not cut sales...cough...Georgetown...cough. Check out games against Seton Hall, St. Johns, Gtwon, or USF in recent years. Hasnt been pretty for the home team.

Still wearing those orange colored glasses, I see.

Nope I just attend basketball games as opposed to posting on a message board pretending that I pay attention to what goes on around me.

(11-04-2011 07:39 PM)Melky Cabrera Wrote:  

(11-04-2011 07:02 PM)WVUMounties Wrote:  The Catholic basketball schools are at the heart of it all.

No, they really aren't. They're simply convenient scapegoats.

The basic fact is that the football schools as a group never really felt comfortable with each other a& were never committed to each other.

You're right and wrong here. The fact that these schools were in a hybrid at all was the biggest part of the problem. The fact that most of our athletic departments have been often led by myopic or even boneheaded morons is the biggest problem. I think the old guard football schools were comfortable with each other until Ollie Luck took over. He definitely made some waves with the whole league. I think the Big 12 was always his master plan if it weren't the SEC. Pitt and RU have very extensive, very strong relationships in particular. As do Cuse and Pitt and Cuse and RU. If ND took the plunge to go ACC this is why Rutgers would narrowly beat out UConn as the #16. Our relationships with Cuse, Pitt and believe it or not Miami whom we're continuing to play in a number of sports including football to this day. Rutgers and UNC have good relations as well. Plus there's the whole BC will fight UConn tooth and nail.

(11-04-2011 06:54 PM)USAFMEDIC Wrote:  I know there are lot of opinions regarding the status of the BE....

What I would like to know is this....what went so wrong that teams started leaving in the first place? Something must have been out of place, or unaddressed by the conference leadership. I see the BB schools voting on FB issues as a major problem, but what else? Was it simply money? This should have remained a top conference. Schools with lots of money. Massive recruiting base. Huge TV markets....You have cities with larger populations than most SEC/Big XII states. I don't get it.

I know you BE folks know the deal here. Sound off

As best as I can recall, The Big East Conference began as a basketball league sometime in the late '70s with a football component (the Big East Football Conference or BEFC) added in 1991. Four BE schools with major football programs (Syracuse, Miami, Boston College and Pitt) formed the nucleus of the BEFC and four other schools (VT, WVU, Rutgers, Temple) were added FOR FOOTBALL ONLY even though those four schools wanted BE membership for all sports. Thus from the very beginning the Big East was a fractured conference with some schools more equal than others. Rutgers and WVU were granted full membership sometime in the mid-'90s and VT didn't get full membership until 2000. Temple was kicked out in 2004 and replaced by UConn.

Not only were the schools treated unequally from a membership standpoint but revenue was not divided equally among the football members. The $$$$ were distributed based on a school's performance with Miami getting a disproportionate share and wanting more. Not surprisingly, this mess of a "Conference" was seen as unstable, so when the ACC came calling in 2003, Miami and Virginia Tech (elbowing its way past Syracuse) jumped with BC following in 2004. ACC $$$$ payout per school was higher than the BE payout, but most importantly, all ACC schools were/are treated EQUALLY (sound familiar B-12?).

As I see it, the Big East's major flaw is its hybrid nature with some schools in for all sports and some not; some playing big-time football and others not. The schizophrenia continues with SMU, UCF and Houston coming in for all-sports and BSU, AFA, and Navy coming in for FB only. For whatever reason the football schools of the Big East have been/are unable to break away from the basketball schools to form their all-sports conference. It's too late for that now so the Big East will continue to be unstable with Louisville probably the next school out the door if/when the B-12 comes calling.

(11-04-2011 09:53 PM)brista21 Wrote:  

(11-04-2011 07:39 PM)Melky Cabrera Wrote:  

(11-04-2011 07:02 PM)WVUMounties Wrote:  The Catholic basketball schools are at the heart of it all.

No, they really aren't. They're simply convenient scapegoats.

The basic fact is that the football schools as a group never really felt comfortable with each other a& were never committed to each other.

You're right and wrong here. The fact that these schools were in a hybrid at all was the biggest part of the problem. The fact that most of our athletic departments have been often led by myopic or even boneheaded morons is the biggest problem. I think the old guard football schools were comfortable with each other until Ollie Luck took over. He definitely made some waves with the whole league. I think the Big 12 was always his master plan if it weren't the SEC. Pitt and RU have very extensive, very strong relationships in particular. As do Cuse and Pitt and Cuse and RU. If ND took the plunge to go ACC this is why Rutgers would narrowly beat out UConn as the #16. Our relationships with Cuse, Pitt and believe it or not Miami whom we're continuing to play in a number of sports including football to this day. Rutgers and UNC have good relations as well. Plus there's the whole BC will fight UConn tooth and nail.

Agree on almost all points.

1. The hybrid has certainly been a problem at times, but how is that the fault of the BB schoosl. It's not like they approached the FB schools & imposed themselves on them. Just the opposite. It was teh football schools who repeatedly clamored to get into a conference that originally had only 2 FB schools & 6 BB schools.

2. I agree that Luck has been a bigger problem in all of this than almost anyone wants to acknowledge.

3. I agree that ND would much prefer Rutgers as #16 over UConn, which means that the ACC would prefer Rutgers over UConn in that scenario. Rutgers- UConn is a natural rivalry & I hope that this develops more fully over the years to come.

(11-04-2011 09:42 PM)snowycuse Wrote:  

(11-04-2011 09:41 PM)Melky Cabrera Wrote:  

(11-04-2011 09:37 PM)snowycuse Wrote:  

(11-04-2011 07:40 PM)Melky Cabrera Wrote:  

(11-04-2011 07:29 PM)Jackson1011 Wrote:  It all goes back to not having Penn St. If the orginial league had Miami and Penn St all of this would have never happened and the hybrid would have worked. You can't have a major Eastern Football League exist without the region's most popular team. It would be like having a SWC without Texas

I also think that is going to be a major challenge for BE bball in the future because the East's most popular hoops team, Syracuse, is now no longer in the league either

Jackson

Syracuse has been supplanted by UConn as the region's premier hoops program.

No doubt Uconn has outperformed Cuse on the court but they still cannot match the Cuse fanbase as far as a following is concerned. Much like Penn State football fans will fill up regional stadiums, Cuse basketball fans will take over an arena if the venue does not cut sales...cough...Georgetown...cough. Check out games against Seton Hall, St. Johns, Gtwon, or USF in recent years. Hasnt been pretty for the home team.

Still wearing those orange colored glasses, I see.

Nope I just attend basketball games as opposed to posting on a message board pretending that I pay attention to what goes on around me.

Nice try. I'm a UConn season ticket holder & have attended games all over the East Coast.

Self-aggrandizing is never an attractive quality in a poster. (Just teasing, but I couldn't resist the opportunity to yank your chain a little bit.)

(11-04-2011 09:55 PM)PhiladelphiaVT Wrote:  

(11-04-2011 06:54 PM)USAFMEDIC Wrote:  I know there are lot of opinions regarding the status of the BE....

What I would like to know is this....what went so wrong that teams started leaving in the first place? Something must have been out of place, or unaddressed by the conference leadership. I see the BB schools voting on FB issues as a major problem, but what else? Was it simply money? This should have remained a top conference. Schools with lots of money. Massive recruiting base. Huge TV markets....You have cities with larger populations than most SEC/Big XII states. I don't get it.

I know you BE folks know the deal here. Sound off

As best as I can recall, The Big East Conference began as a basketball league sometime in the late '70s with a football component (the Big East Football Conference or BEFC) added in 1991. Four BE schools with major football programs (Syracuse, Miami, Boston College and Pitt) formed the nucleus of the BEFC and four other schools (VT, WVU, Rutgers, Temple) were added FOR FOOTBALL ONLY even though those four schools wanted BE membership for all sports. Thus from the very beginning the Big East was a fractured conference with some schools more equal than others. Rutgers and WVU were granted full membership sometime in the mid-'90s and VT didn't get full membership until 2000. Temple was kicked out in 2004 and replaced by UConn.

Not only were the schools treated unequally from a membership standpoint but revenue was not divided equally among the football members. The $$$$ were distributed based on a school's performance with Miami getting a disproportionate share and wanting more. Not surprisingly, this mess of a "Conference" was seen as unstable, so when the ACC came calling in 2003, Miami and Virginia Tech (elbowing its way past Syracuse) jumped with BC following in 2004. ACC $$$$ payout per school was higher than the BE payout, but most importantly, all ACC schools were/are treated EQUALLY (sound familiar B-12?).

As I see it, the Big East's major flaw is its hybrid nature with some schools in for all sports and some not; some playing big-time football and others not. The schizophrenia continues with SMU, UCF and Houston coming in for all-sports and BSU, AFA, and Navy coming in for FB only. For whatever reason the football schools of the Big East have been/are unable to break away from the basketball schools to form their all-sports conference. It's too late for that now so the Big East will continue to be unstable with Louisville probably the next school out the door if/when the B-12 comes calling.

You make a series of great points.

(11-04-2011 09:37 PM)snowycuse Wrote:  

(11-04-2011 07:40 PM)Melky Cabrera Wrote:  

(11-04-2011 07:29 PM)Jackson1011 Wrote:  It all goes back to not having Penn St. If the orginial league had Miami and Penn St all of this would have never happened and the hybrid would have worked. You can't have a major Eastern Football League exist without the region's most popular team. It would be like having a SWC without Texas

I also think that is going to be a major challenge for BE bball in the future because the East's most popular hoops team, Syracuse, is now no longer in the league either

Jackson

Syracuse has been supplanted by UConn as the region's premier hoops program.

No doubt Uconn has outperformed Cuse on the court but they still cannot match the Cuse fanbase as far as a following is concerned. Much like Penn State football fans will fill up regional stadiums, Cuse basketball fans will take over an arena if the venue does not cut sales...cough...Georgetown...cough. Check out games against Seton Hall, St. Johns, Gtwon, or USF in recent years. Hasnt been pretty for the home team.

Syracuse fan base? I lived in the NYC suburbs (NY & CT) until I was 24 years old, and the only fans of Syracuse I ever met were people who had a relative that attended school there.

But I knew plenty of UConn fans who had no direct connection to the school at all.

(11-04-2011 10:03 PM)Melky Cabrera Wrote:  

(11-04-2011 09:42 PM)snowycuse Wrote:  

(11-04-2011 09:41 PM)Melky Cabrera Wrote:  

(11-04-2011 09:37 PM)snowycuse Wrote:  

(11-04-2011 07:40 PM)Melky Cabrera Wrote:  Syracuse has been supplanted by UConn as the region's premier hoops program.

No doubt Uconn has outperformed Cuse on the court but they still cannot match the Cuse fanbase as far as a following is concerned. Much like Penn State football fans will fill up regional stadiums, Cuse basketball fans will take over an arena if the venue does not cut sales...cough...Georgetown...cough. Check out games against Seton Hall, St. Johns, Gtwon, or USF in recent years. Hasnt been pretty for the home team.

Still wearing those orange colored glasses, I see.

Nope I just attend basketball games as opposed to posting on a message board pretending that I pay attention to what goes on around me.

Nice try. I'm a UConn season ticket holder & have attended games all over the East Coast.

Self-aggrandizing is never an attractive quality in a poster. (Just teasing, but I couldn't resist the opportunity to yank your chain a little bit.)

If it makes you feel better I would trade your national championships for our slight attendance edge on the road.

Melky, your posts are coming off as very bitter and condescending, which may not be your intention. First of all, the idea of an Eastern Conference had been floated several times in the 1970s, by several people besides Paterno. But it never happened because no one could see what would happen in the future. As far as the Temple or Villanova invite, there is definitely some fire to that smoke, since Villanova could not clear their schedule to play in the Big East the first year. That means, as I have been told by very reputable people, that they did indeed get the invitation late in the process of forming the Big East.

As far as 1982, sure Penn State had a bad basketball program, and their team would not have helped a snobby urban conference at that time. Nonetheless, 5/8 of the Big East still wanted Penn State to join, and three Catholic basketball schools kept them out. This is an issue of not having vision. Gavitt wanted Penn State in the Big East and fought hard to sway everyone to vote yes. He knew that large state schools were going to be the wave of the future. The people casting votes that day only had shortsighted issues and personality clashes on their minds. Crouthamel himself says the outcome was a mistake.

What many people feel is that, if Penn State had been admitted to the Big East in 1982, it would have eventually morphed from a basketball conference into an all-sports league on its own. Even if Jordan wanted to move Penn State to the Big Ten, the fact that they were in the Big East rather than the A-10, could have bought Paterno some extra time to convince the Big East to add football. Big East basketball was all the rage in the 1980s and there is no doubt Penn State would have benefitted from the association, even if the school's own team was constantly getting their butts kicked all over the hardwood.

This would have then meant that, when Notre Dame signed their blockbuster NBC contract, Florida State joined the ACC, and Arkansas and South Carolina joined the SEC, the Big East schools would have realized which way the winds were blowing, and got together for football on their own accord. BC, Syracuse, Penn State, and Pitt would have been able to convince UConn, Providence, St. John's, Seton Hall, Villanova, and Georgetown that Rutgers, Temple, West Virginia, and Virginia Tech needed full membership when the time came. Miami and Notre Dame probably would have never been invited at all.

Perhaps it wouldn't have played out that way in real life, but no one knows, just as you don't know 100% that Penn State would have left the Big East for the Big Ten if they had gotten voted in. This is all speculation and no one has a monopoly on it. At the end of the day, Eastern football has always been terribly fractured due to selfishness, stupidity, and shortsightedness. This remains true today on both the FBS and FCS levels. There is no excuse for no one ever realizing what schools in the South saw, which is that football conferences full of big public universities would be the wave of the future.

(11-04-2011 10:09 PM)UConn-SMU Wrote:  

(11-04-2011 09:37 PM)snowycuse Wrote:  

(11-04-2011 07:40 PM)Melky Cabrera Wrote:  

(11-04-2011 07:29 PM)Jackson1011 Wrote:  It all goes back to not having Penn St. If the orginial league had Miami and Penn St all of this would have never happened and the hybrid would have worked. You can't have a major Eastern Football League exist without the region's most popular team. It would be like having a SWC without Texas

I also think that is going to be a major challenge for BE bball in the future because the East's most popular hoops team, Syracuse, is now no longer in the league either

Jackson

Syracuse has been supplanted by UConn as the region's premier hoops program.

No doubt Uconn has outperformed Cuse on the court but they still cannot match the Cuse fanbase as far as a following is concerned. Much like Penn State football fans will fill up regional stadiums, Cuse basketball fans will take over an arena if the venue does not cut sales...cough...Georgetown...cough. Check out games against Seton Hall, St. Johns, Gtwon, or USF in recent years. Hasnt been pretty for the home team.

Syracuse fan base? I lived in the NYC suburbs (NY & CT) until I was 24 years old, and the only fans of Syracuse I ever met were people who had a relative that attended school there.

But I knew plenty of UConn fans who had no direct connection to the school at all.

Wait you mean you met more Uconn fans growing up around CT than Cuse? You dont say.

A couple of further points:

(1) The hybrid in and of itself didn't cause instability. The Big 12 has always been an all-sports league and it also got completely poached. So, just because you're an all-sports league doesn't mean tht you get stability. What the Big East and Big 12 have in common is that they have been marriages of TV convenience from the very beginning. Both conferences were explicitly created for TV purposes (major Northeastern basketball markets for the Big East, combining the old Big 8 with the Texas market for the Big 12) and even when looking at their respective expansions/replacements the past few weeks, there really isn't any bond beyond a TV arrangement. While expansion for the Big Ten, Pac-12, ACC and SEC all certainly had TV interests very high on the list, there are still bonds that go beyond solely money (academics, cultural fit, etc.). If you're only in a league for money, then it's easy to ditch that league when another one offers more money. If you're in a league where you have other intertwined interests (i.e. the CIC with the Big Ten), then it's much harder to leave just for football money.

(2) As others have stated, the fact that Penn State was never in the Big East meant that the football conference was going to be vulnerable from day one. While there has been a lot of debate here about who was to "blame" for PSU not ending up in the Big East (and frankly, I believe they would've ended up in the Big Ten, anyway, as the academic factor cannot be overstated), it's clear that a league claiming to be a Northeastern conference would have a limit in terms of traction without the most popular Northeastern school.

(3) For the aforementioned reasons, there's only so much the Big East leaders could've done over the years. That's not to say that they didn't make poor choices at times (as they definitely did), but absolutely nothing would've stopped Miami from going to the ACC. That was the school's "goal" conference and they were going to jump at an invite from them no matter what. Once that occurred, any Big East school going forward was going to take an ACC invite immediately, as well. Adding more football schools after 2003 would never have stopped Syracuse, Pitt and WVU from leaving this year.

Frankly, it's amazing that the Big East has survived up to this point. It has been (and will continue to be) completely poachable by the other 5 AQ conferences and nothing is going to change that. However, the Big East can continue to survive by reinventing itself as it will be in a position to grab the top non-AQ programs later on even with further defections occur.

(11-04-2011 06:54 PM)USAFMEDIC Wrote:  I know there are lot of opinions regarding the status of the BE....

What I would like to know is this....what went so wrong that teams started leaving in the first place? Something must have been out of place, or unaddressed by the conference leadership. I see the BB schools voting on FB issues as a major problem, but what else? Was it simply money? This should have remained a top conference. Schools with lots of money. Massive recruiting base. Huge TV markets....You have cities with larger populations than most SEC/Big XII states. I don't get it.

Several reasons:

1) Big East has always been the smallest BCS Football Conf out there playing the fewest conf games....which always lead to the smallest TV contract....as the Catholic Hoop Schools stopped football expansion for years because they were always afraid of losing a power struggle (and/or an eventual split if the football side got too big).

2) Big East was the only BCS Conf with 3 different type of major hybrid members:

a) All-sports members that played Big East Conf Football

b) 7 Catholic Hoop schools that did not play Div I-A Football

c) 1 Catholic Hoop school that did play Div I-A Football but not as a member of the Big East Football Conf.

3) All the other 5 BCS Conf realized at a much earlier date, that the future TV $$$$ were in FOOTBALL not Basketball.

SEC was the first to make the move when they expanded to 12 teams and added a profitable Championship Conf Game in the early 90's...and the other 4 BCS Conf worked on improving their football side over the last 15-18 years...all except the Big East...which always did the minimum because the power resided in their basketball schools and their basketball commish.

All of the above in regards to the Big East meant that there were multiple agendas ongoing all the time which produced stagflation type atmosphere on the football side (i.e. little to no movement...which kept the football conf small...which kept their tv $$$ small).

That's why the Big East has now lost 7 Football playing schools since 2003...because all of those schools knew that All-sports BCS Conf could bring home a much larger piece of the pie ($$$) than the hybrid Big East conf.

Finally...the Big East leadership (and mostly their Catholic Hoop schools) wasted a YEAR trying to get this Div I-AA Football program invited to join their BCS Football Conf.



Do you think any of the other 5 BCS Conferences would have wasted 5 mins on the possible scenario above, let alone an entire YEAR?

NOTE: For those schools jumping to the Big East from MWC and/or CUSA....its still a huge step up in $$$$$ but the other 5 BCS Conf can offer sooo much more which is why the current Big East football schools are still trying to jump to those conf...just like Pitt, Cuse, TCU and WVU have done....because the $$$ difference is HUGE and only getting worse.

(11-04-2011 10:14 PM)snowycuse Wrote:  

(11-04-2011 10:03 PM)Melky Cabrera Wrote:  

(11-04-2011 09:42 PM)snowycuse Wrote:  

(11-04-2011 09:41 PM)Melky Cabrera Wrote:  

(11-04-2011 09:37 PM)snowycuse Wrote:  No doubt Uconn has outperformed Cuse on the court but they still cannot match the Cuse fanbase as far as a following is concerned. Much like Penn State football fans will fill up regional stadiums, Cuse basketball fans will take over an arena if the venue does not cut sales...cough...Georgetown...cough. Check out games against Seton Hall, St. Johns, Gtwon, or USF in recent years. Hasnt been pretty for the home team.

Still wearing those orange colored glasses, I see.

Nope I just attend basketball games as opposed to posting on a message board pretending that I pay attention to what goes on around me.

Nice try. I'm a UConn season ticket holder & have attended games all over the East Coast.

Self-aggrandizing is never an attractive quality in a poster. (Just teasing, but I couldn't resist the opportunity to yank your chain a little bit.)

If it makes you feel better I would trade your national championships for our slight attendance edge on the road.

Interesting offer. It has its attractions

I'll offer you not one but two championships . . . women's championships in exchange for the attendance edge. Let the negotiations begin.

Just to be fair about it, I'll be up front about the fact that I'll begun my negotiations with the standard practice of filing a lawsuit against you to obtain the attendance edge that I believe is rightfully mine & UConn's. Beware that my most powerful argument in courts will be "Because I said so."