dcCid
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I Root For: ACC, Big East
Location: Ft Lauderdale, FL
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RE: Did Pitt and Cuse sabotage the Big East?
(11-22-2011 04:24 PM)LaRue777 Wrote: (11-21-2011 04:58 PM)Dr. Isaly von Yinzer Wrote: Sure do.
Pitt has always fancied itself to be a pseudo-B1G school if not a B1G athletic department. However that could have been accomplished with the benefit of so much more B1G money.
Also, Pitt is not a land grant university like so many B1G schools and that too hurt it. However, like many B1G schools, Pitt IS a research GIANT with most of that money coming in medicine and science. It is a very good school and a very difficult school to get into. Having been to most B1G campuses, I would say that Pitt's is most similar to Michigan's or Minnesota's but smaller. Urban but not Temple urban.
Several times over the years Pitt applied to and was denied admission into the B1G. Most famously was the time in the 40s when the school applied, was reportedly accepted, and announced to the world that it was B1G bound only to learn a few days later that they had been misinformed and that Michigan State was chosen in their place. That caused hard feelings for many years.
Then, during last year's B1G expansion process, as things were playing out it became clear that Pitt was not going to get a fair shake no matter what. According to the media consultants, of the available candidates, only Notre Dame's and Nebraska's television numbers were better than Pitt's and Pitt's research numbers - which the B1G said would be important when the process began - were significantly higher than both NU's and ND's. However what it all came down to was the BTN was already on in PA and Pitt wouldn't drive those subscriptions any further. Also, we were told, Penn State was leading the charge against Pitt and were instead championing Rutgers' cause.
That was neither surprising nor unexpected. It is not that dissimilar to what USF has been doing to UCF, vis-a-vie the Big East.
However during that period the Pitt fans and admin began having something of an epiphany regarding the ACC. The Panther brass' research showed that the ACC's schools were generally similarly sized (Pitt has 18K undergrad), were also research powers, and like Pitt (which has an endowment north of $2 million), most ACC schools were similarly well endowed. Also like Pitt, many of the ACC's schools took football and basketball very seriously. Finally, and most significantly, Pitt's research showed that most of that school's alums who had left the area had settled in VA, NC and FLA - prime ACC areas.
As an example, three years ago when Pitt played at Navy, Pitt had approximately 25K fans there - which is MUCH higher than Pitt normally travels. The speculation was that the large Pitt crowd was there in part because so many of them already lived in the DC metro and this was an easy opportunity to see their Panthers play. I expect the same kind of turnout for our games against Maryland and to a lesser degree, Virginia and Virginia Tech as well. In the years before the Hokies left for the ACC, that game was truning into a pretty spirited contest. Hopefully that picks up where it left off starting in 2013.
The more we looked at it all the more enticing the ACC became as we saw a really good fit on a lot of levels - both academic and athletic. I think we are very similar to Maryland with not quite as much basketball success but with quite a bit more football success. I'd be very surprised if we didn't eventually blossom into fierce rivals, especially given the pre-existing rivalries between the Steelers and the Ravens and between the Penguins and the Capitals. Also, we had previous relationships with three ACC schools: Miami, Virginia Tech and especially Boston College - whom we had played against for decades.
Also there is the issue of everyone being relatively close and playing all of our league games in the same time zone. That is a bigger deal than people might imagine. As for the distance thing, somebody on the Pitt board crunched the numbers and figured out that there are something like eight or nine ACC schools that are closer to Pittsburgh than the closest B12 school. That is a pretty big difference and likely why Pitt was pushing so hard to be accompanied by regional rivals if it was going to join the B12.
There is no question that right now the best teams in the B12 are better than the ACC's top teams. However between the cultural differences that would have existed, the way that league is run (all Texas all the time), the way the revs had been split and repeatedly fought over in the B12 vs. the ACC's historically egalitarian approach and the overall cultures of the institutions, it really became an easy decision.
Don't get me wrong, West Virginia will do just fine in the B12 and being a geographic and cultural outlier there is certainly preferrable to being stuck in the still wildly erratic Big East. However, if they are being honest, if given the choice, like us they would have chosen the ACC 10 out of 10 times for all of the reasons listed above. That said I'm sure that they would feel a helluva lot better about things if the B12 were to make room for Louisville and Cincinnati to join WVU.
Baloney, Pitt and WVU are in a similar position with regard to region, sports and academics. As an easy access state school WvU may be more open in their admissions (and failures) but their -graduates- have a record of success.
Beat Pitt
DR - thanks for sharing. I'm a caps fanand the rivarly with the Penguins is intense. Huge number of people here from Pittsburgh. Some bars in DC cater to Steeler fans during the football season.
LaRue - the statement was that WVA's first choice would probably be teh ACC. Academics is an excuse, WVA's mission is diferent so it skews whatever the stats are. In my opinion the underlying issue there is WVA leaving the conference that VA and NC played for back in 1861. The Germanys have reuinted, maybe someday the Virginia's will.
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