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Expansion through the years from a Virginia Tech perspective (Metro/BE/ACC)
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4x4hokies Offline
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Expansion through the years from a Virginia Tech perspective (Metro/BE/ACC)
There was a thread a while back about why Virginia Tech hates Louisville. I ran across a thread on TSL about that recently that referenced these articles from 2004 covering that and more.

So read this if you've ever wondered:
Why VT hates Louisville?
Why there was no love lost on the Big East?
What role Warner and Casteen had in getting VT into the ACC?

Also read for a good recap of the failed ACC expansion in 1999 and the drama that led to the 2003 expansion from Virginia Tech's point of view.

It is a 4-part series so you can pick the time period that interests you:
http://virginiatech.sportswar.com/tag/co...rs-series/
10-08-2013 01:00 AM
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Hokie Mark Offline
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RE: Expansion through the years from a Virginia Tech perspective (Metro/BE/ACC)
Good stuff. Brings back some childhood memories.
10-08-2013 04:55 AM
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Gopper Online
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RE: Expansion through the years from a Virginia Tech perspective (Metro/BE/ACC)
lol. In January of 1995, Louisville got together with the other four departing schools and made the one move that gave them the best chance of keeping all their money: they voted Virginia Tech and Virginia Commonwealth out of the Metro, effective at the end of the 1994-95 school year.
10-08-2013 08:01 AM
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CardinalZen Offline
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RE: Expansion through the years from a Virginia Tech perspective (Metro/BE/ACC)
Left unstated is that VT would've been in C-USA had they brought their football program with them. Moral of the story? Everyone looks out for themselves.
10-08-2013 08:31 AM
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Dr. Isaly von Yinzer Offline
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RE: Expansion through the years from a Virginia Tech perspective (Metro/BE/ACC)
(10-08-2013 01:00 AM)4x4hokies Wrote:  There was a thread a while back about why Virginia Tech hates Louisville. I ran across a thread on TSL about that recently that referenced these articles from 2004 covering that and more.

So read this if you've ever wondered:
Why VT hates Louisville?
Why there was no love lost on the Big East?
What role Warner and Casteen had in getting VT into the ACC?

Also read for a good recap of the failed ACC expansion in 1999 and the drama that led to the 2003 expansion from Virginia Tech's point of view.

It is a 4-part series so you can pick the time period that interests you:
http://virginiatech.sportswar.com/tag/co...rs-series/

It sounds to me like Virginia Tech's annual cross-divisional rival should be Louisville instead of Boston College. For it's part, BC can then become UVa's cross-divisional rival.

Boom! Problem solved.
10-08-2013 08:42 AM
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CardinalZen Offline
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RE: Expansion through the years from a Virginia Tech perspective (Metro/BE/ACC)
(10-08-2013 08:42 AM)Dr. Isaly von Yinzer Wrote:  
(10-08-2013 01:00 AM)4x4hokies Wrote:  There was a thread a while back about why Virginia Tech hates Louisville. I ran across a thread on TSL about that recently that referenced these articles from 2004 covering that and more.

So read this if you've ever wondered:
Why VT hates Louisville?
Why there was no love lost on the Big East?
What role Warner and Casteen had in getting VT into the ACC?

Also read for a good recap of the failed ACC expansion in 1999 and the drama that led to the 2003 expansion from Virginia Tech's point of view.

It is a 4-part series so you can pick the time period that interests you:
http://virginiatech.sportswar.com/tag/co...rs-series/

It sounds to me like Virginia Tech's annual cross-divisional rival should be Louisville instead of Boston College. For it's part, BC can then become UVa's cross-divisional rival.

Boom! Problem solved.

Yes. Many Louisville fans have been thinking that our history would jumpstart such rivalry.
10-08-2013 09:26 AM
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dgrace4cards Offline
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RE: Expansion through the years from a Virginia Tech perspective (Metro/BE/ACC)
I agree, VT vs UL should happen, already built in.....latest being Marcus Vick incident with Elvis....would be nice to play regularly
10-08-2013 09:31 AM
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Dr. Isaly von Yinzer Offline
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RE: Expansion through the years from a Virginia Tech perspective (Metro/BE/ACC)
What does that mean?
10-08-2013 09:45 AM
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Lou_C Offline
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RE: Expansion through the years from a Virginia Tech perspective (Metro/BE/ACC)
Wow, that is spectacular. What a fantastic read, thanks for that. I can't believe in all the reading I've done about expansion, I never came across that. I'd read a lot of the sources, but never that piece.

And right on with this:

"The one thing about the whole ACC expansion process that makes me shiver like I’m walking past a graveyard is how ignorant the ACC presidents appeared to be of Virginia Tech, dismissing the Hokies early in the process without knowing much about VT’s athletic finances, academic support, and fan support. With the exception of John Casteen, the ACC presidents were quick to dismiss the Hokies in favor of BC and Syracuse early in the process, without doing their homework. Why? Because Shalala gave those terms to the ACC athletic directors and John Swofford, and they passed them on to the presidents. It’s a good thing for Virginia Tech that Casteen forced the ACC presidents into taking a closer look at VT."

The ACC has made a lot of dumb moves over the years, which I could easily list. But the biggest mistake of all was one that they were saved from despite themselves.

I keep telling myself that this is a new ACC that finally "gets it." I think the moves of the last couple years strongly support that view. But I shudder to think if that hadn't broken the way it did and they didn't add VT.
10-08-2013 10:06 AM
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RE: Expansion through the years from a Virginia Tech perspective (Metro/BE/ACC)
This is some good reading: http://virginiatech.sportswar.com/articl...1978-1990/

This part stands out in a 20/20 hindsight kinda way...

Quote:In 1981, Penn State applied for membership in the eight-team Big East, but in a move that foreshadowed the league’s lack of vision, the Big East voted PSU down 5-3.

Right at that moment, the ACC should have swooped in and wooed, wined-and-dined, and begged Penn State to join them. Man, hindsight is a *****, but she sure is 20/20.
10-08-2013 10:15 AM
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ChrisLords Offline
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RE: Expansion through the years from a Virginia Tech perspective (Metro/BE/ACC)
(10-08-2013 09:45 AM)Dr. Isaly von Yinzer Wrote:  What does that mean?

In the 2006 Gator Bowl Marcus Vick stomped on the back of Elvis Dumervils leg.
10-08-2013 10:19 AM
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RE: Expansion through the years from a Virginia Tech perspective (Metro/BE/ACC)
(10-08-2013 10:06 AM)Lou_C Wrote:  Wow, that is spectacular. What a fantastic read, thanks for that. I can't believe in all the reading I've done about expansion, I never came across that. I'd read a lot of the sources, but never that piece.

And right on with this:

"The one thing about the whole ACC expansion process that makes me shiver like I’m walking past a graveyard is how ignorant the ACC presidents appeared to be of Virginia Tech, dismissing the Hokies early in the process without knowing much about VT’s athletic finances, academic support, and fan support. With the exception of John Casteen, the ACC presidents were quick to dismiss the Hokies in favor of BC and Syracuse early in the process, without doing their homework. Why? Because Shalala gave those terms to the ACC athletic directors and John Swofford, and they passed them on to the presidents. It’s a good thing for Virginia Tech that Casteen forced the ACC presidents into taking a closer look at VT."

The ACC has made a lot of dumb moves over the years, which I could easily list. But the biggest mistake of all was one that they were saved from despite themselves.

I keep telling myself that this is a new ACC that finally "gets it." I think the moves of the last couple years strongly support that view. But I shudder to think if that hadn't broken the way it did and they didn't add VT.

You probably never read it before because up until Techsideline.com joined with Sportwar this past week, it was a pay article. I've used those article for reference many times on the realignment board.
10-08-2013 10:21 AM
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Dr. Isaly von Yinzer Offline
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RE: Expansion through the years from a Virginia Tech perspective (Metro/BE/ACC)
As a Pitt fan who well remembers that time, I just want to set the record straight on this next part and at the very least provide some context...

Quote:In 1981, Penn State applied for membership in the eight-team Big East, but in a move that foreshadowed the league’s lack of vision, the Big East voted PSU down 5-3. At the time, Joe Paterno was the athletic director at Penn State, and he and Temple AD Ernie Casale wanted Syracuse and Boston College to leave the young Big East and form a seven- or eight-team eastern all-sports conference consisting of Boston College, Penn State, Pittsburgh, Rutgers, Syracuse, Temple, and West Virginia, plus perhaps another university.

But BC and Syracuse refused, infatuated with their new basketball league, so Paterno did the next best thing he knew to do and petitioned the Big East for membership. They voted him down in 1981, which didn’t completely kill his idea of an eastern all-sports conference … until Pittsburgh, a long-time PSU rival, accepted the Big East’s offer of membership for the 1982-83 academic year.

It was a classic conference war: the Big East versus Paterno’s unformed eastern all-sports league. Pittsburgh’s move to the Big East dealt a mortal blow to Paterno’s dream and proved to be a fatefully stupid decision on the part of the Panther administration. It didn’t look like a dumb decision at the time, but it was, because it was made with basketball in mind, when in reality football would set the course of intercollegiate athletics in the coming decades. Paterno and Casale knew it then, but the rest of the college sports world wouldn’t know it for another decade.

Their dream of an eastern all-sports conference smashed, PSU and Temple joined WVU and Rutgers in the Eastern Athletic Association, or the Eastern 8, a non-football playing league which later became the Atlantic 10. That’s how things stood through the 1980′s … until Paterno and PSU themselves triggered the next wave of conference realignment, driven this time by football.

I have heard this narrative before and believe me when I tell you that I wish that it was nearly as simple as the author is suggesting. However, it wasn't and that changes the complexion of the entire discussion. I really think a lot of this is shameless historical revisionism on the part of a lot of people to absolve themselves of any of the blame for a Northeastern all sports conference failing to materialize.

You have to understand that back before any of this started, Penn State was always THE financial Beast of the East. They regularly filled their then 76K seat stadium and they graduated annual classes of 30K+ students. They now have a 106K seat stadium and graduate 40K+ students annually. Pitt was probably the next most powerful school in the Northeast and Pitt Stadium held just 56K (which we rarely sold out) and Fitzgerald Field House seated 5K fans for basketball.

Basically they were ALWAYS a Big Ten school playing a Big East schedule.

That MUST be understood before anyone can progress on this issue. Penn State NEVER saw Pitt, Syracuse or Syracuse as their equals and quite frankly, financially speaking, the Nits were absolutely right. Also, at the time you need to understand that West Virginia, Temple and Rutgers were a clear level or two below Pitt, Syracuse and Boston College. Nobody cared what any of those schools thought because they would go along with which ever side prevailed.

Also, up until the late 1960's, Pitt was a private school just like Boston College and Syracuse remain today. We have always been MUCH smaller schools and therefore wielded much less power than did Penn State.

Pitt, Syracuse and Boston College well understood that fact and, perhaps more importantly, so did Joe Paterno. That is why the battle lines were formed as they were: Penn State vs. Syracuse, Boston College and ultimately Pitt.

Paterno wanted to form an Eastern Conference but strictly on his terms. Basically, what he proposed was that all of the revs in every sport but football be shared equally (gate, TV, NCAA Tournament credits, etc.). In football, the gist of it was that every school would keep all of the money it earned in that sport (TV, bowls, gate, etc.). Remember, Penn State consistently filled the 76K seats at Beaver Stadium and they struggled to fill half of 5K seat Rec Hall (not unlike today). Now, you tell me, if you are Syracuse and you just built a domed stadium (Carrier Dome was built in the late 70s) that seats 48K in football but can regularly draw 25K in basketball, would you be for or against that deal?

To me that had nothing/very little to do with those schools overestimating basketball's television future as compared with football. It was more a matter of them looking after their own best interests, just like Penn State was doing.

For Pitt and Penn State, it was even more complicated because at that time there was a very real dislike/mistrust of each other that extended into each other's administrations. I will spare you all of the gory details - and there are many - but I will say that for Pitt the final straw came at the 1979 Eastern Eight league meetings when Penn State's then SID Tim Curley, announced the Nittany Lions' withdraw from the conference via a press release that they slipped under the media and other school administrators' hotel room doors as everyone slept.

There was no discussion and no debate, just a Robert Irsay-esque middle of the night fleeing that left everyone else high and dry. Paterno believed that Penn State could be the "Notre Dame of the East" and for a few years the Nits were completely independent in all sports before realizing that was too difficult even for such a well-heeled school like PSU.

So again, tell me, if you are Pitt's administration and Paterno just three years earlier had pulled that type of bush league BS, would you trust him this time around? Yeah, well neither did Pitt.

Also, Paterno's proposed league was of the following schools:
Penn State, Pitt, West Virginia, Boston College, Syracuse, Rutgers, Temple, Army, Navy and (maybe) Maryland.

Again, you can't have an honest discussion about this issue and leave out Army and Navy - as the author did. That was a MAJOR bone of contention for some of the other schools because they were already being downgraded in the national polls for playing too soft of a schedule. However, Paterno wanted a Northeastern league - not an Eastern league as so many people often state. He wanted cannon fodder for his school and he was never going to invite Miami for example. If he was open to inviting schools like South Carolina, Florida State and Miami then I would view that whole affair quite differently. However that was not his plan. His plan was to kill the Big East in men's basketball and control Northeastern football in the process.

Please note that mine is not an attempt to exonerate or vilify anyone involved in the process. Everyone was looking after their own interests and all of the main players involved were equally intransigent in their positions and as such they all deserve their share of the blame for an all sports league failing to materialize until at least a decade later. However, the notion that one side were visionaries while the other side were too stupid to see the future is just flat out factually incorrect.
(This post was last modified: 10-08-2013 11:55 AM by Dr. Isaly von Yinzer.)
10-08-2013 10:40 AM
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4x4hokies Offline
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RE: Expansion through the years from a Virginia Tech perspective (Metro/BE/ACC)
(10-08-2013 10:21 AM)ChrisLords Wrote:  You probably never read it before because up until Techsideline.com joined with Sportwar this past week, it was a pay article. I've used those article for reference many times on the realignment board.

Just to clarify, TSL has always been Sportswar. Most people never saw the connection though. Sportswar was mostly popular with just VT, UVA, Colorado State, and Colorado.
10-08-2013 10:43 AM
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RE: Expansion through the years from a Virginia Tech perspective (Metro/BE/ACC)
(10-08-2013 10:06 AM)Lou_C Wrote:  Wow, that is spectacular. What a fantastic read, thanks for that. I can't believe in all the reading I've done about expansion, I never came across that. I'd read a lot of the sources, but never that piece.

And right on with this:

"The one thing about the whole ACC expansion process that makes me shiver like I’m walking past a graveyard is how ignorant the ACC presidents appeared to be of Virginia Tech, dismissing the Hokies early in the process without knowing much about VT’s athletic finances, academic support, and fan support. With the exception of John Casteen, the ACC presidents were quick to dismiss the Hokies in favor of BC and Syracuse early in the process, without doing their homework. Why? Because Shalala gave those terms to the ACC athletic directors and John Swofford, and they passed them on to the presidents. It’s a good thing for Virginia Tech that Casteen forced the ACC presidents into taking a closer look at VT."

The ACC has made a lot of dumb moves over the years, which I could easily list. But the biggest mistake of all was one that they were saved from despite themselves.

I keep telling myself that this is a new ACC that finally "gets it." I think the moves of the last couple years strongly support that view. But I shudder to think if that hadn't broken the way it did and they didn't add VT.

To this day, many still do not understand what was truly happening back in 2003. It wasn't that the ACC wasn't aware of VT's football prowess, it was assumed that they were always going to be there for the taking if needed.

And of course, BC and SU were not going to give the ACC what they claimed either, the conference of the entire East Coast. Which is why it made no sense to the everyday sports fan when Swofford used that to justify the expansion.

Just as in 2010, the BiG's real targets were ND, Texas, and either A&M or Nebraska, the ACC's endgame was Miami, ND, and quite possibly PSU (remember the BTN wasn't a factor back then), but definitely they wanted BOTH Miami and ND.

But unlike the egotistical Delany who truly believed he could get three of their four targets above thanks to the BTN (but had to settle for only Nebraska), Swofford knew the ACC had no chance of getting all three of Miami, ND, and PSU right then and there. The ACC needed to do it in increments. Miami had already said they wanted both BC and SU. The thinking was ND would want Pitt and BC while PSU would want any two of BC, SU, and Pitt.

But a funny thing happened on the way to the 2003 expansion and that was ND was showing interest immediately, at least in terms of a partial football membership. And swelled heads like Fox at NC State, Wetherell at FSU, and the Virginia president whose name escapes me for the moment thought they had both Miami (they couldn't go back to the Big East after the stink the jilted BE football schools put up) and ND (believing the Irish had no place to go with the BE falling apart) so they overruled Swofford and told him to secure Miami (which required VT, something the presidents at FSU, GT, and Clemson knew and were probably "in" on it with UVa) and then aggressively pursue ND.

The result was ND couldn't bring themselves to be even a partial with an exclusively southern conference away from their core strength - the Northeast. And even though VT provided way more in terms of football than either SU or BC would have, the truth is the TV money was basically a wash and ACC football still took a dive mostly due to Miami and FSU both taking steps backward.

So no need to "shudder". Swofford knows the prize and has managed to go about trying to secure it in the only way it can be secured (if it can ever be secured), in increments.

Cheers,
Neil
(This post was last modified: 10-08-2013 11:01 AM by omniorange.)
10-08-2013 10:59 AM
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RE: Expansion through the years from a Virginia Tech perspective (Metro/BE/ACC)
(10-08-2013 10:59 AM)omniorange Wrote:  
(10-08-2013 10:06 AM)Lou_C Wrote:  Wow, that is spectacular. What a fantastic read, thanks for that. I can't believe in all the reading I've done about expansion, I never came across that. I'd read a lot of the sources, but never that piece.

And right on with this:

"The one thing about the whole ACC expansion process that makes me shiver like I’m walking past a graveyard is how ignorant the ACC presidents appeared to be of Virginia Tech, dismissing the Hokies early in the process without knowing much about VT’s athletic finances, academic support, and fan support. With the exception of John Casteen, the ACC presidents were quick to dismiss the Hokies in favor of BC and Syracuse early in the process, without doing their homework. Why? Because Shalala gave those terms to the ACC athletic directors and John Swofford, and they passed them on to the presidents. It’s a good thing for Virginia Tech that Casteen forced the ACC presidents into taking a closer look at VT."

The ACC has made a lot of dumb moves over the years, which I could easily list. But the biggest mistake of all was one that they were saved from despite themselves.

I keep telling myself that this is a new ACC that finally "gets it." I think the moves of the last couple years strongly support that view. But I shudder to think if that hadn't broken the way it did and they didn't add VT.

To this day, many still do not understand what was truly happening back in 2003. It wasn't that the ACC wasn't aware of VT's football prowess, it was assumed that they were always going to be there for the taking if needed.

And of course, BC and SU were not going to give the ACC what they claimed either, the conference of the entire East Coast. Which is why it made no sense to the everyday sports fan when Swofford used that to justify the expansion.

Just as in 2010, the BiG's real targets were ND, Texas, and either A&M or Nebraska, the ACC's endgame was Miami, ND, and quite possibly PSU (remember the BTN wasn't a factor back then), but definitely they wanted BOTH Miami and ND.

But unlike the egotistical Delany who truly believed he could get three of their four targets above thanks to the BTN (but had to settle for only Nebraska), Swofford knew the ACC had no chance of getting all three of Miami, ND, and PSU right then and there. The ACC needed to do it in increments. Miami had already said they wanted both BC and SU. The thinking was ND would want Pitt and BC while PSU would want any two of BC, SU, and Pitt.

But a funny thing happened on the way to the 2003 expansion and that was ND was showing interest immediately, at least in terms of a partial football membership. And swelled heads like Fox at NC State, Wetherell at FSU, and the Virginia president whose name escapes me for the moment thought they had both Miami (they couldn't go back to the Big East after the stink the jilted BE football schools put up) and ND (believing the Irish had no place to go with the BE falling apart) so they overruled Swofford and told him to secure Miami (which required VT, something the presidents at FSU, GT, and Clemson knew and were probably "in" on it with UVa) and then aggressively pursue ND.

The result was ND couldn't bring themselves to be even a partial with an exclusively southern conference away from their core strength - the Northeast. And even though VT provided way more in terms of football than either SU or BC would have, the truth is the TV money was basically a wash and ACC football still took a dive mostly due to Miami and FSU both taking steps backward.

So no need to "shudder". Swofford knows the prize and has managed to go about trying to secure it in the only way it can be secured (if it can ever be secured), in increments.

Cheers,
Neil

Even if that is 100% true, and I don't agree that it is (we had a pretty good source on that while it was going on) it was still almost a massive mistake.

One, it turns out that it was Syracuse that was available all along, and I think we can safely say BC would have been as well. However, does anyone thing VT would have remained outside the clutches of the SEC all these years? Maybe that's the way it looked in 2004 to Swofford, but it was absurdly wrong.

And it's not like hindsight is 20/20, many of us at the time felt that what the ACC desparately needed was football success and high profile matchups, and not some 30 year plan to maybe, sorta, if things go right, some day have some kind of sweet relationship with Notre Dame.

You can paint it how you want, but in Florida State's entire stint in the ACC to that point, the other football programs had regressed if anything. Even at it's best it was a one conference joke. And the idea that you would snub viable football programs, with the travelling fan bases that excite bowls and ticket offices, in favor of Syracuse and BC, was a crazy solution. The travel alone was silly.

It was painfully obvious, even back in 2003, that ACC football was a massive failure with only a single marginally relevant team. It was clear that the SEC was thriving. Miami alone was not the answer.

You can explain the thinking, but you can't polish that turd. The idea of not bringing in VT would have been a tremendous miscalculation.

And on top of it, the ACC still doesn't have Notre Dame football, and probably never will, settling on an arrangement that pretty much guarantees ND viability in independence for the forseeable future.

The idea of not taking VT is simply not defensible as a smart move. It was a short sighted and miscalculated move as a result of not seeing the big picture of what the conference needed and misinterpreting the value of the the programs involved and the appeal of the ACC to Boston and the Northeast.

The ACC caught a massive break on that one going down like it did, and there's simply no other way to look at it.
10-08-2013 11:46 AM
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Post: #17
RE: Expansion through the years from a Virginia Tech perspective (Metro/BE/ACC)
I'm not saying it was the wrong move but you have to understand there was a clear hierarchy in the big east. Tier 1 was BC, Syracuse, Pitt, and Miami and Tier 2 was VTech, WVU, Rutgers, and Temple. ND wanted to be aligned with the fiirst group and the ACC found its opening when Miami was looking to move.

Syracuse in particular was not far removed from consistently being in the top 25 and I think most observers would not have thought Virginia Tech was that much better of an add for football than Syracuse at the time because Tech had only been good for about 10 years and that was in the weak Big East. Syracuse had a proven record across all sports and had the institutional profile they were looking for. Obviously things fell off the wagon for Syracuse football but the ACC wouldn't have known that then.

Also, Isaly is spot on about Penn State. Some stuff that's been written about the eastern conference has really been revisionist history.
(This post was last modified: 10-08-2013 11:51 AM by MKPitt.)
10-08-2013 11:49 AM
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Post: #18
RE: Expansion through the years from a Virginia Tech perspective (Metro/BE/ACC)
I'll just add a little FSU background that seems to always get overlooked or glossed over when discussing FSU's decision to choose the ACC over the SEC. It's usually referenced as being related to an easier conference to win in, and sometime academics are brought up.

But people usually forget that the ACC was comfortably the highest paying conference at the time. FSU is at a massive resource disadvantage to UF, and like every other reallignment move, FSU choosing the ACC over the SEC was about money. And the ACC meant more money.

Obviously, the economics shifted significantly, and even then I think that FSU badly underestimated the non-conference revenues (gate and donations) that would have been much better in the SEC. But when FSU made that call, they did it for the cold hard cash.

It's just that back then, unlike Maryland's recent move, it used to be innappropriate to bring that up. You used to have to pretend there were other reasons.
10-08-2013 11:53 AM
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Post: #19
RE: Expansion through the years from a Virginia Tech perspective (Metro/BE/ACC)
(10-08-2013 11:49 AM)MKPitt Wrote:  I'm not saying it was the wrong move but you have to understand there was a clear hierarchy in the big east. Tier 1 was BC, Syracuse, Pitt, and Miami and Tier 2 was VTech, WVU, Rutgers, and Temple. ND wanted to be aligned with the fiirst group and the ACC found its opening when Miami was looking to move.

Syracuse in particular was not far removed from consistently being in the top 25 and I think most observers would not have thought Virginia Tech was that much better of an add for football than Syracuse at the time because Tech had only been good for about 10 years and that was in the weak Big East. Syracuse had a proven record across all sports and had the institutional profile they were looking for. Obviously things fell off the wagon for Syracuse football but the ACC wouldn't have known that then.

Also, Isaly is spot on about Penn State. Some stuff that's been written about the eastern conference has really been revisionist history.

Sure, maybe that was the hierarchy in the Big East. But those of us in the South, who were in the actual orbit of real football schools, knew better than that. There's no other way to say it. Maybe most people in the Big East wouldn't have seen VT as the better add, but the Northeast gave up the mantle of football leaders a long time ago. To those of us in the south it was VERY clear VT was an important add.

There weren't enough athletes in those northeastern markets any more. Attendence in those areas wasn't great. They didn't travel very well to bowls and so weren't attractive to them. And people had a lukewarm relationship at best with college football.

And we saw the what the fanaticism of Southern football schools was doing, with big attendence and spectacular gameday atmospheres, road trips, sellouts, big time bowl showings. All those things were paying major dividends right before our eyes.

The only thing the northeastern schools were bringing to the table was fading history. They didn't have the fan support, local engagement, or athletes of VT or to a lesser extent WVU. The writing was on the wall for anyone close enough to see what was happening.

Now it all worked out to some extent, but I don't care what the history is, anyone at that time that thought that BC with it's 30k attendence, a state that produces 2.5 D1 football players a year, and 9th place pecking order in their local sports scene behind UConn girls hoops, was a better add for football than VT was simply disconnected from what what actually happening in college football.

I'm not saying that Syracuse, Pitt and BC don't have a home in the ACC and they don't add anything, but the order that the ACC tried to add them, at which point they would have lost the best football school among them (including Miami since they joined), is extremely misguided, and thank God it didn't work out that way.
(This post was last modified: 10-08-2013 12:10 PM by Lou_C.)
10-08-2013 12:07 PM
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Post: #20
RE: Expansion through the years from a Virginia Tech perspective (Metro/BE/ACC)
(10-08-2013 10:40 AM)Dr. Isaly von Yinzer Wrote:  As a Pitt fan who well remembers that time, I just want to set the record straight on this next part and at the very least provide some context...

I have heard this narrative before and believe me when I tell you that I wish that it was nearly as simple as the author is suggesting. However, it wasn't and that changes the complexion of the entire discussion.

You have to understand that back before any of this started, Penn State was always THE financial Beast of the East. They regularly filled their then 76K seat stadium and they graduated annual classes of 30K+ students. They now have a 106K seat stadium and graduate 40K+ students annually. Pitt was probably the next most powerful school in the Northeast and Pitt Stadium held just 56K (which we rarely sold out) and Fitzgerald Field House seated 5K fans for basketball.

Basically they were ALWAYS a Big Ten school playing a Big East schedule.

That MUST be understood before anyone can progress on this issue. Penn State NEVER saw Pitt, Syracuse or Syracuse as their equals and quite frankly, financially speaking, the Nits were absolutely right. Also, at the time you need to understand that West Virginia, Temple and Rutgers were a clear level or two below Pitt, Syracuse and Boston College. Nobody cared what any of those schools thought because they would go along with which ever side prevailed.

Also, up until the late 1960's, Pitt was a private school just like Boston College and Syracuse remain today. We have always been MUCH smaller schools and therefore wielded much less power than did Penn State.

Pitt, Syracuse and Boston College well understood that fact and, perhaps more importantly, so did Joe Paterno. That is why the battle lines were formed as they were: Penn State vs. Syracuse, Boston College and ultimately Pitt.

Paterno wanted to form an Eastern Conference but strictly on his terms. Basically, what he proposed was that all of the revs in every sport but football be shared equally (gate, TV, NCAA Tournament credits, etc.). In football, the gist of it was that every school would keep all of the money it earned in that sport (TV, bowls, gate, etc.). Remember, Penn State consistently filled the 76K seats at Beaver Stadium and they struggled to fill half of 5K seat Rec Hall (not unlike today). Now, you tell me, if you are Syracuse and you just built a domed stadium (Carrier Dome was built in the late 70s) that seats 48K in football but can regularly draw 25K in basketball, would you be for or against that deal?

To me that had nothing/very little to do with those schools overestimating basketball's television future as compared with football. It was more a matter of them looking after their own best interests, just like Penn State was doing.

For Pitt and Penn State, it was even more complicated because at that time there was a very real dislike/mistrust of each other that extended into each other's administrations. I will spare you all of the gory details - and there are many - but I will say that for Pitt the final straw came at the 1979 Eastern Eight league meetings when Penn State's then SID Tim Curley, announced the Nittany Lions' withdraw from the conference via a press release that they slipped under the media and other school administrators' hotel room doors as everyone slept.

There was no discussion and no debate, just a Robert Irsay-esque middle of the night fleeing that left everyone else high and dry. Paterno believed that Penn State could be the "Notre Dame of the East" and for a few years the Nits were completely independent in all sports before realizing that was too difficult even for such a well-heeled school like PSU.

So again, tell me, if you are Pitt's administration and Paterno just three years earlier had pulled that type of bush league BS, would you trust him this time around? Yeah, well neither did Pitt.

Also, Paterno's proposed league was of the following schools:
Penn State, Pitt, West Virginia, Boston College, Syracuse, Rutgers, Temple, Army, Navy and (maybe) Maryland.

Again, you can't have an honest discussion about this issue and leave out Army and Navy - as the author did. That was a MAJOR bone of contention for some of the other schools because they were already being downgraded in the national polls for playing too soft of a schedule. However, Paterno wanted a Northeastern league - not an Eastern league as so many people often state. He wanted cannon fodder for his school and he was never going to invite Miami for example. If he was open to inviting schools like South Carolina, Florida State and Miami then I would view that whole affair quite differently. However that was not his plan. His plan was to kill the Big East in men's basketball and control Northeastern football in the process.

Please note that mine is not an attempt to exonerate or vilify anyone involved in the process. Everyone was looking after their own interests and all of the main players involved were equally intransigent in their positions and as such they all deserve their share of the blame for an all sports league failing to materialize until at least a decade later. However, the notion that one side were visionaries while the other side were too stupid to see the future is just flat out factually incorrect.

Thanks for clarifying that for people Dr. I was going to try late last night when because the eastern independent/early Big East writing was so lacking, but just didn't have the energy.

But now more people are aware of Paterno's character than when those articles were written in 2004. There are legit and very real reasons the bulk of institutions that were familiar with him didn't want to deal with his ego, and as I believe Jim Boeheim later stated publicly, his megalomania. It wasn't just Pitt's admin that didn't trust him and really couldn't stand him. You can revisit how how the B10 was so eager to receive PSU that it took "years" to integrate them into their football schedule and how it left their basketball team stranded as an independent. More of those chickens would come home to roost in 1994, when behind all the specious praise and platitudes for media, you can see what those who know him really thought about him in how the coaches poll voting shook out.

That conference was set up to be his personal vanity project and it is far from a foregone conclusion that even if a conference had formed in the northeast among the independents that one, PSU wouldn't have bolted or anyway or two, that it wouldn't have collapsed along the lines of schools fleeing the UT's overbearance of the B12. Such are the issues when you set up something with so much built in inequity and so little mutual respect stemming from the top.

However, I think the funniest line of the whole series of articles is how the author states "but in 1994, the [Rutgers Scarlett] Knights had a pretty strong football team". My lord, that is ridiculous revisionist history beyond the pale.
(This post was last modified: 10-08-2013 12:26 PM by CrazyPaco.)
10-08-2013 12:15 PM
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