(05-10-2019 02:38 PM)Fighting Muskie Wrote: Lots of interesting thoughts here. I'm going to try to hit on several points:
1. Notre Dame absolutely joins this league c. 1912. In the beginning, football independence was something imposed on ND, not sought after. If a bunch of state schools ran by Protestants invites them to be their peers they jump all over it.
2. Going South. I don't see schools like UVA getting into this league due to segregation. Most of these schools are going to demand integrated teams or at least being able to bring their black athletes to away games. That's probably a no go in 1953. I also share skepticism about WVU getting invited due to academics.
3. Michigan and Ohio St were not joined to the hip in mutual hatred in 1912. At that point in the series it was a one sided affair and U of M thought very little of the Buckeyes. With that said, after Feilding Yost (anti-ND) left the program and it became clear that this conference was stronger than the Big Ten I think there's a possibility Blue switches leagues.
4. Looking at deeper emplications, if this conference came to be I think some of the schools that broke away from the MVC to form the Big 8 end up being Big Ten schools but I don't see Oklahoma among them and I think the Sooners and Aggies end up back in the SWC.
5. One other thing to think about, depending on this league's size in the 50s is some association with the PCC schools who wanted to found the Airplane Conference hooking up with this group.
That's a good point. If Michigan leaves the Big 10 for this Ohio-based conference in 1990, then the Big 8 might have combined with the Chicago-based Big 10 instead of the Texas-based Southwest Conference.
But there's 15 teams. And the SWC was falling apart, so Texas/Texas A&M were looking for homes.
Which 2 Big 10 teams would the Big 8 have taken? My guess is Wisconsin and Illinois.
That would leave the following teams looking for homes 5 Big Ten teams, 6 SWC teams, 5 Metro teams:
Minnesota - Big 10 leftover
Purdue - Big 10 leftover
Northwestern - Big 10 leftover
Iowa - Big 10 leftover
Indiana - Big 10 leftover
Texas Tech - SWC leftover
Baylor - SWC leftover
SMU - SWC leftover
Rice - SWC leftover
TCU - SWC leftover
Houston - SWC leftover
Louisville - Metro leftovers
Memphis - Metro leftovers
Tulane - Metro leftovers
Southern Miss - Metro leftovers
Virginia Tech leftovers
Rather than a super-WAC, we might have seen a super-Middle!