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RE: P5: It’s mostly about the company you kept pre-1945
(08-16-2019 02:12 PM)Nerdlinger Wrote: (08-16-2019 01:51 PM)Fighting Muskie Wrote: (08-14-2019 09:45 AM)orangefan Wrote: (08-14-2019 08:18 AM)Midwestan Wrote: Thanks for the responses orangefan, slhNavy91, and esayem. I'm sort of an old coot and don't remember as much as I used to. I do remember that the Atlantic 10 was known as the Eastern 8 when it stared in the mid-70's! A top-tier Eastern Football League as envisioned by JoePa would have been a stretch, given that Army and Navy have small enrollments that are basically capped compared to their larger D-1 neighbors. I couldn't remember which happened first: Penn State joining the Big 10 OR West Virginia and Rutgers leaving the A-10 for the Big East.
Even though Rutgers and Temple had some minor successes in the mid- and late 70's, they were still seen as 'basketball first' schools, and it would have been hard for them and the service academies to be consistently competitive in football on a weekly basis, compared to the other 5 teams. Even if some people harbored thoughts of a new football conference involving Virginia Tech, Virginia, and Maryland, there was no way UVa or UMd would have done so by leaving the established ACC at that time.
Midwestan - The Big Ten invited Penn State to join in date 1989. The move became effective for the 1992-93 basketball season and 1993 football season. The move was the first of several realignment moves that came in two waves:
First Wave:
12/15/89 Penn State joins the Big Ten
2/6/90 Notre Dame signs a five year television deal with NBC breaking with the CFA
8/1/90 Arkansas joins the SEC
9/13/90 Florida State joins the ACC
9/25/90 South Carolina joins the SEC
10/10/90 Miami joins the Big East
12/13/90 The Big East Football Conference is formed
(Temple, Rutgers, West Virginia and Virginia Tech join for football only)
Second Wave:
2/11/94 The SEC signs a television contract with CBS breaking with the CFA
2/15/94 The Big East signs a television contract with CBS breaking with the CFA
2/25/94 The Big 12 Conference is formed
3/9/94 Rutgers and West Virginia join the Big East as full members
4/22/94 TCU, SMU, Rice, Tulsa, San Jose St. and UNLV join the WAC
7/11/94 Notre Dame joins the Big East in all sports except football
1/95 Conference USA is formed (Houston, Memphis, Louisville, Cincinnati, Tulane and So.Miss. for all sports, Marquette, DePaul, Saint Louis, UAB, USF, Charlotte for all sports but football).
With respect to the Eastern Conference back in 1981, I believe UMd was a target of JoePa. UMd had OOC rivalries with Penn State, WVU and Syracuse and had a strong relationship with Penn State in particular as a neighboring flagship. With respect to Temple and Rutgers, they were clearly late comers to big time football, but both made the commitment to move to I-A at the time of the split, are located in large markets and played all or many of their games in NFL stadiums. In addition, with the I-A/I-AA split, they had already successfully scheduled on a regular basis all of the traditional big time schools in the East, so would have been naturals for the conference. Finally, both had very good relationships with JoePa and Penn State. My belief is that JoePa eyed an eight team conference of Penn State, Pitt, WVU, Syracuse, Maryland, BC, Rutgers and Temple.
It’s very interesting that Houston held out with no plans for a conference home for 9 months after the WAC 16 announcement. I always assumed that SMU, Rice, and TCU chose the WAC 16 after Houston bailed on them for C-USA and the Cougars’ new friends weren’t interested in them.
Maybe by the time Rice, SMU, and TCU announced the move to the WAC, plans were already in the works for a CUSA with Houston in it.
That's pretty certain. But it was hush, hush. There were sportswriters wondering if UH had made a mistake not going for the WAC and wondering if they would find a home.
Memphis, Louisville and Tulane had all talked to the SWC before it split up so there were already some discussions.
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