I’m going to play out my own little scenario:

1953: SC and Clemson leave the SoCon for the SEC, Maryland goes independent; the SoCon consists of—WVU, VT, UNC, Duke, WF, NC St, Wash & Lee, VMI, Richmond, G Wash, Wm & Mary, Davidson, Citadel, Furman

Circa 1965: two possibilities here:

1. The bigger SoCon schools and UVA form the ACC w/ WVU, VT, UVA, W&M, Richmond, Duke, UNC, NC St, WF, and GT being the likely members (I could see this group being as small as 6 members though, concentrated around the Tobacco Road core)
2. The bigger SoCon schools start declaring independence

1976: Maryland, Penn St, Pitt, Rutgers, Temple, Cuse, and BC form an Eastern Conference

Early 1990s: this is where I think things could get interesting. Your JoePa Conference could try try to spread down the eastern seaboard. If there is an ACC, they too would be scraping for expansion members to prevent becoming irrelevant. If there is no ACC and many of those classic ACC Schools are independent I think it becomes far easier for them to get swallowed up

I think a great real world scenario to play out is to assume that Penn St never gets their all sports conference and still joins the Big Ten but that Florida St makes the fateful decision to join the SEC and not the ACC.

Miami is then in the position to play king maker. Do they join the 8 member ACC or do they opt for what the Big East was building?

If they do go with the ACC, I see the Big East still forming as a gang of eastern independents, bound by common necessity.

Then I think it becomes a question of when does the ACC decide to expand to 12? If it’s sooner than in our timeline I think the trio they take is BC/Cuse/Pitt but if it’s later I think that group becomes BC/Cuse/VT.

In 2004 Pitt, Rutgers, WVU, UConn, and Temple running around with orphaned football programs. At that point maybe we get a BE football conference that doesn’t look too unlike the 2005-2011 real one just with Temple or someone else (UCF?) in Syracuse’s spot.

UVa
Virginia Tech
Carolina
Wake Forest
Duke
NC State
Clemson
Georgia Tech
Florida State
Miami

Liberty
Howard
Upper Iowa
SNHU
Army
Navy
Jacksonville
U of Chicago
North Carolina
South Carolina St

Penn State
Pittsburgh
Temple
Syracuse
Boston College
Connecticut
Maryland
Virginia
North Carolina
Duke
NC State
Florida
Florida State
Miami
Georgia
Georgia Tech

All but football:
Villanova
Georgetown

Football: No divisions, nine game conference schedule, each team gets 3 permanent rivals they play every year and rotate others home and away twice every four years.

Men's basketball: 20 game conference schedule, teams play 3 permanent rivals twice a year and every other team once.

(10-20-2020 10:16 AM)schmolik Wrote:  Penn State
Pittsburgh
Temple
Syracuse
Boston College
Connecticut
Maryland
Virginia
North Carolina
Duke
NC State
Florida
Florida State
Miami
Georgia
Georgia Tech

All but football:
Villanova
Georgetown

Football: No divisions, nine game conference schedule, each team gets 3 permanent rivals they play every year and rotate others home and away twice every four years.

Men's basketball: 20 game conference schedule, teams play 3 permanent rivals twice a year and every other team once.

No Clemson, Virginia Tech, or West Virginia? I'd put them in instead of UConn, NC State, and either Temple or BC.

(10-20-2020 11:21 AM)Nerdlinger Wrote:  

(10-20-2020 10:16 AM)schmolik Wrote:  Penn State
Pittsburgh
Temple
Syracuse
Boston College
Connecticut
Maryland
Virginia
North Carolina
Duke
NC State
Florida
Florida State
Miami
Georgia
Georgia Tech

All but football:
Villanova
Georgetown

Football: No divisions, nine game conference schedule, each team gets 3 permanent rivals they play every year and rotate others home and away twice every four years.

Men's basketball: 20 game conference schedule, teams play 3 permanent rivals twice a year and every other team once.

No Clemson, Virginia Tech, or West Virginia? I'd put them in instead of UConn, NC State, and either Temple or BC.

Football isn't everything to me, basketball, academics, and demographics also matter.

Miami, Florida & FSU
UGA & GT
Clemson & USC
UNC, NC State & Duke
UVA & VT
UMD
Pitt & PSU
Syracuse

Apologies to WFU, WVU, Rutgers and BC...not enough slots.

Florida
Florida St
UGA
Clemson
UNC
Duke
UVA
Penn State

Last 4 in:
Va Tech
Maryland
Syracuse
Miami.

Next 4 if going to 16:
USCe
NC State
WVU
Rutgers

I’ll do one with G5’s and Indys since I see that as more likely than a bunch of P5s realigning.


North
Buffalo
Delaware
JMU
Army (football only)
UMass (football only)
UConn (football only)

South
Marshall
Liberty
ODU
Charlotte
App State
WKU

One Olympic only for double round robin 18 game hoops schedule:
Belmont

Boston College
Connecticut
Georgetown
Pittsburgh
Providence
St. John's
Seton Hall
Syracuse
Villanova

(10-20-2020 04:00 PM)DFW HOYA Wrote:  Boston College
Connecticut
Georgetown
Pittsburgh
Providence
St. John's
Seton Hall
Syracuse
Villanova

F for originality:)

The only one that has ever made sense for all sports:

Syracuse
BC
Rutgers
Army
Temple
Penn State
Maryland
UConn
Pitt
Navy

If one doesn't care if ALL eastern FBS schools are included, here would be a very powerful eastern all sports league.

Ohio State (2)
Michigan (18)
Michigan State (20)
Penn State (21)
Virginia Tech (31)
North Carolina (43)
Pitt (44)
NC State (46)
Duke (59)
Virginia (69)

These are listed in order of their 10 year average Sagarin rating for football. Their national rank is in parentheses. I don't have the data about basketball ratings, and I don't want to take the time to compile them. But clearly, Duke, North Carolina, Michigan State, Virginia and Michigan would be very highly ranked nationally.

More importantly, these institutions would all be highly compatible both academically and athletically. They are peers. Each of them would have all their rivals within the conference. With 10 members, they would be able to play a full round robin in football and a double round robin in hoops while still having room in their schedules to accommodate the few OOC rivalry games that would still exist.

It isn't the strongest football conference one might create. But it's a conference that could stay together without much friction to pull them apart. And it has brands. TV loves brands. So do fans, especially casual ones.

A more ultimate but less realistic eastern college sports conference than the one in the OP:



No Notre Dame here because they're not strictly an eastern team. I also dropped weak sisters BC and Rutgers and "raided" the SEC for UF, UGA, and SC. Usual setup with pods rotating between divisions in a 3-year cycle. This conference has a 9-game FB schedule; each team plays their podmates annually as well as 1 protected annual opponent in each of the other 3 pods (those in the same column in the table above). The other 3 games are against the remaining teams in the division, so all teams are played at least once within 3 years.

(10-20-2020 02:11 PM)Wahoowa84 Wrote:  Miami, Florida & FSU
UGA & GT
Clemson & USC
UNC, NC State & Duke
UVA & VT
UMD
Pitt & PSU
Syracuse

Apologies to WFU, WVU, Rutgers and BC...not enough slots.

That’s a pretty nice grouping. How are you dividing those 16 up for pods/divisions?

(10-19-2020 11:26 AM)ChrisLords Wrote:  I figure the ultimate North Eastern conference would have to have Army and Navy in it as football only members. So 14 all sports, 2 FB only members.

I'd go with 4-team pods because I like playing every one every 2 years.

BC, UConn, Cuse, Rutgers
Temple, Army, Maryland, Navy
Penn State, Pitt, WVU, ND,
Cincy, Louisville, Kentucky, Memphis

Plenty of good basketball. One strong division in Football. Not remotely balanced or realistic.

Going for the entire east coast, I would go with

Florida, FSU, Miami, UCF
UGA, GT, Clemson, USC-e
UNC, Duke, UVA, VT
BC, Cuse, Penn State, Maryland

Maybe Alabama or Auburn instead of UCF but they're not really East Coast.

(10-19-2020 01:04 PM)Wahoowa84 Wrote:  

(10-19-2020 09:49 AM)Nerdlinger Wrote:  

(10-19-2020 08:02 AM)Fighting Muskie Wrote:  The ACC has too much of a country club mentality back then to make this a reality.

the scenario I think would have been the most interesting is if around 1952-53 if instead of coming to an agreement with UNC and forming a breakaway conference if SC and Clemson had gained entry into the SEC while Maryland became more closely associated with the Eastern Independents to their North.

Then I think the chances of a Paterno Conference become a greater reality and I think that group could poach the SoCon’s best.

The scenario presented in the OP involves ACC defections later than the '70s -- more like in the 2000s and 2010s. The alternate Big East in this timeline is a strong football-first conference that manages to attract both Miami and Florida State in the early '90s, leaving the ACC without a dominant football school and resulting in the general irrelevance of the conference. Maryland is actually first to defect to the Big East, along with Clemson and Georgia Tech in the 2000s. After NC State wisely accepts an SEC invite in the 2010s, the Big East drops Temple (for similar reasons as it did in 2005 in our timeline) and invites the old school ACC core of Duke, UNC, and UVA, who begrudgingly accept.

Big East (1976): Boston College, Notre Dame, Penn State, Pittsburgh, Rutgers, Syracuse, Temple, West Virginia

ACC (1976): Clemson, Duke, Maryland, NC State, North Carolina, Virginia, Wake Forest

~~~~~~

Big East (1992): Boston College, Florida State, Miami-FL, Notre Dame, Penn State, Pittsburgh, Rutgers, Syracuse, Temple, Virginia Tech, West Virginia

ACC (1992): Clemson, Duke, Georgia Tech, Maryland, NC State, North Carolina, Virginia, Wake Forest

~~~~~~

Big East (2005)
Eastern: Boston College, Georgia Tech, Maryland, Miami-FL, Notre Dame, Rutgers, Virginia Tech
Seaboard: Syracuse, Clemson, Penn State, Florida State, Pittsburgh, Temple, West Virginia

ACC (2005): Cincinnati, Duke, Louisville, NC State, North Carolina, South Florida, Virginia, Wake Forest

~~~~~~

Big East (2015): see OP

ACC (2015)
East: Central Florida, East Carolina, Memphis, South Florida, Temple, Wake Forest
West: Baylor, Navy*, Rice, SMU, TCU, Tulane

Notes
Cincinnati to Big Ten
Houston to Pac-16
Louisville to SEC

What makes your scenario hard to stomach are not the movements in the 1990s and later...it is that Penn State and Notre Dame would have to have been fully committed to building a conference with their programs at the center.

Yet Notre Dame, 40 years later, still has zero (little) interest in the well being of a conference. Maybe COVID is teaching the Irish that conference participation is not all horrible...but the impact of actions by Fielding Yost to Jim Delaney still seems to weigh heavily on Notre Dame.

Also Penn State looked down on the rest of the east coast football programs. Paterno needed 2:1 scheduling deals and was paranoid about having a competitive edge over his regional rivals.

It takes a lot of self-confidence and foresight to build a conference. Notre Dame and Penn State would have been the right tent-poles, but leaders in those universities were completely opposed to such strategic thinking.

I would say that this alternate timeline came about because Penn State and Notre Dame each happened to have different leadership that resulted in more strategic thinking.

in the mid-80’s JoePa gets on the phone with Bobby Bowden and they conspire to bring the best independents on the east Coast.

Penn St
Pitt
WVU
South Carolina
Florida St
Miami

Is their starting point but they need a few more to round it out.

BC and Cuse tell JoePa to go pound salt.

Some SC folks convince some Clemson folks that this is a good idea so they jump on and with 1 ACC defection Maryland is emboldened to be a 2nd.

So their 8 are:

Penn St, Pitt, WVU, Maryland, Clemson, SC, FSU, and Miami

The ACC has:

UVA, UNC, Duke, NC St, WF, GT

VT, BC, Cuse, Rutgers, and Temple are all independent

In the early 90s things are looking good for the East Coast Conference and no one breaks ranks.

GT rejoins the SEC.

Syracuse and UVA join the ECC North, Duke and UNC join the ECC South:

N: Cuse, Pitt, Penn St, WVU, Maryland, UVA
S: UNC, Duke, Clemson, SC, FSU, Miami

(10-21-2020 07:10 PM)Fighting Muskie Wrote:  

(10-20-2020 02:11 PM)Wahoowa84 Wrote:  Miami, Florida & FSU
UGA & GT
Clemson & USC
UNC, NC State & Duke
UVA & VT
UMD
Pitt & PSU
Syracuse

Apologies to WFU, WVU, Rutgers and BC...not enough slots.

That’s a pretty nice grouping. How are you dividing those 16 up for pods/divisions?

Perhaps something like this?

Pod 1: Miami, Penn State, Pittsburgh, Syracuse
Pod 2: Florida, Virginia Tech, Georgia, South Carolina
Pod 3: Florida State, Maryland, Georgia Tech, Clemson
Pod 4: North Carolina, Virginia, Duke, NC State

3 protected crossovers per team; listed in the same order in each pod