(05-23-2021 08:43 AM)bill dazzle Wrote:  

(05-22-2021 09:54 PM)UCGrad1992 Wrote:  I'm unashamedly biased...2004-2013. Although, based on the membership timeline I would list it as 2005-2013. In 2005, new members added made the following football and basketball leagues...

Football
Cincinnati
Connecticut
Louisville
Pittsburgh
Rutgers
South Florida
Syracuse
West Virginia

Hoops
Cincinnati
Connecticut
DePaul
Georgetown
Louisville
Marquette
Notre Dame
Pittsburgh
Providence
Rutgers
Seton Hall
South Florida
St. John's
Syracuse
Villanova
West Virginia

There was no greater basketball league than that right there in terms of depth and name brands/history. The football league was just eight teams but it was a competitive, successful group. The thing I miss most about this conference was the high profile hoops games and playing our long time rivals Louisville in both hoops and football. This conference really springboarded Cincinnati's football program into what it is today. Great appreciation and memories of this Big East era...

I appreciate your making the two lists, UCGrad1992. And I agree with you fully when you note "there was no greater basketball league than that right there in terms of depth and name brands/history."

The closest thing to that likely would be the current ACC lineup. But it is not what that iteration of the Big East was in terms of sheer depth and national brands.

This was the Big East I grew up knowing, & I look at it with particular fondness due to USF's steep rise in 2007, especially watching from just the other side of Tampa Bay.

It was heartbreaking to watch the split between the Big East & AAC, but now that I better understand what happened & why, it seems it was inevitable. But man, what an era for the Big East prior to the divorce!

Did anyone see ESPN’s 30 for 30, Requiem for the Big East?

It was a pretty nice piece but I didn’t think it told the whole story. It was very basketball centric and glossed over the great moments from both eras of Big East football. I wish they’d make a follow up documentary with an emphasis on the the pig skin side of the operation.

Muskie: my complaint with the doc was the glossing over EVERYTHING after about 1988.

I wonder why the Big East went with Temple for its 8th football member. Wouldn’t independent Louisville been a better option? Howard Schellenberger had started to turn the Cardinals’ program around and an interesting rivalry with Miami could have emerged.

Temple’s program, both on and off the field, was so bad they got booted out. I think the Owls could have held their own during the 1991-2004 period.

(05-25-2021 01:20 PM)Erictelevision Wrote:  Muskie: my complaint with the doc was the glossing over EVERYTHING after about 1988.

I took that away as well. 1991-2004 and 2005-2012 football both had a lot of history to tell and the 16 team era had some seriously good basketball.

(05-25-2021 01:20 PM)Fighting Muskie Wrote:  I wonder why the Big East went with Temple for its 8th football member. Wouldn’t independent Louisville been a better option? Howard Schellenberger had started to turn the Cardinals’ program around and an interesting rivalry with Miami could have emerged.

Temple’s program, both on and off the field, was so bad they got booted out. I think the Owls could have held their own during the 1991-2004 period.

Because back in the old days "East" actually meant something?

(05-25-2021 01:20 PM)Fighting Muskie Wrote:  I wonder why the Big East went with Temple for its 8th football member. Wouldn’t independent Louisville been a better option? Howard Schellenberger had started to turn the Cardinals’ program around and an interesting rivalry with Miami could have emerged.

Temple’s program, both on and off the field, was so bad they got booted out. I think the Owls could have held their own during the 1991-2004 period.

There was an existing relationship among the schools. In the late 70s and most of the 80s, Rutgers, Syracuse, Pittsburgh, WVU, BC, Temple and Penn State all played each other every year. They were a de facto conference, but with nothing administrative.
With Penn State having gone to the Big Ten, the Big East football conference was formed starting with the other 6, and adding Virginia Tech and Miami. It would have been more noteworthy had they been excluded. (Although that didn't stop the league from adding Rutgers, WVU and Tech for all sports, and specifically leaving Temple out.)

The original version of BE football was pretty fun. Miami was a monster but Syracuse and Va Tech where really good in the 90s. If the BE just had Penn St. Every comment about the league starts and ends with that statement.


Jackson

(05-25-2021 04:04 PM)NJMark Wrote:  

(05-25-2021 01:20 PM)Fighting Muskie Wrote:  I wonder why the Big East went with Temple for its 8th football member. Wouldn’t independent Louisville been a better option? Howard Schellenberger had started to turn the Cardinals’ program around and an interesting rivalry with Miami could have emerged.

Temple’s program, both on and off the field, was so bad they got booted out. I think the Owls could have held their own during the 1991-2004 period.

There was an existing relationship among the schools. In the late 70s and most of the 80s, Rutgers, Syracuse, Pittsburgh, WVU, BC, Temple and Penn State all played each other every year. They were a de facto conference, but with nothing administrative.
With Penn State having gone to the Big Ten, the Big East football conference was formed starting with the other 6, and adding Virginia Tech and Miami. It would have been more noteworthy had they been excluded. (Although that didn't stop the league from adding Rutgers, WVU and Tech for all sports, and specifically leaving Temple out.)

This is probably true. Temple was playing five games with soon to be Big East football members while VT was playing only one according to an old article from Baltimore Sun:

“There is a great disparity among the new schools as to how many potential Big East opponents are on the schedule. Temple plays five, Virginia Tech one.”

https://www.baltimoresun.com/news/bs-xpm...story.html

VT was probably the last one in and I heard it was actually WVU who pushed for including VT.

By the way, I found it funny to see the following from the article:

“Tranghese has made it clear that the addition of the schools is for football only, and that schools interested in possibly joining the highly successful Big East basketball shouldn't bother coming on board.”

(05-25-2021 04:05 PM)Jackson1011 Wrote:  The original version of BE football was pretty fun. Miami was a monster but Syracuse and Va Tech where really good in the 90s. If the BE just had Penn St. Every comment about the league starts and ends with that statement.

They would have eventually left. JoePa had no loyalty to Eastern football.

I would say 1979 to 2013 but that was not an option. Loved the OBE as it grew from an I-95 corridor NE BB conference into a NE FB and BB before it was picked apart in the realignment raids that killed it off.

(05-26-2021 09:59 AM)DFW HOYA Wrote:  

(05-25-2021 04:05 PM)Jackson1011 Wrote:  The original version of BE football was pretty fun. Miami was a monster but Syracuse and Va Tech where really good in the 90s. If the BE just had Penn St. Every comment about the league starts and ends with that statement.

They would have eventually left. JoePa had no loyalty to Eastern football.

Unless he was the kingpin dictator making all the money.

Paterno was always a football man and wasn't above stepping on his Eastern brethren to elevate Penn State. He certainly made no efforts to elevate basketball at State College (still playing at Recreation Hall), with just one men's NCAA bid at the time since 1955. Some effort in basketball would have made it at least palatable to other Big East AD's when they had turned down other schools with more serious basketball intentions.

Had PSU made it to the conference, it wouldn't have been long before Paterno would have tried to force out Dave Gavitt, pushed to get the smaller schools kicked out, or simply left when the inevitable Big Ten bid came along.

Trivia question: Joe Paterno's first game in football when he joined the Nittany Lions was against whom? Georgetown.

You can’t completely fault Paterno for wanting a football conference that didn’t share revenue. His program was considerably more valuable than most of the others that would have been in the mythical Eastern All Sports Conference. Penn St would be subsidizing the BCs, Temples, and Rutgers of the conference.

Had the others been willing to acknowledge the 800 lb gorilla in the room and treat him like an 800 lb gorilla I think things could have worked.

I even think they could incorporate some basketball schools into the structure—St John’s, Villanova, and Georgetown come to mind.