Since Paterno was such a huge figure at PSU, I had assumed that he would have had veto power over this. Dakich said that Paterno didn't want to join the Big Ten because he thought it would hurt recruiting -- he didn't think East coast recruits would want to play Illinois or Iowa.
Probably old news here, but Dan Dakich being interviewed by Gottlieb today stated that Paterno stated he didn't want to join the Big Ten
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Thanks. But yep, old news. But many old and new posters will insist Joe has the power to override police investigations
Well, Pennsylvania is a northeast state and most people had no connection with the Midwest, especially back then.
Penn State schedules were generally northeast independents with long term series with Notre Dame and Alabama. Then sprinkled in occasional games with USC, Texas, Nebraska, NC State, BYU, Miami, etc.
I have no doubt PSU’s East coast recruits back then had little interest in playing teams like Illinois, Indiana, Purdue, Minnesota, Iowa, or Northwestern. Honestly, I don’t think most people now really have much interest in those games either.
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I think that if you look at some of the recruiting trends over the years we see kids from "our" recruiting area consistently landing at some Big 10 schools. Michigan has done well everywhere including PA, NJ. Iowa has been pulling PA kids - but that may be more Ferentz which then became a parade. Lastly Wisconsin had a revolving door of NJ running backs.
We have to remember that the media options back then were not anything like today. There was no internet and not nearly as many games on tv.
I too fall into the camp of not being thrilled w going to the Big Ten. As a basketball fan I was excited by the possibility of playing Indiana and some others in meaningful games. A huge upgrade over the A 10.
Football always held it's own with our Independent schedule and I liked playing more regional schools where I looked and considered for myself. Other than Ohio State, no other BIG school was in the consideration set. We have developed some rivalies, but for the most part I think Coach was right.
We have to remember that the media options back then were not anything like today. There was no internet and not nearly as many games on tv.
I too fall into the camp of not being thrilled w going to the Big Ten. As a basketball fan I was excited by the possibility of playing Indiana and some others in meaningful games. A huge upgrade over the A 10.
Football always held it's own with our Independent schedule and I liked playing more regional schools where I looked and considered for myself. Other than Ohio State, no other BIG school was in the consideration set. We have developed some rivalies, but for the most part I think Coach was right.
totally agree. PSU was an independent along with several schools including ND. At the time, there were three networks that dominated TV via stations that used their programming in large cities. Those were CBS, ABC and NBC. In the 80's, Fox emerged. also, of note, almost every single game was played on Saturday with an early and a late game. Do the math, 6 games a week max. So there were regional games and national games of the week. ND signed an exclusive deal to be broadcast, I think nationally, every weekend. So the conferences moved to get TV contracts and lock in TV deals. It was clear, PSU, was on the outside looking in. Joe favored a conference that was almost like the Big East with Pitt, Syracuse, Rutgers and more. But none of them really had great football other than PSU and Pitt. It never materialized. So PSU needed a conference and the only one taking members was the B1G.
Unfortunately, to this day, the B1G has always been about tOSU and Michigan in football. So that set us back. Fortunately, ESPN came along with cable. That made college football national in scope. for the first time, a person in PA could get a weekly dose of USC or people in CA could get a weekly dose of B1G football. So kids started to want to play for teams that captured their imaginations. today, of course, exposure and recruiting are national.
But I do believe moving to the B1G hurt us for a while.
PSU was 70-16 from 1993 to 1999, and should've won at least a share of one National Championship during that period. That was a pretty good performamce for its first seven seasons playing Big 10 football.
Overall, PSU being in the Big 10 has been great for the athletic program, especially for the Olympic sports. Also, PSU probably wouldn't have venues like the Pegula Ice Arena if it weren't playing Big 10 hockey. Also, PSU is in one of the two super conferences right now, and doesn't have to worry about its future like schools like Pitt, Syracuse and BC do.
God...Joe promoted a BEast conference that included Football. When that was scuttled by a few frightened Eastern universities the alternative was the B1G.
If you current fans haven't noticed. PSU back then recruited 1 Michigan player of note, Booker Moore none from Wisconsin, one wideout from FL... a few from Ohio of note that I know of....etc. Now.. look at the demographics of the recruits in house.
If you current fans haven't noticed. PSU back then recruited 1 Michigan player of note, Booker Moore none from Wisconsin, one wideout from FL... a few from Ohio of note that I know of....etc. Now.. look at the demographics of the recruits in house.
All true except for hockey…. which has an interesting twist.
Prior to us making hockey a varsity sport instead of just a club sport the B2G didn’t have a hockey league because not enough schools offered hockey.
So the few that did played in other leagues. Don’t remember all the details but a couple played in a northern league with schools like N Dakota St. One was in a league with Boston College and the Ivy League.
So when PSU went big into hockey the B2G then started its own league. That forced at least three other hockey leagues to completely rearrange their alliances.
Caused a major perturbation in the college hockey world
Sorta, Rip. Not frightened. The schools that didn’t want an all eastern conference were led by Jake Crouthamel at Syracuse, Dave Gavitt, and actually frightened Pitt, who followed their lead. They believed that Basketball was the financial promised land and powerbroker and wanted to be sure Georgetown, Providence, Villanova and St John’s were part of the calculus. They spurned Joe (and other schools, like Va Tech) and created the Big East Basketball Conference. Ill fated decision, as they dramatically underestimated the power of football. Crouthamel maintained it wasn’t him, of course, later saying he knew football would be king. The latter (ironically a hindsight is 20/20 statement), is comical and revisionist.
After that formation, Jim Boehim canceled games vs PSU indicating it wasn’t Syracuse’s responsibility to help prop PSU’s schedule with games. Later PSU bit back with football in 1993, suggesting the 10 year renewal be a 6 and 4 football schedule with 6 at PSU and 4 at Syracuse. The number was derived by estimating roughly 20k extra seats sold in the Dome as the only sell out each year. Presuming they were PSU fans (they were) that equated to one home game of fans. Word in Syracuse publicly was PSU offered a 7-3 or 8-2. Funny shit but Paterno wouldn’t relent on the 6-4 and the series died for a while. Dick MacPhearson and Paterno became fast friends….. (TIC)
The ESPN 30 for 30 Requiem for the Big East was on Sunday Morning. Per the show, the Big East actually considered PSU for admission, but ultimately rejected it because it was not in a big urban area and its lack of basketball history. It also traced the beginning of the end for the Big East to when PSU joined the Big 10.
1983 vs Iowa, we lost due to a big game from Iowa RB Owen Gill. Where was he from? Brooklyn.
Joe was smart. It did hurt our brand and then the biased big screwed via officiating and in year two with votes.
Exactly. Right after PSU joined the Big overnight there was a Big East football conference with that “traditional eastern power” Miami headlining the conference.
The whole ACC wasn't in an urban area. Talk about revisionist history...lol
I am not sure "the big east considered PSU for admission". I think PSU was one of the leaders to put together a conference of eastern teams. When their vision didn't align with PSU, the only really football school in the east, PSU bolted to the B1G. The BE has nobody to blame but themselves.
Yeah, just look at what happened to Joe. Sold out for "409" and she showed him what she is all about.
According to that 30 for 30, the admission of PSU was discussed but eventually rejected because the existing schools wanted schools in large markets for TV purposes. Moreover, that show specifically cited PSU's lack of basketball tradition as playing a part in the rejection. In fact, in that show, there is a clip of Red Auerbach, who was actually an analyst for a PSU hoops game, saying that PSU looked like a JV team compared to the team that they were playing, which may have been Syracuse.
Once PSU was rejected, schools like Pitt were admitted.
Despite the above, I don't believe that the show ever mentioned that PSU itself actively pursued Big East memebership.
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maybe. I doubt it though. I get PSU basketball has sucked but PSU football has dominated the East for all of my life. The only contender, ever, was Pitt. Once in a while BC or WVU popped up. Regardless, it was really foolish to not consider the largest school by student and alumni in the region. And, as we know, PSU was always really good in things like gymnastics, volleyball and more. So I have to think this "basketball at all cost" narrative is wrong or was really foolish.
Well, the gist of the show is that the small Catholic schools in the Big East only started to care about the football side of it when they thought that the football schools like Pitt, Syracuse and BC would bolt. Until then, they kind of didn't care about football. However, once reality set in and they realized that football made much more money than basketball, they had to expand, and that's when they added Miami, VT, Rutgers and Cincy. So, until they were forced into acknowledging that football is king, they did have a "basketball at all costs" view.
Okay, but if PSU hadn't joined the Big 10, it would've joined some other conference, because being an idependent was becoming an untenable situation for all schools except for ND, and even ND now is a de facto ACC member. So, would you rather have had PSU join the ACC or Big 10, because those would've been the only two realistic options?
Okay, but the ACC eventually is going to lose most of its flagship programs like Clemson and FSU and maybe even UNC. So PSU would've been in another conference on life support instead of being in one of the two Super Conferences and having a license to print money.
As a PSU fan, I'm very happy that it's one of the two Super Conferences and not worrying about its future like schools like Pitt, Syracuse, BC, and opthers probably will be doing in a few years.
That all happened more than 30 years ago, nobody could have predicted how it played out. We ended up joining a conference that didn't want us, and screwed us ten ways to Sunday at every turn. Don't tell me for one second that anyone other than MAYBE Florida State would not have wanted us in that conference.
PSU would've gotten screwed when it first joined the ACC too. I live in Pittsburgh, and have heard a lot of Pitt fans say that they've been on the short end of many calls in ACC football and basketball games. In the end, PSU fits into the Big 10 much better than it would've in the ACC.
I wonder if PSU had joined the ACC if it would be in such trouble? The Big Ten would have remained a provincial Midwestern conference for a long time, most likely.
The ACC has a lot of good schools and beautiful campuses and stadiums. However, how would PSU fans have felt about playing a steady diet of Wake and Duke and UVA, etc., in football? IMO, that would've hurt the PSU football brand, especially prior to FSU and Miami becoming members.
I think Joe would have had more influence than any Pitt coach since Jackie Sherrill, so we may have been OK. He pretty much forced the Big Ten to add replay (though they've still managed to referine us after that).
The ACC is no different from the B10 - it has a few darling schools whose interests will always come first. If you're not one of the Carolina golden children, you're probably going to experience the same frustrations as all the B10 schools not based in Columbus or Ann Arbor.
The comedy in that show, and I saw it, was that PSU didn’t apply at least not the way you might think. PSU wanted into the Big East but would not have joined a BBall only conference. So yeah….spurned, they voted on someone who didn’t ask, they felt like they had the control. The only meaningful conversation between them was making the Big East an All Sports conference. We weren’t sending BBall in that direction without football. Pitt choked and applied, pressured by Crouthamel. The bad blood had already been let…so to speak.
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Meh….not sure that it’s a Curley defense that’s being discussed. You are right, though, in one of your posts, you mention other than FSU would the others have spurned PSU? Hard to know. Lots of basketball wielding power before the football power grab was on. I do think they would have said yes but they were never asked. PSU did not approach the ACC. The move to BIG Ten was about as covert as you could get and singular target.
FSU joined the ACC in 1992 (Miami in '04, i think), one year before we joined the Big 10. They didn't lose a conference game until 1995. They were in the hunt for national titles, though that's probably attributed to their OOC scheduling (Miami and Florida yearly; Notre Dame was on there in '93 I know), but nobody trashed the ACC then as they do now.
You can't discount the greed that Paterno wanted with his eastern conference. The thing that really held the deal from happening is that Penn State wanted to share basketball revenue but didn't want to do the same with football. I wonder why that is? So it wasn't that they were scared it also that they wanted to protect their own financials.
Don't discount the fact that the reason why the Big East didn't want to add football is because Penn State was insisting that gate revenue would not be shared like basketball revenue was.
And we are hurt in the same regard with basketball..where OSU and Michigan still the priority on TV coverage etc with Big Ten in football..the same goes with Iowa , Illinois even Indiana (at one time) with Basketball..though PSU is getting better and I really like our new coach..we are still irrelevant. Now can you IMAGINE..if "wrestling" was considered a top tier sport across the Country...what our impact or overall coverage would be like ?
yep...and that is why it is so hard to build a program. I am sure the Pac ten says the same about USC and Oregon (nike money) and the SEC about AL, LSU and Ga. Success is creating NIL and that leads to more talented kids. That leads to TV eyeballs. That leads to more success. Its hard to break in.
