What would have an original Big East football conference have looked like if Penn State was in the mix? I would think it would consist of Penn St. , Pitt, Boston College, Syracuse, Rutgers, Temple. Who else is there? Was Army and Navy in the mix? I don't think Miami and Virginia Tech were in the conversation 35 years ago. How about East Carolina?
What teams would comprise an original BE FB conference?
- Thread starter SEPATOPTEN
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I personally favored then, and now, what I call the BIG RIVALS CONFERENCE. It would be Penn State, Rugers, and Pitt. They would only play two conference games each fall, which given the intensity of the Rivalries, would be more than enough. Then, as a bonus, you could load the schedule up with less meaningful games like Alabama, Notre Dame, USC, Texas, LSU, Florida State, Oregon.....
Yes... today we would add UCONN, but back then Maryland would have been the favored team to round out the 8 team conference.
1. Penn State
2. Pitt
3. West Virginia
4. Syracuse
5. Boston College
6. Rutgers
7. Temple
The younger folks here won't know this, but the older folks will agree: JVP's idea included VTech in the mix.
That would have been before Virginia Tech had really arrived on the CFB scene. Would have been a pretty good conference.
Maryland would not have left the ACC in those days. But depending on *when*, you might have gotten Nova to join--though they kept going back and forth on dropping football. We were scheduled to play them when they dropped football but did not pick that game up again when they restored football a few years later. And Nova would have added a lot to other sports (track and BB to name two).
What about University of Cincinnati? We played them fairly often in the 1970s and 1980s.
Today you could have expanded to include UConn, Virginia Tech, and Buffalo. Central Florida and/or South Florida to open the Florida recruiting.
Back then you could have considered Marshall and East Carolina as well.
Army and Navy would be nice but they probably would not have agreed to it given the competitive disadvantage they would have had.
That could very well be true but I've read stories which claimed Maryland could have been pried away from the ACC given some convincing and the right collection of teams. During the 80s Penn State and Maryland played some exciting games. Maryland would also have had some easy road trips to WVU, Pitt, Temple and Rutgers. Anyway, it's fun to speculate but the Big East football ship sailed a long time ago.
Considering all the independents back then, with strong leadership I could see (wish) that the conference could have evolved into this:
BE North
BC
Syracuse
UConn
Notre Dame
Penn State
Pitt
Rutgers
BE South
Navy
Temple
Maryland
Florida State
Miami
V-Tech
WVU
BE North
BC
Syracuse
UConn
Notre Dame
Penn State
Pitt
Rutgers
BE South
Navy
Temple
Maryland
Florida State
Miami
V-Tech
WVU
Back then I believe Villanova was Div 1. I also think IF that had happened expansion might have moved down to Virginia and a program such as Delaware's might have moved up. The REAL problem was the disproportionate power the BB schools had and a fear that PSU/Joe would "run" the conference. Funny how the BB schools are the ONLY BigEast now
Cincinnati would have been an extremely shrewd move. If that conference had gone ahead with Cincinnati, I think the Big Ten would have imploded by now, Think of all the talent in Ohio that would have gone to Cincinnati instead of O$U - remember how Cincinnati was the better team in Ohio just a few years ago, when they played in the BCS several years in a row?
Paterno once stated on his call in show that there was a feeling among prospective members of the eastern all sports conference that they could have gotten Maryland to join as well.
That would have been quite a conference. I always wanted Notre Dame in the big ten. It would have rivaled any in the country.
But Notre Dame, time and time again, has opted for the Independent route. The only thing that will get them out of that is if they lose their TV contract. And that may happen since they are no longer playing Michigan and Michigan State (or Northwestern). If they are pretty much playing and ACC schedule, I think their "property" becomes less valuable to the N(D)BC...
I think the Big Ten would welcome them but you are right, they will call their own shot.
The reason I mentioned Maryland, we basically played them every year and they probably had non-conf. games with some of the other
teams on the list.
You should read the book "Forth and Long" it tells the story of the bad blood between Notre Dame and Michigan and thus the whole Big Ten. This goes back to the days of Fielding Yost in the early 1920s. Michigan considered Notre Dame inferior until ND started beating them so they stopped playing. Michigan insulted ND on numerous occasions back then and over the years. The issue is not the Big Ten being unwilling to invite ND it is ND being unwilling to accept.
Today the NBC deal absolutely plays a role but there is still bad blood and ND now considers joining the Big Ten a step down.
