Big East needs to expand...

[mikebeau]

Sometime I wonder why Mike Tranghese was so short sighted to n ot make a deal to keep the Big East teams he lost AND pick up the teams they added to have the super-size conference everyone wanted when they left. 

I would of thought of anything to keep Va tech, Miami, and BC in conference.  At that time he should have been proactive to talk those schools into staying and add Cinci, UL and USF.  I'm sure there are many reasons this couldn't have happened(by all means let me know), but the move to add teams just seemed knee jerk.  Instead of making the Big East a bigger and better football conference he looked to maintain by adding after he lost.

[Jihme]

would anyone from the acc even consider coming here?  what type of money does the acc offer over what the BE has to offer?

(this money i'm talking about is obviously before we add new schools and new bowl tie-ins)

[SoFlaEer]

Sometime I wonder why Mike Tranghese was so short sighted to n ot make a deal to keep the Big East teams he lost AND pick up the teams they added to have the super-size conference everyone wanted when they left. 

I would of thought of anything to keep Va tech, Miami, and BC in conference.  At that time he should have been proactive to talk those schools into staying and add Cinci, UL and USF.  I'm sure there are many reasons this couldn't have happened(by all means let me know), but the move to add teams just seemed knee jerk.  Instead of making the Big East a bigger and better football conference he looked to maintain by adding after he lost.

mike - he couldn't at the time - the BB only schools would not have gone for it, because then the FB schools would have outnumbered them (and thus they would not have a power blcok in conf. politics).  thus, an attempt at expansion would have only been able to offer FB only membership with no real hope of eventual full membership.  that is specifically why you saw the expansion that happened - it maintained the balance of FB & nonFB schools.

IMO the FB schools should have been proactive in turning around the  ACC raid and attempting to get the dissatisfied schools in the ACC (i.e., the ones sick of the NC schools basically dictating and controlling conference politics etc) such as FSU, Clemson, Maryland, Ga Tech to break off and form a new mega conference with the Big East FB schools.  tranghese cound not and wound not go in this direction (he was determined to maintain the BE conference).

this of course woulda left USF not in a BCS conf., so things worked out well for you guys, but a new conference with the previous 8 BE football schools (with UConn replacing Temple) plus those four ACC school (or even a combo of a couple of the ACC schools like Clemson and FSU where FB, not BB is king, and a USF or UofL, etc) woulda been an instant dominant conference in both FB & BB.

Too bad tranghese is a man of no vision.

[mikebeau]

I know there is reasons, and it always seems to lead back to the basketball schools.

Here is another one for ya.

Imagine a Penn State and Miami in our league now.

That is an old rivalry that would be great to see in the Big East.  obviously there is this BB school problem, but just thinking out loud.

In the end it is probably better for USF football to maintain the schools we have now and dominate.

[SoFlaEer]

I know there is reasons, and it always seems to lead back to the basketball schools.

Here is another one for ya.

Imagine a Penn State and Miami in our league now.

That is an old rivalry that would be great to see in the Big East.  obviously there is this BB school problem, but just thinking out loud.

In the end it is probably better for USF football to maintain the schools we have now and dominate.

mike - i have brought this up in other threads discussing these topics.  you don't know how pissed i still get when i think about what coulda been.  i was still in school at wvu in the late 80's.  JoPa was instrumental in driving talks between all the NE schools (Rutgers, BC, Syracuse, Pitt, Penn St, Maryland (maryland used to play PSU annually and they were always grumbling about the ACC being controlled by the NCarolina schools, so there is a strong likelihood they could have joined the new conference), WVU, cant rememberif Va Tech was involved to or not) )to form an all-sports conference.  Pitt Syracuse and BC all said no, and it was because they wanted to continue to enjoy the gravy train of the BE basketball affiliation)  I remember JoPa basically giving up and in frustration told Syracuse & Pitt to go F themselves, if they wanted to continue a series with Penn State, it would have to be 2 for 1's.  That is why PSU & Pitt dont play anymore and wont as long as JoPa is there.

Back at the time, if the proper visionaries had seen the potential there was the possibility of a mega conference in the east that would have been an incredible beast if it had happened.  Back in the late 80's you gotta remember the college landscape was a lot different and there were many many independents in D1A football.  So an eastern conference could have included independents Florida St, Miami, South Carolina, Va Tech, WVU, Pitt, Penn State, Rutgers, Syracuse, BC, potnetially Maryland and perhaps Temple.

But because of three shortsited administrations who at the time thought BB affiliation with the BE was more important than an all-sports conference, we have the cluster-f*ck we know as the Big East Conference today.

[Guest]

Apis....

To answer you about TCU -- it's too far west for a "Big East" conference... HOWEVER...

If the Big East spilts, and the football schools branch off assuming a deal can be worked out for the basketball tournament points and automatic seed, then TCU could be back in the mix... along with a few other teams...

---

Personally, I don't like the idea of 8 BCS conferences with 9 teams... they should all have 12... 8 * 12 = 96, so that would be all but 24 FBS teams... and many of them would be the FIU's and Buffalo's that don't meet attendnace requirements anyway...

All 8 conferences would be 2 division each... all 8 would play championship games... I would add that no FCS games should count toward the 6 win minimum... All teams would pay 8 conference games and 4 OOC games, allowing "traditional rivavlries" to continue (like Notre Dame - USC or Florida-Florida State or Colorado-Colorado State, if these teams end up in different conferences)...

[SANJAY]

Sometime I wonder why Mike Tranghese was so short sighted to n ot make a deal to keep the Big East teams he lost AND pick up the teams they added to have the super-size conference everyone wanted when they left. 

I would of thought of anything to keep Va tech, Miami, and BC in conference.  At that time he should have been proactive to talk those schools into staying and add Cinci, UL and USF.  I'm sure there are many reasons this couldn't have happened(by all means let me know), but the move to add teams just seemed knee jerk.  Instead of making the Big East a bigger and better football conference he looked to maintain by adding after he lost.

Big East football did not have the revenue to match the ACC post-expansion.  Also, the plan or thought process was that if Miami, BC and V left the Big East would lose their automatic BCS bid, so meaning that instead of 6 autobids for 8 slots it would be 5 for 8 slots.  This would almost guarantee more money to 3 conferences who got 2 teams in.  Did not work out that way.  Say what you want about Tranghese not seeing the split coming or the bowl alignment sucking, the fact that he was able to keep the BCS bid was huge and allowed Big East football to survive with us as a part of it.

As for bringing in schools prior to the ACC expansion, the basketball schools would not have allowed it.  We were only allowed in after BC left because to allow us in before would tilt the 8-8 football-basketball ratio of the conference.  The basketball schools still very much drive this conference and they have support from some of the football schools particularly Syracuse which has historical basketball rivalries with them.

[mikebeau]

Say what you want about Tranghese not seeing the split coming or the bowl alignment sucking, the fact that he was able to keep the BCS bid was huge and allowed Big East football to survive with us as a part of it.

I'm guess I'm trying to understand how and why it went down the way it did.  And maybe how it could of went another way.  I don't know a lot of the details about this. 

It seems like every conversation leads to the BBall schools when it is explained why football schools were gone or not added or kept, etc etc.

[SoFlaEer]

Say what you want about Tranghese not seeing the split coming or the bowl alignment sucking, the fact that he was able to keep the BCS bid was huge and allowed Big East football to survive with us as a part of it.

I'm guess I'm trying to understand how and why it went down the way it did.  And maybe how it could of went another way.  I don't know a lot of the details about this. 

It seems like every conversation leads to the BBall schools when it is explained why football schools were gone or not added or kept, etc etc.

mike - you are correct - and again it is the history of the conference as it developed.  it was a BB conference.  in many ways it still is . the FB piece came about ONLY in a reactionary response to the conference expansion grabs and what not - the Big East FB conference was more a group of schools coming together in a somewhat of a panic so as not to be left out as all of a sudden all the major independents starting to join conferences (FSU to acc, PSU to big televen, demise and realignment of the SWC & big 8, then the mega conference grabs of SCarolina & Arkansas, and formation of big 12)

one other thing to remember that in the early 90's miami was at the peak of their thug reputation and no one wanted to play them anymore, ND and some other schools had recently dropped them and they were struggling to fill the schedule.  that is a big part of how/why miami landed there.  so the FB piece of the Big East came about from a paniced necessity more than 8 school coming together who had traditional rivalries and wanted to form a conference as well (although many rivalries did indeed exist witin the group - it was a reactionary security move more than anything else - that is partially why there is always an underlying vibe to our conference of instability that you just dont see in other conferences - i.e., Big east schools may/will shift to other conferences, but it would be virtually unheard of for a big 10 or SEC team to leave their conference.

originally, half the BE football schools were only FB members and it was only through many years of pushing and threatening that ultimately got them full membership (wvu & rutgers in 1996, VaTech in 2000, Temple was never considered for all sports).

The conference was and in many aspects is a BB conference still that came up with the cluster mix we now see in order to keep D1A football schools content without breaking up the BB conference.  the FB piece was merely a shortsighted solution to keep Syracuse Pitt and BC in the BE basketball conference while addressing their D1A football needs - i.e., it is highly likely these schools may otherwise have bolted to a new all sports conference once the expansion panic started in the early 90's.

does that help at all?

[mikebeau]

major explanation

gives me more understanding