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Big East Catholic Schools Ponder Leaving En Masse

Discussion in 'Sports and News' started by Lugnuts, Dec 12, 2012.

  1. BitterYoungMatador2

    BitterYoungMatador2 Well-Known Member

    They did want in the Big East in the 80s when the Big East was only a hoops league. For years they have blamed Pitt and Syracuse for blocking their membership, despite evidence to the contrary.
     
  2. Mark2010

    Mark2010 Active Member

    The Big East was behind the curve on the football deal. Had it been more pro-active in going after Penn State before the Big Ten did, it well might have gotten them. There were enough eastern independents at one time to form a pretty decent league, but too many went chasing dollars elsewhere. I wonder how Boston College is liking life in the ACC?

    But a league where half the schools had football and half do not was always going to be troubling. Just too many conflicting priorities. So I'm sort of surprised the Catholic schools didn't get out a decade ago.
     
  3. Armchair_QB

    Armchair_QB Well-Known Member

    Have to wonder if the Big East could have pulled off a Missouri Valley-Missouri Valley Football Conference to keep things together.
     
  4. wicked

    wicked Well-Known Member

    Would Holy Cross get any hoops love?

    Probably not, and I'm pretty sure that train left the station a long time ago, just throwing it out there.
     
  5. LanceyHoward

    LanceyHoward Well-Known Member

    According to the article West Virginia, Temple and Rutgers were involved in discussions. At that time the only Big East members playing D-1 football were were BC, Syracuse and Pitt. The other schools would have had to be added to form a decent league. Or would Penn State have remained a football independent and joined for all other sports.
     
  6. Mark2010

    Mark2010 Active Member

    Exactly. They had to expand if they wanted to sponsor football as a conference sport. So VT, Rutgers, Temple all made sense. Miami was a bit more of a reach geographically, but the Hurricanes gave the league credibility at the outset and Miami had to go somewhere to counter Florida State joining the ACC. Penn State could have been the league kingpin had it opted for the Big East over the Big Ten.

    Oh, well, ancient history. It does make sense to see the Catholic schools form a non-football league with whomever they can get to join them. They'll have plenty of star power in the thump universe.

    And the football leftovers (Cincy, UConn, South Florida) can jump in bed with the leftovers from C-USA and form a respectable mid-major league.
     
  7. linotype

    linotype Well-Known Member

    Good synopsis. One minor point: It wasn't that Paterno yanked PSU out of the Eastern Eight and stuck them in the A-10. The Eastern Eight became the A-10. PSU was a charter Eastern Eight member but bailed for a brief run as an independent in '79 and came back 3-4 years later when the league rebranded as the A-10 and brought in Temple and St. Joe's along with PSU.

    Not the only time the A-10 let a team leave only to watch it come back, either. Duquesne bailed for the Mid-Con in '92 but came crawling back one year later when Dayton left for the Great Midwest and Duquesne got ticked that the Mid-Con was losing its automatic NCAA berth.
     
  8. LanceyHoward

    LanceyHoward Well-Known Member

    How much does the typical C-USA school receive in football revenue? South Florida and UConn have invested millions in new stadiums. I saw a 2009-2010 report where UConn and Cincinnati were spending 13M a year or so in the football program. I don't know how those schools fill that hole without a television contract.
     
  9. Mark2010

    Mark2010 Active Member

    That's one of the downsides of this latest round of conference musical chairs. There aren't enough seats at the table for everyone. Not everyone is going to have a big TV contract, an automatic bid to the playoffs or whatever. It's going to be up to these newly constructed leagues to market themselves.

    Sadly, what we've seen in the last couple of years is too much "what's in it for me?" rather than "how do we grow our current league?"

    I mentioned earlier I wouldn't be shocked to see South Florida someday wind up in the ACC. For Cincinnati, the Big XII might be the one to aspire to.

    But if you do get to a point where there are four major 14 or 16-team conferences, that's 56 or 64 teams, not 100.
     
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