(05-29-2013 09:14 AM)quo vadis Wrote: NYC hasn't had indigenous fans since around the time Vince Lombardi was a block of granite, and never will again. In short, good post.
It was slightly more recently than that, but not by a lot.
1924 - "Four Horsemen" of Notre Dame upset Army at the Polo Grounds
1936-37 - Fordham "Seven Blocks of Granite" squads
1944-45 - Army wins back to back national championships
1952 - NYU drops football
1954 - Fordham drops football
1956 - Ivy League formally begins play. Columbia and other members deemphasize athletics (to the extent they had not already)
1958 - Army coach Red Blaik retires after undefeated season in which the Cadets finished #3 in the AP
1964 - Last Army game at old Yankee Stadium (Syracuse d. Army 27-15, Att. 37,552)
Prior to the separation of Division 1 into D1-A and D1-AA, Rutgers played primarily an Ivy League type schedule. For instance, its undefeated 1976 squad played Bucknell, Princeton, Cornell, UConn (still in the Yankee Conference), Lehigh, Columbia, UMass and Colgate. Its most challenging opponents were Navy, Louisville and Tulane. The establishment of D1-A in 1978 forced them to drop most of their traditional rivals and schedule other 1-A opponents.