(01-29-2014 08:45 AM)orangefan Wrote:  

(01-29-2014 08:24 AM)ken d Wrote:  

(01-28-2014 11:31 PM)brista21 Wrote:  

(01-28-2014 04:36 PM)HtownOrange Wrote:  

(01-28-2014 01:11 PM)brista21 Wrote:  FWIW at one point shortly after Rutgers announced going to the Big Ten there was a rumor in our circles that Rutgers and Syracuse were going to put together a multi game series in each of football, men's and women's basketball and men's and women's lacrosse. So far it hasn't come to fruition and with the advent of 9 game conference schedules seemingly for both conferences, the ND scheduling agreement for the ACC and the 4 (and potentially more) game series with Temple for Rutgers I don't think its going to happen soon. Its a shame that the two (arguably) largest football fanbases in the NY area won't get to see the two teams play one another anytime soon. The long running series had finally become competitive and even interesting in this century as Rutgers fortunes improved. Hard to call it a true rivalry as for the most part its Rutgers that "hates" Syracuse and not the other way around, but it had some serious potential if things continued as they had been.

The series never was heated until the GROB era. Both schools seem to want to focus on their respective conferences and other short term goals. Historically, the two schools seldom played prior to the Big East. I do expect some future series between the schools but this will not be a priority in the near future.

I do think it would be beneficial to play periodically to create regional interest.

Its a series that's been played 40+ times actually. The vast majority of which has been since the mid 70s. I wouldn't say we seldom played. BC and Pitt are schools we seldom played prior to the Big East.

I'm not picking on Rutgers, but between 1914 and 1950 they played Syracuse 9 times, losing 8 and tying 1. Then they only played once more (1975) before the Big East was formed in 1979.

To me, that's seldom.

Looking at the Eastern Independents as a group, the NCAA split between 1-A and 1-AA really threw together those that elected to be in 1-A. Prior to the split, BC played Holy Cross, Villanova and UMass regularly. Rutgers played Colgate, Bucknell and Princeton, and Temple played Villanova, Holy Cross and Delaware. These schools had to increase their profiles and add higher caliber opponents to make the jump to 1-A. Although Syracuse did not lose any of its regular opponents to 1-AA, it did have a shortage of regular opponents in the East. During the '70's SU played Maryland annually, a series threatened and ultimately cut back by the ACC's addition of GT and UMD's desire to play Penn St. and WVU more frequently. SU had also never found a permanent replacement for Holy Cross after that series ended in the early '70's. The increased profiles of the Temple and Rutgers programs addressed this scheduling need. From about 1980 onward, the group consisting of SU, Penn St., Pitt, BC, WVU, Rutgers and Temple played pretty close to a full round robin annually until Penn St. joined the B1G.

Sounds like JoPa had his eastern conference in a de facto sense even if it wasn't formalized.

BTW, Syracuse's 1978 schedule was pretty interesting looking at it through the prism of today's conference realities.

Florida State
North Carolina State
Michigan State
Illinois
West Virginia
Maryland
Penn State
Pitt
Navy
Boston College
Miami (F)

That would have satisfied all the people who think SOS should be the most important factor in selecting teams for a playoff. Of course, it would have helped if the Orange had won more than three of them.

Rutgers/Syracuse had a lot of potential to become a bigger rivalry. It already had the NY/NJ hate thing built in. It is a shame that it won't continue and have a chance to build further.

(01-29-2014 09:28 AM)brista21 Wrote:  

(01-29-2014 08:44 AM)esayem Wrote:  He may be referring to the Big East football conference.

Correct I am indeed. The Big East itself forming isn't that relevant to a pure football series. At least to me it isn't.

Sent from my KFTHWI using Tapatalk

If I understand you, formation of the Big East Football Conference did not affect ongoing series among SU, Rutgers, Temple, BC, Pitt and WVU. I would agree with that. It did provide a vehicle to add Miami to replace Penn State on all of our schedules, as well as bringing in Va. Tech.

(01-29-2014 09:53 AM)orangefan Wrote:  

(01-29-2014 09:28 AM)brista21 Wrote:  

(01-29-2014 08:44 AM)esayem Wrote:  He may be referring to the Big East football conference.

Correct I am indeed. The Big East itself forming isn't that relevant to a pure football series. At least to me it isn't.

Sent from my KFTHWI using Tapatalk

If I understand you, formation of the Big East Football Conference did not affect ongoing series among SU, Rutgers, Temple, BC, Pitt and WVU. I would agree with that. It did provide a vehicle to add Miami to replace Penn State on all of our schedules, as well as bringing in Va. Tech.

It really is a shame that someone on the BE football side did not have the leadership skills required to get the FB schools on the same page and to break away.

As much as I like the ACC I would have liked a 8-10 team league more with the BE football schools.

(01-29-2014 09:41 AM)ken d Wrote:  

(01-29-2014 08:45 AM)orangefan Wrote:  

(01-29-2014 08:24 AM)ken d Wrote:  

(01-28-2014 11:31 PM)brista21 Wrote:  

(01-28-2014 04:36 PM)HtownOrange Wrote:  The series never was heated until the GROB era. Both schools seem to want to focus on their respective conferences and other short term goals. Historically, the two schools seldom played prior to the Big East. I do expect some future series between the schools but this will not be a priority in the near future.

I do think it would be beneficial to play periodically to create regional interest.

Its a series that's been played 40+ times actually. The vast majority of which has been since the mid 70s. I wouldn't say we seldom played. BC and Pitt are schools we seldom played prior to the Big East.

I'm not picking on Rutgers, but between 1914 and 1950 they played Syracuse 9 times, losing 8 and tying 1. Then they only played once more (1975) before the Big East was formed in 1979.

To me, that's seldom.

Looking at the Eastern Independents as a group, the NCAA split between 1-A and 1-AA really threw together those that elected to be in 1-A. Prior to the split, BC played Holy Cross, Villanova and UMass regularly. Rutgers played Colgate, Bucknell and Princeton, and Temple played Villanova, Holy Cross and Delaware. These schools had to increase their profiles and add higher caliber opponents to make the jump to 1-A. Although Syracuse did not lose any of its regular opponents to 1-AA, it did have a shortage of regular opponents in the East. During the '70's SU played Maryland annually, a series threatened and ultimately cut back by the ACC's addition of GT and UMD's desire to play Penn St. and WVU more frequently. SU had also never found a permanent replacement for Holy Cross after that series ended in the early '70's. The increased profiles of the Temple and Rutgers programs addressed this scheduling need. From about 1980 onward, the group consisting of SU, Penn St., Pitt, BC, WVU, Rutgers and Temple played pretty close to a full round robin annually until Penn St. joined the B1G.

Sounds like JoPa had his eastern conference in a de facto sense even if it wasn't formalized.

BTW, Syracuse's 1978 schedule was pretty interesting looking at it through the prism of today's conference realities.

Florida State
North Carolina State
Michigan State
Illinois
West Virginia
Maryland
Penn State
Pitt
Navy
Boston College
Miami (F)

That would have satisfied all the people who think SOS should be the most important factor in selecting teams for a playoff. Of course, it would have helped if the Orange had won more than three of them.

The 70's weren't real kind to Syracuse. But the period from 2005-2009 was still the worst period in the programs history.

(01-29-2014 09:55 AM)WNCOrange Wrote:  

(01-29-2014 09:53 AM)orangefan Wrote:  

(01-29-2014 09:28 AM)brista21 Wrote:  

(01-29-2014 08:44 AM)esayem Wrote:  He may be referring to the Big East football conference.

Correct I am indeed. The Big East itself forming isn't that relevant to a pure football series. At least to me it isn't.

Sent from my KFTHWI using Tapatalk

If I understand you, formation of the Big East Football Conference did not affect ongoing series among SU, Rutgers, Temple, BC, Pitt and WVU. I would agree with that. It did provide a vehicle to add Miami to replace Penn State on all of our schedules, as well as bringing in Va. Tech.

It really is a shame that someone on the BE football side did not have the leadership skills required to get the FB schools on the same page and to break away.

As much as I like the ACC I would have liked a 8-10 team league more with the BE football schools.

It's simply because breaking away would have been worse than staying together, with worse money, and would have split the basketball talent in the northeast exactly like what Dave Gavitt warned about and exactly like the American-Big East mess now. The same schools would have left at the same time. The Big East was stronger together than apart, and everyone knew it.

(01-29-2014 10:26 AM)CrazyPaco Wrote:  

(01-29-2014 09:55 AM)WNCOrange Wrote:  

(01-29-2014 09:53 AM)orangefan Wrote:  

(01-29-2014 09:28 AM)brista21 Wrote:  

(01-29-2014 08:44 AM)esayem Wrote:  He may be referring to the Big East football conference.

Correct I am indeed. The Big East itself forming isn't that relevant to a pure football series. At least to me it isn't.

Sent from my KFTHWI using Tapatalk

If I understand you, formation of the Big East Football Conference did not affect ongoing series among SU, Rutgers, Temple, BC, Pitt and WVU. I would agree with that. It did provide a vehicle to add Miami to replace Penn State on all of our schedules, as well as bringing in Va. Tech.

It really is a shame that someone on the BE football side did not have the leadership skills required to get the FB schools on the same page and to break away.

As much as I like the ACC I would have liked a 8-10 team league more with the BE football schools.

It's simply because breaking away would have been worse than staying together, with worse money, and would have split the basketball talent in the northeast exactly like what Dave Gavitt warned about and exactly like the American-Big East mess now. The same schools would have left at the same time. The Big East was stronger together than apart, and everyone knew it.

I sometimes wonder how the landscape might have changed if Florida State had decided to team up with Miami and joined the fledgling Big East instead of the ACC. Ultimately, the two leagues might have come together anyway, but it likely would have been the BE poaching the ACC instead of the other way around.

Would the ACC have been given AQ status by the BCS without FSU? I'm inclined to think not. Who would have been the BE's first ACC target on their way to 12 teams? Maryland, perhaps? Would Wake Forest and Duke have been left behind? There's a domino effect to every expansion decision. It's fun to speculate how the fortunes of individual teams would have changed.

(01-29-2014 10:41 AM)ken d Wrote:  

(01-29-2014 10:26 AM)CrazyPaco Wrote:  

(01-29-2014 09:55 AM)WNCOrange Wrote:  

(01-29-2014 09:53 AM)orangefan Wrote:  

(01-29-2014 09:28 AM)brista21 Wrote:  Correct I am indeed. The Big East itself forming isn't that relevant to a pure football series. At least to me it isn't.

Sent from my KFTHWI using Tapatalk

If I understand you, formation of the Big East Football Conference did not affect ongoing series among SU, Rutgers, Temple, BC, Pitt and WVU. I would agree with that. It did provide a vehicle to add Miami to replace Penn State on all of our schedules, as well as bringing in Va. Tech.

It really is a shame that someone on the BE football side did not have the leadership skills required to get the FB schools on the same page and to break away.

As much as I like the ACC I would have liked a 8-10 team league more with the BE football schools.

It's simply because breaking away would have been worse than staying together, with worse money, and would have split the basketball talent in the northeast exactly like what Dave Gavitt warned about and exactly like the American-Big East mess now. The same schools would have left at the same time. The Big East was stronger together than apart, and everyone knew it.

I sometimes wonder how the landscape might have changed if Florida State had decided to team up with Miami and joined the fledgling Big East instead of the ACC. Ultimately, the two leagues might have come together anyway, but it likely would have been the BE poaching the ACC instead of the other way around.

Would the ACC have been given AQ status by the BCS without FSU? I'm inclined to think not. Who would have been the BE's first ACC target on their way to 12 teams? Maryland, perhaps? Would Wake Forest and Duke have been left behind? There's a domino effect to every expansion decision. It's fun to speculate how the fortunes of individual teams would have changed.

I think the bigger question would have been whether the basketball-only voting block would have accepted expansion of the conference by two football schools instead of one back then, in the late 80s. I think the answer is no. The problems with the Big East started in 1979.

(01-29-2014 09:41 AM)ken d Wrote:  Sounds like JoPa had his eastern conference in a de facto sense even if it wasn't formalized.

BTW, Syracuse's 1978 schedule was pretty interesting looking at it through the prism of today's conference realities.

Florida State
North Carolina State
Michigan State
Illinois
West Virginia
Maryland
Penn State
Pitt
Navy
Boston College
Miami (F)

That would have satisfied all the people who think SOS should be the most important factor in selecting teams for a playoff. Of course, it would have helped if the Orange had won more than three of them.

In all fairness, SU lost its starting QB on the first play of the year.

If Bill Hurley had been healthy ... we could have won a few more.

(01-29-2014 10:52 AM)CrazyPaco Wrote:  

(01-29-2014 10:41 AM)ken d Wrote:  

(01-29-2014 10:26 AM)CrazyPaco Wrote:  

(01-29-2014 09:55 AM)WNCOrange Wrote:  

(01-29-2014 09:53 AM)orangefan Wrote:  If I understand you, formation of the Big East Football Conference did not affect ongoing series among SU, Rutgers, Temple, BC, Pitt and WVU. I would agree with that. It did provide a vehicle to add Miami to replace Penn State on all of our schedules, as well as bringing in Va. Tech.

It really is a shame that someone on the BE football side did not have the leadership skills required to get the FB schools on the same page and to break away.

As much as I like the ACC I would have liked a 8-10 team league more with the BE football schools.

It's simply because breaking away would have been worse than staying together, with worse money, and would have split the basketball talent in the northeast exactly like what Dave Gavitt warned about and exactly like the American-Big East mess now. The same schools would have left at the same time. The Big East was stronger together than apart, and everyone knew it.

I sometimes wonder how the landscape might have changed if Florida State had decided to team up with Miami and joined the fledgling Big East instead of the ACC. Ultimately, the two leagues might have come together anyway, but it likely would have been the BE poaching the ACC instead of the other way around.

Would the ACC have been given AQ status by the BCS without FSU? I'm inclined to think not. Who would have been the BE's first ACC target on their way to 12 teams? Maryland, perhaps? Would Wake Forest and Duke have been left behind? There's a domino effect to every expansion decision. It's fun to speculate how the fortunes of individual teams would have changed.

I think the bigger question would have been whether the basketball-only voting block would have accepted expansion of the conference by two football schools instead of one back then, in the late 80s. I think the answer is no. The problems with the Big East started in 1979.

The Big East/Eastern Independents dichotomy provided the best of both worlds to Pitt, BC and Syracuse. We were playing in "conferences" that consistently competed for National Championships in both football and basketball. This was understandably not satisfatory to Penn State. We recreated the same situation, though, by adding Miami to the Big East and stretched another 12+ years out of it. The primacy of football made belonging to a basketball conference an untenable permanent solution, but it was a very good one for 34 years.

(01-29-2014 10:52 AM)CrazyPaco Wrote:  

(01-29-2014 10:41 AM)ken d Wrote:  

(01-29-2014 10:26 AM)CrazyPaco Wrote:  

(01-29-2014 09:55 AM)WNCOrange Wrote:  

(01-29-2014 09:53 AM)orangefan Wrote:  If I understand you, formation of the Big East Football Conference did not affect ongoing series among SU, Rutgers, Temple, BC, Pitt and WVU. I would agree with that. It did provide a vehicle to add Miami to replace Penn State on all of our schedules, as well as bringing in Va. Tech.

It really is a shame that someone on the BE football side did not have the leadership skills required to get the FB schools on the same page and to break away.

As much as I like the ACC I would have liked a 8-10 team league more with the BE football schools.

It's simply because breaking away would have been worse than staying together, with worse money, and would have split the basketball talent in the northeast exactly like what Dave Gavitt warned about and exactly like the American-Big East mess now. The same schools would have left at the same time. The Big East was stronger together than apart, and everyone knew it.

I sometimes wonder how the landscape might have changed if Florida State had decided to team up with Miami and joined the fledgling Big East instead of the ACC. Ultimately, the two leagues might have come together anyway, but it likely would have been the BE poaching the ACC instead of the other way around.

Would the ACC have been given AQ status by the BCS without FSU? I'm inclined to think not. Who would have been the BE's first ACC target on their way to 12 teams? Maryland, perhaps? Would Wake Forest and Duke have been left behind? There's a domino effect to every expansion decision. It's fun to speculate how the fortunes of individual teams would have changed.

I think the bigger question would have been whether the basketball-only voting block would have accepted expansion of the conference by two football schools instead of one back then, in the late 80s. I think the answer is no. The problems with the Big East started in 1979.

It's not as if they expanded the conference by just adding one football school. They also added Rutgers, West Virginia, Temple and Virginia Tech for football only. Why not FSU as well?

(01-29-2014 10:41 AM)ken d Wrote:  I sometimes wonder how the landscape might have changed if Florida State had decided to team up with Miami and joined the fledgling Big East instead of the ACC. Ultimately, the two leagues might have come together anyway, but it likely would have been the BE poaching the ACC instead of the other way around.

Would the ACC have been given AQ status by the BCS without FSU? I'm inclined to think not. Who would have been the BE's first ACC target on their way to 12 teams? Maryland, perhaps? Would Wake Forest and Duke have been left behind? There's a domino effect to every expansion decision. It's fun to speculate how the fortunes of individual teams would have changed.

FSU had nothing in common with the Big East schools and rarely played them (whereas Miami had both facets in common to some degree). Would it have been interesting? Yes. Surprising? Definitely. FSU had applied countless times to get into the SEC until the late 70's when the SEC shut the door with some form of legislation against expanding beyond ten. They disregarded it in the early 90's and invited FSU, only to be publicly embarrassed.

(01-29-2014 11:50 AM)ken d Wrote:  

(01-29-2014 10:52 AM)CrazyPaco Wrote:  

(01-29-2014 10:41 AM)ken d Wrote:  

(01-29-2014 10:26 AM)CrazyPaco Wrote:  

(01-29-2014 09:55 AM)WNCOrange Wrote:  It really is a shame that someone on the BE football side did not have the leadership skills required to get the FB schools on the same page and to break away.

As much as I like the ACC I would have liked a 8-10 team league more with the BE football schools.

It's simply because breaking away would have been worse than staying together, with worse money, and would have split the basketball talent in the northeast exactly like what Dave Gavitt warned about and exactly like the American-Big East mess now. The same schools would have left at the same time. The Big East was stronger together than apart, and everyone knew it.

I sometimes wonder how the landscape might have changed if Florida State had decided to team up with Miami and joined the fledgling Big East instead of the ACC. Ultimately, the two leagues might have come together anyway, but it likely would have been the BE poaching the ACC instead of the other way around.

Would the ACC have been given AQ status by the BCS without FSU? I'm inclined to think not. Who would have been the BE's first ACC target on their way to 12 teams? Maryland, perhaps? Would Wake Forest and Duke have been left behind? There's a domino effect to every expansion decision. It's fun to speculate how the fortunes of individual teams would have changed.

I think the bigger question would have been whether the basketball-only voting block would have accepted expansion of the conference by two football schools instead of one back then, in the late 80s. I think the answer is no. The problems with the Big East started in 1979.

It's not as if they expanded the conference by just adding one football school. They also added Rutgers, West Virginia, Temple and Virginia Tech for football only. Why not FSU as well?

No, the Big East proper didn't expand with WVU, Rutgers, Temple and VTech. Only Miami was brought in to the Big East. The Big East Football Conference was a separate legal entity at its formation through, and I believe, at least the first half of the 1990s.

Neither FSU nor Miami would have only joined the football conference. Membership in Big East basketball was the attraction for Miami, but I don't believe there would have been any way to bring in two football schools into the main Big East Conference at that point.

The Big East almost split in the early 90s over the struggles of the football members to bring RU, WVU, Temple, and VT in as full members, as well as disagreements over who owned what part of the media contracts. The compromise was ND as a hoops only and RU and WVU. Later Temple was given the boot and VT was brought in after a long wait. Eventually, at some point in the 90s, The Big East Football Conference was legally folded into main Big East Conference.

(01-29-2014 02:41 PM)CrazyPaco Wrote:  

(01-29-2014 11:50 AM)ken d Wrote:  

(01-29-2014 10:52 AM)CrazyPaco Wrote:  

(01-29-2014 10:41 AM)ken d Wrote:  

(01-29-2014 10:26 AM)CrazyPaco Wrote:  It's simply because breaking away would have been worse than staying together, with worse money, and would have split the basketball talent in the northeast exactly like what Dave Gavitt warned about and exactly like the American-Big East mess now. The same schools would have left at the same time. The Big East was stronger together than apart, and everyone knew it.

I sometimes wonder how the landscape might have changed if Florida State had decided to team up with Miami and joined the fledgling Big East instead of the ACC. Ultimately, the two leagues might have come together anyway, but it likely would have been the BE poaching the ACC instead of the other way around.

Would the ACC have been given AQ status by the BCS without FSU? I'm inclined to think not. Who would have been the BE's first ACC target on their way to 12 teams? Maryland, perhaps? Would Wake Forest and Duke have been left behind? There's a domino effect to every expansion decision. It's fun to speculate how the fortunes of individual teams would have changed.

I think the bigger question would have been whether the basketball-only voting block would have accepted expansion of the conference by two football schools instead of one back then, in the late 80s. I think the answer is no. The problems with the Big East started in 1979.

It's not as if they expanded the conference by just adding one football school. They also added Rutgers, West Virginia, Temple and Virginia Tech for football only. Why not FSU as well?

No, the Big East proper didn't expand with WVU, Rutgers, Temple and VTech. Only Miami was brought in to the Big East. The Big East Football Conference was a separate legal entity at its formation through, and I believe, at least the first half of the 1990s.

Neither FSU nor Miami would have only joined the football conference. Membership in Big East basketball was the attraction for Miami, but I don't believe there would have been any way to bring in two football schools into the main Big East Conference at that point.

The Big East almost split in the early 90s over the struggles of the football members to bring RU, WVU, Temple, and VT in as full members, as well as disagreements over who owned what part of the media contracts. The compromise was ND as a hoops only and RU and WVU. Later Temple was given the boot and VT was brought in after a long wait. Eventually, at some point in the 90s, The Big East Football Conference was legally folded into main Big East Conference.

Paco has this right. I think it may have been as late as the first ACC expansion raid that the football conference was folded into the main Big East legal entity.