Interesting history of WVa sports concentrating on the failure to establish an Eastern Football Conference. According to this, Syracuse wasn't as lily-white as has been portrayed. I've always thought that Jake's and Buzz Shaw's ambivalence towards entry to the ACC bid in 2003 was, along with the Va. governor, the cause for the negative vote at that time.
And then there was Syracuse and Boston College, which were firmly committed to Big East basketball. Boston College's main objective was to join a football-only conference while Syracuse's No. 1 mission was to protect Jim Boeheim's basketball program. That meant preserving the Big East at all costs.
"(Syracuse athletic director Jake) Crouthamel is a good friend of mine and he told me on more than one occasion, 'Hey Don, we don't even need football at Syracuse. We're averaging 25,000 a game and I've got 13-14 players to worry about. I don't have to worry about 85 players and all that expense,'" said [former WVa coach Don] Nehlen.
How much Syracuse sabotaged Paterno's all-sports conference and exacerbated the rift between Pitt and Penn State will never be known, but Paterno's plan eventually died at the vine and when Penn State wasn't voted into the Big East for basketball, the Big East went full bore after Pitt. On many occasions since then, former Big East commissioner Mike Tranghese has said that not voting in Penn State was the league's biggest mistake.
http://www.wvusports.com/blogs.cfm?blog=footballBlog&story=25902
This post was edited on 7/3 1:34 PM by SU68
Link
And then there was Syracuse and Boston College, which were firmly committed to Big East basketball. Boston College's main objective was to join a football-only conference while Syracuse's No. 1 mission was to protect Jim Boeheim's basketball program. That meant preserving the Big East at all costs.
"(Syracuse athletic director Jake) Crouthamel is a good friend of mine and he told me on more than one occasion, 'Hey Don, we don't even need football at Syracuse. We're averaging 25,000 a game and I've got 13-14 players to worry about. I don't have to worry about 85 players and all that expense,'" said [former WVa coach Don] Nehlen.
How much Syracuse sabotaged Paterno's all-sports conference and exacerbated the rift between Pitt and Penn State will never be known, but Paterno's plan eventually died at the vine and when Penn State wasn't voted into the Big East for basketball, the Big East went full bore after Pitt. On many occasions since then, former Big East commissioner Mike Tranghese has said that not voting in Penn State was the league's biggest mistake.
http://www.wvusports.com/blogs.cfm?blog=footballBlog&story=25902
This post was edited on 7/3 1:34 PM by SU68
Link
