BC Dominating the Boston/New England Market

[freescooter]

BC as a small urban Catholic school without a dominant sports program that the others cared about was never a good fit in a league of southern public schools. I know they try to say they are just like Duke or Wake but both are major research institutions on a level BC can only dream about. Not to mention their medical schools hospitals and elite grad schools. It was never a good fit. Syracuse and Pitt help a bit but not much and Loiusville is, well, yuck. Just yuck. But what that showed for sure was the southern focus despite the Pitt and Syracuse adds.

 

[Yawkey Way]

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BC really blew it by working against UConn to the ACC. Nothing could have helped BC more than a truly local New England rival in the league.

We just read above from a Uconn poster the BC is no longer a " New England based " University. I agree with that posters assessment on the whole. The fact that most BC student come from outside of NE now, means that these students do not care about a " rivalry " with a regional game that they have no regional connection with to begin with. A BC student from Illinois for example, would be more inclined to want to see BC play a midwestern school, if their choice was that, or another college in N.E. BC will never become a football " rival " with Uconn, for the simple reason that both school's alums, fans, student body do not, and will not, see it that way. Its like Diaco foolishly attempting to make Central Florida, Uconn's football " rival ". It can't be done. It can't be manufactured, unless both parties are alike as schools, and in its student body make up. Umass football has more interest in Boston than Uconn football does, and for obvious reasons ( geographic ). Syracuse will become BC's football " rival" as both schools are Private Universities with many in its student body from outside its states borders, and both have football histories playing against one another that go back decades and long before even the BE was formed.

 

[FDNY99]

With all due respect, " your BC guy " is wrong in his assessment that BC will quit the ACC and join the Patriot League or some such anytime soon. Thats laughable frankly. First off, the money the school gets from its participation in the ACC and its TV revnues, bowl game revenue sharing, etc supports all the myriad of dozens of other non revenue producing sports at BC for its student athletes there. BC will not be joining the Patriot League anytime soon, so lets put that silly nonsense aside, as its a non starter for any intelligent discourse, really. Deep down, I don't think even you believe that silliness that " your BC guy " is telling you re. BC eventually giving up the ACC for the Patriot League and Holy Cross et al.

The fact that you bring up bowl game revenue sharing is completely laughable! BC is the leech of the ACC...haven't won a conference game since November 29, 2015 against Syracuse! BC is a complete embarrassment @Yawkey Way! I'm sure if they took a vote in the ACC tomorrow they would tell your precious school to pack your and don't let the door hit you in the a** on the way out! Funny thing is..it doesn't look like you will be adding to any of the Bowl revenue sharing $$ any time soon either!

 

[DarthGrumpy]

BC voted " yes " to Uconn's initial invite to the BE... voted " yes " to Uconn's invite to Hockey East.... and " yes " to playing Uconn Basketball and Uconn football again ( despite the public opposition from Jim Calhoun for Uconn and BC to schedule games again ). The lawsuit was a very bad decision on the part of Blumenthal, imo.,, It poisoned the waters, and made Uconn a pariah around the country, imo . Its not politically saavy to attempt to extort and intimidate other schools into a league invite even if there can be a case that such was warranted, imo. As for " Seton Hall" , et al, I don't really care about this " Catholic loyalty " biz, as Catholics are divided among themselves on 15 thousand issues that they can't seem to agree upon.... even on their Beliefs... so that stuff really does not concern, not interest me.

Blumenthal was and still is an attention seeing fool who will do anything to get more PR and more votes regardless who he damages in the process. We agree on that.

As for being a pariah, only BC and Miami seemed to take that suit personally, although the same schools had no problem accepting Pitt even if they signed-off on the same lawsuit. As for 'poisoning the waters' nationally, that had more to do with UConn's former Provost, Mr. Emmert, who almost personally tanked the UConn 2000 building initiative; but, ran out of town before he could be fired. He developed a personal vendetta against UConn, especially Calhoun. Just look what UConn did and was penalized for and compare that to what Syracuse did and was penalized for or, better yet, what Miami, Louisville, and UNC have done and have not been penalized for.

As for conference voting, UConn was no threat to BC back 1979 and was a founding member of the Big East along with BC. When Big E football was formed, UConn (and Villanova) had an open invite to join the conference in football. UConn accepted, Villanova did not. There was no vote. Adding UConn to Hockey East and then agreeing to play football again (UConn has continued to play BC in Olympic sports since BC left for the ACC, just to cost effective not to) were all agreerd to by parties at both Universities who were not there when this mess started.

 

[CTMike]

 

[HuskyHawk]

We just read above from a Uconn poster the BC is no longer a " New England based " University. I agree with that posters assessment on the whole. The fact that most BC student come from outside of NE now, means that these students do not care about a " rivalry " with a regional game that they have no regional connection with to begin with. A BC student from Illinois for example, would be more inclined to want to see BC play a midwestern school, if their choice was that, or another college in N.E. BC will never become a football " rival " with Uconn, for the simple reason that both school's alums, fans, student body do not, and will not, see it that way. Its like Diaco foolishly attempting to make Central Florida, Uconn's football " rival ". It can't be done. It can't be manufactured, unless both parties are alike as schools, and in its student body make up. Umass football has more interest in Boston than Uconn football does, and for obvious reasons ( geographic ). Syracuse will become BC's football " rival" as both schools are Private Universities with many in its student body from outside its states borders, and both have football histories playing against one another that go back decades and long before even the BE was formed.

You miss two key points here. As BC becomes less "Boston"...Boston residents remain pretty "Boston", and care less about BC. Also, those same Boston residents who aren't BC students or alumns, do care about regional teams. The average Bostonian is less likely to adopt BC as a team to follow when they play far flung southern schools. These two factors, plus piss poor on field/court success, have hurt the BC sports following in Boston except for Hockey, where they do play local teams and often recruit local kids.

 

[Yawkey Way]

The fact that you bring up bowl game revenue sharing is completely laughable! BC is the leech of the ACC...haven't won a conference game since

BC has been in more ACC League Championship games since joining the ACC... in football, basketball, and the other ACC sports...than more than half the ACC schools. Sure its in a down period in football and basketball at the moment, but these things go in cycles. I don't know how old you are, but I have seen BC lose to Umass in football in a winless season, and beat #1 ranked teams, and everything in between. its a rollar coaster ride. Newbies here that are Uconn football fans will encvounter no doubt the high and the low years too. Were the Pasqualoni years at Uconn football definitive of Uconn football ? I'd imagine you say " no " as well. And you'd probably be right.

 

[Yawkey Way]

BC as a small urban Catholic school without a dominant sports program that the others cared about was never a good fit in a league of southern public schools.

I agree with you to the extent that ALL these leagues in Div.1 make little to no sense at all anymore in terms of their configuration. ( Only the Ivy League configurations make sense from a cultural, student body, athlete, configuration, imo ). BC was once in a BE with West Virginia ( and vice versa). Uconn is currently in a league of cultural misfits too ( Southern Methodists ? )... and attempting to join a league based in the Southwest region of the country, that has Oklahoma State, West Virginia, etc in it. What common cultures do residents of Connecticut have with Texans ? Not much, to my way of thinking. BC thus is no less a fish out of water with schools located on the east coast, than Uconn... a N.E. school... would conceivably be in a college sports league primarily based in Southwest Texas.

 

[FDNY99]

BC has been in more ACC League Championship games since joining the ACC... in football, basketball, and the other ACC sports...than more than half the ACC schools. Sure its in a down period in football and basketball at the moment, but these things go in cycles. I don't know how old you are, but I have seen BC lose to Umass in football in a winless season, and beat #1 ranked teams, and everything in between. its a rollar coaster ride. Newbies here that are Uconn football fans will encvounter no doubt the high and the low years too. Were the Pasqualoni years at Uconn football definitive of Uconn football ? I'd imagine you say " no " as well. And you'd probably be right.

Let's put it this way I'm old enough to remember what you are talking about. I'm also smart enough to know that until BC builds a stand alone football practice facility everything you just mentioned is going to be a pipe dream. The BC job has to be on of if not the worst P-5 job in the country. You have a President who could care less about athletics, a AD who is proving to not be very good at what he does (if he was he would have been a finalist at his alma mater), a program that gets little to no support form the administration and has the worst facilities in their league (the present head coach has been complaining about lack of facilities since he took the job, and the hollow proposal to build a new facility is just that..hollow) with no help coming! I'd say BC is more like a plane in a nose dive crashing into the ground than a roller coaster.

 

[Dream Jobbed 2.0]

If it continued with "is anyone up for a game of basketball?" It'd be even better

 

[FDNY99]

I agree with you to the extent that ALL these leagues in Div.1 make little to no sense at all anymore in terms of their configuration. ( Only the Ivy League configurations make sense from a cultural, student body, athlete, configuration, imo ). BC was once in a BE with West Virginia ( and vice versa). Uconn is currently in a league of cultural misfits too ( Southern Methodists ? )... and attempting to join a league based in the Southwest region of the country, that has Oklahoma State, West Virginia, etc in it. What common cultures do residents of Connecticut have with Texans ? Not much, to my way of thinking. BC thus is no less a fish out of water with schools located on the east coast, than Uconn... a N.E. school... would conceivably be in a college sports league primarily based in Southwest Texas.

The only school in the B-12 in western TX is Texas Tech (Lubbock) , the other 3 are almost in a straight line from each other in Central Texas on I-35. League HQ is also in that vicinity. The 6 other schools are NOT in the state of TX. Are you sure you don't want to edit your post? Because you definitely aren't very good with your geography here @Yawkey Way

 

[Yawkey Way]

Blumenthal was and still is an attention seeing fool who will do anything to get more PR and more votes regardless who he damages in the process. We agree on that.

As for being a pariah, only BC and Miami seemed to take that suit personally, .

ACC Commish Swofford too, imo. Blumenthal had Swofford sued personally if I recall in his filings. I would imagine this became thorn in the side of Swofford when Uconn's name came up later for consideration of an ACC invite.

 

[Yawkey Way]

The only school in the B-12 in western TX is Texas Tech (Lubbock) , the other 3 are almost in a straight line from each other in Central Texas on I-35. League HQ is also in that vicinity. The 6 other schools are NOT in the state of TX. Are you sure you don't want to edit your post? Because you definitely aren't very good with your geography here @Yawkey Way

We all agreed on here before on other threads that the Texas schools( and Oklahoma ) have enormous sway in the B12... The B12 is a southwest USA oriented college sports league. It might attempt to broaden its geographical reach beyond this southwest based core should it expand. But my central point that BC is no less a fish out of water in an eastern seaboard, Atlantic Coast, college sports league than Uconn would be in a league whose historic core schools are in the Southwest USA seems an accurate assessment, imo. Remember my reply was to the statement above that BC is out of place in a " southern based " league ( which increasingly the ACC is no longer now, imo )

 

[Yawkey Way]

Let's put it this way I'm old enough to remember what you are talking about. I'm also smart enough to know that until BC builds a stand alone football practice facility everything you just mentioned is going to be a pipe dream. .

Maybe.. who knows. But my response was in conjunction to the " news " that a Uconn poster here has a BC friend supposedly in the know that says that BC is going to quit the ACC and join the Patriot league to play Holy Cross, URI, et al every year and so forth. THATS a pipedream filled with lots of cannabis perhaps ( haha!).. as thats not going to happen. Uconn football, should it not secure a P5 invite soon, is probably in a far more precarious position of downsizing its football program than BC is , if we are honest about it, when it comes to the topic now of the possible need of " downsizing " its football program in the coming years. So I wish this issue of football " downsizing " was not even broached on this thread, frankly.

 

[DarthGrumpy]

I think mostly it's cultural. BC fits well enough with Syracuse, Pitt, Maryland (before they left) Duke and Miami. Maybe UVA. BC doesn't fit with the culturally southern schools in the ACC. I mean, Hockey is the most popular sport at BC.
I'm not saying UConn fits well in the Big XII, it doesn't. It isn't horrible, but certainly not ideal.

BC really blew it by working against UConn to the ACC. Nothing could have helped BC more than a truly local New England rival in the league. I'm a Boston area resident too, married to a Boston lifer...the myopia in the Hub is extreme. Bostonians can't see anything beyond maybe New York, and things get cloudy outside of 495. Winston Salem NC or Tallahassee might as well be on Neptune.

 

[DarthGrumpy]

Syracuse will become BC's football " rival" as both schools are Private Universities with many in its student body from outside its states borders

May want to re-think Syracuse, too. Its a private, costly university located among very good state universities (Buffalo, Penn St, Rutgers, UConn, etc.) located far away from any vibrant job market and in a climate that many find inhospitable. Why do you think they are trying to call themselves NYC's university even though they are located further away from Times Square than Rutgers, UConn, and Penn St?

In 2014, Syracuse admitted 3,400 students into its freshman class, they were from the following states:

• NY: 1,400
• NJ: 400
• MA: 300
• PA: 200
• CT: 150

So, 40% of total students going to Syracuse are from NY and 70% are from NY and states that border the state of NY. Only 2 other states send more than 100 to Syracuse - MD (100) and CA (150). That's not a national university. That's a regional university.

 

[DarthGrumpy]

View attachment 15772

 

[Yawkey Way]

May want to re-think Syracuse, too. Its a private, costly university located among very good state universities (Buffalo, Penn St, Rutgers, UConn, etc.) located far away from any vibrant job market and in a climate that many find inhospitable. Why do you think they are trying to call themselves NYC's university even though they are located further away from Times Square than Rutgers, UConn, and Penn St?

In 2014, Syracuse admitted 3,400 students into its freshman class, they were from the following states:

• NY: 1,400
• NJ: 400
• MA: 300
• PA: 200
• CT: 150

So, 40% of total students going to Syracuse are from NY and 70% are from NY and states that border the state of NY. Only 2 other states send more than 100 to Syracuse - MD (100) and CA (150). That's not a national university. That's a regional university.

 

[Yawkey Way]

That's not a national university. That's a regional university.[/QUOTE]

True... Syracuse is more of a regional university than a national one. There are also differences in that BC is a Private, Catholic University and Syracuse is a Private, Secular, University. However, BC and Syracuse, as Private Universities, have more in common with one another than BC and Uconn have. Uconn is the Flagship Public University it its state. If we were not talking sports, Uconn has more in common with Umass than it does with Boston College, as both State's Flagship State Universities primary tax payor funded educational mission is to educate its state's residents first and foremost.

Georgia and Georgia Tech are not football " rivals "either, and never will be, despite even being in the same state. Not really. This is primarily because its school's student body make up is quite different between the two, and the schools really have different missions as they see themselves as schools.

 

[The Funster]

So I see the thread title and I'm like, "Well why WOULD British Columbia be dominant in Boston?" And then I realize that's its the other BC.