Delany on East Coast pre-expansion push: espn

[Carl Spackler]

Isn't women's field hockey in the Big East? I don't know if there are others.

Oh man, I don't know. I just know that for 3 1/2 decades now, the UCONN athletic department has had absolutely no consistency in conference membership both for own major money making sports, and with regards to changing membership of other university athletic programs. The Big East had what 17 different athletic departments come and go in 30 years? We lived with the Notre Dame experience for 15 years. We had football only's. We were a football only. We played basketball (men's and women's) as conference games, against I believe as many as 30 different programs in the past 3 decades.

It's really remarkable that we've been able to generate the fan following we have for UCONN in the past 3 decades. It would only grow, the fan following and interest in intercollegiate athletics in this most dense and highly sought after media center of the world which is the tri-state area - if we had a consistent schedule year in and year out against programs like Michigan, OSU, Mich State, Penn STate, Univeristy of New Jersey, Maryland, Indiana, Illinois......

 

[kingdobbs]

The transition period here from 2013-2015 with the AAC until Navy joins as a football only member, will be the only time since 1978 that UCONN athletics has been entirely housed in a single conference with all it's other members playing the same sports together.

yes - I shudder at thought. I'm tired of it. I want to be all 22 sports in, on the Big 10.

Hockey East.

 

[Carl Spackler]

Hockey East.

see?!?!?!?!

It never frigging ends with the divided up athletics. We don't even have a single home venue for our basketball teams or hockey teams - at least football only has one stadium.


LOL. Seriously - it is what UCONN has become. The Ivy's de-emphasized in the 1960's and then in the 1970's the NCAA started building actual divisions around football. It affected the dozens and dozens and schools in the northeast footprint. We gave up or 50 year history with the Yankee Conference (New England land grant colleges) and sold ourselves to the big time in 1978-1979 - and hinged it on an urban center catholic school basketball league. Joe Paterno was adamant about building a division 1A all sports conference in the Northeast footprint. Dave Gavitt's league got in the way. UCONN - has no natural geographic all sports division 1A athletic department conference in our natural geographic footprint, and Penn State was an outlier in Big 10 for 20 years, because of it. Hockey East was founded in 1983 - another hodgepodge.

IT would sure be nice, to see what Paterno wanted - eventually happen. A northeast based conference of division 1A/FBS athletic departments.

 

[upstater]

see?!?!?!?!

It never frigging ends with the divided up athletics. We don't even have a single home venue for our basketball teams or hockey teams - at least football only has one stadium.


LOL. Seriously - it is what UCONN has become. The Ivy's de-emphasized in the 1960's and then in the 1970's the NCAA started building actual divisions around football. It affected the dozens and dozens and schools in the northeast footprint. We gave up or 50 year history with the Yankee Conference (New England land grant colleges) and sold ourselves to the big time in 1978-1979 - and hinged it on an urban center catholic school basketball league. Joe Paterno was adamant about building a division 1A all sports conference in the Northeast footprint. Dave Gavitt's league got in the way. UCONN - has no natural geographic all sports division 1A athletic department conference in our natural geographic footprint, and Penn State was an outlier in Big 10 for 20 years, because of it. Hockey East was founded in 1983 - another hodgepodge.

IT would sure be nice, to see what Paterno wanted - eventually happen. A northeast based conference of division 1A/FBS athletic departments.

No conference in the country houses all teams of all sports. There are arrangements everywhere. Even the B1G has a cobbled together program.

 

[Carl Spackler]

No conference in the country houses all teams of all sports. There are arrangements everywhere. Even the B1G has a cobbled together program.

I get that. I'm just tired of having zero stability for UCONN. I did the math once before, don't remember exactly, but I think that since joining division 1A/FBS football, we have not played more than 6 conference football games, against anyone - in 14 years, and the ones we played the most - 6 times - aren't in the conference anymore.

Whatever - just was responding to the comment somebody made about the "shudders" with the variations/different sports homes. I'll drop it.

We are in the AAC now, until somebody that has authority, actually tells us we're not - so need to elevate ourselves and the entire conferenc.e

 

[NotreDameJoe]

see?!?!?!?!

It never frigging ends with the divided up athletics. We don't even have a single home venue for our basketball teams or hockey teams - at least football only has one stadium.


LOL. Seriously - it is what UCONN has become. The Ivy's de-emphasized in the 1960's and then in the 1970's the NCAA started building actual divisions around football. It affected the dozens and dozens and schools in the northeast footprint. We gave up or 50 year history with the Yankee Conference (New England land grant colleges) and sold ourselves to the big time in 1978-1979 - and hinged it on an urban center catholic school basketball league. Joe Paterno was adamant about building a division 1A all sports conference in the Northeast footprint. Dave Gavitt's league got in the way. UCONN - has no natural geographic all sports division 1A athletic department conference in our natural geographic footprint, and Penn State was an outlier in Big 10 for 20 years, because of it. Hockey East was founded in 1983 - another hodgepodge.

IT would sure be nice, to see what Paterno wanted - eventually happen. A northeast based conference of division 1A/FBS athletic departments.

Football

BC
UCONN
Syracuse
PSU
Pitt
Rutgers
Louisville
WVU
Cincy

Is a solid contiguous start. THEN the Big East could have taken their time with schools in Maryland and Virginia.

Basketball

BC Providence
UCONN St Johns
Syracuse GTown
PSU Notre Dame
Pitt Villanova
Rutgers Seton Hall
Louisville WVU
Cincy Xavier

Bifurcate the ball so each school adopts a smaller private rival. Except UL-WVU because they don't have a local one. You can play your half and your rival twice, the other half once a season.

Do that and the BTN is running reruns of Howdy Doody.

 

[Cleanface]

Do that and the BTN is running reruns of Howdy Doody.

Pfftlololol.

Uhhhh, sure it would. Why would past or present B1G people care about any of those schools?? (save PSU, of course.)
NE/BE schools, BE Catholics, and a bunch of dumpy ex-Metros nobody cares about?

Pretty sure the BTN would be just fine running B1G content for our millions and billions of alumni and fans.

Domers are so dumb.


Edit; Wait, I just realized you have ND as non-football member of this make-believe JoePa Conference. So, ND would have been leeching on to the "B1G JoePa", even way back in the early 80's?? Awesome.

Hey, hope y'all have fun sucking the blood from the ACC, you pathetically parasitic Domer rat bast*rds.

 

[NotreDameJoe]

stay classy bugger

 

[NickyNewark]

NN, I'll assume that you live on the East Coast based off of your name, so your thoughts on UCONN will be different than persons living in the heart of Big 10 Country. While I am 100% behind bringing in more Eastern Teams, a large portion of the Midwest Base favors no expansion, contraction, or Western expansion. The handful of fans that visit here are not indicative of the majority viewpoint. If you remove the AAU and Contiguous arguments, it gives these people one less arrow in their quiver against Eastern expansion. JMO.

Now Ldandy thats something that has merit but naivity doesn't make them right! I understand the regional nature of CFB fan's but those fans don't have the responsibility of the continued growth and well being of the B1G on their plate just there colonial interests! Thank god JD isn't as naive or out of touch as the average midwestern fan or the B1G would stagnate!! Heck I remember in the days of newspapers dominance when the local teams here held sway with the east coast bias pre-internet but so many eastern and midwesterners moved south things shifted Serah Williams or at least the bias did which doesn't make it right!! I agree though about the perception away from NY/NJ/Conn metro being fairly negative or maybe just uninformed !?! We in the east don't know everything but we are worldly and well informed....thats why many esp southeners think us arrogant.Remember our nation started here and worked its way south,west and north!! Anyways thanks for the honesty.

 

[NickyNewark]

Pfftlololol.

Uhhhh, sure it would. Why would past or present B1G people care about any of those schools?? (save PSU, of course.)
NE/BE schools, BE Catholics, and a bunch of dumpy ex-Metros nobody cares about?

Pretty sure the BTN would be just fine running B1G content for our millions and billions of alumni and fans.

Domers are so dumb.


Edit; Wait, I just realized you have ND as non-football member of this make-believe JoePa Conference. So, ND would have been leeching on to the "B1G JoePa", even way back in the early 80's?? Awesome.

Hey, hope y'all have fun sucking the blood from the ACC, you pathetically parasitic Domer rat bast*rds.

Heres an excellent example of outlander ignorance calling himself cleanface!!! Go back to you're haybailing hick.

 

[whaler11]

I get that. I'm just tired of having zero stability for UCONN. I did the math once before, don't remember exactly, but I think that since joining division 1A/FBS football, we have not played more than 6 conference football games, against anyone - in 14 years, and the ones we played the most - 6 times - aren't in the conference anymore.

Whatever - just was responding to the comment somebody made about the "shudders" with the variations/different sports homes. I'll drop it.

We are in the AAC now, until somebody that has authority, actually tells us we're not - so need to elevate ourselves and the entire conferenc.e

Math is hard I guess. UConn played RU every year between 2004 and 2014 in conference. Looks bigger than 6. As for teams they are in a conference with.... Cincy and USF are also above 6.

Can you please make the Joe Paterno stuff your signature?

 

[jostar1]

Here we go again.

 

[SouthronCross]

Don't forget UMass. Or Buffalo. Just saying.
B1G and ACC are going in different directions, the GOR is not iron-clad, and I wouldn't be surprised to see UNC or UVA make a move for long-term success.

Neither UNC nor UVA will be leaving the ACC, unless the league implodes. Nor, do I believe that it is going to. Both had their opportunities to make the move long before now, and, both decided the ACC was a better fit, with like-minded schools of similar size, and, focus.

The "4 schools in North Carolina" model will hold the ACC back.

How has the '4 schools in NC' model held the ACC back? The ACC has won more national titles in FB and BB over the past 40 years than the B1G has. The money issue is not really a worry for either school. Neither were in the dire financial straits that UMD was.

Interesting: Texas has 3 flagship U's: Texas, Texas A&M and North Texas.

I've never heard North Texas referred to as a flagship university.

 

[SouthronCross]

I don't understand how bc has that kind of clout. They're bad at almost everything. I have to think that a lot of ACC schools are wondering if they could just swap bc out for UConn.

BC DOES NOT have that kind of clout within the ACC. Never have had, never will have.

It was a FSU-CU-GT-VPI group that voted against UConn this last time out. Believe me, if they had not flexed their muscle, nothing BC could've said or done would've mad one iota of difference.

No, not sweep them out, just bring UConn in as a regional rival for them.

 

[Hoophound]

I've never heard North Texas referred to as a flagship university.

Dead serious. North Texas U. is "the flagship of the North Texas U. System". It is not a flagship in normal, big state university terms.

 

[kingdobbs]

I've never heard North Texas referred to as a flagship university.

It's a flagship in the sense that it's the primary campus of a university system with multiple independent institutions. Not every state is like North Carolina where all the public colleges of the state are part of a single system; Texas, in point of fact, has six separate university systems (UTexas with 9 independent campuses, Texas A&M with 11, UHouston with 4, UNorth Texas with 3, Texas State with eight, none of which are a flagship, and Texas Tech with 4).

It's not a "flagship" in the sense of "being the most well-known and/or well-regarded public university in a state", to be sure.

 

[SouthronCross]

Dead serious. North Texas U. is "the flagship of the North Texas U. System". It is not a flagship in normal, big state university terms.

OK, I gotcha now.

 

[SouthronCross]

It's a flagship in the sense that it's the primary campus of a university system with multiple independent institutions. Not every state is like North Carolina where all the public colleges of the state are part of a single system; Texas, in point of fact, has six separate university systems (UTexas with 9 independent campuses, Texas A&M with 11, UHouston with 4, UNorth Texas with 3, Texas State with eight, none of which are a flagship, and Texas Tech with 4).

It's not a "flagship" in the sense of "being the most well-known and/or well-regarded public university in a state", to be sure.

Thanks for the explanation. I never knew Texas had that many university systems.

 

[Kolumbo]

It's a flagship in the sense that it's the primary campus of a university system with multiple independent institutions. Not every state is like North Carolina where all the public colleges of the state are part of a single system; Texas, in point of fact, has six separate university systems (UTexas with 9 independent campuses, Texas A&M with 11, UHouston with 4, UNorth Texas with 3, Texas State with eight, none of which are a flagship, and Texas Tech with 4).

It's not a "flagship" in the sense of "being the most well-known and/or well-regarded public university in a state", to be sure.

I don't think that is accurate. There are three "flagship" university systems in Texas. Flagship I believe refers to the university system and not an individual campus.

 

[Kolumbo]

Neither UNC nor UVA will be leaving the ACC, unless the league implodes. Nor, do I believe that it is going to. Both had their opportunities to make the move long before now, and, both decided the ACC was a better fit, with like-minded schools of similar size, and, focus.

How has the '4 schools in NC' model held the ACC back? The ACC has won more national titles in FB and BB over the past 40 years than the B1G has. The money issue is not really a worry for either school. Neither were in the dire financial straits that UMD was.

There have been lots of changes recently as opposed to the decisions made long ago. How is the ACC now made up of "like-minded schools of similar size and focus?" BC, SU and Louisville are similar to UVA and UNC? The ACC is all over the map. Compare that to the B1G which has a very clear plan, large state research flagship universities in unique markets. Each conference is now hell-bent on penetrating markets. The ACC with 4 schools lumped together in close proximity doesn't help that cause, unless Wake and NC State get the boot to allow a larger, unique market in.

 

[upstater]

BC DOES NOT have that kind of clout within the ACC. Never have had, never will have.

It was a FSU-CU-GT-VPI group that voted against UConn this last time out. Believe me, if they had not flexed their muscle, nothing BC could've said or done would've mad one iota of difference.

No, not sweep them out, just bring UConn in as a regional rival for them.

He's referring to 2011.

 

[Cleanface]

Heres an excellent example of outlander ignorance calling himself cleanface!!! Go back to you're haybailing hick.

You should try typing this post again bc it's a little incoherent.

Anyway, RE 'haybailing hick'; born in and spent the first 10 yrs of my life in Buffalo NY (moved to IN in 5th grade - 1994). PSU alumni parent > I attended Purdue U. (IND ENG).

So, while the B1G is in my blood, I still consider myself to have a NY/Mid-Atlantic mindset. But, whatevs. I do live in Louisville KY now, so 'hick' is fine by me.

 

[BlueMAB]

Heres an excellent example of outlander ignorance calling himself cleanface!!! Go back to you're haybailing hick.

Oh the irony.

 

[NickyNewark]

You should try typing this post again bc it's a little incoherent.

Anyway, RE 'haybailing hick'; born in and spent the first 10 yrs of my life in Buffalo NY (moved to IN in 5th grade - 1994). PSU alumni parent > I attended Purdue U. (IND ENG).

So, while the B1G is in my blood, I still consider myself to have a NY/Mid-Atlantic mindset. But, whatevs. I do live in Louisville KY now, so 'hick' is fine by me.

PSU is not an example I'd use to highlight my NE urban "mindset" as its not exactly an example of Pittsburgh or Philly?I thought of cleaning up my misplaced reply until I read ur superior reply and wingnut u's followup! Incoherent? U understood it!

 

[Ldandy]

PSU is not an example I'd use to highlight my NE urban "mindset" as its not exactly an example of Pittsburgh or Philly?I thought of cleaning up my misplaced reply until I read ur superior reply and wingnut u's followup! Incoherent? U understood it!

No offense, but this shows a fundamental lack of understanding regarding PSU. Where do think our students come from? They certainly don't all come from Centre County. Trust me The PSU Base is not Midwest leaning in any way shape or form. The school is in the middle of the state because its founders wanted it centrally located. The majority of students hail from Philly, Pitt, Harrisburg, SWB, and yes NY and NJ. There is nothing wrong with the Midwest. The majority of B1G Fans are good people who are passionate about their schools. The majority of PSU Alums however relate more strongly to the East Coast.