Paterno was AD and coach back then. He tried to start his own league, but couldn't get it up and running. I'm not going into the specifcs of the 1-A, 1-AA split, and you'll have to dig real deep to find a good reference, but Paterno, a few years earlier in hte late 1970s, had a big voice in making the 1-A, 1-AA split tied to stadium seating capacity for football, and the motivation behind was the lifeblood of any football program - recruiting. paterno was having a hard time recruiting to state college in PA. Tying stadium seating capacity to 1-A status removed any recruiting competition for the biggest and strongest football players and smartest, to all but Syracuse, Penn St, and Boston College, and Yale in the northeast. Yale hung on to 1-A status until 1982. Read Carm Cozza's book.
It was only a few years after that all happened, in 1985,when Paterno was still AD and the rest of the Penn St sports besides football were struggling, that he realized he made a mistake. Notre Dame, to this day, has been able to hang on to independance, becasue of the big east as a home for their non-football sprorts since 1995.
Paterno wanted to get a northeastern all sports league going. The big east was brand new and included the two major football programs left after the 1-A, 1-AA split. Connecticut, Villanova and Georgetown were the other members that had a football program. UConn was coached by a former paterno player BTW at the time.
If penn st had come in the league, in 1985. All three programs would have had the opportunity to upgrade to 1-A. Andy Talley - another head coach that learned the game in CT, had just taken over the villanova program and joined the yankee conference which was football only at that time and included uconn.
Had penn state been admitted in 1985, and the three programs upgraded.
Penn State
Syracuse
Boston College
Villanova
UConn
Georgetown
Pittsburgh
Is what big east football would have looked like in the late 1980s, around the time that Jim Calhoun came to UConn.
Penn state basketball wasn't good enough though.