OT: D1

[iupgroundhog]

I don't think the ACC wants them. I know the B1G doesn't want them largely due to academics.

The ACC has academic standards, too. I don't know if WVU makes it there, either.

[IUPNation]

WVU fans are right behind Pitt in the delusions of grandeur. One man isn't going to come in there and turn things around. They've had the best they can have in terms of resources. It’s a dying state with a limited fan base. The university is in decline. I'm sure some mining idiots paid for Brown to go away. I'm with you that things were pretty decent in Morgantown. Ask the guy what he needs to succeed more and try to make it happen. The worst thing they can do is hire a name who flips that job after 2 or 3 years for the next SEC opening.

When has the job in Morgantown ever been viewed as a prime slot? Hillbilly Highbhas been a second tier program forever. They had a few elite seasons but it is what it is..and being in the Big 12 playing schools that don’t excite anyone in the Wild and Wonderful.

I still wonder what the foosball landscape would be had schools not cockblocked The Centre County Community College from the Big East. Would the BIG be the behemoth it is today? Would the Big East be doing the poaching instead of being gutted? The Oakland Academy of the Coloring Book Arts and Hillbilly High would be better off in a Big East with The Nits than they are in their current setups.

That cock block was the dumbest move ever.

[CHIP72]

Anybody see the clear sack/fumble returned for a touchdown only to be overturned as an incomplete pass in the Eastern Kentucky-Villinova game? Unbelievable.

I didn't see it (attended three college basketball games on Saturday, with the first two overlapping Eastern Kentucky/Villanova), but I heard (read) about it on what I like to call D2Football.com's sibling site, AnyGivenSaturday.com (similar to this site but focused on DI-AA/FCS football). The anti-CAA contingent on there wasn't happy.

With both Lehigh and Villanova both winning in the first round of the DI-AA/FCS playoffs (the Mountain Hawks pulled a road upset over Richmond), I have at least one more week of personal rooting interest in the 2024 college football season, though like this past Saturday I'll be attending three college basketball games this coming Saturday (Big Five Classic in Philadelphia) and won't see either Lehigh's or Villanova's football games.

[CHIP72]

When has the job in Morgantown ever been viewed as a prime slot? Hillbilly Highbhas been a second tier program forever. They had a few elite seasons but it is what it is..and being in the Big 12 playing schools that don’t excite anyone in the Wild and Wonderful.

I still wonder what the foosball landscape would be had schools not cockblocked The Centre County Community College from the Big East. Would the BIG be the behemoth it is today? Would the Big East be doing the poaching instead of being gutted? The Oakland Academy of the Coloring Book Arts and Hillbilly High would be better off in a Big East with The Nits than they are in their current setups.

That cock block was the dumbest move ever.

I still miss the Eastern independent days from when I was growing up in the 1980s. One could easily argue that was the post-World War II high water mark for "major" Eastern college football. I think ALL of those Eastern independents, INCLUDING Penn State (with the others being Pitt, Syracuse, West Virginia, Boston College, Rutgers, and Temple), were better off then in terms of on-field performance and competitiveness nationally than they have been since then.

Incidentally, had an all-sports Big East including Penn State been formed, I think the following would have happened:

1) West Virginia, Rutgers, and Temple would have joined the conference not longer afterwards. (Pitt, Syracuse, and Boston College were already Big East members).

2) The non-major college football schools (Georgetown, Villanova, St. John's, Seton Hall, Providence) would have been eventually forced out.

3) The Big East would have expanded southward and added teams from Maryland, Virginia, and possibly North Carolina (specifically Maryland, Virginia Tech, probably Virginia, and possibly some or all of the four DI-A North Carolina schools, especially North Carolina and N.C. State (the other two being Duke and Wake Forest). East Carolina and/or Connecticut might have been added too.

[IUPNation]

I still miss the Eastern independent days from when I was growing up in the 1980s. One could easily argue that was the post-World War II high water mark for "major" Eastern college football. I think ALL of those Eastern independents, INCLUDING Penn State (with the others being Pitt, Syracuse, West Virginia, Boston College, Rutgers, and Temple), were better off then in terms of on-field performance and competitiveness nationally than they have been since then.

Incidentally, had an all-sports Big East including Penn State been formed, I think the following would have happened:

1) West Virginia, Rutgers, and Temple would have joined the conference not longer afterwards. (Pitt, Syracuse, and Boston College were already Big East members).

2) The non-major college football schools (Georgetown, Villanova, St. John's, Seton Hall, Providence) would have been eventually forced out.

3) The Big East would have expanded southward and added teams from Maryland, Virginia, and possibly North Carolina (specifically Maryland, Virginia Tech, probably Virginia, and possibly some or all of the four DI-A North Carolina schools, especially North Carolina and N.C. State (the other two being Duke and Wake Forest). East Carolina and/or Connecticut might have been added too.

I doubt Miami would have bolted to the ACC having a Penn State led Big East. It might have been the Big East poaching the ACC.

I don’t understand what was the issue of the non foosball schools. Are they better off now?

[IUPbigINDIANS]

I doubt Miami would have bolted to the ACC having a Penn State led Big East. It might have been the Big East poaching the ACC.

I don’t understand what was the issue of the non foosball schools. Are they better off now?

A couple years back ESPN did an incredible 30-for-30 essentially on this very topic. Watch it.

Remember, the Big East was originally formed to be a (high-end) basketball league. The football 'money' became too much to keep (largely) ignoring.

The original Big East took basketball to the major arena's (and out of the gymnasiums). They wanted teams from big cities. Penn State didn't fit the mold.

As I recall, Joe Pa wanted to form his own Eastern league. Pitt didn't want to go along. Joe Pa hated Pitt forever after that moment.

Note: I'm sure I'll get corrected on this but that's how I recall some of it went down.

[CHIP72]

I doubt Miami would have bolted to the ACC having a Penn State led Big East. It might have been the Big East poaching the ACC.

I don’t understand what was the issue of the non foosball schools. Are they better off now?

The basketball schools (Georgetown, Villanova, Seton Hall, St. John's, and Providence) are in a league that has a fairly high revenue TV contract. They've done very well. More specifically, they've done a lot better than they would have had they been forced out of the Big East 35-40 years ago, which is the reason they opposed Penn State joining the conference at that time. Had Penn State (and then West Virginia, Rutgers, and Temple) joined the Big East, those basketball schools would probably be in the Atlantic 10 or an A-10 like league today.

[IUPbigINDIANS]

Mack Brown has been terminated by UNC.

[Fightingscot82]

A couple years back ESPN did an incredible 30-for-30 essentially on this very topic. Watch it.

Remember, the Big East was originally formed to be a (high-end) basketball league. The football 'money' became too much to keep (largely) ignoring.

The original Big East took basketball to the major arena's (and out of the gymnasiums). They wanted teams from big cities. Penn State didn't fit the mold.

As I recall, Joe Pa wanted to form his own Eastern league. Pitt didn't want to go along. Joe Pa hated Pitt forever after that moment.

Note: I'm sure I'll get corrected on this but that's how I recall some of it went down.

That's how I remember it from the documentary as well.

[IUP24]

A 7-5 team is probably what they always were. Terrible way to get there though. Obviously they were beat up and there didn’t appear to be much fight left these last two weeks.

I bet the over on 6.5 wins this year I figured they were a 7-5 or 8-4 team. The 7-0 start left you wanting a ton more. But when the injuries on the OL piled up, it just ruined them. Six different OL combinations involving 10 different starters on the line over the final six games is brutal for any team. They are a young team on both sides of the ball and have talent and pieces to build around. Obviously in this era, it's no guarantee anybody comes back anywhere. That's everybody, not just Pitt. But if some key guys return (some will, probably not all - like every other team), they have a chance to be decent.

The larger conversation is they managed to turn over a ton of last year's roster and find some portal talent that helped them improve (Eli Holstein, Des Reid, Lyndon Cooper, Tatum Lynum, etc.). I believe they brought in 15ish transfers last year when they probably needed 25ish. For comparison, another 3-9 team from 2023, Indiana, brought in 40-45 transfers. They fully turned over their team. Pitt still unfortunately had a lot of 3-9 players on the roster. As their depth was tested when injuries mounted, they proved to have a significant drop off between the 1s and 2s.

It will be an interesting offseason for sure.

[IUP24]

A couple years back ESPN did an incredible 30-for-30 essentially on this very topic. Watch it.

Remember, the Big East was originally formed to be a (high-end) basketball league. The football 'money' became too much to keep (largely) ignoring.

The original Big East took basketball to the major arena's (and out of the gymnasiums). They wanted teams from big cities. Penn State didn't fit the mold.

As I recall, Joe Pa wanted to form his own Eastern league. Pitt didn't want to go along. Joe Pa hated Pitt forever after that moment.

Note: I'm sure I'll get corrected on this but that's how I recall some of it went down.

It's unique that the ACC is comprised of largely urban centered universities, which is kind of what the allure of the old Big East was from a basketball perspective. Obviously, there are some Big East members in the expanded ACC, but certainly not all of them.

Duke, UNC, NC State - All within the Raleigh/Durham area
Louisville - Louisville
Miami - Miami
Boston College - Boston
Georgia Tech - Atlanta
SMU - Dallas
Cal - Berkely/Oakland
Stanford - Pao Alto is 20 minutes from San Jose and 30 from San Francisco
Pitt - Pittsburgh
Wake Forest - Winston Salem (not huge, but is a city)

That's over half of the conference membership that are urban schools. That is a very unique component of the ACC. Some of those schools have their own "neighborhood" within their city, and some campuses are more "urban" than others, but they are mostly all in the city.

Even the ones I did not mention there...

Florida State - Tallahassee isn't huge, but it's the capital city of Florida
Clemson - Clemson, SC isn't necessarily rural or isolated. It's just a 1 hour from Charlotte, NC

About the only ACC members completely isolated from anywhere else and not right next to urban centers are Virginia, Virginia Tech, and Syracuse.

[Fightingscot82]

Liberty HC Jamey Chadwell is the front runner at UCF. I'm not sure that's a great match. If it doesn't happen, that's who WVU should pursue. The dude wins, Google him. LOL Culturally I think he's much more aligned with West Virginia than Florida. Dude is from rural East Tennessee and has coached in the Carolinas and southern Virginia. That doesn't sound or look like Orlando.

[IUP24]

Liberty HC Jamey Chadwell is the front runner at UCF. I'm not sure that's a great match. If it doesn't happen, that's who WVU should pursue. The dude wins, Google him. LOL Culturally I think he's much more aligned with West Virginia than Florida. Dude is from rural East Tennessee and has coached in the Carolinas and southern Virginia. That doesn't sound or look like Orlando.

Neal Brown was pretty culturally aligned with WVU as well and they wanted to run him out of town almost immediately lol.

I wonder if the next guy will travel 80 miles north frequently in the summer, enjoy time at PNC Park with his family, take pictures with every country artist who stops through to perform anywhere in the city, and then take pot shots at the university located in that city on his drive home.

[IUP24]

Liberty HC Jamey Chadwell is the front runner at UCF. I'm not sure that's a great match. If it doesn't happen, that's who WVU should pursue. The dude wins, Google him. LOL Culturally I think he's much more aligned with West Virginia than Florida. Dude is from rural East Tennessee and has coached in the Carolinas and southern Virginia. That doesn't sound or look like Orlando.

I actually thought Virginia Tech should have gone after him when they moved on from Justin Fuente. I think he would have had an opportunity to be successful there. I think that would have been a good fit.

Brent Pry has done okay I guess. Fuente was extremely concerned about recruiting the Red River states of Texas and Oklahoma, which is where he's from. VT had little cache there, and it did not work out. The Coastal Tidewater, as well as the DMV, were always two areas that Frank Beamer really recruited well. Fuente did not care about players there and ruined VT's inroads in that region. Over the last 5 years, other ACC schools like Georgia Tech, Pitt, the Carolina schools have all done really well there.

I think VT's allure in the overall hierarchy of college football has been forever overblown in my opinion. Outside of maybe a 3-5 year stretch under Beamer, they've been mostly above average at best. Rarely great. Optics and theatre tend to create positive narratives for many programs that are fueled by the media. I doubt people view VT as this college football hotbed if they didn't run out to Enter Sandman and have 65,000 at Lane Stadium most Saturdays.

[Fightingscot82]

I actually thought Virginia Tech should have gone after him when they moved on from Justin Fuente. I think he would have had an opportunity to be successful there. I think that would have been a good fit.

Brent Pry has done okay I guess. Fuente was extremely concerned about recruiting the Red River states of Texas and Oklahoma, which is where he's from. VT had little cache there, and it did not work out. The Coastal Tidewater, as well as the DMV, were always two areas that Frank Beamer really recruited well. Fuente did not care about players there and ruined VT's inroads in that region. Over the last 5 years, other ACC schools like Georgia Tech, Pitt, the Carolina schools have all done really well there.

I think VT's allure in the overall hierarchy of college football has been forever overblown in my opinion. Outside of maybe a 3-5 year stretch under Beamer, they've been mostly above average at best. Rarely great. Optics and theatre tend to create positive narratives for many programs that are fueled by the media. I doubt people view VT as this college football hotbed if they didn't run out to Enter Sandman and have 65,000 at Lane Stadium most Saturdays.

I honestly don't know how high the ceiling is for UVA and VT in the new climate. Their success was largely in the days before 75% of recruiting was done online. Both schools have admissions standards similar to Duke, Georgia Tech, and Northwestern. UVA has a weird old Southern money culture too that doesn't resonate with most football recruits. Charlottesville and Blacksburg are both GREAT college towns, though.