Originally posted by Ram040506
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Frank basically had a sea of Big East cast-offs in that era. He crushed the entire region in fundraising and simply bought talent unmatched in the league. With his background, he had connections out the wazzou in the 90s. There was basically a pipeline running from Pitt to Indiana.
That would never happen today. All those guys would have just landed at different D1 programs. Transfer rules were tougher back then (D1 to D1 had to sit a year, etc.)
I watched IUP teams play West teams in the 90s and you were almost concerned for the safety of the other team. It was that uneven many, many days.
As for the 'characters' ... IUP has a pretty protected program - even more so during that time. Most of the issues were handled internally (the word 'internally' has a wide web in this instance). There was little the good ole' boy network couldn't fix. Said network still exists today but it's much less powerful.
The IUP Rule changed everything. You can Google some articles the Trib and Post-Gazette ran on it from back then. IUP has had some good teams since then but nothing like the early and mid-90s. The '93 team was like a D2 version of the bad boy Miami Hurricanes of the 80s. They'd stomp you and then sure would let you know about it.
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