“The more things change, the more they stay the same.”

An interesting article from the Chicago Tribune from 30 years ago. You’ll recognize some of the names.

https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-x...story.html

''If Notre Dame decides a conference makes some sense, we believe we will be in a poistion that we will be attractive to them.''

30 years later, there remains Commissioners, Presidents, ADs and Fans that are foolish enough to believe this to be true.

(08-08-2021 07:32 AM)GoldenWarrior11 Wrote:  ''If Notre Dame decides a conference makes some sense, we believe we will be in a poistion that we will be attractive to them.''

30 years later, there remains Commissioners, Presidents, ADs and Fans that are foolish enough to believe this to be true.

But in other sports Notre Dame is in a conference. It would not be practical for Notre Dame men's basketball to be an independent today.

"Will the Great Midwest continue to try to woo Louisville out of the Metro, or will it look elsewhere for strength in the hope of someday luring Notre Dame out of its independent stance?"

Well the Great Midwest eventually became Conference USA and eventually got Louisville so yes. Notre Dame? No.

"Will Bradley and/or Creighton leave the Missouri Valley and jump to the Great Midwest? Following the lead of the Sun Belt and the American South, will the six-member Midwestern Collegiate Conference seek safety in numbers and merge with the Missouri Valley?"

Bradley never left. Creighton eventually left for the Big East. The Midwestern Collegiate Conference is now the Horizon League. The merger never happened but the Horizon did lose members to the MVC, Evansville in 1994, Loyola in 2013 to replace Creighton, and Valparasio in 2017 to replace Wichita State.

The Midwestern Collegiate raided the Mid-Continent, which led to the latter merging with the East Coast Conference.

1989-1991 was a wild time in realignment.

I’ve got to wonder if some of the schools who were Indy in the 80s would have built the Metro into an all sports league if the 90s would have been dramatically different.

Miami
FSU
GT
S Carolina
L’ville
Cincinnati
Memphis
Tulane
WVU
VT

The Big 8 made some real mistakes in the 90s that set us on the path we are on now... imagine..

1) ARKANSAS - was begging to come to the Big 8 to get away from TX in SWC. Imagine if they were added as a 9th (remember the Big 10 had 11 members)

2) BYU was brought in during the merger. There were some minor hurdles, but had BYU been a player from the beginning of the B12, then we have a B12 with only two Texas teams... UT and A&M. That's a lot less Texas power.

Even if Arkansas went SEC..

Does CO leave if they have BYU as a travel destination?

Does NE leave with the additional eyeballs of BYU?

Maybe MU leaves, so you add Baylor. That's still a stronger alignment.

(08-08-2021 04:53 PM)Fighting Muskie Wrote:  1989-1991 was a wild time in realignment.

I’ve got to wonder if some of the schools who were Indy in the 80s would have built the Metro into an all sports league if the 90s would have been dramatically different.

Miami
FSU
GT
S Carolina
L’ville
Cincinnati
Memphis
Tulane
WVU
VT

Yeah it was! There was definitely talk of a super conference. The 17 involved in talks of a 16-team super Metro were:

Penn State, Rutgers, Temple, West Virginia (A-10 basketball members)
Boston College, Pittsburgh, Syracuse (Big East basketball members)
East Carolina (CAA basketball)
Miami (Independent basketball)
Louisville, Memphis, Cincinnati, Va Tech, Florida State, South Carolina, Southern Miss, Tulane (Metro basketball)

The Big East three didn't want to leave the Big East basketball conference.
Louisville had been fighting the football conference idea for years in the Metro.

Penn State looked at what was left, realized the Big Ten was far better.
When that happened, the SEC and ACC started sniffing around South Carolina and Florida State.

And the remaining 10 schools basically became Big East Football (Rutgers, WVU, Miami, Va Tech, Temple) or Conference USA (Memphis, Cincinnati, East Carolina, Southern Miss, Tulane)

https://www.sportingnews.com/us/ncaa-foo...90-booklet


It's also really funny to see all those names of commissioners and their roles in national realignment
Craig Thompson - American South, then Mountain West
Mike Slive - Great Midwest then SEC
Jim Delany - just retired from Big Ten
Doug Elgin - still at the MVC
Bill Bradshaw - AD at DePaul was AD at Temple during the Big East/ACC early 2000s realignment.

I just wish the NCAA had the foresight in 1984 after losing the Supreme Court case for TV rights to make a rule that said all conferences MUST play a round-robin or double-round robin in team sports.

No one would be able to go past 10 schools, and college sports would look A LOT different, and be A LOT BETTER now.

Under Slive, the Great Midwest had tremendous potential. They could have gone West with schools like Creighton and/or Tulsa, they could have gone East with Louisville and/or Duquesne, or even looked South with Houston and/or Tulane.

Slive was a visionary.

(08-08-2021 07:12 PM)GoldenWarrior11 Wrote:  Under Slive, the Great Midwest had tremendous potential. They could have gone West with schools like Creighton and/or Tulsa, they could have gone East with Louisville and/or Duquesne, or even looked South with Houston and/or Tulane.

Slive was a visionary.

Note that Craig Thompson was commissioner of the American South which gobbled up the Sun Belt.

SEC is “The Iraq of college football.''—

(08-08-2021 06:32 PM)JSchmack Wrote:  Louisville had been fighting the football conference idea for years in the Metro.

Actually it wasn’t Louisville fighting conference football but its head coach. Coach Schnellenberger was against conference membership because he felt it kept him from playing a national schedule.

Howard was against Louisville joining the Southwest when they contacted UofL about joining. Louisville was determined to join a conference and Coach Schnellenberger knew he couldn’t stop it and left for Oklahoma after the 1994 season. Louisville joined Conference CUSA as founding member in 1995.

As for Metro football, there were three obstacles to it becoming a reality.

1. Florida State did not want to share its football revenue.
2. Louisville did not want to share its basketball revenue.
3. Poor timing on the Metro Conference’s part. The idea for Metro football wasn’t floated until 1990. The Metro had been around 15 years at that time. By 1990 FSU was talking with The ACC and The SEC about joining.

Article on SWC and Louisville.

https://www.baltimoresun.com/news/bs-xpm...story.html

Were Crum and Bowden as pigheaded as JoePa?

(08-08-2021 07:59 PM)Erictelevision Wrote:  Were Crum and Bowden as pigheaded as JoePa?

I preface my comments by say this is my opinion.

Denny probably more so. He didn’t like sharing the spotlight with football. When he came to UofL, football was an after thought. Denny made Louisville a lot of money. When Tom Jurich joined UofL in 1997 he had a bunch of seed money to get Louisville facilities built. Tom got a lot of credit for what he did for Louisville athletics but Denny set the table for him.

(08-08-2021 08:12 PM)CardinalJim Wrote:  

(08-08-2021 07:59 PM)Erictelevision Wrote:  Were Crum and Bowden as pigheaded as JoePa?

I preface my comments by say this is my opinion.

Denny probably more so. He didn’t like sharing the spotlight with football. When he came to UofL, football was an after thought. Denny made Louisville a lot of money. When Tom Jurich joined UofL in 1997 he had a bunch of seed money to get Louisville facilities built. Tom got a lot of credit for what he did for Louisville athletics but Denny set the table for him.

Amen.

(08-08-2021 04:53 PM)Fighting Muskie Wrote:  1989-1991 was a wild time in realignment.

I’ve got to wonder if some of the schools who were Indy in the 80s would have built the Metro into an all sports league if the 90s would have been dramatically different.

Miami
FSU
GT
S Carolina
L’ville
Cincinnati
Memphis
Tulane
WVU
VT

Thats a pretty solid 10. ECU football was pretty good back then and would have fit in the conf footprint perfectly. USM was in the Metro and was also pretty solid at football back then as well. GT was already in the ACC by the early 80s. Maybe UAB gets an invite back then.

(08-09-2021 07:58 AM)MemTigers1998 Wrote:  

(08-08-2021 04:53 PM)Fighting Muskie Wrote:  1989-1991 was a wild time in realignment.

I’ve got to wonder if some of the schools who were Indy in the 80s would have built the Metro into an all sports league if the 90s would have been dramatically different.

Miami
FSU
GT
S Carolina
L’ville
Cincinnati
Memphis
Tulane
WVU
VT

Thats a pretty solid 10. ECU football was pretty good back then and would have fit in the conf footprint perfectly. USM was in the Metro and was also pretty solid at football back then as well. GT was already in the ACC by the early 80s. Maybe UAB gets an invite back then.

USM joined the Metro in 1982, so the sweet spot to have formed this all sports conference would be 1975-1979, before USM but while GT was still available. UAB football didn’t upgrade until the 90s.

Had South Carolina and GT worked with the 2 Florida schools back then they could have built something very unique and outside of the control of Tobacco Road. Maybe even Clemson opts to join it.

Anyone else find it odd that St Louis’s membership in the Metro is omitted from the membership history graphic on Wikipedia?

I had a serious case of Mandela Effect until I went and looked at their conference history and sure enough, they were Metro members from 1975-1982.

(08-09-2021 08:20 AM)Fighting Muskie Wrote:  

(08-09-2021 07:58 AM)MemTigers1998 Wrote:  

(08-08-2021 04:53 PM)Fighting Muskie Wrote:  1989-1991 was a wild time in realignment.

I’ve got to wonder if some of the schools who were Indy in the 80s would have built the Metro into an all sports league if the 90s would have been dramatically different.

Miami
FSU
GT
S Carolina
L’ville
Cincinnati
Memphis
Tulane
WVU
VT

Thats a pretty solid 10. ECU football was pretty good back then and would have fit in the conf footprint perfectly. USM was in the Metro and was also pretty solid at football back then as well. GT was already in the ACC by the early 80s. Maybe UAB gets an invite back then.

USM joined the Metro in 1982, so the sweet spot to have formed this all sports conference would be 1975-1979, before USM but while GT was still available. UAB football didn’t upgrade until the 90s.

Had South Carolina and GT worked with the 2 Florida schools back then they could have built something very unique and outside of the control of Tobacco Road. Maybe even Clemson opts to join it.

Good points. Southern Miss could've still been added back then before anyone cared about TV markets, etc. Never thought about Clemson and So Car joining a conf together.

Memphis
Louisville
Cincy
Tulane
S. Carolina
FSU
GA Tech
VA Tech
Clemson
WV
ECU
So Miss

Talk about a stout football & hoops conference back in the 80s/ 90s