So, Joe Paterno wants the Big Ten to go after Syracuse, Pittsburgh or Rutgers, eh?
If ACC Commissioner John Swafford had come out publicly in the summer of 2002 and casually mentioned that his league would like to add a few teams to its league _ perhaps Miami, Boston College and Syracuse, not necessarily in that order _ would there have been such bad blood when the defections of the Hurricanes, Eagles and Virginia Tech Hokies eventually became official?
In a word…yes.
The venom spewed (perhaps still spewing) at BC athletic director Gene DeFilippo for his role might have been lessened, but the overall feeling the Big East had of being poached wouldn’t have changed much.
Which brings us to the Penn State football coach and his call this week for Big Ten expansion. Now, let’s be clear: Advocating expansion and specifically mentioning schools to lure/recruit/entice are two different things.
There are a number of Big East football coaches who have openly said the league should add a ninth football-playing member. None to my knowledge have named that ninth member (other than Notre Dame, of course) publicly.
It may be a fine line, but it’s not one that very few are willing to cross. But the 82-year-old king/dean of college football coaches didn’t mind doing it Thursday.
Lamenting the early end to the Big Ten schedule and the period in which other conferences get most of the media attention, Paterno called for a playoff.
“Everybody else is playing playoffs on television,” Paterno said. “You never see a Big Ten team mentioned. So I think that’s a handicap.
“I’ve tried to talk to the Big Ten people about, ‘Let’s get a 12th team _ Syracuse, Rutgers, Pitt _ we could have a little bit of a playoff.’ ”
OK, let’s give Paterno partial credit for at least being up front and not pulling the rug out from under the Big East as has already happened this decade. But it still grades as a D-minus in the respect department, doesn’t it?
I mean, talking about adding Notre Dame to your conference is one thing. The Irish are an independent and it’s perfectly kosher (Can you say kosher about the pre-eminent Catholic school in the land? Well, anyway..) to talk about wooing ND to your conference.
But the Big Ten, not to mention the Big East and everyone else, have been barking up that tree for years. It’s not going to happen as long as Notre Dame still has the cache to sign its own TV deal and print its own money.
Paterno named names, something that smacks of a little arrogance, no?
Would any of JoePa’s choices fit anyway?
Syracuse is a good geographic fit but is a private school in a league made up mostly of state schools.
Pittsburgh is also an easy trip for most of the Big Ten, but that wouldn’t help the Big Ten “own” the Pennsylvania media market the way Boston College helps the ACC “own” the Northeast, right?
OK, you can stop laughing now. (I still love that gag! We all know that no one in Beantown gives a flying Van Halen album about what Clemson and Georgia Tech do in the NCAA Tournament.)
Rutgers is…well, a seemingly more attractive football partner than some. Paterno obviously has a lot of respect for Greg Schiano and what he’s done. But do the Scarlet Knights (and all their wonderful sports) fit in the Big Ten? It just doesn’t sound right.
Of course, BC in the ACC sounded funny. And there are schools in Chicago and Milwaukee as part of the Big EAST, so nothing should surprise us now.
Let’s not kid ourselves about the Big East’s role in realignment. They were scorned but they too did a little poaching of their own _ albeit in a much more up-front, perhaps polite manner _ by grabbing Louisville, Cincinnati, Marquette, DePaul and South Florida from Conference USA.
And if the Big Ten does manage to pluck a Big East team from the fold (we’re a long, long way from that happening, so don’t get too excited), it won’t take the Big East long to go knocking on some doors to find a replacement or two. East Carolina could get a call, maybe Central Florida, etc.
It’s OK for flunky journalists like myself to speculate about realignment and which teams could move where, but when the winningest coach in college football history calls schools out, it’s not quite as becoming.
- Neill
