• Follow us on Twitter @buckeyeplanet and @bp_recruiting, like us on Facebook! Enjoy a post or article, recommend it to others! BP is only as strong as its community, and we only promote by word of mouth, so share away!
  • Consider registering! Fewer and higher quality ads, no emails you don't want, access to all the forums, download game torrents, private messages, polls, Sportsbook, etc. Even if you just want to lurk, there are a lot of good reasons to register!

Penn State Cult (Joe Knew)

Jump to latest Follow Reply
Sort by date Sort by votes
https://bwi.rivals.com/showmsg.asp?fid=36&tid=175615914&mid=175615914&sid=890&style=2

The thread starts with a simple question by a Rutgers fan: do you root for Ohio State or Rutgers? Some people actually answer, but there are a bunch of non-answers, specifically that since the Big Ten is not "their conference", Penn State fans can't root for either team. So someone asks, if they could create a 10- or 12-team conference, starting with Penn State, who would be in it? One guy comes in with Joesus's "Eastern Conference" plus 4 more teams to come up with 12. Fair enough. But, 9fold saves the day from sanity, thinking that a national conference is possible (and that it would include Penn State):

In no particular order:

1. UNC
2. UVA
3. Texas
4. Texas A&M
5. UCLA
6. USC
7. Washington
8. NC State
9. Duke

There's nine. All good schools academically. National coverage.
Click to expand...

(Again, the question posed asked to build a conference, starting with Penn State. So coming up with 9 more teams makes a 10-team conference.)
 
Upvote 0
Zurp said:
https://bwi.rivals.com/showmsg.asp?fid=36&tid=175615914&mid=175615914&sid=890&style=2

The thread starts with a simple question by a Rutgers fan: do you root for Ohio State or Rutgers? Some people actually answer, but there are a bunch of non-answers, specifically that since the Big Ten is not "their conference", Penn State fans can't root for either team. So someone asks, if they could create a 10- or 12-team conference, starting with Penn State, who would be in it? One guy comes in with Joesus's "Eastern Conference" plus 4 more teams to come up with 12. Fair enough. But, 9fold saves the day from sanity, thinking that a national conference is possible (and that it would include Penn State):



(Again, the question posed asked to build a conference, starting with Penn State. So coming up with 9 more teams makes a 10-team conference.)
Click to expand...

Why stop at nine? Put the Niners, Cowboys and Giants in there too. Fucking idiots...
 
Upvote 0
Zurp said:
https://bwi.rivals.com/showmsg.asp?fid=36&tid=175615914&mid=175615914&sid=890&style=2

The thread starts with a simple question by a Rutgers fan: do you root for Ohio State or Rutgers? Some people actually answer, but there are a bunch of non-answers, specifically that since the Big Ten is not "their conference", Penn State fans can't root for either team. So someone asks, if they could create a 10- or 12-team conference, starting with Penn State, who would be in it? One guy comes in with Joesus's "Eastern Conference" plus 4 more teams to come up with 12. Fair enough. But, 9fold saves the day from sanity, thinking that a national conference is possible (and that it would include Penn State):



(Again, the question posed asked to build a conference, starting with Penn State. So coming up with 9 more teams makes a 10-team conference.)
Click to expand...

The weird thing is that his conference isn't even very good. I suppose it'd be on par with ACC in basketball... but in football and academics, I'd put B1G / CIC up against that every day of the week.
 
Upvote 0
Another gripe.. the Eastern 8 was an actual conference that PSU was a founding member of in 1976. It's now the Atlantic 10, with overwhelmingly different members. Included during PSU's time were:

Duquesne
George Washington
Pitt
Rutgers
UMass
Villanova
WVU

It was something of a precursor to the BE. PSU apparently withdrew overnight in 1979 after Paterno threw a fit about some rules and officiating (stripes never change do they?), then rejoined from 1982 until 1991. They joined the B10 in 1993 for those keeping score; but first they were denied entry into the BE... likely by some of the same members who hadn't forgot how Paterno operated in the E8.

BTW, the teams cited for Paterno's proposed conference are wrong. According to 2 articles from 1981 (WaPo) and 1984 (NYT), he desired 9 teams (not 8) including:
Boston College
Penn State
Pitt
Rutgers
Syracuse
Temple
WVU
Army
Navy

So they left Army and Navy off, and imagined one of the following 5 were actually part of Paterno's plans: UConn, Maryland, VTech, UVA, and UMass.

To be honest, I think most of these are better off where they are now than being Paterno's puppets. Temple is the only one that would've benefited from this imo. It's pretty clear PSU desired to control a conference the way LHN has. The Big10 was never going to let that happen of course, which is why all the Pedsters are so irate and inconsolably unhappy.But the reality is that Big East didn't want their drama after remembering how they acted in the Eastern 8, nobody wanted to be in a conference created and controlled by Paterno, and that probably means the ACC wouldn't even want them now.

Unfortunately the B1G is stuck with these degenerates.
 
Upvote 0
Paterno wanted to join the Big Ten and make Ohio Sate their Big rival, so I'm wondering how that fits with Paterno building his own conference?
Maybe he saw it was too weak and wasn't going to work? Maybe he over estimated how good his program was?
Or just maybe the Big East thought "screw you" Paterno!
 
Last edited:
Upvote 0
Re: No problem. Here you go, these are the teams....Reply

1. Pitt
2. Syracuse
3. Boston College
4. U Conn
5. Temple
6. Rutgers
7. West Virginia
8. Maryland
9. Virginia Tech
10. Virginia
11. U Mass

This is an expanded version of Joe's original Eastern 8, and provides 12 teams, to compete on a national basis.
This takes into account the schools with the most in common with Penn State, geographically, and socially.


Correction, "most in common with Penn State, geographically and socially" would be:

1. State Correctional Institution - Somerset
2. United States Penitentiary, Lewisburg
3. State Correctional Institution - Fayette
4. United States Penitentiary, Allenwood
5. State Correctional Institution - Frackville
6. United States Penitentiary, Lee
7. State Correctional Institution - Graterford
8. United States Penitentiary, McCreary
9. State Correctional Institution - Forest
10. SCI-Greene
11. State Correctional Institution - Coal Township
 
Upvote 0
Taosman said:
Paterno wanted to join the Big Ten and make Ohio Sate their Big rival, so I'm wondering how that fits with Paterno building his own conference?
Maybe he saw it was too weak and wasn't going to work? Maybe he over estimated how good his program was?
Or just maybe the Big East "screw you" Paterno!
Click to expand...

Pretty sure Big10 was his C Plan. Preferred plan seems to have been establishing an all-sports conference from BE and E8 (now A10) members, and B plan appears to have been joining the BE (but PSU couldn't get the votes to join)
Even in 1984 when Army and Navy confirmed interest, they said they wouldn't want to commit to more than 5 games... which is a half-hearted commitment at best for a new conference.

One thing the Bleacher article gets wrong is that the BE already existed at this time (started in 1979), but of course was dominated by basketball interests. Three of the schools he wanted to join (Boston College, Syracuse, Pitt) were already members of the BE when he proposed his idea. Discounting service academies for a second, of the other 4 (PSU, WVU, Rutgers, Temple) -- all but PSU would find their way into the BE by 1991. Effectively once the BE decided to be a little more serious with football, it became the conference Paterno dreamed of... just without him and PSU. Moreover, by the time PSU joined the Big10 in 1993 all 3 of those were already football members of the BE (all 3 joined in 1991) and eventually all 3 would become full members.

The importance is seen from the 1981 WaPo article, which mentions that Pitt was very comfortable in the BE and not terribly interested in leaving to start an all-sport conference.
And I'd say their viewpoint held out since 10 years later, they have an all-sport conference with all the school Paterno had pitched - except of course his, which had applied and been denied.

I don't think it's a mistake that the BE accepted everybody *but* Penn State. And I think the basketball stuff was just a handy excuse for "we don't want your drama", as the BR article points out they ignored such issues when it came to Miami shortly after.
 
Last edited:
Upvote 0
kujirakira said:
The weird thing is that his conference isn't even very good. I suppose it'd be on par with ACC in basketball... but in football and academics, I'd put B1G / CIC up against that every day of the week.
Click to expand...
That's not weird.....that's the desired outcome. They can't be a big fish in a big pond, and they really don't even want to. They want to be a medium fish in a small fish pond so they look bigger than they really are without having to actually do big fish things.
 
Upvote 0
kujirakira said:
The weird thing is that his conference isn't even very good. I suppose it'd be on par with ACC in basketball... but in football and academics, I'd put B1G / CIC up against that every day of the week.
Click to expand...

Yo are viewing the academic side through Big Ten glasses. This is a damned strong conference academically. Top to bottom better than the B1G. Given the current state of the B1G in football I disagree with you about that as well.

1. UNC
2. UVA
3. Texas
4. Texas A&M
5. UCLA
6. USC
7. Washington
8. NC State
9. Duke
Click to expand...
 
Upvote 0
Same thread (Rutgers vs. Ohio State - who do you root for?)

Ohio State.
RU needs to understand its place in this conference.
Click to expand...

I've seen this mentioned a couple of times. So some fans don't want any part of the Big Ten, and insist that they want no part of it. Other fans are very defensive of it, and aren't ready to let these "newcomers" have any fun in it. I'm not saying that everyone in a fanbase should share the same opinions, but it's interesting to see that they could so easily have opinions that are 180 degrees apart from each other.
 
Upvote 0
My understanding is that Penn State was blackballed by Syracuse the second time around. Schwarzwalder, the long time Syracuse coach, and Rip Engle, Joesus's predecessor and the man who actually created Penn State as a football power, had an intense rivalry, but I don't think it was one that would have led to blackballing. Joesus must have brought an extra added dimension to the battle.
 
Upvote 0
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top