Tranghese: Big East 'blew it' with Penn State

◊ This is an interesting bit of pretty mediocre news. Mike Tranghese, the Big East's commissioner, said in a Q&A with the New York Times, that the league's biggest mistake was not taking Penn State in the early 1980s.

"The idea wasn’t to take Penn State and start a football league. It was to give Penn State a place. And then they would have been aligned with Syracuse and Boston College. We probably would have brought Pitt in, too, and the four of them probably would have agreed to play and continue as independents."

Tranghese goes on to say how Penn State was within one vote (it was 5-3) of being accepted into the league, and that former Syracuse A.D. Jake Crouthamel took a lot of undue heat from Paterno about it.

"We voted five different times and all five times Jake voted for Penn State. And Bill Flynn at Boston College, God rest his soul, voted for Penn State all five times. The reason that they didn’t get in was that the league was new, a lot of the directors felt it was a basketball league. Some of the directors felt that the concept of the Big East was big markets."

Ok, I'll admit that being from New Jersey, I have a real soft spot for Eastern Football and the Big East. Sure, the conference took a big hit losing Miami, Virginia Tech and Boston College in 2004, and would they even have left if Penn State was in the league? It doesn't really matter, because like the entire discussion, it's history now. Still a hoot to talk about, though.

As much as I like Eastern Football, I have no sympathy for the Big East. They had their chance, and blew it big time. At least Tranghese knows it.

But we'll have more on the whole conference realignment thing later this month. Should be lots of fun.