Why is Penn State in The Big Ten not The Big East?

Question

Seriously, Why I mean pittsburgh is in the Big East and their from pennsylvania and in basketball Notre Dame is all the way in Indiana and their in The Big East so why isnt Penn State In It?

Answer 1

Penn State wanted to be in the Big East, but were denied. It was the university heads, NOT Joe Paterno, who accepted the offer to join the Big Ten. Joe Pa wanted to stay in the Big East because of the rivalry with Pitt. One thing that people seem to forget is that the Pitt-PSU rivalry was one of the greatest in college football.

Answer 2

Penn State is in the Big Ten and not the Big East because they were smart enough to know where more money was flowing. Also the Big Ten had (and still has) more national attention than the Big East. Joe Paterno and all the other people who made the decision knew that, and also they have more rivals in the Big Ten than the Big East. The only other rival was Pitt. So when the previous conference that all these teams (Pitt, Penn State, Notre Dame) were a part of failed, looking at the Big East now, two teams made a smart decision.

Answer 3

It's all about one thing....M O N E Y! Penn State had a choice between joining the Big East and being in the same conference as Pitt, Boston College (back then), West Virginia, etc., or going to the Big Ten. Although most of their rivals were going into the Big East, Penn State decided against doing so because they not only were offered more of an incentive to go to the Big Ten (i.e.; TV exposure, bowl games, etc.). All these bennies add up to a lot of money in Penn State's bank accounts and therefore more scholarship money. They did it for the Benjamins!

Answer 4

So many people forget that Penn State, for all of their great success as an independant on the gridiron, was a member of the Atlantic Ten in their other sports prior to joining the Big Ten. Penn State, as a whole, realized that their academics and entire athletic program was more similar to the Big Ten than to the Big East. Other than Northwestern, the Big Ten is all the major state universities in the Great Lakes area, and everyone plays on campus. The Big East, however, has lots of private schools in basketball that play off campus.

Sure, Penn State could have gone to the Big East, and for years could have had good regional rivalries with Syracuse, Temple, Pitt, Rutgers, Boston College, Virginia Tech and West Virginia. But their only national caliber rivalry would have been with Miami in football. By going to the Big Ten, they get national caliber rivalries with Michigan and Ohio State in football, and a good regional rivalry with the rest of the conference. And it forced Penn State to update the rest of their on-campus athletic facilities to Big Ten level; otherwise they would still be playing basketball to 7000 seats in Rec Hall - a nice A-10 arena, a good on-campus arena in the Big East, a joke in the Big Ten.

There is more to picking a college conference than simple geography. Penn State made a solid choice by going Big Ten rather than Big East.

Answer 5

To make a long story not-so-long, we have to go back to the late '70s/early '80s, when PSU and all the other schools that would later form the Big East football conference, were independents. Joe Paterno envisioned an Eastern football league consisting of these teams and to set this vision in motion PSU applied for Big East membership in 1982, but was rejected, because at the time the conference was focused only on basketball, in which PSU, quite frankly, has always sucked.

So fast forward to 1990, and lo and behold, the Big East decides, "Hey, let's do football!" So they form a football conference with Miami, VT, BC, Cuse, Pitt, WVU, RU and Temple. They wanted PSU, but PSU, spurned by the Big East in the past, already had a lucrative offer from the Big Ten on the table, and acted accordingly. To this day, Big East conference commissioner Mark Tranghese calls the decision to reject PSU as the biggest mistake the conference has ever made.

Think about it: Would VT and BC have left for the ACC if PSU were anchoring the conference? Methinks not. Miami likely would have left for geographical reasons, but nobody else would have had a reason (UVA didn't want VT in the ACC). The ACC, even after the addition of FSU, was considered one of the worst major conferences in D-IA. Some teams were competitive (especially Mack Brown's UNC teams), but ultimately, FSU owned that conference. Even when Miami left for the ACC, WVU probably would've stepped up in their place, plus if they added Louisville as they did a couple years ago, they still would've been considered at least on-par with, if not better than, the ACC.

Answer 6

Penn State was getting beat by the same patsies they used to hammer to falsely lay claim to being the best program in the Country...

Syracuse under Coach Bill MacPhearson beat them on National Tv two seasons ('87-'88) in a row and Penn State opted not to renew the rivalry..five years before joining a conference.

The days of playing Rutgers...Army...Temple...Navy..Maryland...Miami..
(pre-Jimmy Johnson)..TCU...sometimes Brown or Colgate..or even Ohio U not Ohio State..
were over...

sure they built a 95,000 plus seat Stadium to accomodate their great fans...

but needed to assure they could keep it full..and join the Conference that actually knows best how to hype and pressure their way into an unfair percentage of the national attention...and playoff berths...the William Morris Agency represented..Big-10

You know they miss the glory days where it took little effort to cultivate the myth..but love the Cash-Cow..they will never dominate.

Answer 7

Well then why was Miami in the Big East and not the SEC a few years back? The teams PICK the Conference they are in, they aren't assigned it by the NCAA.

Answer 8

Because Jopa doesn't want to be. He is holding a grudge against the big east. Why don't they play Pitt like they did before?

Answer 9

geographical location most of the time, money the rest. The PAC 10 is the only conference that makes sense in terms of the members in the conference.

Answer 10

I would assume their rivalry against Michigan St. b/c they are both land grant schools in the same area. Also I think it was a balance of power among conferences at the time they joined.