JO'Co, Wouldn't that apply to Oklahoma, Texas, Penn St., Ohio State, Nebraska, Michigan, and just about every other team in a conference as well? Some of those show up in the Rose Bowl but if you have to play a conference schedule you don't get to play coast to coast as much as a team that does not play in a conference. By "very recently" do you mean the last 40 years? Like I said before, I am fine with the Alabama situation. The Tide is playing for its third national championship in four years. The first against Texas, the second against LSU and this one against Notre Dame. All very tradition heavy programs.
kp, No. It doesn't apply to those other schools. Fans out here have seen Big Ten schools in the Rose Bowl forever and they also schedule western schools for non-conference games. Mid-West schools like Oklahoma and Nebraska have always scheduled teams out here. Even Texas has had regular series with UCLA, Stanford and others. SEC schools play nobody, just as they did in the segregation times. They have 14 teams, but they only play 8 league games. This guarantees that everybody has very few losses. How can SEC fans seriously say that they can't find room on their schedule for western, mid-west, eastern and mountain schools when they have four open dates every year? Look at the schools that they do play: Wofford, Western Carolina, Jacksonville State etc. The decision to do things this way was made entirely down south and schools from other regions had nothing to do with it. As I said, I can't remember anyone in my life talking about Alabama football and I talk to everyone about football all the time...
Point of order: Penn State was not a member of a conference until the 90s. I would argue the decline of Penn State football coincided with their membership of the B1G. They came in tearing the league apart, but slowly were picked apart in recruiting battles...and of course, the aging coach covering up for the pedo couldn't have helped either... But the 'great Penn State' that people remember, just like the great Miami teams and Florida State teams were independent.
yeah Corey, Alabama played them 1980-1984 then again 1986-1990 so I guess that was when they were still independents.
Most Penn State alums I know, and I know quite a few, will literally lose their minds if you suggest that joining the B1G was a bad thing. I just ask them.. where were you? Where are you now? That's usually a vein popper right there.
JoCo Please don't lump Tennessee into that category. Even when we're awful, we will play strong out of conf games every year.
:idea: I wasn't thinking about Tennessee, they've always traveled out here and so has Arkansas, Nebraska and some others...