This podcast episode delves into the intricate evolution of college football conferences, with a particular emphasis on the storied legacy of the Big Ten Conference. We are joined by the knowledgeable Timothy P. Brown from footballarchaeology.com, who illuminates the historical context surrounding the transformations that have beset college football in recent years. The discussion traverses the origins of the Big Ten, tracing its development from a coalition of faculty members in the late 19th century to its current status amidst contemporary shifts in college athletics. We examine the significant impact of television revenue and geographic considerations on conference realignment, as well as the cultural implications of such changes. This episode not only serves to educate listeners about the past but also prompts reflection on the future trajectory of college football amidst ongoing transformations.
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Takeaways:
You're just in time to talk a little bit of college football, some old time college football and get into the very beginnings of college conferences.
Speaker A:We have Timothy p. Brown of footballarchaeology.com to tell us all about it in just a moment.
Speaker B:This is the Pigskin Daily History Dispatch.
Speaker A:A podcast that covers the anniversaries of American football events throughout history.
Speaker B:Your host, Darren Hayes is podcasting from.
Speaker A:America's North Shore to bring you the.
Speaker B:Memories of the gridiron one day at a time.
Speaker A:Hello, my football friends.
Speaker A:This is Darren Hayes of pigskindispatch.com welcome once again to the Pig Pen, your portal deposit of football history.
Speaker A:And welcome to Tuesday footballarchaeology.com day.
Speaker A:And we visit with Timothy P. Brown of that great website to visit with one of his tidbits and he can entertain us with some great football lore.
Speaker A:Tim, welcome back to the Pig Pen.
Speaker B:Hey Derek, good to see you.
Speaker B:As always, looking forward to chatting.
Speaker B:And I think we begin with the finest football conference ever created.
Speaker A:That would be a good thing to say with us that live up here up north.
Speaker A:Perhaps somebody in the south or somebody out west or other parts of the country may disagree with us, but.
Speaker B:Well, I'm also, you know, this is a history podcast.
Speaker B:So, you know, I'm talking about the breadth, the length of college football history.
Speaker B:I think it's fairly easy to make that case.
Speaker A:And, and since at the time of this recording that conference, the Big Ten has won the last two national championships, so I guess that gives them some credibility for the modern times too.
Speaker A:So you're, this is a conversation is based on Tim's tidbit titled the Big Tens Coming and goings that you came out recently with.
Speaker A:Can you tell us about this story, Tim?
Speaker B:Yeah, you know, to, to me it was just, you know, there's so much turmoil, you know, in college football today, you know, with Nil and the portal and you know, I mean, talk about comings and goings and you know, I think in I, I always kind of perceive the, the Big Ten and you know, the sec, you know, like, as I was growing up, those were like steady state conferences.
Speaker B:So is the PAC 10, and so is the ACC and the, and the, the big eight, the Southwest.
Speaker B:You know, those were all still there and you know, but kind of one after another, you know, different ones have fallen by the wayside and, or, and rejiggered and reconstituted themselves.
Speaker B:And so, you know, now we've ended up with these conglomerations of the Big Ten and the, and The SEC and then these other conferences, you can't even tell, you know.
Speaker B:You know, it's like, you know, you need a program to know who the players are.
Speaker B:You know, when you come into a stadium, it's like you need a program to know who's in what conference nowadays.
Speaker B:But nevertheless, you know, I just thought it, you know, it was kind of just an opportunity to take, take a look at, you know, how did the Big Ten evolve, right?
Speaker B:And, you know, it really was.
Speaker B:We get the term conference from their initial conference of faculty members.
Speaker B:You know, that's where that.
Speaker B:That word comes from.
Speaker B: ou know, which, like, back in: Speaker B:But nevertheless, I mean, it, there were like seven members of what's currently the Big Ten, well, plus Chicago, that were part of the original group.
Speaker B:And then a couple years later, they.
Speaker B: diana and Purdue, I think, in: Speaker B:Um, and then things were kind of, you know, they had their.
Speaker B: igan bolts, you know, in like: Speaker B:You know, they go off in the wilderness for 10 years.
Speaker B:In the meantime, Ohio State comes in, Michigan returns, you know, just before World War I.
Speaker B:And so then, you know, you've got the 10 conference teams.
Speaker B:And so.
Speaker B:But all along there was like, Nebraska at times, you know, they.
Speaker B:They like applied a couple times to, to join, and they could never quite get over the.
Speaker B:Get over the gate.
Speaker B:Notre Dame applied once or twice, but, you know, there were reasons that they didn't get in.
Speaker B:And you know, a lot of people say it was Fielding Yost and, you know, being anti Catholic or whatever, but, you know, they were.
Speaker B:I mean, there's already.
Speaker B:Northwestern was a private school, so, you know, couldn't have been really the private school thing anyways.
Speaker B:And then, you know, over.
Speaker B:Over the years, Pitt was a potential member.
Speaker B:You know, they got mentioned a few times.
Speaker B:But, you know, one of the things in kind of going back and looking at this again, one of the things I'd forgotten about.
Speaker B:I know I'd learned it before, but, you know, in the 30s, there was a point where Chicago and Northwestern had talks about merging.
Speaker B:You know, so both schools would have stayed in the Big Ten, but they would have just been one school.
Speaker B:Right?
Speaker B:And so, which was just kind of an interesting thing.
Speaker B:And actually when that was happening, there was discussion of both Pitt and Michigan State joining the Big Ten.
Speaker B:You know, like, if that merger happened, well, maybe there's an opening for another school.
Speaker B:And so they.
Speaker B:They were the kind of the two candidates.
Speaker B:But, you know, that didn't happen.
Speaker B:Well, the merger didn't happen.
Speaker B:And then Chicago leaves the Big Ten just before, you know, World War II.
Speaker B:And it's not until like 50 that Michigan State joins, but they don't play football until I think it was 53, maybe 54 season.
Speaker B:And then we sit there, you know, then it's like, okay, we're cool.
Speaker B:We got our conference.
Speaker B:We had the thing with the big, well, the Pack 8 playing in the Rose bowl every year.
Speaker B:It was like nirvana.
Speaker B:You know, I mean, as a kid growing up, that was like, it's, you know, us cold Midwesterners and those, you know, fancy pants people out on the west coast, right?
Speaker B:And, and hopefully we were able to ground them down each year and beat them, but we didn't.
Speaker B:So anyways, you know, you know, to me that was kind of the fun of the region.
Speaker B:The regional conferences.
Speaker B:There's something fun about that, or at least it seemed, seems so at the time.
Speaker B:And then, you know, or just the whole shift in, you know, that there's a lot of things that facilitated or caused these conferences to, to reshape.
Speaker B:And you know, number one, it was television money, you know, and, and you know, it just made sense to get into, especially in the early days of cable, it made sense to get in certain, into certain markets.
Speaker B:So now all of a sudden Penn State joins, you know, allowing this kind of semi eastern team into our fine Midwestern conference.
Speaker B:It's kind of a scandal.
Speaker A:We weren't too happy about it here either.
Speaker B:Yeah, I know.
Speaker B:Well, little did you know, we, we.
Speaker A:We liked our two independent teams in Pennsylvania with PIT and Pesi.
Speaker B:And then there, there was the, you know, then obviously Nebraska comes in, eventually Maryland and, and Rutgers.
Speaker B:And then now the most recent, you know, with the, the four west coast teams.
Speaker B:So it was just kind of an interesting little tour through.
Speaker B:Tour through time.
Speaker B:I, I'm probably going to do another one.
Speaker B: n the, you know, starting the: Speaker B:And then, then it broke up into the SoCon and you know, the SEC and part of it the ACC.
Speaker B:So the, that's been a whole interesting dynamic in the South.
Speaker B:I mean, again, I think of the SEC as a stable organization and it has been for, well, more than my lifetime.
Speaker B:But it wasn't Always so.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:And so it's just kind of an interest.
Speaker B:I just think all the conferences, the conferences tell you a lot about what was going on in football.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:And the pressures, both the academic and eligibility standards, and more than anything, the money.
Speaker B:The money involved in the transportation technologies that allow you to play teams that are more distant than in the past.
Speaker A:You know, it's just really interesting how.
Speaker A:So regionalized, you know, I know it's probably, you know, for travel reasons and you don't want teams too far away when.
Speaker A:Before you're getting on airplanes and things like that.
Speaker A:But, you know, like, the Big Ten is a perfect example.
Speaker A:It was basically the Northern Midwest is really what it was.
Speaker A:You know, Pennsylvania wasn't in it.
Speaker A:You know, Ohio State was what, the first Eastern team, I believe.
Speaker A:And for this Western team, I don't even know.
Speaker B:Minnesota or.
Speaker A:Minnesota.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:So, you know, there's all tight little bundle there of everybody, you know, three or four or five states right there by the Great Lakes.
Speaker A:The Western Great Lake.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:Well, you know, even.
Speaker B:Even when they, you know, so like the Big Ten and really all the conferences initially were formed more as, you know, kind of eligibility and standards and that kind of thing rather than as a scheduling mechanism.
Speaker B:And so the.
Speaker B:You know, like the Big Ten, for a long time, I mean, really, almost Until World War II, you know, it wasn't uncommon for a conference champ to have only played three conference games.
Speaker B:You know, I mean, Minnesota claims, like, 57 conference championships.
Speaker B:And I don't like Minnesota because I'm Wisconsin fan, but, you know, I mean, like, four of their conference championships and I think that's.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:Maybe even more.
Speaker B:They only won two conference games, you know, but, oh, hey, we're the.
Speaker B:You know, we were the conference champions.
Speaker B:Well, yeah, they were under the rules of the time.
Speaker B:And.
Speaker B:Yeah, fine.
Speaker B:But, you know, like, in the.
Speaker B:SO or the.
Speaker B:The Southern Conference, same thing.
Speaker B:They didn't have the real networks even there to get from, you know, Tennessee to Alabama or whatever.
Speaker B:You know, I mean, I'm making that one up.
Speaker B:But, you know, it was not easy to get from, you know, from one school in the conference to the other.
Speaker B:So they.
Speaker B:A lot of them just never played one another.
Speaker B:You know, they could go decades without playing.
Speaker B:So, you know, and, like, Wisconsin would play Minnesota and Iowa, Northwestern and Chicago.
Speaker B:And then other years they pick.
Speaker B:You know, they'd pick up somebody.
Speaker B:But they hardly ever played Ohio State.
Speaker B:You know, I mean, it.
Speaker B:Just.
Speaker B:Because it was so far away.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:You know, they played little, you know, the tiny Little conferences or tiny little, you know, liberal arts schools and stuff.
Speaker B:So.
Speaker A:Yeah, and it's, it's also interesting, you know, I live more towards the east and I even had a high school coach, a grade school coach that would always call, you know, Ohio and Michigan out west, you know, and then that was, it was the Western Conference for a while.
Speaker A:That's what everybody called it before.
Speaker A:You know, I think the Big Ten really caught on to what it is today, name wise.
Speaker A:And it's just interesting, you know, now we look at it like.
Speaker A:Well, there's a lot of teams further west than that.
Speaker B:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker B:Well, you know, I mean, that's part of the.
Speaker B:I did an article.
Speaker B:This is probably three, four years ago now, but you know, the schools that.
Speaker B:State schools that had their.
Speaker B:At a football program before they were states.
Speaker B:So I mean, you know, time, you know, the times were a little different back then.
Speaker A:Hey, we have a lot of state schools here and we're not even a state.
Speaker A:We're commonwealth.
Speaker B:Yeah, well, so is Kentucky and probably a couple other places, but no, there's three.
Speaker B:Kentucky, Pennsylvania and I'm gonna guess.
Speaker A:Oh wait, maybe, maybe there's.
Speaker A:There's four.
Speaker A:I'm sorry, there's four.
Speaker B:I don't want, I don't want to.
Speaker B:Well, Virginia, right.
Speaker A:Virginia, Right.
Speaker A:I believe Massachusetts is a commonwealth too.
Speaker B:Okay, so what's the difference?
Speaker A:I have no idea.
Speaker A:We like to use more letters of the alpha, but I have no idea.
Speaker B:I don't know the difference either, so.
Speaker A:But they still have, you know, we.
Speaker A:It happens all the time.
Speaker A:Our politicians here, you know.
Speaker A:Oh, here's our state flag.
Speaker A:Well, technically we're not a state.
Speaker A:Shouldn't it be our commonwealth flag?
Speaker A:Who knows?
Speaker A:I think they're intermingled and synonymous with each other anymore.
Speaker A:At least in our states they are.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:Well, it's a conference, not a league, so remember that too.
Speaker A:Yeah, yeah, that's true, True.
Speaker A:But I, I didn't realize that until I read your article and you're again saying it here today where the word conference came from.
Speaker A:So that's interesting.
Speaker A:And they even use it in a professional levels and other sports too.
Speaker A:Interesting.
Speaker B:Good stuff.
Speaker A:Yeah, but you, you have a lot of interesting subject matters like this that you know, people may say every day, like the word conference some and you know, big ten.
Speaker A:And we really don't think about where those come from.
Speaker A:But you like to dive into that stuff with your tidbits and give us a short little story and learn, educate us on something about football and maybe you could share with the listeners where they too can partake in some of your tidbits.
Speaker B:Yep, just catch me on footballarchaeology.com you know, it's just a it's a substack site so you can subscribe and you'll get an email every day, every or every day that I send out a publish a new story.
Speaker B:Otherwise, just follow me.
Speaker B:You know, save the site or follow me on substack app.
Speaker B:You can also follow me on Blue Sky.
Speaker B:So that's how you figure out what I'm doing and what I'm writing about.
Speaker A:All right.
Speaker A:Well, Tim, we appreciate what you're doing and what you're writing about and coming and visiting us here each Tuesday, and we'd love to talk to you again next week.
Speaker A:And we thank you for today.
Speaker B:Always fun.
Speaker B:Thanks, dear.
Speaker A:That's all the football history we have today, folks.
Speaker A:Join us back tomorrow for more of your football history.
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