Monday, February 17th, 1997

Big East Notes

Look for Temple to be out of the Big East Football Conference within two years, and for UConn to be in by the year 2002, and probably sooner. Bill Roth was talking about the Big East meetings on the "Virginia Tech Sports Today" television show, and those are the two major items that he said will come out of the meetings. It appears that minimum standards for league membership will be adopted, and they will include stipulations that you must be the primary tenant in your football stadium, and you must average 25,000 fans per game. All teams, i.e. Temple, will have two years to comply with these requirements, so look for the Owls to be history soon. UConn will step in and fill the void.

I'm not sure if those two news items are set in stone yet, but look for them to happen. This will bring up the interesting situation of having Tech as the only football-only member. Depending upon whether you're the type of person who sees that glass as half full or half empty, this could mean one of two things:

  1. Either our situation becomes very precarious, and we become likely candidates to get dropped from the league, or
  2. Having us hanging out there by ourselves will be silly, and we'll be invited in for all sports.

Whatever happens, Dave Braine is positioning us well for membership in an all-sports conference by massively upgrading our facilites and increasing our cash base ($8 million in bowl money will do that for you). If the Big East doesn't want us, somebody else will. My prediction: by the year 2000, Tech will be a member of an all-sports conference.

The question is, which one?


 Turkey Bites

  • Previously, Jim Druckenmiller had been projected by draft analyst Mel Kiper as the #11 pick in the draft, going to the Chicago Bears. Kiper said this might change if the Bears could swing a deal to land QB Rick Mirer from Seattle. That deal was indeed made over the weekend, and Mirer will be a Bear. Look for Druck to go somewhere other than Chicago. Keep an eye on Kiper's draft predictions over on the ABCNet Sportszone ... uh, excuse me, the ESPNet Sportszone ... web site.
  • Sunday's basketball game against Duquesne will be Senior Day, not the final home game against Xavier. This is due to the fact that the Xavier game is during Spring Break, and the students won't be there, as discussed and bemoaned previously here at Hokie Central.
  • Trivia question: at the Texas Steakhouse and Saloon in Christiansburg, there is a framed Virginia Tech football jersey on the wall from the 1984 Independence Bowl. The player's name who wore the jersey is "K. Thomas." What was this player's full name, what position did he play, and what number did he wear? If you know the answer to this question, post it on the message board.

          

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