The second worst was the original Big East football schools - Pitt, Syracuse and Boston College - not bolting the Big East to form an all-sports conference with a group of independents before Penn State decided to join the Big Ten.

Think about what a conference like this could have been:

1. Penn State
2. Pitt
3. West Virginia
4. Syracuse
5. Boston College
6. Rutgers
7. Temple
8. Miami
9. Florida State
10. Virginia Tech
11. South Carolina

That was very possible in the late 1980s, and was actually discussed, with Dave Braine being a big proponent (and a handful of other, lesser brands like Louisville, Cincinnati, Memphis, Southern Miss, Tulane and East Carolina also available as expansion candidates).

With the group of 11 mentioned above the options were plentiful. Drop Temple and stick at 10 schools, which was the common number of conference members in those days (though Tech would probably have been just as close to the chopping block at that time). Leave a 12th slot open for Notre Dame. Poach Maryland from the ACC. Add a school like Louisville that was strong in basketball and hope its football would become more consistently competitive.

A conference like that, if formed in the late 1980s when the time was right, would be as strong or stronger than the ACC is today. You'd have had at least three then-perennial football powers (PSU, FSU and Miami), another not far removed from being a national power (Pitt), a handful of schools that were consistently competitive or had great potential to be so at the time (WVU, Maryland, South Carolina, Syracuse, et al.). Tech probably would have had a harder time climbing up a latter with all of those schools in it, as opposed to following the Big East football conference path. But in the end, you'd have had a conference that would be geographically sensible and very committed to football.