redpony wrote:BOT of SMU not fighting the NCAA and getting the death penalty.
Would have been the equivalent of FSU suing the ACC at that point - we were cooked and it was our own fault.
Paladin wrote:Notre Dame hiring high school football coach Gerry Faust in 1981 as Head Coach
Single worst HC hire in history, agreed, and done to sign a recruit whose name nobody can remember now.
max the wonder dog wrote:GA Tech would be a co-winner. Sewanee (University of the South) left as well, but it was (and is) too small to ever be competitive in D1.
GT made a mistake but it worked out okay for them. The ACC has been relatively good to them due to their higher academic standards, they won a NC after they left and they've been relatively happy until about a decade ago when conference realignment when haywire.
bubba pony wrote:Rutgers turn down an invitation to join the Ivy League. Rutgers would have to convert to a private school but elected to remain a state school.
As you pointed out, the decision was made for them. As the State University of New Jersey they had to remain public.
SEASPony wrote:After the death penalty, SMU’s hiring of A. Kenneth Pye as university president, ensuring the destruction of competitive athletics and regulation to a minor athletic conference for decades.
Highering Pye wasn't the mistake, how he handled it was. There was a way forward for the school and the program and Pye was smart enough to see that - he bears that responsibility, not the people who highered him.
Interesting story, I heard from one of the old-school faculty he actually went up to the Ivy League and inquired if they had an opening. Interesting response to being handed the 'death penalty' school.
Yeah, Tulane leaving the SEC gets my vote. They left possibly the most lucrative conference with no real plan ahead and have provided no avenue forward, sticking them in money-hemoragging mediocrity (if that) ever since.