Thanks to Walt Koch for educating me on how to find the Torgersen/Tranghese article in the Norfolk Virginian-Pilot archives. Here's the lowdown on what I was telling you about yesterday:

Torgersen, Tranghese, and Weaver did indeed meet prior to the WVU game, and Big East Associate Commissioner John Paquette was there, too. An article on the meeting ran in Sunday's NV-P, and it said that the Hokies are once again lobbying the Big East for full conference membership.

Tranghese had a few new things to say. He said that a few things have changed since 1994, when the Hokies were rejected for Big East membership. Namely, the Hokies won two Big East football championships and distinguished themselves in the Atlantic 10, winning championships in 9 of 18 sports last year.

Tranghese also said that the basketball-only schools are starting to gain a greater understanding of how important football, and in particular a happy Virginia Tech, is to the conference. The basketball-only schools are starting to understand that if the Hokies walk, the conference will fold.

And according to the article, Tech has notified the Big East that it is looking elsewhere for conference affiliation, preferably the SEC, if the status quo doesn't change. The gauntlet has been thrown.

Tranghese said that Tech's request will be considered as part of a "strategic planning process" the conference is undergoing to study problems in several areas. The process will likely take "another nine months."

I personally think that the Big East is trying to figure out how to get rid of the "Temple problem." I think the Big East is going to kick Temple out of the football conference, based on the minimum rules of membership that were adopted by the league last year (a team must average 25,000 fans per game in a home stadium in which they are the primary tenant in order to remain in the conference), and invite Tech in for all sports. This will give the conference 14 basketball teams, which is slightly more manageable than the awkward 15 teams that would result if both Tech and Temple were invited in.

Yeah, whatever. Talk is cheap. It's October 31st, 1997. Come see me nine months from now, on July 31st, 1998. Then we'll talk.

While digging through the Virginian-Pilot's on-line archives, I also stumbled upon an article written on February 25th, 1994.

The article was a positive piece about how Frank Beamer was gushing over the future of the Virginia Tech football program. Remember, we had just won the Independence Bowl over Indiana, and we had just closed out a great recruiting year that included signing Top 5 (in VA) players Ken Oxendine and Tony Morrison.

On the heels of this and our relatively new membership in the Big East conference, Beamer was, well, beaming over the future prospects of the Hokie football team.

Three paragraphs into the article was this quote:

"Beamer admits he has visions of future Orange or Sugar Bowls."

Wow. All I can say is, on February 25th, 1994, Beamer was wrong about one thing only. It was future Orange and Sugar Bowls, not or.

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