Dave Gavitt, the Big East, Holy Cross and the Road Not Taken

Yesterday Dave Gavitt, the founder of the Big East passed away. Yesterday the news broke that Syracuse and Pittsburgh will be leaving the Big East for the ACC. Yesterday Holy Cross beat Harvard in football 30-22. All of these stories are related.

If you are a sports fan from Worcester of a certain age - you know the story well. Dave Gavitt wants to form a new basketball league that will cash in on TV money and they want Holy Cross as one of their centerpiece schools. Father Brooks and the College of the Holy Cross say "No thanks."

Years later schools like Georgetown and St. John's are national powers and Holy Cross fans are asking "what if" questions.

Yesterday Dave Gavitt passed away and in a terribly cruel twist of fate the league he formed may have passed away with him. Syracuse and Pittsburgh leaving the Big East for the ACC became official this morning. All of which in my mind validates the wisdom of Father Brooks all those years ago.

Where would Holy Cross be today if they had joined the Big East? They would have had to have spent millions to upgrade the football program and to what end? The realist knows that football success in this day and age would not be possible. They can't draw athletes from a whole state or afford a modern stadium complete with luxury boxes like UConn. Holy Cross has an enrollment of just 2,900. Compare that to Villanova who has a student body of well over 7,000. A place like Notre Dame has an enrollment of around 8,500 and is actually considered small by the big-time college football movers and shakers. The cold, hard fact is that the student body at Holy Cross just could not support a big-time program. A BCS Holy Cross would be a joke Holy Cross. What benefit would come from Holy Cross getting whipped by TCU by 40 points? What benefit would that bring to the value of a Holy Cross degree?

People who still wish to believe that Holy Cross should have joined the Big East all those years ago will argue that the Crusaders could have been a basketball member of the Big East like Georgetown or Providence College. They would have a point. But where would that have left the football program which had an equally storied history as the basketball team? People forget that Holy Cross played in the Orange Bowl back when being in a Bowl really meant something. What about the football team? Do they try to exist in between worlds like Villanova? Do they drop the program - again like Villanova? Georgetown (enrollment over 9,000 undergrad and grad combined) didn't have football when the Big East was formed but they have since added a team to compete at the Holy Cross level which I would take as evidence that Holy Cross was doing things the right way.

People say that you are known by the company you keep - yesterday Holy Cross was associating with Harvard. They regularly associate with Ivy League schools and the reputations of the Patriot League schools are pretty much unblemished.

Today the Universities of the Big East are wondering what their future holds and how they could be so betrayed by "brother" institutions. Who is in the better situation?

Holy Cross Football

The news that Joe Flacco (formerly of Delaware) has been named the starter for Sunday's Ravens season opener against Cincinnati got me thinking about another 1-AA* quarterback who may some day play in the NFL and a couple of other Holy Cross football related thoughts.

1. Holy Cross QB Dominic Randolph is poised to have a huge breakout year. The type of year that not only will put Randolph in the thick of things in terms of winning the Walter Payton Award but also put Randolph in forefront in the minds of many NFL scouts. Last season Randolph passed for 3,604 yards with 30 touchdowns with just eight interceptions. Improving on those numbers this year will make his season hard to overlook. At 6'3" and 223 pounds - Randolph has an NFL body and I think he will prove once again that he has an NFL arm and QB smarts. I was perhaps the first person to publicly tout Harvard's Ryan Fitzpatrick as an NFL QB and I'm hoping to be likewise correct about Randolph.

2. Coach Tom Gilmore is in his 5th season as head coach of the Crusaders. I would not be surprised if it turns out to be his last. Tom Gilmore is a very good coach and barring a complete collapse of the team - I expect a number of Division 1* schools to come a courting by the end of the season.

3. Holy Cross opens up the season with 4th ranked UMass. The game will be played at Fitton Field and I for one think an upset may be in the making. Holy Cross lost to the Minuteman 40-30 last year up in Amherst but it should be remembered that Holy Cross out scored UMass 21-10 in the second half. The Crusader seniors know they can play with the Minuteman and next Saturday I expect them to show it.


* We have to get away from this "football championship subdivision" crap and go back to just 1-A and 1-AA.

College Football Flotsam and Jetsam

Miscellaneous college football thoughts and observations.

Dominic Randolph of Holy Cross goes into Saturday as the leader in 1-AA in passing yards with 2,607 and I've been told that even though he's not one of the players pictured at the Payton Award Watch list that he is on the list. Randolph has a slim lead (one single yard) over Elon's Scott Riddle. It should be noted that even though both Randolph and Riddle have 23 passing TD's - Randolph has only thrown 5 interceptions compared to Riddle's 8 picks. I did not realize till this morning though that Scott Riddle is just a freshman... BTW - Elon is in North Carolina. I did not know that... Expert trash picker? It seems like a good description for a defensive back but kinda gross when it is meant literally...

College Football

Yesterday I spent the first half of my day at the Holy Cross / UMass game in Amherst. It was a beautiful day for college football and the Crusader / Minuteman game turned out much closer than expected.

In the first half UMass outscored Holy Cross 30-9. The score was in large part because Crusader receivers seemed to drop every pass that hit them in their hands and because the kickoff coverage team for Holy Cross allowed the first UMass kickoff return for a TD since before I even went to college.

HC coach Tom Gilmore scheduled the game to teach to his players that they could play with anyone and with Holy Cross outscoring the 3rd ranked Minutemen 21-10 in the second half - the lesson was learned. The adjustments HC made at half also bode well for the rest of their season. As I said when he was hired - I'd look for a Division 1 school to gobble up coach Gilmore fairly soon (within 2 seasons).

The big news in college football yesterday was of course Appalachian State beating Michigan. That was also the big news as I sat in the stands at McGuirk Stadium. Every time a score was announced -a big cheer would go up in the stands.

In a couple of weeks UMass plays Boston College at Chestnut Hills and I'm sure a number of scribes will make comparisons to the Appalachian State game. Trust me when I say that there will be no repeat for BC of what happened to Michigan. UMass is very susceptible to the pass and BC has one of the best passing attacks in the country. HC had open receivers all day and their second half comeback is evidence of the Minutemen's weakness in the secondary. If I can find a line on that game - I will be taking BC big because they will put a drubbing on UMass (which is no slight to UMass but BC is just in a different weight class).