I would argue for the following:
First, the Intercollegiate Conference of Faculty Representatives (which became the B1G) replacing Lake Forest with Michigan in between their initial meeting in January, 1895 and their charter meeting on February 8, 1896. Why this is so consequential:
This is momentous for two reasons, first because the ICFR/Western Conference/Big Ten/Big11Ten/B1G was the first (as far as I know) really big "power conference" at least outside of the Ivy League so it set precedents for everyone to follow.
Second, because if the conference had been formed with Lake Forest instead of Michigan I think it's fundamental character would have been very different. Instead of being mostly made up of large public "flagship" state schools, it would have been largely a Chicago Metro Area conference, consider:
- Chicago: Private school in Chicago
- Lake Forest: Private school in Chicago
- Northwestern: Private school in Chicago
- Illinois: Large public school not far from Chicago and in Chicago's state
- Purdue: Large public school not far from Chicago
- Wisconsin: Large public school not far from Chicago
- Minnesota: Large public school not in the Chicago Metro Area
- Michigan: Large public school not in the Chicago Metro Area
If you leave out Michigan and put Lake Forest in then three of the seven members (nearly half) are Chicago area private schools. Another three are large public schools but strongly tied to Chicago based on geography. Only Minnesota really stands outside that. My guess is that likely expansion targets would have been other Chicago area schools and the league never would have become the league of Midwestern large public schools that it mostly is even today.
Lake Forest being replaced by Michigan meant that the public schools substantially outnumbered the private schools (5-2) and led to what became the B1G.
Second, Paterno's effort to form an "Eastern All Sports Conference" failing by one vote.
Back in 1982 the Big East voted down taking Penn State. Paterno desperately wanted to form an "Eastern All Sports Conference" and the Big East already had BC, Syracuse and Pitt. After turning down PSU they added Miami, Rutgers, WVU, and VaTech along with partial membership for ND.
If the Big East had taken PSU my belief is that they, rather than the ACC would have ended up being the Eastern Power Conference to survive.
Florida State started competing in the ACC in 1992. Prior to that their most frequent opponents were:
- 34 Florida SEC
- 33 Miami, BigEast
- 29 VaTech, BigEast
- 19 USM, SBLT?
- 18 USCe, SEC
- 18 Memphis, AAC now, then?
- 18 Auburn, SEC
- 16 Houston, SWC
- 10 Wake, ACC
- 10 NCST, ACC
- 10 L'Ville, BigEast
- 10 UGA, SEC
I've heard that FSU really wanted an SEC invite which makes sense. After that, their strongest connections were to Big East schools Miami, and VaTech. With PSU in the BigEast it would have made a LOT of sense for the Seminoles to join the league.
Imagine a modern BigEast of:
- PSU
- Miami, FL
- FSU
- Notre Dame
- VaTech
- Syracuse
- Pitt
- WVU
- Rutgers
- Louisville
That is stronger than the ACC so instead of the ACC raiding the BigEast to get Syracuse, Pitt, and VaTech you'd have likely seen the BigEast raid the ACC to get Clemson, UNC, UVA, and another to make a 14-team power league.
Third, the Big8 and SWC not eliminating the dead wood when they had a chance in the mid-1990's:In 1996 the SWC and the Big12 sorta merged to form the B12. The SWC was collapsing and the four of their schools (TX, Baylor, aTm, and TxTech) joined the Big8 to become the Big12 which left the other former SWC members (Rice, SMU, TCU, Houston) out in the cold.
If they had acted before Arkansas left for the SEC they could have formed the basis of a powerful conference from the top half or so of the financial contributors from each league. This would have formed the basis for a strong conference:
- Texas, from SWC
- Oklahoma, from B8
- aTm, from SWC
- Nebraska, from B8
- Arkansas, from SWC
- Mizzou, from B8
- Houston, from SWC
- Colorado, from B8
- TxTech, from SWC
- Kansas, from B8
That is a strong enough core that it might still exist with a few additions (likely a NM school, a NV school, a UT school . . .)
Instead, Texas politics and the desire of the B8 schools not to leave their longtime brethren behind ended up imploding the B12 (apparently).
