Mike Tranghese Quotes (28 Quotes)

I think there's this public perception that we're under tremendous scrutiny, so I guess that's true, but I have to tell you, I would never have that conversation with West Virginia. I would never impose that extra burden on them.

That is how a season starts, after 26 seasons that led to a new starting line. Twenty years from now, ... people are going to be saying, 'Look at the people in this picture.'

We have done significant research and analysis into the use of instant replay for our conference football games for the coming season. We are pursuing what we think will be the best possible system for the coming season.

The market will accept it, we have little doubt about it.

The NFL is going to be playing in that Thursday night slot now and ESPN didn't want that game on that night to go against it.

I keep hearing the question, 'Are we going to survive'

We've got people out there working on this, they've spent an enormous amount of time on it already. I'm pretty optimistic what we craft will be better than what we have.

I can tell you that our coaches and athletic directors and presidents have all told me in the strongest terms where they want to be long term is they want everybody playing everybody at least once, ... They feel very strongly that if you're going to be in a conference, that any team not to be playing another team is just not the right thing to do. We have some of that right now and I think we're uncomfortable with that but we were left with little choice.

It's hard to sit here and do cartwheels, ... I understand the USC situation. I have empathy for them. But at the end of the day, I have little doubt that the Rose Bowl game between USC and Michigan will be a fabulous football game.

XM Satellite Radio's commitment to college sports is extraordinary and we are truly pleased to welcome XM to the BIG EAST family. This partnership gives BIG EAST fans throughout the country the opportunity to follow their teams, especially during our Basketball Championship Tournaments in March.

People are quick to pass judgments based on the results of games, ... This is a long-term venture we're involved in. These are college kids playing. When one group outplays the other, they deserve the victory.

We're not going to fail, ... But we're not going to simply succeed because we're 16. Sixteen presents a number of problems, and we're going to be aggressive in dealing with them. But this whole notion that we're too big is nonsense, because three years ago we were 14 and I didn't hear anyone saying we were too big.

If I were IBM, I'd understand it. I'm not IBM. I represent 14 educational institutions.

There was so much stability that people were partners for long periods of time. In the true sense of the word, they were conferences, ... I don't know what the word means anymore. My biggest challenge is making certain that this large gathering that we now have can adopt a family atmosphere that we've always had here.

I am absolutely convinced that we can get a lot of teams in if they do what they are supposed to do. The selection committee has good people, and they'll be fair about it. They know how good we are.

If you're recruiting against Southern California, Oklahoma or Miami, those are hard recruiting sells, ... There are a whole bunch of teams in those leagues who are never getting to a BCS game. I told our coaches, every one of you has a chance to win this league and get to a BCS game.

I never talked about numbers with our people, ... I just said obviously with the kind of quality that we have there's no reason to think that we can't generate more teams qualifying for the tournament. I think this is historical. This is a path that no one's ever traveled before, this many good teams in one league. What's it going to lead to

No two people stood up during those very, very difficult times and expressed such sincere support for the league, ... I know it's something I won't forget. When you're being attacked and you have two high-profile coaches just come off winning national championships it gave a lot of incentive to our league.

We had pretty high expectations before the season. You hope it's right, but I don't know if anybody could have written a better script than how it turned out.

Two years ago, a lot of people didn't even think our conference was going to make it, ... What occurred a year ago was that we didn't have our members with us. Boston College was playing for us they didn't want to be there. So last year was a year in limbo.

This, ... will be the most disastrous blow to intercollegiate athletics in my lifetime.

When we began to look at Notre Dame, Marquette, DePaul, Louisville and Cincinnati as well as those schools located in the Northeast, we were also trying to not have people do even more travel,

The rest of the season just was not a lot of fun, ... Everybody was painting a negative scope on everything we were doing and not doing. They Louisville gave us credibility because of all the criticism we were taking.

The only way this thing won't survive, ... is if these coaches can't coach and recruit, and if I screw up. They ain't going to screw up, because this league has always been successful because of our basketball coaches.

To go back originally to the defections, it was as bad a time as a lot of us have ever gone through. There were some days when we didn't even know if there was going to be a league.

We have a couple more who if we were voting today would probably get in, ... and I'll match the strength of our coaches with any league in the country.

I don't think it can hurt. I think anything we do to excel, to demonstrate our ability to continue to compete at a high level can only help us.

When we lost people and sat down and talked about it for the first time, Louisville was always part of those conversations. A big reason why was how much they seemed to want to be here with us.