With Spartan Football in a current "funk", I thought it would be a good time to remember a bit of the past.
Here is some of SJSU's historical data that I dug up recently.
The Big West Conference was formed as the Pacific Coast Athletic Association on July 1, 1969. However, the unofficial history of the conference pre-dates that point of time, extending back to 1967.
Cal State Los Angeles, Fresno State, Long Beach State and San Diego State were members of the California Collegiate Athletic Association, long recognized as the nation's premier college circuit.
That conference was classified college division, and therein lay a major source of dissatisfaction. Since 1963, the four institutions had captured 16 national titles. The number swelled to 21 if the mythical football championships were included.
With no more territory to conquer at the college division, a step up to university ranks had to be considered.
At the time, San Jose State, UC Santa Barbara and Pacific were members of the West Coast Athletic Conference but were enduring a strained relationship due to the limit of conference sports sponsored.
That, plus the fact that national football figures UOP and SJSU were already competing as independents, led the schools to pursue a more broad-based conference alignment.
Therefore, officials of the seven colleges and universities assembled as a body in May of 1969, tied up loose ends and less than two months later the PCAA was born.
Direction in the early days of the conference came from such men as Dr. Stephen Goodspeed, vice-chancellor at UC Santa Barbara, the first president and chairman of the founders committee.
J. Kenneth Fagans provided guidance as the league¹s first commissioner. Jesse T. Hill, one of the nation¹s most successful directors of athletics at USC, followed Fagans as the conference¹s first full-time commissioner.
SJSU was already labeled a university division school in all sports when the PCAA emerged. San Diego State and UOP were granted university division status in the summer of 1970 and the remaining conference members shed the college division moniker by 1972.
Moving up four years to the 1976 season, the Spartans record consisted of the following:
Utah State W 45-10
Hawaii W 48-7
Fullerton State W 20-0
Stanford L 23-28
California L 16-43
New Mexico L 30-36
Long Beach State W 34-7
Fresno State W 21-7
Santa Clara W 50-15
San Diego State L 17-30
Pacific W 50-30
The season ended up at a 7 and 4 mark, and the Spartans had a power rating of 51, and was still a member of the PCAA conference.
Did you know that the life long series between some of SJSU's greatest foes are as follows?
SJSU Vs Fresno St- The series is currently tied at 24 games a piece!
The series between Cal and SJSU is lead by Cal, with Cal leading the cross town series. SJSU has won 6 games while Cal has won the other 27 games!
The series between Stanford and SJSU is lead by Stanford, with 13 games won by SJSU and 41 games won by Stanford!
More Spartan historical facts to come, when a lull in the action is upon us again.