Arkstfan

The obvious reason to add at this point is because UAB is going to be hurt by being in the West. The less obvious reason according to a TV executive I spoke to yesterday (over two hours on a cell phone I think I can feel the tumor growing) is two-fold. 1. He says CUSA is in for a hit on the next TV deal because of attendance at too many schools is so low it makes for bad TV. 2. His other reason is Fox. Right now CUSA has five teams in the Fox SW footprint, ASU and ULL would make it 7. They've lost the Astros and Rockets and want greater content while Comcast is nibbling around the edges and is starting to move Arkansas and Louisiana out of Comcast Sports Southeast into Comcast Sports Houston (branded SW outside of immediate Houston area) and will have the same footprint as Fox SW (Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Louisiana, New Mexico). When the CUSA deal expires at the end of 2016 Comcast and Fox regionals are expected to go to war over the second tier rights because Comcast is basically running Astros and Rockets and third tier CUSA and AAC with some low tier SEC. While Fox is in better shape (holding Big XII rights even if they lose CUSA) they don't want Comcast SW/Houston getting even stronger. Remember Fox as a regional deal is paying the same as CBS despite second pick of games and much of that was on the strength of having Houston, SMU, Rice, Tulsa, Tulane in the Fox SW territory. The rest of CUSA is so scattered among RSN's that there is no critical mass. His belief is that CUSA is less concerned with helping UAB and more concerned about the second tier rights fee because the strength of CUSA's second tier deal is the ability to deliver games of value in Arkansas, Louisiana, Texas and needs to replace what was lost in Oklahoma. Well the Little Rock market is slightly larger than Tulsa and most of the Little Rock metro area is served by Comcast and ASU has a pretty good relationship with them. He thinks CUSA is positioning to maximize bidding interest on the second tier in the Southwest between Fox and Comcast because they cannot do that in the Southeast due to the variety of service territories.

If you look at the posts I responded to, I'd have to have a lobotomy to get chippy.

Seems like maybe I raised that geography issue in the past. Unless Marshall, ODU, Charlotte, WKU, MTSU, FIU and FAU are all of the same mind that UAB belongs in their group, there is no chance of the needed 11 votes being there. Unless Fowler knows something he isn't printing, the pool isn't ASU and UL, it is ASU, UL, TXST, NMSU and probably Missouri State if they are inclined to go FBS.

First. Your geography is off. If CUSA goes 16 with ASU and ULL the only way USM goes to the east is if they go east and WKU or MTSU, or UAB comes west. Second. Go look at the USM roster. One Texan, a couple Cali kids, decent group of Louisiana kids, lot of Mississippi, but far more Alabama and Florida kids than Texas, California, and Louisiana combined. You might like having USM west, that doesn't mean it will be healthy for USM or that USM can restore its program cut off from its recruiting base. Third. I've been hanging out here since UNT was in the Big West. Over the years I saw plenty of FIU and FAU don't belong. Lots of questioning how Troy and ULM do business. But Arkansas State and Louisiana are the sorts of programs UNT wants away from? That's straight from 1984 declaring that the enemy Eurasia has always been the ally and ally Eastasia has always been the enemy. It reminds me of a fan from another school who said Arkansas State wasn't good enough academically to be in the same conference as his juggernaunt academic ivy tower. Of course a high school grad meeting the minimum standards for unconditional admission at his junior Ivy League school wouldn't even be eligible for admission at a hick school like Arkansas State for having too low of a GPA or test scores. Finally I think it would be hilarious if it weren't so sad to see UNT fans talking about Karl Benson. Benson was hired because Lane Rawlins and Gary Ransdell were the leaders of the pack pushing Karl Benson over Tom Burnett. At least you had no hand in the NMSU debacle. We were all set to admit them as a full member until Ransdell rallied the eastern schools to make NMSU football only. That's been the real fun. We get some turds dropped on us then the people who dealt them walk away defending the move by complaining the place smells like manure.

Once upon a time, I could drive across the river into Little Rock for and seeing an Arkansas State bumper sticker or plate was a unique thing. I would go to ASU events in Little Rock and could look around the room and guess a person's graduation date within a few years because they were alums from one of the golden eras. Our Red Wolf Mafia lunch group would talk about the lost classes or lost generations that hadn't seen good football and were just gone. Now if I don't see at least three vehicles a day with Red Wolf something on them it noticeable. We've been semi-sorta thinking of buying a new house in the Little Rock area and cruising new neighborhoods it isn't unusual to see drive by a house with a stAte flag or Red Wolf flag. Those lost classes, the lost generations, many weren't lost. They just didn't feel like they had anything to support now they are going to games, have a nice new Red Wolf plate on the car, every so often someone will see my ASU jacket or bumper sticker and throw up the wolf hand gesture as they go by. You can sell and sell and sell and market and market and market, but until they are proud of the product, they aren't buying in.

FIU's athletic budget is $23.8 million. Of that $2.2 million is direct from the university student fees $16.9 million. So 80% of all revenue is internal. Ticket sales and contributions $1.1 million.

Yeah conferences are much more interesting when you don't have to face schools that put 20,000+ plus in the stands and win 8 of the last 8 meetings.

14 means that every playing date you have to have a cross-divisional game. It means that UNT might go into the last game of the season fighting for the division title against UTEP with UNT playing at La.Tech while UTEP is hosting Charlotte.

I saw them mentioned in the same sentence in a lot of Independence Bowl articles about La.Tech having to sit at home because they wouldn't play Monroe.

It occurred to me today that the Fox deal which looks awful from my viewpoint is a great deal for UNT. I'm not impressed by the CBS Sports channel, it if had significant reach CBS would have used it rather than Tru TV for the NCAA Tournament overflow. If I live in the DFW area Fox SW under the Fox Dallas label offers the Rangers, the Mavericks, the Stars, some Big XII, and even FC Dallas. In Arkansas we are Fox SW. They have the Rangers and while interest in the Rangers has grown thanks to winning, most of Arkansas is hard-core Cardinals country and we don't get the Cardinals on Fox SW. What happens is local cable companies cut a deal with the Cardinals and Fox Midwest to stick the Cardinals on some unused channel that usually runs some basic graphic. We have few Mavericks fans. Most people don't care about he NBA except for the Celtics and Lakers (and now Heat) and now there is some Grizzlies interest in eastern part of the state and the Grizz aren't on Fox SW, they go to an alternate channel. In Northwestern Arkansas there is some interest in the Thunder and those people do get the Thunder on SW. The handful of hockey fans I know tend to be Blues fans with a few Red Wings and Blackhawk fans. We are generally blacked out of all three except for some Blues games in a few parts of the state where they are on an alternate channel. The Stars don't have much of a following. The MLS's data says the MLS soccer fans in Arkansas follow Kansas City, Galaxy, Sounders, Timbers, FC Dallas in that order. Other than the occasional SEC game they buy from ESPN, there is rarely anything on Fox SW that has someone in Arkansas tuning into the channel. The Fox deal works for UNT because it is a must have channel for a sport fan in your region while in Arkansas they could take Fox SW off the channel line-up and very few people would notice because there is so little relevant content.

I was under the impression WKU was 17-19 in Sun Belt basketball the past two years until they got to Hot Springs where they've won their last 8.

MWC isn't adding UTEP unless the Pac-12 wakes up one day and wants UNLV and Boise State. Everything done today is temporary if the Big 10 truly desires to go to 16 teams.

Memphis was gone when UNT was invited but the expansion was designed to help the isolated eastern schools (Marshall, ECU, UAB). If the announcement of WKU and only WKU comes down as expected the balance will changed from the east hanging on CUSA by fingernails to assuming control of the league.

Baseball used to have teams play 156 or such games. The team left standing played best of 7 vs the other team from the other league that had done the same. Now the "best team" that finished with the fourth or best record after 162 regular season games can be crowned the best. NCAA basketball has become so tournament oriented that the regular season now has little meaning. At the other end of the spectrum college football's system and arguably new system are such a small playoff that a great team can be left out while a school with the right resume can manipulate its schedule to be deemed one of the best.

It's better in TV, it took adding six teams to equal losing the four lost but in terms of competition. 2014 Sunbelt = 60.02 #50 Arkansas State = 75.25 #62 Louisiana-Lafayette = 71.07 #72 Georgia Southern = 68.44 #77 Louisiana-Monroe = 66.89 #91 Western Kentucky = 64.16 #103 Troy = 63.01 #115 Appalachian State = 60.31 #124 Texas State = 58.36 #164 South Alabama = 50.19 #165 Idaho = 49.82 #174 New Mexico State = 47.25 #224 Georgia State = 33.50 2014 CUSA = 60.4 #51 Louisiana Tech = 75.15 #83 Rice = 65.49 #85 Middle Tennessee = 65.03 #107 Marshall = 61.25 #110 UTSA = 60.89 #117 Old Dominion = 59.46 #118 North Texas = 59.15 #127 Fla. International = 58.09 #137 Florida Atlantic = 56.65 #138 UTEP = 56.55 #142 UAB = 55.73 #167 Southern Miss = 49.70

Silver, back when Dickey was rolling, Harry was expressing concern to me that recruiting wasn't where it needed to be. As an outsider, though friend of the program, any doubts I had about UNT's decision regarding Dickey were cleared completely away on black jersey day. While coaching salaries are ridiculous there is a reason for them. Being a good head coach requires a very diverse group of skills. You have to supervise the assistants, make sure there is a shared vision, have to have a bit of psychologist in you to know what motivates this coach vs that coach or this player vs that player, you have to get the fans AND the media AND high school coaches AND parents to believe in you. Guys who can do those things command great salaries, those who can't get that money because that's the "market value". We had the Roberts mess. He truly believed 6 wins was a very good season for a Sun Belt team and that 7 or 8 was all you could ever really hope for. His pessimism was infectious. After Freeze kept about half the staff, a friend asked how he made his mind up about who to keep. Freeze said, I had to get rid of the guys who thought we were already doing good.

Some thoughts that sort of follow down that trail. Big 10, SEC, Pac-12, ACC were all founded in an era where there was no TV money. Bowl money was of little consequence and schools courted bowls who picked and chose not the environment of today. What money there was in athletics came from selling tickets and soliciting donations. If you were lucky Coca-Cola or Golden Flake or Frito-Lay might help you buy a scoreboard. The first three have tweaked their line-up in response to the market change but they are essentially who they were 50 years ago. They are inherently stable because their foundation was built on the foundation of like minded, regional institutions who support themselves via self-generated income. The ACC is the only one of that group that has a made a radical change in who they are. Penn State had little interaction with the Big 10 prior to joining yet interestingly played each of Nebraska, Rutgers, and Maryland more times in the 20 years prior to joining than they had played all the rest of the Big 10 combined. Arkansas had a long off and on rivalry with Ole Miss before joining the SEC but South Carolina rarely played anyone from SEC other than Georgia. So pre-existing relationships aren't essential. But the ACC has changed the nature of who they are with the foray north. As to the Big East. It's foundational mission was to capitalize on the expansion of the NCAA tournament and the greater value placed on auto bids as well as to take advantage of the start of the new enterprise of cablecasting. The Big East and ESPN started the same year and the core idea behind it was to telecast UConn basketball and the Hartford Whalers. The Big East morphed and grew in response to changes in the marketplace, but unlike the Big 10, SEC, Pac-12, and to a lesser degree the ACC it was ill-equipped to respond to those changes with just a few tweaks. They had to add Miami all-sports and initially add football only members Rutgers, West Virginia, Virginia Tech (later full members) and Temple (dropped then added back). The Big East had to change its very nature to be a player. The Southwest Conference was plagued by scandal after scandal. I know in one of Arkansas' championship years it was noted that every SWC team except Arkansas and Rice was on probation or just coming off. But that wasn't the only problem. There was a vast chasm in philosophy. Five large public institutions and four private institutions meant they often didn't see eye to eye. You would have huge crowds at Texas and TAMU, large crowds at Arkansas and then you had Rice with an average attendance that was under I-AA Arkansas State. You had big-time major conference crowds in the top half of the league and you had schools with crowds that wouldn't be in the top of the Sun Belt today and what was worse, those bad drawing schools? They were hosting at least one of Arkansas, Texas, and TAMU every year. The SWC had a broken foundation because you had some schools aspiring to be nationally relevant in athletics and others that just assumed being in the club was enough. The Big East had a foundation that just couldn't accomodate the market changes without changing who they were.

Wouldn't have been the Sun Belt. The theory was force a stalemate that gets resolved with the creation of "new" conferences one south/southeast oriented one south/southwest oriented. The irony of it is a lot of the delay in CUSA expansion (over 200 days from SMU/Houston/UCF announcement) was the Marshall, ECU, UAB belief that CUSA was about the become a southwestern league, their blocking expansion while they scrambled to get ODU, Charlotte, FIU and then later MTSU/FAU has swung the balance to the southeast

I once saw a juggler who held up a hatchet and said this the hatchet George Washington used to cut down the cherry tree. The handle has been replaced... and the head... but it occupies the same space. Temple is the only school in the Big East that was a member when TV told the BCS plotters that the Big East had to be in the mix. Temple is the only school that EVER played a conference game against Miami or Virginia Tech. UConn played one conference football game against Boston College. Of the first 12 football playing members only UConn, Cincy, USF and Temple are there and Temple did 8 years in the wilderness before being allowed back. Changing the name is the best thing that could happen because the handle has been replaced and the head.

Aren't the Frogs in the Big XII

Harry you've hit this theme before, East vs. West. The issue that poses the greatest threat to long-term stability for CUSA is geography. With Tulsa gone the obviously southeastern schools are: ODU, Marshall, Charlotte, FIU, FAU, UAB, MTSU, as well as potential addition WKU. That's 7 southeastern schools without WKU. The obvious southwestern schools are: UTEP, North Texas, Rice, UTSA, La.Tech that's five. Then you have Southern Miss. On the map they arguably fit with the southwestern schools but if you look at their roster kids from Florida and Georgia easily outnumber the ones from Louisiana and Texas. Throw Alabama in the mix and they are heavily weighted southeastern in their roster. They had one Texan on the roster I looked at. If it weren't for the Louisiana kids and a sprinkling of California kids everyone is from Mississippi or points east. The travel in the southwest might be better for USM but I suspect their coaching staff is looking down the roster saying "We need to be in the southeast." So you arguably have 8 of the current 13 (subtracting Tulsa) wanting to be in the east along with the most likely #14. When the more mundane things that come with a conference like picking where to hold the basketball tournament or softball tournament or volleyball tournament, 8 of 13 schools have a southeastern bent to their thinking. For the routine votes that a league takes, a simple majority is all that is required. If the league is considering Birmingham or Nashville or Charlotte vs. Dallas or San Antonio or Houston for the basketball tournament, the Texas cities can't match or probably even barely beat the eastern schools on the bid and win. Expansion matters it will take 10 votes to expand at 13 or 11 at 14 and 8 of the voters are southeastern oriented, 9 if WKU comes in. That means the majority in the league is now schools who see Georgia State, James Madison, Appalachian State, Georgia Southern, South Alabama as more desirable than any school west of the Mississippi. That dynamic alone makes the next CUSA vote interesting to see if power gets balanced out or shifts more to the east.

If Karl hadn't add Georgia State we might have seen that theory tested. If Big East hadn't farted around adding Tulane and ECU, it would have been seriously tested.

I have a hard time for the same reasons I find the Navy move puzzling. They are locked in to playing Navy and Air Force. Add 8 conference games and there are only 2 non-conference to play. Congress and the Pentagon like them to play all over the country as a recruiting tool for the service and Congressional goodwill. They make more off TV than than CUSA can offer so will have to have special status until their deals expire then they take a cut in revenue? They have no trouble finding willing bowls.

Who goes west? USM/UAB or MTSU/WKU?

Maybe we should stop thinking in terms of "realignment" and view the process as fine-tuning. The Former Big East is now going to be 12 schools. One (UConn) was a charter Big East school that later upgraded football. One (Temple) was a charter Big East football member that had to find itself after time in the MAC. One (Navy) has no ties to the group. And nine passed through CUSA to get there. Four of the nine were charter members of CUSA football, one was a charter member that didn't have football (USF), one (Tulsa) declined that opportunity to go to the WAC, one was rejected as a charter member then forced on them by their bowl partner (ECU). SMU and UCF are the only CUSA adds that weren't part of the initial CUSA possible list. They've refined and cut charter member (but non-football) UAB, and charter member (but small market) USM. They've ditched later adds Marshall (small market, limited success in CUSA), Large market, small following Rice, and stuck in the Mountain Time Zone UTEP. It's not bad because its CUSA, it will be quite likely the wealthiest of the gang of 5 by "fine tuning" CUSA and correcting the early mistakes of CUSA (ie. being forced by numbers to add UTEP, being forced by Tulane to add Rice to avoid Tulane defecting) and arguably the fact that Marshall had won 77.4% of their games in the MAC but only 41.2% since coming to CUSA means they haven't lived up to the potential the group saw. If you view it all through a refinery lens, I think you have to conclude CUSA is designed to be unstable because so much of the membership is a bet on the future. Two teams that have never played a down of FBS, one that has never played a down of football. Out of 14 schools only three have posted 3 or more seasons of .500 or better ball at the FBS level in the past five years and that's giving MTSU credit for their 6-6 bowl season that ended with a loss. Some of those bets will pay off and some aren't going to and the refining process will happen again. You can even argue the CUSA is undergoing a Sun Belt refining process. Who believes ULM or Troy will be in the next five or six schools called up as the refining process goes on unless there is a big change in their programs and schools?