Arkstfan

Been there and realigment isn't going to be any less stressful the next few months. Just hate seeing a guy slammed for making a business decision.

Well MWC's TV deal expires in a couple years so who knows what it is worth. The ball game out west is probably what do Wyoming, AFA, Colorado State, and New Mexico think now. If they grow to 14 with UH and SMU, the east division is those four with the two Texas schools and likely Utah State. If they grow to 16 with UTEP, Tulsa, UH, SMU, the east is the four front-rage with the four new. Those four bear the brunt of adding teams further east. If they aren't on board, they've got the votes to block it. If they love the idea the rest of the league doesn't much care except for losing some home games with AFA.

My two-bit theory is it is the history of the region. Look at the non-AQ in the southwest/southeast. SMU, Rice, South Florida, UAB, FIU, FAU, MTSU, WKU are the only schools without at least a semi-significant history of being an independent. Schools in the ACC, SEC, Big XII, Big 10, Pac-10, MAC (except for Marshall, UCF, Temple, Umass) and the MWC except for TCU have entered into their conference alignment looking at it as permanent. The WAC was that way until after the WAC16 explosion and it was never really true of the Big East, CUSA or Sun Belt. If you don't view your alliance as permanent, you don't think about who helps you and who fits as a member 5, 10, or 20 years from now, instead you angle for the greatest advantage in competing for that dream spot elsewhere. Long-term UNT-SMU is healthy but SMU doesn't view nBE as the destination or permanent and I doubt UNT entered CUSA expecting that alignment to be the alignment in 2023 or even desiring it to be. Again, its my two-bit guess but I think we are growing closer to a new period of stability. The power leagues are about to where they can be. SEC and Big 10 can't go larger without disrupting essential league games that form the core of who they are. Pac-12 after turning down UT/TT/OU/OkSt is likely done for some time because no potential in their region (UNLV, New Mexico, etc) is going to be up to their standards fairly soon. Most likely the next big shake up is nBE, CUSA, Sun Belt. The question is will be done with a long-term view or an out-dated short-term view. If long-term thinking controls, we see two regionalized leagues that can jostle with MWC (a southwestern/mid-south league and an eastern/southeastern league) with a catch-all league below them. If short-term thinking controls, we see a single upper tier league and CUSA/Sun Belt devolve into regionalized catch-all leagues.

Laxtonto here's the rub. Remember why WAC 16 broke up? Teams had to give up annual games against teams they wanted to play. Those games were essential to driving attendance and driving donations. Let the SEC go to 16 and put an end to the Third Saturday in October, the Deep South's Oldest rivalry, and LSU-Florida and watch hell break loose. Before Mizzou was selected to join, reports came out that Auburn had volunteered to go to the east division and the Bama fans blew up the internet and talk radio because it would have forced Bama to give up the Tennessee game to keep the Iron Bowl or vice versa and neither was acceptable.

Nice try. If you ever bother to read anything I've posted, never said CUSA was beneath ASU. I've said repeatedly that CUSA won't consider ASU. Look at the last five years of the Sun Belt in football. CUSA only took one of the top four programs.We don't fit what CUSA wants. I could act like the minority here and be a baby about stuff not going perfectly as I would like. I accept reality we aren't in a large TV market and we lack the reality distortion field that Tech has that brainwashes people into believing they are some unique rising star. We're stuck in the Sun Belt but we aren't sitting around pouting. We've reached out to the community, we sell tickets, we secure donations and we work to build the best program we can. Sneer at ASU and a nice community if that is how you fnd validation or maybe start asking why your program isn't demanding accountability and isn't taking care of business like the rubes do.

I don't buy the floodgate theory, it was cooked up by columnists who couldn't score well enough on the LSAT to get in law school. Maryland did the math. Even with a $50 million buyout, the Big 10 made better financial sense. Now they are being prudent and trying to knock the number down but their move isn't contingent on winning the case. They already know the move is profitable. Before the new buyout was adopted the Big XII and SEC purportedly had talks with ACC schools (supposedly SEC talked to VPI, NC State, UVA, UNC and the Big XII talked to Clemson and Florida State). With a lower buyout in place the trigger didn't get pulled. Maryland successfully suing to get a number that is lower than $50 million but likely higher than it was when those deals didn't happen isn't going to open the floodgates. Right now the Big XII and SEC are locked into long-term deals and CBS basically rebuffed the SEC's request to bump the fees for adding TAMU and Mizzou.

Ah snark, a purported form of humor.

In some cases, I can understand it. If I'm Houston, I don't have any heartburn about Rice, the Owls aren't going to out-recruit me or draw away potential fans. If I'm SMU I think I fear what a large public in my neighborhood can do. In the case of LaTech and ULM, history says if you place them on equal footing, ULM soon moves past them.

Everyone in the SEC except TAMU and South Carolina has a neighbor to play.

Side Show, your projection of La.Tech as a possible nBE brings me back around to this. Those guys have a reality distortion field. Louisiana Tech is 17-8 the last two years and 22-15 the last three. Drew 21,518 in 2011 and 25,841 this year helped by a strong crowd in Shreveport of 40,453, described by the AP as being evenly divided between Tech and TAMU fans. Take out the TAMU game and they averaged 22,919. Arkansas State 19-6 the past two years and 23-14 the last three. Drew 21,257 in 2011 and 26,398 in 2012. ArkSt is working on a $22 million football facility and isn't sitting at home because the AD tried to dictate to a bowl who to invite. They claim Shreveport as part of their market but in 7 1/2 months living there I saw almost no cars with a Tech logo and good luck finding merchandise there. Their presence in Shreveport is nominal compared to ASU in Little Rock. Don't know how it is that they are able to cloud minds and create the impression they are some sort of rising superstar.

The bonus for UH and SMU is no urgency at this point. They can compete for the BCS berth next year and then slip away whenever it suits them.

Yeah you don't want to see some of our threads where I 'splained how CUSA picks teams and the conclusion we aren't painting over the Sun Belt logos any time soon. That isn't well received either.

That was my point. Outside of Florida and the East, no one wants to be in a conference with their nearby regional team.

That was the WAC.

Per someone who ought to know, the C-USA sequence went like this. Ready to add UNT and only UNT but ECU and Marshall balked so FIU added to give eastern balance. Then Thompson informs Bankowsky he is about to put the WAC out of business and makes the same call to Benson and asks them to consider adding WAC teams to mitigate the damage. CUSA agrees to add UTSA and La.Tech. Sun Belt tells Benson we've been down the Idaho/NMSU path before... pass. Adding two more western schools gets ECU and Marshall upset so Charlotte and ODU become part of the mix. Then Tulane and ECU leave and MTSU and FAU come into the mix, FAU because they help alleviate the travel to FIU and because Marshall wants them.

I may be reading them wrong but I don't believe SMU or Houston or Tulsa will have the opportunity to go to the MWC. MWC has schools that saw up close and personal how bad it can be to have 16 teams. They listened to the TV experts who told them how big was going to be great. The scheduling was a mess and they soon discovered that taking the best 8 of the 16 would produce a TV contract that split 8 ways produced more money than the bigger one split 16 ways. Boise left for Big East because of the promises that having so many great TV markets was going to produce great wealth and then saw the estimates after Louisville and Rutgers left. They were going to make about a million more but football was going to be in one conference in the East and South and every other sport was going to play 100% of its road conference contests in California, easily devouring the new money plus some more. SMU, Houston, Tulsa? I'll wager that MWC has thrown those into the mix with the TV people and I doubt that the money justifies playing those out of region schools. Also remember, the MWC schools also have very fresh memories of the TCU situation. When Utah left for the Pac-12, TCU the far outlier wanted out and because they had become conditioned to traveling like Marco Polo, they didn't hesitate to join the Big East. TCU with great rosters rolled in and beat on them and got out of town as fast as possible. MWC as it stands today is impervious to being raided unless its the Pac-12 and right now no one has the full picture to be considered by Pac-12. Anyone they add in Texas is a threat to be considered by other existing leagues or to get frustrated one day and strike out on their own to start something new.

If you don't understand why a coach would leave for a program that pays its coaches more money, puts more fans in the stands, has won as many games in 2 years as you have in 7, has defeated your program eight consecutive times, and is coached by someone he knows... you might want to step back and take off the fan glasses.

I'm not sure that the Holy Grail below the Mason-Dixon isn't anything more than being able to say, "We are in a better conference than those losers." Look at a map. UH/Rice, UTSA/TXSt, UNT/SMU, LaTech/ULM, Memphis/ASU, MTSU/WKU, UAB/Troy, Tulane/USM. Realignment has been boiling seriously since 1995 and all that has been accomplished in the Southwest and Southeast has been breaking apart logical pairings of schools or insuring those pairings don't happen.

Those schools have expressed interest. Doesn't mean the feeling is mutual.

I don't doubt that Houston and SMU may well see MWC as more appealing than the nBE that is emerging, that doesn't mean MWC finds them appealing. Look at the Gang of Five google map. With Boise back they essentially have become perfectly defended against anyone other than Pac-12 or Big XII. SDSU even remaining in nBE isn't sufficient lure to get a raid going. MWC has no need to do what Bankowsky did going to 14 whether it was for raw numbers or to appease widely spread out schools. I suspect that MWC right now is likely thinking that UTEP makes sense and may look that way but where is the motivation for MWC to go after Houston, SMU, or Tulsa? Pac-12 isn't going to add Hawaii or any Cali schools. Of the remaining MWC no one makes an even halfway decent fit other than UNLV and New Mexico. The Big XII might some day look at BYU but BYU is indy. The Big XII needs to deal with the WVU island, no MWC helps that. If MWC ventures into the eastern 2/3rds of Texas or into Oklahoma, it becomes less stable. The distance will always have those schools looking for options. Hoping for Big XII (which isn't completely implausible for Houston) or a damaged ACC or something new forming with "peer" institutions within the region. I don't think the added dollars offset the risk of losing them down the line or worse, losing some and being stuck with the rest.

Why not LSU? Truth is a position coach looking to become a coordinator could probably be hired away.

If the net result is regionalization. Things might actually get better.

I have a hard time believing MWC is terribly interested in Tulsa, SMU, or Houston at this point. They will take back SDSU unless they think they can lure BYU back. I don't see any of them brining enough dollars to the table to make the travel worth the time and cost. The question is will the rest of nBE stay together. I feel pretty confident that Memphis, Cincy, UConn, and Temple want to be together and want to add schools that help basketball because all four make too much off basketball to add just anyone. I see them pushing to look at schools like UMass, ODU, Charlotte, UAB and maybe Tulsa. I'm not sure that what Memphis, Cincy, UConn, and Temple want is compatible with what Houston and SMU and maybe Tulane want.

Vastly different. The Valley, Southern, Southland and Yankee were all without guaranteed bowl access. Moving down guaranteed they would have post-season play if they won their conference. The NCAA still controlled TV at the time and the TV package was going to guarantee some regional TV appearances on ABC and CBS. Then in 1983 the Supreme Court struck down the NCAA TV package. At the time a I-A could play up to four I-AA with no impact on bowl eligibility. Then right around 1988-1990 the NCAA adopted a rule saying no wins over I-AA would count toward bowl eligibility, then it was changed to you could count one every four years before landing on today's count one each year. Until the Supreme Court deregulated TV and the NCAA essentuially deregulated the bowls and made it harder to get games, I-AA wasn't a bad place. Up until the change in bowl eligibility, there were some I-A's that were playing home and home series with old rivals that were in I-AA.

Not totally true. After the 1981 forced reclassification of schools from I-A to I-AA, one of the schools pushed down sued and got an injunction to stay I-A. While the case was pending, they met the I-A criteria in 1982 and were no longer under threat of reclassification so the case was dismissed. Maybe you've heard of Cincinnati.