Arkstfan

It's a pretty sweet gig for a coach. Football assistants generally can't go out around town without having fans recognize them. One assistant told me he hasn't paid for a lunch since he's been here because someone always picks up the tab. Going to a school that has won 19 of its last 25 isn't a bad deal either. Then of course, it doesn't hurt that all but two of the guys on staff last year now have SEC gigs, three assistants from this year now have SEC gigs.

As Harry has heard me say often, I'm not a huge fan of the recruiting services. However I thought this was interesting. Of the 12 schools in, entering, or leaving the Sun Belt there are 47 alums on NFL rosters. Of those 47 only two are offensive linemen. My take away is that at most positions on the field, most especially the defensive positions it is very hard to project who is going to make it. But offensive linemen have to have such a rare combination of size, speed, and instinct that identifying the great ones at age 17 is much easier.

Well we hate Memphis, but since 2000 we've played them eight times, more than anyone except UNT, UL, ULL, MTSU and Troy.

MAC has 10 schools that have been in the league longer than CUSA has existed. The difference is in the culture of the schools. If you look across the Southwest and Southeast you have a group of schools that mostly have in their background a time they were a member of the Missouri Valley, the Southland, or the Southern. Those three conferences were all I-A in December of 1981 and I-AA in January of 1982 without warning. The MAC just barely dodged moving down and at one point actually expelled EMU to protect their future. Cincinnati was actually reclassified I-AA sued to block it and got back in before the case was settled. During the era of the 1970's and early 1980's the NCAA TV deal and later the CFA deal that many larger independents were a member of paid a percentage out by school and then you got extra per appearance. 24 of 32 bowl slots were at-large. It was the era of the great independents. Florida State, Miami, Penn State, Pitt, South Carolina, Syracuse, West Virginia, Southern Miss, Boston College and before that Houston all had some great teams in addition to the folks at Notre Dame. So you had schools like Houston and others leaving conference affiliation to go independent (a path Memphis and UNT followed with less success). There were so many indys that scheduling was no great problem. The TV rules capped you at 5 national appearances over 2 years so if you could play well ABC was casting about for someone, anyone to show on TV that was any good. The schools of the region had little reason to be in a football conference because half of the conferences couldn't even promise a bowl bid and the conference had zero to do with your ability to get on TV. The MAC was located in an area where there was no strong history of independent football and an indy struggled to find regional opponents. They stuck together first because they needed to just to fill a schedule, then later because of the Tangerine Bowl tie and then the California Bowl tie. The grand midwest independent experiment was NIU. Left the MAC in 1986, by 1992 had staggered into the Big West and back to indy for 1996 and then the MAC in 1997. The turmoil left them with 9 years without a winning season including 0-11 the first year back in the MAC. Three years later the started a run of 7 straight winning seasons and regular season .500 or better in 13 of 14 seasons. In the years since Bowling Green and Toledo joined the MAC, UNT has been: Gulf Coast, Missouri Valley, Independent, Southland, Independent, Big West, Sun Belt and now CUSA. Arkansas State in that span has been: Southland, Independent, Big West, Independent, Big West, Sun Belt. At most MAC schools a 25 year old alum hates the same schools that a 45 year old alum hates and he hates the same ones the 65 year old alum hates. Across the south (outside of the SEC) there is not that shared experience among alums because of the ever shifting line-ups.

Based on what is floating right now, it will be roughly double the announced numbers for CUSA, where it falls vs. MWC depends on whether Boise and SDSU return and what sort of deal they cut for the second tier. I think with the added travel and the inherent marketing disadvantage of having teams split between two leagues Boise has a hard time justifying BE membership. SDSU actually can. They have their other sports in an all California league (or all Cali except Boise if Boise stays). If you are Houston though, BE footprint doesn't look much different from the CUSA footprint so the extra dollars really matter.

Of the first 6 CUSA football schools only USM remains. Of the 11 CUSA schools prior to the first Big East raid, only two remain. Of the six added after the first Big East raid, only four remain. Of the charter 8 football members of the Big East, Temple is all that is left and they were booted in 2005 and just made it back this year. Of the next four schools added, three are left.

18 teams have been eligible to bust since the creation of the BCS. Some failed before the criteria was reformed because the automatic bust was at 8 or better but teams were still in the at-large pool. Some failed because they were not the highest rated eligible buster. 1998 Tulane CUSA. This was the 8 football team version of CUSA. Army and ECU were outliers but the rest of the league was pretty compact in football. Of those 8, only USM remains in CUSA, Army returned to independence, the other six are in nBE. 1999. Marshall MAC. The first year Buffalo was in the league, three years before UCF would come in. Their non-conference wins were Clemson, Temple, and Liberty. 2003. Miami (OH), MAC. Second year of the 14 team MAC circuit. 2004. Utah MWC First successful buster Rated #6. 2004. Boise State WAC Rated #9 2004. Louisville CUSA. Rated #10 This was the last year before the Big East raid. An 11 team CUSA had added UAB, TCU, and USF. 2006. Boise State WAC. First buster under the current rules that go away after next year. 2007. Hawaii WAC 2008 Utah MWC Rated #6 2008 Boise State WAC. Rated #9 2008 TCU MWC Rated #11 2009 Boise State. WAC. Won took the auto spot. 2009 TCU. MWC selected at-large 2009 BYU. MWC 2010 TCU. MWC Probably would have made the four team field under 2014 rules. 2010 Boise. WAC rated #10 2011 Boise State. MWC. Didn't win conference so went to at-large pool rated #7 2012 Northern Illinois. MAC.

In the MAC and MWC you play football with you peer neighbors. In nBE, CUSA, and Sun Belt life revolves around not playing your neighbor in conference except in Florida.

My assumption was Houston/SMU but thinking about it, the "eastern" Big East might be Navy. Navy has to play Army and Air Force every year and will play Notre Dame every year. Joining the Big East when AFA balked meant that if they played a full 8 game schedule that they would have only one date for non-conference (there were claims that never got wide distribution that Navy would count at least two of those as designated league games). Navy in MWC would have AFA as a league opponent freeing up one of those dates.

Big East won't die, even if the more recent noise of MWC contacting at least one other Big East other than Boise and SDSU is true. I'd be surprised if Houston/SMU opted to go that direction even though a division of Houston, SMU, New Mexico, Air Force, Colorado State, Wyoming, USU would have some appeal. Assuming only Boise and SDSU bail the Big East still has UConn, Cincy, Temple, UCF, USF, ECU, Memphis, Tulane, SMU, Houston, and Navy. They can pick up one and they are OK with the likely targets being Buffalo, UMass, Charlotte, ODU, USM, Tulsa. There is some thought Navy might back out but the target list looks pretty much the same. Worst case for CUSA is lose two and is still at 12.

I thought ASU might be in the hunt for buster, but that was before we changed head coaches yet again. Great schedule for it and not losing that many starters.

The one with football

I'm not so sure. If they unbundle the rights so that you choose whether you are placing tier 1 or 2 rights or both into the pool the money won't be blockbuster but it will be OK, especially if people start making their own regional/local deals. If he can get Fresno, UNLV, BYU the west becomes SDSU, Fresno, UNLV, Boise, BYU, Houston, SMU and presumably Tulane. Not great but manageable.

From the sound of it, I'd say MSG is off the table for the Big East.

The rumors persist but I don't see anything imminent. The MWC isn't doing anything until they know that no one is coming back and they won't know that until another MWC defects to the Big East.

Actually what conferences have done in the past is say, you owe us X dollars in admission fee. We are going to withhold Y dollars per year from your distribution until X is paid. That's basically what the Big XII has done.

It's not about the money. It's not about power ratings. It's not about TV markets. It's not about prestige. What matters is being in a league where rivalries can develop. In the post-raid world there isn't going to be enough TV dollars to matter and history shows the top champ who would get the BCS bid is just as likely to come from a weak conference as a strong conference. It's about being able to compete and sell tickets.

LHN is unlikely to go belly-up. ESPN is on the hook for the full contract no matter whether it exists or not. The only loss to UT would be the equity share that they would get if it were to meet contracted targets.

That was Pac-12 round two (OU, OkSt, UT, TT). LHN wasn't a factor when the discussion was UT, TT, TAMU, OU, OKSt going to the Pac-10 with Colorado (and Utah not being invited. If you search the arcives of either FWS&T or DaMN there is a piece from some years back that details how when Arkansas left for the SEC that TAMU was ready to join the SEC and UT was wanting in the Big 10 before the politicians mobilized.

At one time, Tulsa had a waiting list for season tickets in basketball. They've not been at that level in some time to my knowledge but they are a school that loves hoops.

Per a source in Memphis, the Liberty is attempting to secure a Big XII selection to face the SEC there.

I skimmed GL's post. Anyone who puts up something longer than Kindle Single length posts needs to edit Huge conferences (ie. so big that teams never play all members) Are flawed from the get-go. I think any non-contract conference producing over $2 million per team is unlikely. A good friend put forth a good vision of what he would do if he were one of the presidents. Embrace regionalism, not localism. His explanation of the difference, regionalism is insuring that you have a conference where fans can make at least 2, ideally three road games per year and see all other teams within a reasonable amount of time. The regional leagues being schools that contribute to the health of the league. That being you add teams that you can check off as being in one of these categories. 1. Wins football games and sells tickets 2. Wins basketball games and can contend to be an at-large. 3. Brings academic prestige with a national academic reputation. 4. Provides a benefit such as being in a regional tourist destination so that opponents can effectively sell road trips as an alumni benefit. Localism under his definition is simply aligning with the closest schools. Localism isn't going to happen in most cases because you need someone to be outside the group. The examples he cited were Memphis and SMU. Memphis plays ASU pretty regularly in football but they don't want to be in the same conference they want to be able to not renew when ASU is strong (current deal expires in 2013) but have a non-conference that will be eager to play. The same applies to SMU and UNT.

Except they just busted the BCS with a team that lost their opening game of the season to Iowa.

What standard can you set that the current members can make? We all know what the attendance looks like at FIU and FAU. I hope we all know that reported budget figures tend to be bogus because some schools avoid state regulators by funneling some athletic functions like sports information and fund-raising through "academic" offices. Commitment is hard to assess. One school might produce $15 million a year by hitting students for $250 a semester. That indicates nothing but a willingness of the school to collect money via student loan debt and let someone else pay it off. FIU and FAU might look committed because of that debt shift but how many tickets do they sell, how many dollars do they get donated. I don't think you can create a meaningful standard and apply it to the current membership.

The WAC problem was two-fold Problem #1 was scheduling. They wanted their regional rivals because of ticket sales. Fans in Fort Collins cared more about playing Utah or New Mexico than Tulsa or San Jose. Plus the old WAC schools mostly traveled pretty well meaning that they sold a lot of the tickets your fans didn't sell. Problem #2. The MWC 8 understood that not every school has an identical television value. They walked away from the WAC16 and secured a TV deal that was nearly identical to the one they left behind. That money split 8 ways rather than 16 produced more value. If you look at the SEC. Without question, Ole Miss, Miss St, Vandy and Kentucky aren't bringing as much TV value as TAMU, Mizzou, LSU, Florida. But the number is so big and the history and traditional ties are so strong, no one is advocating booting those four. Arkansas struggles at times to sell their Little Rock game out, there is a reason they play Ole Miss and Miss State there. They eat up a good piece of the 8,000 ticket visitor allotment that the SEC mandates. Tennessee likes going to Vandy and UK because they can play a road game where their fans can negate home field most years. In a 20 team league it doesn't take long for someone to figure the numbers up and realize they can go to 9, 10, or 12 with the right schools and get basically the same money and split it fewer ways.