Arkstfan

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.

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.