Arkstfan

And when you look at bowls, it shakes out nicely. West could have Fort Worth, Texas, and New Orleans without the need for the creation of a new bowl, that would be one bowl for every three members. East could have Liberty, New Orleans, Mobile and Birmingham without the need for the creation of a new bowl, that would be one bowl for every three members.

Interesting prediction given that ASU beat Memphis at Memphis last year and gets the Tigers at Indian Stadium this year.

Technically if you fall below the core numbers there is but in such an unusual circumstance a waiver would be almost automatic.

As long as the two "new" conferences are recognized as the legal successors of the Sun Belt and Conference (we overpaid the consultants for this name) USA by the NCAA and the BCS it doesn't matter what they are called. The Summit League is just the old Mid-Con, the Atlantic Sun the TAAC, the Horizon the old MCC, the Big 10's official name was Intercollegiate Conference of Faculty Representatives until 1987 even though it had been called the Big 10 (or Big 9) for 70 some odd years.

Sagarin agrees with you saying the 01 team was about 9 points better.

Ha you should have been here before the 2005 season kicked off. Lot tougher crowd then. USM either due to financial contraints or preference hasn't invested in basketball like its conference peers over the years, though USM should be more in line now because SMU, Rice, and Tulane are not throwing heavy resources at hoops, they do not have the mindset that Memphis, UAB, and UTEP have. Today's CUSA ain't the old CUSA when it comes to basketball, its not even the old Metro. USM hasn't made the dance since Turk was there. SMU was in the SWC last trip Rice hasn't been in 37 years. Tulane hasn't been since the final Metro season. Marshall's last trip was 20 years ago in the Southern Conference. Houston's last trip was in the SWC. East Carolina's last trip was nine years before joining CUSA in hoops. UCF made four trips as A-Sun tournament champ, which is better than not being able to win the A-Sun but not exactly an endorsement either. They went from doormat in the Sun Belt / American South to contender in the TAAC /ASUN so that says something. Main reason they built a new arena was because they wasted millions on a building that was what 15 years old and obstructed view seating. I've no doubt UTEP is giving full effort but UAB made their first NCAA trip 30 years after UTEP made their first and UAB is only one appearance behind UTEP. Tulsa is an amazing story. If I remember right they made six consecutive coaching hires that took them to the NCAA Tournament. The thing is if you are Memphis or UAB or Tulsa, except for name value of UTEP and Houston in basketball there is fundamentally little difference in basketball being affiliated with SMU rather than UNT there is little difference (except for travel time) in being affiliated with Arkansas State or Marshall. Maybe everyone or most every gets their show together and the investments payoff, but by the same token Rice is recruiting kids who have parents who weren't alive or are too young to remember their last NCAA trip. Marshall is recruiting kids who weren't born at the time of their last trip. Houston is recruiting kids who were toddlers last trip. That's not an impossible obstacle (see Rice football this year, see Rice football immediately lose that coach) but it is a real obstacle in addition to the normal competitive pressures of the game.

Troy and ULL ain't going no where unless CUSA falls below 12 members. East Carolina's AD has the bizarre 16 member idea, which would get one vote (his) if presented to the CUSA ADs. His dissatisfaction though just backs up what I've been thinking all along. CUSA as it stands today was a shotgun marriage. It stretches from El Paso to Hunting, WV. The Sun Belt is a shotgun marriage that in football stretches from Denton to Miami. Both alignments were made quickly to calm down the members and avoid having the leagues collapse. If you are Marshall fan a bowl game in Houston is a bad bad drive or you fly. If you are a Tulsa fan a bowl game in Birmingham is a very long hard drive. We now have this added evidence of dissatisfaction but the off-the-wall solution of a 16 team league with no inter-divisional play isn't a solution its more gasoline on the embers. There is only one solution and it is win-win all the way around. Either through a sane sit down meeting or by way of a group attempting to defect the two conferences shuffle their membership roughly east/west. Look at the natural groupings. All Texas schools and all privates. That gets you UTEP, UNT, Tulsa, Tulane, Rice, SMU, Houston. That's seven schools right there and you need to add between two and five to get your conference going. Next natural grouping. FIU/FAU/UCF/ECU/Marshall and arguably UAB and Troy. That's seven and again you need 2 to 5 more. Most logical next two are MTSU and WKU. Now you are at 9. That nine stick at 9 or they can try to court Memphis, USM, ASU, and the Louisiana schools to get to 10 or 12. So you fill in those extra slots with ASU, Memphis, USM, MTSU, WKU, La.Tech, ULL, ULM.

There has been speculation that if the dollars don't look right that the Big East football schools would split and form a new league. There have been reports that it very nearly happened after the ACC raid and that the commissioner calmed them down enough to stay.

If bowl and television contracts never expired and were never renegotiated you would have a point. But they do. The Sun Belt and CUSA are two far flung collections that have little in common with the entire group. The two can realign east/west lower travel costs, cut regional bowl deals, and regional tv deals. Think Fort Worth wants to ever be stuck with Marshall again? Imagine the horror in New Orleans if stuck with FAU playing UCF. Realigning geographically allows for better bowl contracts for both because it reduces the risk of sending teams from far outside the region.

Eagle you are missing the point. Name means NOTHING. Would you rather be in a Sun Belt that has all the CUSA Texas schools and call it the Sun Belt, or would you rather be in a conference called CUSA that had Marshall, ECU, UCF, FIU, FAU, Troy and none of the Texas CUSA schools? There are two key players. TV execs and bowl organizers. The names mean nothing to them just who is in them. If CUSA membership dramatically changes the new CUSA will not keep the bowl ties or the TV merely because of the shoulder patch, those will be determined solely based on what value TV and bowls see in the new alignment. I don't give tinkers damn what label applies to a conference. You can call that conference out west the WAC all you want but the bottom line is Arizona and Arizona State aren't there any more so the WAC is no longer tied to the Fiesta. UNLV isn't there any more so they are no longer tied to the Las Vegas Bowl, San Diego State isn't there any more so they are no longer tied to either bowl in San Diego. Those WAC shoulder patches didn't help them keep any of that. As to building the conference. You damn well better care what the rest of the league is doing because if it is doing poorly it means a good UNT program can miss opportunities, UNT failed to improve in the early years of the Sun Belt and promptly went from winning 30 something games in a row to losing 10 out of 14 tries and did it with teams that were as good as some of the champion teams. Don't feel like you are special because you are UNT fan first. Unless you are on the league payroll no SANE human is anything but a fan of their team first and foremost. When UNT is in non-conference play win 'em all because its good for the reputation of the league ASU is in. When you play ASU, UNT needs to go down in flames, and when playing anyone else in conference play my sole interest is in seeing the team win that makes my path to the title the simplest. Everyone feels that way if they've got even the barest capability to think beyond "me hungry". If the egos and banty rooster strutting ever clear out of the way CUSA and Sun Belt for the sake of ALL the teams need to realign geographically. I don't care boo about FIU and FAU except as it directly relates to ASU. ECU has made it clear they don't care boo about SMU-Rice. SMU and UNT need to be in the same league. Same goes for ASU and Memphis, same goes for FIU/FAU/UCF, same for UAB/Troy

AUUUUUGGGGHHHHHHH You have just proven yourself to be the new Craig Thompson. When the Sun Belt and American South merged they opted for the Sun Belt name because the Sun Belt had better TV contracts. Guess what. They ALL EXPIRED WITHIN TWO YEARS AND DIDN'T GET RENEWED! The people who run the GMAC bowl don't care whether they are contracted with a conference called CUSA, Sun Belt, or Dippity Doo. They want teams close enough to bring fans but far enough to rent hotel rooms, who will play an entertaining game. When the Mountain West formed, people laughed and said they were in trouble because the WAC had all the TV and bowl contracts. Well TV said, we had a contract with a league that had these 16 members and 8 of them are gone and you've added a new team, renegotiate for less money or we will declare the contract breached. The WAC 16 sent teams to Las Vegas, Liberty, one of the Hawaii bowls and got lucky and snuck TCU into the Sun Bowl when the Big 10 was short but they had only two bowl deals. The WAC had three games under contract. The next year the MWC plays its first season locked into the Las Vegas Bowl, the Liberty Bowl and ended up with a team in the Motor City. That 8 team group had two contracts vs. the 3 the 16 team league had and sent another at-large. Let's call the eastern alignment Sun Belt and western CUSA for the sake of argument and look at the bowls. New Orleans. No change they'll still take SBC vs. CUSA. Pappajohns. Currently Big East vs. CUSA, would become Sun Belt because of the eastern schools. GMAC. Currently MAC vs. CUSA could go either direction based on who ends up in which group or might even dump the MAC and go SBC v. CUSA (I suspect Mobile is considering a second game so both could end up tied in along with the MAC, and either Big 12, Big East, or ACC) Texas Bowl is Big 12 vs Big East/CUSA. With a more regional league could drop the Big East tie. Liberty. CUSA v. SEC. Probably aligns with whichever side takes Memphis. Armed Forces. CUSA v. Mountain West, aligns with the western schools. So you would likely see the eastern Sun Belt aligned with New Orleans, Birmingham, Memphis and maybe Mobile and the western CUSA aligned with New Orleans, Houston, Fort Worth, and maybe Mobile. As to television, a western CUSA is made for Fox SW in addition to whatever ESPN and CSTV deals can be cut. An eastern Sun Belt is probably ESPN, CSTV, and some mix of regionals.

Space I've commented on your post on Beltboard so I won't rehash here. Gray I keep having a hard time figuring the Big East situation out. I think a 9th football member is important. Come 2009 every FBS conference except the Big East will play an 8 or 9 game conference schedule except the Big East who will play 7. That makes non-conference scheduling difficult and it gives you the 3/4 split which is pretty lousy. I see the Big East going one of two ways. 1. Split football and basketball and that would likely mean adding a full member and probably would also mean that Notre Dame would follow as a non-football member. That would give them 10 hoops and 9 football and that's about as sweet as it gets (18 game double round robin in basketball, 8 game round robin in football). If that were the case, I think Temple is a solid front-runner because the value of the Big East basketball TV contract would take a huge hit for the football schools with no New York, Chicago, or Philadelphia (three of the four largest TV markets) adding Temple helps that despite their awful football and absent stretching all the way to Memphis no other candidate brings credible basketball. If the Big East does that, there is no impact and the CUSA/Sun Belt/Tech group is still 22 mis-aligned schools that can be reformed into a 12 and a 10 team conference each more regional. 2. Count the dollars and find that Big East 16 works (and that is quite possible) in that case add a football only member. Only Temple, Army, Navy, and Notre Dame could join Big East football and not lose their basketball conference membership. Notre Dame won't and Army and Navy have said no. Temple as football only doesn't make sense. So who else would consider it and be potentially viable? East Carolina, Marshall, and Central Florida. UAB and Memphis wouldn't do it. If the Big East took that plan of action then CUSA could lose UCF, ECU or Marshall, one but not all. That still leaves CUSA, Sun Belt, Tech as 21 misaligned schools that can be reformed into a 9 and and 12 team conference each more regional. When you look at the map two groups naturally align together due to geography or affinity. In the west UTEP, SMU, Rice, Houston, UNT, Tulsa, Tulane, ULL. In the east Marshall, ECU, UCF, FIU, FAU, Troy, UAB, MTSU, WKU. The remaining schools, Tech, ULM, ASU, Memphis, USM due to where they are easily can plug into either group. ASU for example would happily align with SMU, Rice, Houston because we are the only folks outside of Texas who have a market that still regards those schools as having name value due to Arkansas's SWC membership, yet we would just as happily align east with Memphis and USM because Memphis is our oldest series and we are only 70 miles apart and USM is well regarded here, ASU would consider itself to have won the realignment war if it ended up with the former SWC schools or if it ended up with Memphis. USM could easily go west with nearby Tulane or east with UAB and Memphis. Memphis is like ASU at cross-roads between the two and could go either direction though I suspect they would go east if one of the east schools went Big East because it gives better basketball prospects. Tech and ULM likewise are geographically suited to go either direction. It's that middle flexibility of who goes where that makes this appealing. The core eastern and western groups come out feeling like winners because they have shed those folks so dang far away and there are positives to each group for the central group so that they can walk away from such a realignment feeling like they have won as well.

Look at the Sun Belt and CUSA on a map. There is no similar overlap of similar teams. The WAC used to look like a doughnut with the MWC and Sun Belt filling the hole. That isn't as true now since the western belt left but the MWC is pretty compact for a western league. You have the front range schools, the Utah schools, UNLV, SDSU, and TCU. Very compact for the west except for TCU. If you live in Denver you could drive to 6 schools easily for a game and come back home that night. The MWC schools are on the same page. The WAC schools are more spead out but mostly on the same page and for the most part a WAC school can't be added to improve the MWC's fit. MAC pretty compact and on the same page. But CUSA... that's a different world. SMU, Tulsa, Tulane, Rice fundamentally look at athletics differently from the other 8. Marshall, ECU, UCF, and USM basically play basketball because they have to. They fundamentally look at their athletic programs differently from the other 8. Memphis, UTEP, UAB and to a lesser degree Houston understand playing high level basketball, get them cornered and the fans and administration at Memphis and UAB, and probably UTEP and maybe Houston would choose a Final Four appearances over top 10 in football. Any two of those groups can likely find enough common ground to co-exist, all three, not likely. How different are they? The four privates campaigned against 12 game seasons in football the other 8 were strong advocates. Memphis and UAB argued against going to 12 when TCU bailed and actually advocated going to 9 rather than 12. Only bringing UTEP into the mix appeased them. The Sun Belt / CUSA competitive gap is narrowing, if not for a really strong Memphis this year the two were fairly close in basketball last year and if not for the FIU disaster football was close. If those gaps continue to narrow the question of why are are putting up with people we don't get along with will be asked and the question of why are we playing someone hundreds and hundreds of miles away when someone just as good is close enough to bus to will be asked and a shake-up is the next logical step.

Real grad 88, you are correct. If you look at the current alignments outside the rich six leagues, CUSA and Sun Belt are the most geographically out of whack. The idea of UNT and SMU players waving at each other as they both board planes to Florida or West Virginia is bizarre. ASU and Memphis standing in the same airport catching flights to Florida or North Carolina is completely out of whack. Sooner or later that is going to cause a CUSA/Sun Belt shuffle.

Pretty neat. Not sure how all-time winning percentage fits in given that the number takes into account games played before the player was born, the player's parents were born, and possibly the player's grandparents at some schools and also takes into account games played by some schools while in the NAIA, Division III, Division II, I-AA or played while a junior college. A minor quibble but overall a nice idea, glad someone has time to track it.

Yeah Arkansas is staying put. I agree Colorado only leaves for the Pac-10. I've spent a lot of time in Boulder, they fit the Pac-10 model. Baylor, agree completely. Every conference needs somebody to wail on on the field. Pac 10. Colorado State doesn't fit the Pac-10 model. BYU with never on Sunday and their views on certain lifestyles would never be tolerated in the Pac 10, Fresno is part of the state system rather than University of California system, automatic disqualification, Utah wouldn't be a bad choice if they could get their support up instead of it going 45 minutes down the road to BYU. MWC expansion? Iffy that they expand, MWC was formed over rivals not playing every year, without a 9 game league schedule some games are going to have to be skipped. CUSA expand? Not without a loss and that's not terribly likely soon, a parting of ways within the league (see Metro Conference break-up and Great Midwest formation) is possible. SBC image slowly improving. The first three Thursdays of the season feature games with Belt teams, that's quicker than I ever expected. Facility wise we've passed the MAC, just have to execute. Build a fan base is the only option for UNT. Changing conferences doesn't mean much if the league you join changes (see La.Tech's happy affilation with SMU, Rice, Tulsa) or you don't have the resources to compete at the new conference level. Cellar dweller sucks unless paid handsomely for the role. Boise has demonstrated that not being in the best non-BCS league (generally not even second best) is no bar to national recognition.

Pointless comment there. If a school gets it act together the conference gets better, if it doesn't, they weigh us down. Nobody gives a crap about building the conference except in pushing the bottom schools to get their feces together and stop being a liability. The only concern I have toward the conference in wanting ASU to continue its improvement is that everyone else be working on that same goal so we can get better power ratings and a better perception. Conference improvement is nothing but short-hand for everyone needs to work on fixing their problems. FIU last year was a prime example. In Sagarin where you are comparing results, it is difficult to assign true value to how strong a team is when it doesn't win and they undervalue. FIU went winless and hurt everyone's power ratings. Conversely when you don't lose it is hard to assign value which has resulted in such oddities as Harvard being top 40 a few years ago or Boise being ranked over teams like Wisconsin or Auburn that it would have been very unlikely to beat.

Just summer boredom. The final say on conference membership is the beast called the university president or chancellor. They might agree to join a different club but they aren't likely to kick people out of their club (see the Board of Directors over-ruling the Management Council on I-A criteria). The only kick-outs I can think have involved serious scandals or a wink and nod from the school being kicked out. Arkansas to the Big 12? Makes wonderful geographic sense, but compare checks. Arkansas is staying put. Pac 10 requires a unanimous vote to expand and absent Texas and Colorado coming calling that's unlikely and both said no when they finally got around to an invite. Real football talk can't arrive soon enough

16 can only work when you have a cluster of 8 that doesn't care if they play the other 8 and vice versa. In basketball that just isn't the case with the Big East. What they need is for the football 8 to leave if they can convince Notre Dame to come. Notre Dame doesn't have to join in football but just agree to play a limited set of non-conference games against them. If they then added one football member they'd be in great shape, 9 for football giving a balanced schedule and 10 for basketball giving a balanced schedule without open dates.

A ton depends on what the Big East football schools want to do next. Right now it appears they wanted someone that would join football only. Army/Navy make sense. Looking around the universe. UCF and ECU would do it because hoops are an after thought. Memphis would not. But what if the Big East football schools choose to leave the non-football schools? Temple all of a sudden becomes viable. The Big East TV contract is huge in large part because the basketball component is huge. A football Big East loses presence in the #1, #3, #4, #8, and #33 television markets for basketball. Temple despite their problems become viable because of their strong basketball support in Philadelphia. If playing the weaker MAC schedule under the new coach revives their football program, they become even more viable. The only reason Temple got kicked out in the first place is because the president who had previously killed football at another school didn't do the usual dance with the Big East of sitting down with the commissioner and explaining the latest version of the great plan to meet the Big East standards and get a waiver. He sat down said Temple didn't meet the standards and never would and left the commissioner no choice. The president thought that would allow him to kill football. Instead the board got fired up and begged the Big East to let them stay, but the commissioner had already made the thing public and only extended how long before they were expelled. Temple did not leave on bad terms and outside of the president, still has a great relationship with the other members.

Just like the old joke. Coach sits down at his new desk and finds a note from the previous coach and three numbered envelopes. The note says when things are really bad open an envelope. The team goes 1-11 He opens the first enevelope and it says. Blame me So he tells everyone things will be better when his recruits are playing. The fans are satisfied. The next year they go 3-9 He opens the next envelope and it says.. Blame the media The coach rants about bad press and message boards hurting the team and recruiting. The fans are satisfied. The next year they go 4-8 He opens the next envelope and it says... Prepare three envelopes. Dodge will get a pass this year unless there are just wild mistakes like not getting the right number of players on the field at critical times. No matter what happens long-term, Dodge will be worth his money for the next two years simply due to the positive attitude brought to fans and for the attention created for the casual fan UNT needs to lure in to fund a high caliber program.

The first high school seniors who entered what is now Central Florida are around 58 years old now. The first high school seniors who entered the year they added Division III football are around 46 years old now. The first high school seniors who entered the year they went to Division I-AA football are around 35 years old now.

You sound like my mom. Or me talking to my son.

It means one trip every other year in football and several other sports and one trip a year in men's and women's basketball and some other sports. In other words not much of a burden. Count noses. The WAC has six schools together for five or more years and 9 together for four or more years after this upcoming season. A Division I conference wanting an automatic berth in the NCAA Tournament needs 7 members. Six must be together for five years, but if a program leaves there is a two year grace period. This is the first season since the great CUSA migration that the WAC could lose a member and fall within the grace period.

Tech cannot leave because they do not have the financial base to do it. Again back to the numbers. Spending $8,000 less than Arkansas State but pulling in $1 million more in league revenue and $1 million more in game guarantees. The difference is in donations, sponsorships, ticket sales, and athletic fees. They can't add enough in game guarantees to assure they can make budget. Without special dispensation from the WAC they have to play a lame duck season there with no conference revenue. How do you play a year of a WAC schedule as the only central time zone team with $1 million sliced from your budget? Obviously they could divert at lot of their current expenditures once out, but you've got to survive to get there, and after all the CUSA or bust talk from the leadership and all the talk about separation, etc., how do you return to the Sun Belt without losing some donors? You can scrape by on a barely make-it budget much more easily than you can survive a one-time $1 million hit to the budget. Tech will not be back unless the situation becomes so critical and the rest of the WAC so ready to have them gone that they are willing to permit an immediate departure or they are willing to let them go lame duck for a year and still draw a league check. I suspect Tech's long-term planning at this point is to hope that the Big East takes a CUSA school in the next three years or so and they end up getting the opening.