Monkeypox

I believe we're undefeated in that series.

Pretty sure leaving members no longer get to vote on conference matters.

I think at the very least, with the conference dwindling like it is, everyone leaving could probably push for a greatly reduced fee. CUSA will likely remain due to the bball auto-bid, but it may end up being bball only or something and everyone scattering to the wind/going Indy for football. I mean, even if they backfill for football with FCS/Indy teams, it doesn't make sense to give the 4-5 remaining members (new members don't get the exit fees) $27m or whatever.

I’d rather build on our rivalry with UTSA. Rivalries are just much better when both teams have fans.

Malik Willis is scary.

Yes, but they aren't actually tuning in or showing up to watch Coastal, App St., Louisiana, Marshall, La Tech, UTSA games right now. They drum them up on reddit and the message boards, but they're not actually THERE for those schools. So yeah, we need to win at the major sports and build our brand for being something other than terrible, so that we can draw that casual fanbase when things are going well. But the people we NEED to get on board are actually our own students and alumni first. Because that's who would stay through down seasons. At the G5 level, these casual message board people are gone the second you aren't winning.

Message board fans and reddit people who don't know anything about the schools, programs, or media deals. They look at W-L records or flip through a G5 game when it's on tv and their SO isn't making them watch Grace and Frankie.

Navy prefers West (Texas is their #1 recruiting territory). Memphis prefers East and has natural rivalry with UAB. Tulane and Rice have a NO/Houston private school rivalry thing. So Memphis and UAB in East, Tulane in West. Obviously, if we were designing it on PURELY geographical bounds, we'd swap Memphis to the West and Navy to the East, but this is college football, so nothing makes sense.

Morris was 7-5 in his best year at SMU and was 4-4 in AAC play that year. He had an overall record of 14-22 there. Yes, he was a rising star... one that rose too quickly and flamed out. We aren't talking about a guy that had a measure of success at the G5 and then didn't work out at the P5 level, or a specific school. His last job was a P5 coordinator and now he's back to coaching high school (he's doing fine there, but it's hard to tell because Allen has been winning for a long time now). I'm not saying he can't work. I think he's a hell of a motivator and recruiter, particularly in Texas. I just don't know if he has the HC chops or can put together a staff, or, more importantly, multiple staffs. Pretty risky for a hire that HAS to work. I'd definitely look at him for an OC/AHC-type position though for his recruiting and motivational skills. But I think he'll probably have a shot at a P5 OC position if he wants one.

Can't wait for us to break out the "Clipart Eagle" throwbacks. I'm actually on board any time we wear an original Flying Worm logo helmet, though. I'm a sucker for that one, in any crazy iteration.

Is there a Morris out there that I’m not aware of? Because all I can think of is Chad and that dude was a 18-40 HC in college and I can’t imagine considering that “viable”.

This is how I should've done it. Now it makes me laugh.

Great content! Now we're in a spot of hoping like hell that CUSA dissolves, which is kinda sad.

Nothing to worry about. Nobody is going to see them.

So what you're saying is.... WE'RE DUE!

Our team isn't showing even borderline competence. It's not like we're out there going "oh, these guys are all bigger, stronger, faster than we are." It's true of some teams, sure, but usually only the teams that HAVE out-recruited us. Other teams just play much much better than we do, execute much better than we do. We are NON-COMPETITIVE against FBS teams, less so than FCS teams often are. That isn't a lull in recruiting. That's having guys ready to play. That last football game was a 4-TD loss to Marshall. That's coaching.

TLDR: Most fans don't know anything about how conferences work, and almost everyone outside of the top 40-50 (in value, not football rankings) teams' fans over-values the worth of their "brand". It's all about eyeballs. The Sun Belt IS a better football conference than CUSA in on-field performance, and those teams receive a good amount of support in their areas. It's just that there's an upper limit on the number of people that will watch/buy merch/buy tickets/support those programs. They can absolutely grow... but they haven't yet. They ALSO did a better job with their media deal than CUSA did. They're really the conference map for the "small, regional" conference a lot of people have advocated here. It's not a bad place to be at, at all. You can love teams in the Sun Belt and what they do, it's just a different animal than what we, and the AAC, are capable of and/or trying to do. Most casual fans understand the brands. They'll look at the W-L records of schools and not understand what's going on. They'll say "why not La Tech and So. Miss!" They recognize the names, but know nothing else about the schools. How many know that we're a bigger school than Texas Tech? That's WHY athletics is important, though. It just took our school WAY too long to recognize that. At the same time, when Saturday rolls around, these casual fans will watch the Big12, SEC, Big10 teams on the networks before they go digging deep through the channels or checking the streams for Fun Belt football. They'll watch the highlights or the off-Saturday games (which has value for the tv markets and streamers but not for ticket sales, so it's a trade-off). And then they'll question why these conference decisions are made. And that's not that G5 football is a bad product. Since I have the streaming for about everything, I'll absolutely tune in for Coastal or Louisiana or ASU if we aren't playing or unavailable. I've watched more G5 games by far the last few years than I have P5 front-runner BS being fed to me. And it's not that I WON'T watch P5 games... I just have my preference order and teams I root for, and most aren't P5 schools. So it's not the product... it's the EYEBALLS. Kansas is on TV. Everyone makes fun of them, but they're still on TV. When Kansas-Tech is on, the same casuals who think everything is about W-L are gonna watch Kansas play Tech and TCU and West Virginia. And then they're like "why not App St?!"

Win consistently? I don't know what you mean and I'm not sure if it's allowed. Will need more research. But seriously, however long it takes to hire more than one good coach in a row. Meaning,.... you have to win, win big, win bowl games, lose a coach to a better gig, then repeat... in order to win consistently, in my mind.

And about 8m behind in people who care.

Indy. They’re basically Notre Dame in their own minds.

You also have to look at it from the total, not JUST what's going on in the AAC. What happens in the P5* conferences make a much bigger difference than a few extra million to the AAC schools. Then there's what's happening with the ESPN+ subscriptions, which went up 75% in the last year (8.5-14.9m subscribers from Aug 2020-Aug 2021). Disney ain't sweating a few extra mil to Tulsa. They (ESPN) did the math before they initiated all this movement.

Yep, expansion would COST the MWC. AAC had to add teams for value. Anything added by us to the MWC is future theoretical value... not something worth losing current dollars over.