The "Come To Jesus" Conferences Thread

HarringtonFishSmeller · January 13, 2016

Look...eventually the P5s are going to make their own level and depart from the rest. It doesn't matter how much more handwringing or legal maneuvering occurs. So, those of us not P5 need to sack up, wipe away our tears, and begin running these conferences in a way that makes geographic sense.

No school listed "owns" any media market...and, it is stupid for this set of schools to argue they are getting this or that television market because of their inclusion.

Even though I know this would never float because of alumni and athletic director egos, here's what I would do with those of us "Left Behind":

South/Southwest Leftovers
Arkansas State
Louisiana
Lousiana-Monroe
Louisiana Tech
North Texas
Rice
Texas State
UTEP
UTSA

South Leftovers Division Gulf
Alabama-Birmingham
FAU
FIU
Georgia Southern
Georgia State
South Alabama
Southern Miss
Troy

South Leftovers Division Mid/Atlantic
Appalachian State
Coastal Carolina (yes, the Chanticleers are going Sun Belt soon!)
North Carolina-Charlotte
Middle Tennessee
Marshall
Old Dominion
Western Kentucky

Edited January 13, 2016 by HarringtonFishSmeller

MeanGreenTexan · January 13, 2016

Uh,
Where's the AAC/MWC?

MeanGreen_MBA · January 13, 2016

could use some tweaking, but I see where you are going. there are a lot of other non P5 schools that could blow this thing to a nice NCAA Sub-division....with our own play-off, TV contracts...........make it happen

UNTLifer · January 13, 2016

And....the off season is officially here. When does spring practice start?

Hunter Green · January 13, 2016

Resurrect to old SWC with some add ins.

Houston

Rice

UTSA

UTEP

North Texas

SMU

Tulsa

Tulane

Tx. St.

Louisiana

La Tech

Ark. St.

GO MEAN GREEN!

HarringtonFishSmeller · January 13, 2016

43 minutes ago, MeanGreenTexan said:

Uh,
Where's the AAC/MWC?

AAC/MWC don't need any tinkering really, do they? They aren't a meld of old Sun Belt/FCS/Start ups the way C-USA and Sun Belt are.

Between C-USA/Sun Belt, it's become so tangled with unnecessary/non-sense alliances that, to me, it just makes sense to finally untangle the knots and tie the shoes back neatly and cleanly. It's two conferences that are, really, no more than jumble of schools that either (1) no other conference wanted, and/or (2) other conferences ran from.

These schools need to admit what they are, accept the direction of where college football is heading, and begin to sort out in a common sense way. Although football is the driver, there are many other sports whose costs would be greatly reduced by compacting the geographic - and, might I say, idiotic - "footprints" the misguided commissioners of these conferences haphazardly patched together in the past.

In short, it's time the Don Quixote commissioners of the C-USA and Sun Belt - and, school presidents and athletic directors - to quit tilting at the windmills of being "the next Boise State/Cincinnati" etc., accept that they screw up/wasted tens of millions of dollars in the process and move along.

Tyler Maryak · January 13, 2016

Maybe it would change over time (see "rise of Houston" or "fall of SMU"), but that sounds like some pretty boring football. I agree with the general idea of regionalism, though.

Edited January 13, 2016 by Tyler Maryak

Wag Tag · January 13, 2016

1 hour ago, HarringtonFishSmeller said:

Look...eventually the P5s are going to make their own level and depart from the rest. It doesn't matter how much more handwringing or legal maneuvering occurs. So, those of us not P5 need to sack up, wipe away our tears, and begin running these conferences in a way that makes geographic sense.

No school listed "owns" any media market...and, it is stupid for this set of schools to argue they are getting this or that television market because of their inclusion.

Even though I know this would never float because of alumni and athletic director egos, here's what I would do with those of us "Left Behind":

South/Southwest Leftovers
Arkansas State
Louisiana
Lousiana-Monroe
Louisiana Tech
North Texas
Rice
Texas State
UTEP
UTSA

South Leftovers Division Gulf
Alabama-Birmingham
FAU
FIU
Georgia Southern
Georgia State
South Alabama
Southern Miss
Troy

South Leftovers Division Mid/Atlantic
Appalachian State
Coastal Carolina (yes, the Chanticleers are going Sun Belt soon!)
North Carolina-Charlotte
Middle Tennessee
Marshall
Old Dominion
Western Kentucky

These schools will have the best chance to make money off attendance at games! The next step will be donations! Schools closer together should help fill stadiums!

MeanGreenTexan · January 13, 2016

5 minutes ago, Wag Tag said:

These schools will have the best chance to make money off attendance at games! The next step will be donations! Schools closer together should help fill stadiums!

We shouldn't really care about having other team's schools fill our stadium.
Do you think A&M is worried about attendance when Kentucky comes through? No, because their own fans fill their stadium for anyone/everyone. With a 30k stadium, we should be able to do the same thing... just need to win.

Wag Tag · January 13, 2016

Just now, MeanGreenTexan said:

We shouldn't really care about having other team's schools fill our stadium.
Do you think A&M is worried about attendance when Kentucky comes through? No, because their own fans fill their stadium for anyone/everyone. With a 30k stadium, we should be able to do the same thing... just need to win.

SEC fans always travel great. I agree we should fill it but it is fun to have a few thousand fans in the stands from the other side! U of Houston game was great'

GreenTexan13 · January 13, 2016

1 hour ago, Hunter Green said:

Resurrect to old SWC with some add ins.

Houston

Rice

UTSA

UTEP

North Texas

SMU

Tulsa

Tulane

Tx. St.

Louisiana

La Tech

Ark. St.

GO MEAN GREEN!

:Yes: I like all of that Texas

MeanGreenTexan · January 13, 2016

17 minutes ago, Wag Tag said:

SEC fans always travel great. I agree we should fill it but it is fun to have a few thousand fans in the stands from the other side! U of Houston game was great'

Right. I see a team like ECU though, just steadily build up because they put together a consistent winner through the 90's and early 2000's, and now their ~50k-seat stadium (recently expanded) is pretty much full every week with Pirate fans. They don't rely on other teams' fans to travel to Greenville. We can be that. We should strive for that.

untjim1995 · January 13, 2016

So the reality here is that the P5s will become the P4 in the next decade. When the BIg XII implodes, the P4 will issue a concession for schools to still get consideration to the party--pay up by showing how much you want to be a part of this when no conference will invite you thru football independence. Yep, we are about to kick it old school--as in the glory days of Penn State, Miami, FSU, Louisville, Pitt, and so many others that were independents, schools like UH, SMU, UCF, USF, TCU, Baylor, ISU, Memphis, UConn, Cincy, and Boise State will go Power Independent because their budgets can afford to do it, at least at the onset. This will give the P4s their new bought opponents, too.

The rest of us...well, you're hitting on what lies ahead. Your MAC schools, your MWC schools not named Boise State, your lower AAC schools, CUSA, and the SBC will absorb some of the top schools in FCS and create our own subdivision. I'd love a new conference that would like this:

UNT, Tulsa, Arkansas State, La Tech, ULL, Tulane, Rice, UTSA, Texas State, UTEP, NMSU, and Sam Houston in a conference gives you New Orleans, Houston, San Antonio, Austin, El Paso, DFW, Tulsa, Lafayette, Shreveport, and Arkansas. I'd take that over what we currently play because I have zero interest in F_U, Charlotte, ODU, WKU, MUTS, and UAB in football.

HarringtonFishSmeller · January 13, 2016

2 hours ago, Tyler Maryak said:

Maybe it would change over time (see "rise of Houston" or "fall of SMU"), but that sounds like some pretty boring football. I agree with the general idea of regionalism, though.

The current conference is boring. I mean, how much would really be lost in losing Old Dominion versus gaining Texas State or the other Louisiana schools back? And, Arkansas State.

I mean, none of it is "great" in the big picture. So, if it's going to be not great/boring, it may as well at least be closer. Odds are, around here, most of us probably know more friends and family that went to a school in Texas, Louisiana, or Arkansas than we do from West Virginia, Georgia, Florida, etc. Same for the schools there are well.

I can't think of any of my nephews or friends' kids trying to decide between FAU or Texas State.

The acceptance of this reality just seems to make the most sense, with the way things are headed.

1 hour ago, untjim1995 said:

So the reality here is that the P5s will become the P4 in the next decade. When the BIg XII implodes, the P4 will issue a concession for schools to still get consideration to the party--pay up by showing how much you want to be a part of this when no conference will invite you thru football independence. Yep, we are about to kick it old school--as in the glory days of Penn State, Miami, FSU, Louisville, Pitt, and so many others that were independents, schools like UH, SMU, UCF, USF, TCU, Baylor, ISU, Memphis, UConn, Cincy, and Boise State will go Power Independent because their budgets can afford to do it, at least at the onset. This will give the P4s their new bought opponents, too.

The rest of us...well, you're hitting on what lies ahead. Your MAC schools, your MWC schools not named Boise State, your lower AAC schools, CUSA, and the SBC will absorb some of the top schools in FCS and create our own subdivision. I'd love a new conference that would like this:

UNT, Tulsa, Arkansas State, La Tech, ULL, Tulane, Rice, UTSA, Texas State, UTEP, NMSU, and Sam Houston in a conference gives you New Orleans, Houston, San Antonio, Austin, El Paso, DFW, Tulsa, Lafayette, Shreveport, and Arkansas. I'd take that over what we currently play because I have zero interest in F_U, Charlotte, ODU, WKU, MUTS, and UAB in football.

Yes. And, really, it's not a bad thing to be more regional. Frisco just hosted the FCS Championship Game again and for the fifth season in a row North Dakota State won it. Their fans sold out the soccer stadium, and everyone was really happy.

It looks like we'll be caught in the waiting area between football heaven (P5) and hell (lower than FBS). Places like NDSU live and thrive in the hell. Surely, we can accept and enjoy some winning in whatever they eventually call the division between the impending P4 and FCS. The Permanent Purgatory Division?

Tyler Maryak · January 14, 2016

15 minutes ago, HarringtonFishSmeller said:

The current conference is boring. I mean, how much would really be lost in losing Old Dominion versus gaining Texas State or the other Louisiana schools back? And, Arkansas State.

I mean, none of it is "great" in the big picture. So, if it's going to be not great/boring, it may as well at least be closer. Odds are, around here, most of us probably know more friends and family that went to a school in Texas, Louisiana, or Arkansas than we do from West Virginia, Georgia, Florida, etc. Same for the schools there are well.

I can't think of any of my nephews or friends' kids trying to decide between FAU or Texas State.

The acceptance of this reality just seems to make the most sense, with the way things are headed.

Yes. And, really, it's not a bad thing to be more regional. Frisco just hosted the FCS Championship Game again and for the fifth season in a row North Dakota State won it. Their fans sold out the soccer stadium, and everyone was really happy.

It looks like we'll be caught in the waiting area between football heaven (P5) and hell (lower than FBS). Places like NDSU live and thrive in the hell. Surely, we can accept and enjoy some winning in whatever they eventually call the division between the impending P4 and FCS. The Permanent Purgatory Division?

Yeah...I agree with that. Alright, let's do it. Gather the ADs!

Christopher Walker · January 14, 2016

5 hours ago, HarringtonFishSmeller said:

Even though I know this would never float because of alumni and athletic director egos, here's what I would do with those of us "Left Behind"

New commissioner Kirk Cameron... I already hate it.

Mike Jackson · January 14, 2016

If these predictions come true, I think it is going to be terrible for College Football. They should be paying attention to the fact that one of the best national championship games in recent history got terrible ratings. The P5 have limited fan bases. They are only a few schools that get fans in significant numbers that never attended that school. Those school are at the top half of the power 5 conferences. As much as I love UNT football now, I won't be interested in the slightest to watch them play in some new hybrid division. And I will care even less about Big 12 football than I currently do. A lot of these G5 programs will disappear in this hybrid division scenario. Then the next bomb shell will drop and that is paying the athletes. And the NCAA with all these strictly revenue driven decision won't have a leg to stand on in court. Regional conferences and new guidelines on how to upgrade to FBS from FCS are needed. Academic standards with actual post season consequences need to be implemented also. If you don't graduate a player and he doesn't go on to be drafted or signed by a NFL team it should count against in a point system that would bar your team from post season play. There will always be college football but their greed is going to hurt the revenue stream drastically the greedier they get.

Edited January 17, 2016 by Mike Jackson
grammer

NM Green · January 14, 2016

I must say that I was really turned off by how commercialized the Football Final Four has become. I watch college football because it is not the NFL. I don't watch much NFL anymore and the more ESPN'ed this thing gets the more disinterested I get. I cannot be alone here. It really makes me appreciate gamedays in Denton and the purity of the college sport. Maybe its why I have always loved watching MWC sports and now I look forward to the WKU Marshall bash every year.

God Bless the Mean Green.

GMG

oldguystudent · January 14, 2016

6 hours ago, NM Green said:

the more ESPN'ed this thing gets the more disinterested I get.

ESPN has pretty much been a godsend for me. It's weened me from watching MLB, big time college football, and college basketball. The NFL has taken on this task itself with its unwatchable product. My weekends have become so much more free save the five or six home games a year at UNT.

Going to watch professional sports or big time college sports in person has already priced out the average person. When I was a teenager, I could mow a lawn and get enough money to buy a box seat at an A's game. Today, I've got to spend a week's salary of grown up money to get the same ticket.

Now ESPN has done the same for merely watching sporting events on television.

Eventually, this bubble must burst. But maybe not. Luxury suites and bars paying for broadcasting may keep it all afloat. The NFL, MLB, and college basketball and football are catering to their own "Group of 17," and you and I ain't part of it.

As for UNT, I'll keep going because I enjoy the overall experience, even if we are the worst team in this history of the nation. It's just going to be a shame that we've built this beautiful stadium that'll see crowds of maybe 5,000 when the illusion of us playing big boy football is finally gone after the P5 splits off.

untjim1995 · January 14, 2016

I really think the G5s and FCS teams realize that the P5 money will dry up sooner rather than later. That's why their level of contentment to be "bought" is such an accepted reality. These folks--especially like RV--know that the non-revenue sports have to get paid for and it is FAR easier to just play a bodybag game every year and pack the coffers that way.

What people on gmg.com want is for the university to look at itself, thru the window of athletics, to emulate UH. I mean they are an urban school in the state that is huge and has a large alumni base, just like us, so why not? Well, the why not is that UH looks at athletics as a primary window to their school. We don't--and never have. They have some great history in the two revenue sports and they have BMDs from the 60s, 70, and 80s that want UH to be big-time, like they used to be in the old SWC. We don't have anything that compares to this--not even close, actually.

What many on here need to understand is that our place in college football got basically cemented by our 1-aa debacle. Even if we had a better AD for the last 15 years to make us more revenue and successful in coaching hires, we weren't ever going to jump UH or SMU on the college football landscape because of their pedigree and SWC media still backing them. We couldn't jump into a league WITH SMU and UH because they refused to have us, much less go past them.

What is realistic for us in the years ahead is to prepare for the regionalization of college football on the lower levels. Some, like I mentioned with the MAC and the MWC, have already embraced this reality. The other three G5 leagues have not. I suspect that some will drop football if they cannot make Power Independence work for football, just for the sake of not allowing themselves to be "lowered" to permanent status in the G5/FCS collection. SMU and Tulane are two schools that immediately come to mind in that vein of thought.

Apogee and the Super Pit are wonderful venues, no doubt. And we will be playing in them for years to come. But it would be very wise to understand that our place in the college athletics landscape is not going to be with the Power Conference teams or even those that could get affiliated with them because of their budgets and history. If we hadn't basically give up on I-a football in the early 80's, it could very well be different today, but we didn't do that and it killed off too many resources (i.e., giving fans and alumni). Its a lot like the guy who never saved his entire work life and now wants to retire in the next ten years and live like his buddies do because of how much they saved. In the end, you can save more for the next decade, but your buddies got a large head start on you that will never allow you to catch up. At that point, it becomes all about changing your expectations to a more realistic view. That's what we have here now. We can still enjoy Mean Green sports, but its not going to be against the teams we all dream of them playing against on a level field. Its just not how college sports works.

pastorgrant · January 14, 2016

Based on the thread title, I thought there would be some good news in here.

HarringtonFishSmeller · January 14, 2016

16 hours ago, Christopher Walker said:

New commissioner Kirk Cameron... I already hate it.

I'd have to actually see it to hate it. But, I haven't, so I'll take your word for it.

12 hours ago, Mike Jackson said:

If these predictions come true, I think it is going to be terrible for College Football. They should be paying attention to the fact that one of the best national championship games in recent history got terrible ratings. The P5 have limited fan bases. They are only a few schools that get fans in significant numbers that never attended that school. Those school are at the top half of the power 5 conferences. As much as I love UNT football now, I won't be interested in the slightest to watch them play in some new hybrid division. And I will care even less about Big 12 football than I currently do. A lot of these G5 programs will disappear in this hybrid division scenario. Then the next bomb shell will drop and that is paying the athletes. And the NCAA with all these strictly revenue driven decision won't have a leg to stand on in court. Regional conferences and new guidelines on how to upgrade to FBS from FCS are needed. Academic standards with actual post season consequences need to be implemented also. If you don't graduate a player and he doesn't go on to be drafted or signed by a NFL team it should count against in a point system that would bar your team from post season play. The will always be college football but their greed is going going to hurt the revenue stream drastically the greedier they get.

You are correct, in theory, of course. But, as history has shown us, while other schools and conferences were scrambling for bigger and better, we were wallowing in I-AA.

I'm too old to keep re-living it. I'd be pleased as punch if we accepted our niche and learned to dominate it.

Two things we can't do: (1) Turn back the clock, and (2) Pretend the dollar doesn't call the tune. The one thing we can do is settle into our level and dominate it. So...here's to Coach Littrell and staff beginning an era of dominating! Once we begin to dominate the conference we are in, we can then thump our chests in a Boise State-like manner and say, "We'll play anyone, anywhere...return games be damned, we'll kick your ass in your own backyard, and do so with pleasure!"

As far as Villareal, the president, Board...any other conference shifts need to focus on what will help us in our niche. in my mind, that simply means getting more regional.

Arkstfan · January 14, 2016

The last realignment was in economic terms inefficient.

It failed to group schools who have some desire to compete with one another on a widespread basis. Take the SEC. Drop their TV money to zero and the SEC pretty much stays the same. LSU is going to want to play Ole Miss, Alabama, Florida whether the TV stakes are $20 million or $20 we know because that's what they wanted when there was no money at stake.

We are in an environment where "Great" TV money for a G5 is the same amount of money you can get traveling to Nebraska or Alabama. In other words, TV is not much of a factor in the G5 and outside the "great" money the MWC and AAC receive, you are talking about TV dollars that are less than what you can get with in-demand premium seating donations as a G5.

So in reality, MAC, Sun Belt, and CUSA are for all practical purposes playing for no significant TV money. It's more than most of us make in a year but we don't live on $20 million or $30 million budgets.

What makes CUSA and Sun Belt different from a hypothetical no TV money SEC, Big 10, or Pac-12 is we aren't aligned with the schools will were with when football wasn't a big money game because so many of those schools did not share our vision about how many scholarships to award and the types of opponents we should schedule.

We lack a large natural historic group to align with so we have weird alignments, I believe current CUSA is the first time major college football teams in Texas have been aligned with anyone in Virginia, Texas State and TAMU are the first time a Texas school has been aligned with schools in Georgia or South Carolina. 1997 I think was the first time a Texas school was aligned with a North Carolina team. 2001 the first time to align with a Florida team.

Many of those moves came from the desperation of trying to find anyone with a shared vision to align with. A good number of teams in CUSA and Sun Belt today were not available as options when those decisions were made. We cannot say affirmatively that had they been available that the path taken would be the same.

The challenge for ADs and Presidents today is look past the current labels and determine whether they are better served aligning with someone nearby their fans can work up a dislike for rather than something slightly warmer than indifference.

untjim1995 · January 14, 2016

I figure that you have these G5 schools that would be available for conferences to be more regionalized in the future:

Marshall, ODU, Appy State, Charlotte, FIU, FAU, Georgia State, Georgia Southern, MUTS, WKU, UAB, South Alabama, Troy, USM, ULL, ULM, La Tech, Arkansas State, Tulsa, Rice, UTEP, NMSU, UTSA, Texas State, and UNT. Add in SMU and Tulane, just as they may not quit football altogether, and it gives you 27 teams.

Easily, the SW division would be UNT, SMU, Tulsa, UTEP, NMSU, Texas State, UTSA, Rice, and Arky State. The SE division would be La Tech, Tulane, ULM, ULL, USM, UAB, USA, Troy, and MUTS. The Eastern Division would be Marshall, ODU, WKU, Charlotte, Appy State, Georgia State, Georgia Southern, FIU, and FAU.

The farthest point of travel in the SW division would be NMSU to Arkansas State. Right now, NMSU has to travel to Appy State for its farthest point. The farthest point in the SE would be MUTS to ULL. Right now, MUTS has to play in El Paso or South Florida for furthest conference trips. And in the East, the farthest is Marshall to F_U, which they already do and won't have to travel to El Paso anymore. This is the reality of what regionalization will be like within ten years for our level of college play, give or take a few subtractions and a few FCS move-ups.

HarringtonFishSmeller · January 14, 2016

Agree. And, to a larger extent, stop playing little, lost puppy to the P5s. They are doing their best to exclude us from future scheduling anyway by making rules about their strength of schedule. We are an afterthought to them, and have been for three decades.

Non-P5s can succeed as well. We are not going to be invited to the dance; so, it's time to quit sitting by the phone and waiting for the call.

Is Arkansas State that much more sexy than Old Dominion? In my mind, no. However, it's closer. It just makes more sense now that the P5s are really pushing further away from the dock.