Conference and Geographic Concerns

Mike Jackson · September 3, 2018

Looking at CUSA and Sun Belt divisions it it become more apparent to me that their western and eastern divisions should merge into new conferences. I like the history and the cache of the CUSA name however I don't like its geography. There is no team in the East I would miss the opportunity to play outside of Marshall. CUSA West Division only need 5 teams to have a 12 team conference with 2 divisions. We could take all 5 West Sun Belt teams or only 3. The other 2 to round out the 12 could be Tulsa and Tulane. The Sun Belt East with CUSA East would be good conference also. And they could add Liberty if they wanted. I think they would benefit from having North and South divisions based on the locations of the schools. If you are like me I would rather reserve my big travel money to see more prestigious programs than the ones in the East. Also with our conference having more than twelve teams it is hard to generate rivals across divisions cause you see them so rarely. And the added benefit for it being better travel for all the sports that play more games than football does. If it weren't for the name and history of the conference, I think it would be a no brainer.

In its current composition to me CUSA only makes sense because you are trying to create an artificial TV market. I doubt if you had any fans of the East CUSA schools are sitting down to watch UNT vs SMU or any the W-CUSA games against non P5 opponents. And casual fans aren't watching G5 games outside their region.

If we can keep the CUSA name, what would your preference be? (Bowl tie-ins are so unreliable now for G5 conferences it isn't worth mentioning imo).

Edited September 3, 2018 by Mike Jackson