Isn't it funny, and a little bit odd....

[UNT86]

After hearing all these years that the Sun Belt was now a better conference and that they had "passed us by", when the AAC looked to expand they took 6 schools from CUSA.  That I can see, not one Sun Belt school was invited to go anywhere.

I find that funny, and just a little bit odd....

[Mean Green Matt]

4 minutes ago, UNT86 said:

After hearing all these years that the Sun Belt was now a better conference and that they had "passed us by", when the AAC looked to expand they took 6 schools from CUSA.  That I can see, not one Sun Belt school was invited to go anywhere.

I find that funny, and just a little bit odd....

The Sun Belt schools don’t fit the AAC profile of big market teams. The teams may not dominate their markets. But they are there. 

[MeanGreenTexan]

1 hour ago, UNT86 said:

After hearing all these years that the Sun Belt was now a better conference and that they had "passed us by", when the AAC looked to expand they took 6 schools from CUSA.  That I can see, not one Sun Belt school was invited to go anywhere.

I find that funny, and just a little bit odd....

If you're talking strictly football results, how could you argue?  In the past 2 seasons, the SBC has had 3 teams ranked in the top 25.    Since NT has joined C-USA in 2013, this conference has had 1 team ranked... and that is UTSA, THIS WEEK.   The argument is valid, but it's definitely in a vacuum.
Thankfully, conference expansion does not teeter strictly on football results, amirite?

EDIT:
I was wrong about C-USA not having ranked teams since 2013:
2014 Marshall was ranked for 8 weeks, & 2015 WKU was ranked for 2 weeks.

Edited October 20, 2021 by MeanGreenTexan

[shaft]

I guess we need another reminder.

It's pretty tacky to start piling on schools excluded from the expansion (Just like some people on this board continue to demean the Sun Belt).   UNT is one of the worst teams in D1 football right now and would not have made the cut if the AAC went to 12.  So let's show a little class, celebrate our win, and not start making a list of other programs shortcomings.

[El Paso Eagle]

2 minutes ago, shaft said:

I guess we need another reminder.

It's pretty tacky to start piling on schools excluded from the expansion (Just like some people on this board continue to demean the Sun Belt).   UNT is one of the worst teams in D1 football right now and would not have made the cut if the AAC went to 12.  So let's show a little class, celebrate our win, and not start making a list of other programs shortcomings.

Well said. In others words (or pictures) - Don't be this guy

[Mean Green Matt]

27 minutes ago, MeanGreenTexan said:

If you're talking strictly football results, how could you argue?  In the past 2 seasons, the SBC has had 3 teams ranked in the top 25.    Since NT has joined C-USA in 2013, this conference has had 1 team ranked... and that is UTSA, THIS WEEK.   The argument is valid, but it's definitely in a vacuum.
Thankfully, conference expansion does not teeter strictly on football results, amirite?

Are you sure Marshall wasn’t briefly ranked a few years ago….not that that would change your overall point. 
 

 

[Mean Green Matt]

5 minutes ago, shaft said:

I guess we need another reminder.

It's pretty tacky to start piling on schools excluded from the expansion (Just like some people on this board continue to demean the Sun Belt).   UNT is one of the worst teams in D1 football right now and would not have made the cut if the AAC went to 12.  So let's show a little class, celebrate our win, and not start making a list of other programs shortcomings.

It’s a message board. 

[NorthTexan95]

5 minutes ago, shaft said:

UNT is one of the worst teams in D1 football right now and would not have made the cut if the AAC went to 12.  

I disagree with this statement. Considering our location, facilities, academics, leadership, we would have been at or near the top of the list if they wanted schools in this part of the country.  

[MeanGreenTexan]

18 minutes ago, Mean Green Matt said:

Are you sure Marshall wasn’t briefly ranked a few years ago….not that that would change your overall point. 
 

 

Yes sir!  In 2014.  Nice catch!   Marshall was ranked for 8 weeks total that season, peaking at #18.   
And I must apologize to Jeff Brohm's kicka** WKU team in 2015 as well, who was ranked for the last 2 weeks of the season (#24 & #25) after running roughshod over C-USA, and winning their bowl game.  

[RBP79]

The AAC has evidently succeeded in cutting out the MWC from Texas after the MWC threaten to do the same to the AAC leaving that school south of Denton isolated. Pretty interesting maneuver by AAC.

If all this plays out it shows which conference has forward looking leadership. 

Won't be surprised if MWC comes knocking on SMUts door...someone got played. 

[Monkeypox]

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?!"

 

 

 

 

[Wag Tag]

1 hour ago, shaft said:

I guess we need another reminder.

It's pretty tacky to start piling on schools excluded from the expansion (Just like some people on this board continue to demean the Sun Belt).   UNT is one of the worst teams in D1 football right now and would not have made the cut if the AAC went to 12.  So let's show a little class, celebrate our win, and not start making a list of other programs shortcomings.

 

[untjim1995]

15 minutes ago, RBP79 said:

The AAC has evidently succeeded in cutting out the MWC from Texas after the MWC threaten to do the same to the AAC leaving that school south of Denton isolated. Pretty interesting maneuver by AAC.

If all this plays out it shows which conference has forward looking leadership. 

Won't be surprised if MWC comes knocking on SMUts door...someone got played. 

If I'm SMU, I go talk to the MWC and tell them about wanting to be like TCU and join their league to be the only Texas school in the conference. I'm certain the MWC recognizes that they can get back into TX again with a name that their programs out West would want to play, in both football and hoops.

[El Paso Eagle]

39 minutes ago, RBP79 said:

The AAC has evidently succeeded in cutting out the MWC from Texas after the MWC threaten to do the same to the AAC leaving that school south of Denton isolated. Pretty interesting maneuver by AAC.

If all this plays out it shows which conference has forward looking leadership. 

Won't be surprised if MWC comes knocking on SMUts door...someone got played. 

If, as reported the payouts for the existing members remains high for a while then is will have to be a heavy knock. If on the other SMU feels that the MWC might offer them a better path to the Big 12 who knows.

[MeanGreen_MBA]

51 minutes ago, untjim1995 said:

If I'm SMU, I go talk to the MWC and tell them about wanting to be like TCU and join their league to be the only Texas school in the conference. I'm certain the MWC recognizes that they can get back into TX again with a name that their programs out West would want to play, in both football and hoops.

I think TX St would do good in the MWC. Maybe a better fit than SMU