Expansion Speculation

[UNTLifer]

The WAC is a better than the Sunbelt hands down. If we are going stay in the SBC just so we can have our fans go to Mean Green road games then that is not good planning. The SBC is just a worst conference but people on this board dont see reality. I mean seriously, people here sound like we are a huge BCS school that we will travel like 5-10 thousands fans to our road games which is not the case. The SBC blows!

[MDH]

The WAC is a better than the Sunbelt hands down. If we are going stay in the SBC just so we can have our fans go to Mean Green road games then that is not good planning. The SBC is just a worst conference but people on this board dont see reality. I mean seriously, people here sound like we are a huge BCS school that we will travel like 5-10 thousands fans to our road games which is not the case. The SBC blows!

I whore heartedly agree! Let's work back to SBC dominance for over a decade and then we can start singing the upgrade conference song. The WAC isn't great but a team like Fresno can easily reach a BCS bowl if they just won all their conference games to go along with all thoses non-conference upsets that they pull. If they can pull a W from Wisconsin IN FRESNO and for once win the WAC title by going undefeated, then they'll be BCS bowling for sure. You could make it 3 in a row for WAC in BCS in that case.

Fresno, utah and BYU have the best sports programs all around out of the western schools (dont see CU leaving Big XII) but Fresno unfortunately is a crappy school. I say this as the product of two ex-Fresno State professors....they always said they'd conisder me a failure at life if I went to school there.

[Arkstfan]

Some of you are truly amusing.

First you don't get it. Conference affiliation while nice, doesn't build a program. Duke from a BCS league just got a court decision handed down that held that ANY FBS or FCS school would a comparable school. In your own state Baylor has proven BCS membership does not a program make. Houston, Rice, SMU and TCU learned they couldn't just show-up and collect a check forever.

Second you don't understand the WAC. For years and years the Big West was the hands down dregs of Division I football. In 1975 their best program, San Diego State left. Over a period of less than 25 years the league lost five members, not to better conferences, but because the schools gave up and dropped football. Remember when the NCAA clamped down on Division I-A standards after the 1981 season sending more than 40 schools from I-AA to I-A? After that move there are only 4 schools that were I-A in 1982 that aren't I-A today. Wichita State and three Big West schools that dropped football (Long Beach State, Cal-Fullerton, and Pacific). Today the WAC is made up nine schools, eight are former Big West members.

Fresno escaped the Big West first, then Nevada, then Boise and former member La.Tech, then Idaho, Utah State and NMSU. The first three have taken care of their programs. They built fan bases. They improved facilities. They won games. It gave them a chance to escape, but they got sucked back in by the people they escaped. That didn't kill them, instead they continued winning games and learned going undefeated in a weak league can put you in the BCS if you play a crappy enough non-conference schedule to finish undefeated.

Nothing magic about that formula. FAU could go to the BCS this year but to do it they'll have to beat three BCS schools. Boise and Hawaii faced but one each, both at home.

Third you don't get what a life-sucker that expense and travel is. When La.Tech entered the WAC they won it immediately in football. They dominated in women's basketball. They were very competitive in men's basketball. But all that came with players recruited when playing Sun Belt schools. Recruiting southern athletes to go west Louisiana Tech has taken a program that was competitive across the board in the WAC and seen it become a program that finished LAST in 8 of the 13 WAC sports they play. That is atrocious. UALR and ULM tied with three last place finishes in Sun Belt play across 19 sports. It takes three Sun Belt schools and six more sports to equal Tech's accomplishment.

[johnnylightnin]

Recruiting southern athletes to go west Louisiana Tech has taken a program that was competitive across the board in the WAC and seen it become a program that finished LAST in 8 of the 13 WAC sports they play.

This statement is ridiculous. In football, Tech has out-recruited it's sister programs in the ULS almost every year. Tech's decline had little to do with athletes and MUCH to do with VERY poor coaching and worse administration. That is turning around.

If you look at TCU, you'll see that you're mistaken.

[Quoner]

Tech's decline had little to do with athletes and MUCH to do with VERY poor coaching and worse administration. That is turning around.

You'll rue the day you passed on the meatiest, cheesiest solution of all!

[Arkstfan]

This statement is ridiculous. In football, Tech has out-recruited it's sister programs in the ULS almost every year. Tech's decline had little to do with athletes and MUCH to do with VERY poor coaching and worse administration. That is turning around.

If you look at TCU, you'll see that you're mistaken.

TEN SPORTS COLLAPSED AT ONCE?

(eight last place finishes plus the fall of women's basketball and football)

That some baaaad coaching.