Western Athletic Conference Still Mulling Its Options

UNTflyer · August 24, 2010

http://www.usatoday.com/sports/college/football/2010-08-24-wac-mulling-options_N.htm

Benson, while continuing conversations with Brigham Young, says he has already reached out to other schools about joining the WAC in the next couple of years.

Among potential candidates: Texas State, Texas-San Antonio and possibly Montana for membership that would include football, and Cal Poly, Cal-Davis, Sacramento State and Denver for other sports.

The football programs would have to move from the Football Championship Subdivision (formerly Division I-AA) to the Football Bowl Subdivision (formerly I-A).

Other schools that could be contacted include North Texas (currently in the Sun Belt Conference) and Texas-El Paso (Conference USA).

Green Mean · August 24, 2010

Is Benson completely opposed to the Sunbelt/WAC merger? I think that is the most logical strategy and one that seems to be very realistic in happening if you bring NT along with ULL, ASU, MTSU and Troy.

houstonmeangreen · August 24, 2010

http://www.usatoday.com/sports/college/football/2010-08-24-wac-mulling-options_N.htm

Benson, while continuing conversations with Brigham Young, says he has already reached out to other schools about joining the WAC in the next couple of years.

Among potential candidates: Texas State, Texas-San Antonio and possibly Montana for membership that would include football, and Cal Poly, Cal-Davis, Sacramento State and Denver for other sports.

The football programs would have to move from the Football Championship Subdivision (formerly Division I-AA) to the Football Bowl Subdivision (formerly I-A).

Other schools that could be contacted include North Texas (currently in the Sun Belt Conference) and Texas-El Paso (Conference USA).

Once again...you don't want to go the the WAC conf...esp if the are considering Texas State (FCS div) and UT san antonio (not even playing football yet)...we want to move up and that means MWC or conf USA....otherwise stay where we are....the TD experiment and the delay on stadium construction has put the hurt on UNT...but maybe its not to late with good lobbying.

UNTflyer · August 24, 2010

A WAC/SBC merger makes sense. Make a 16-team conference and divide it into two divisions. Hold the football championship game in Denton because it is central and the basketball championship in New Orleans because it's fun.

The downside would be that UNT would be in the western division, but maybe schools like Idaho and Hawaii go elsewhere and the travel would not be as bad.

DeepGreen · August 24, 2010

Once again...you don't want to go the the WAC conf...esp if the are considering Texas State (FCS div) and UT san antonio (not even playing football yet)...we want to move up and that means MWC or conf USA....otherwise stay where we are....the TD experiment and the delay on stadium construction has put the hurt on UNT...but maybe its not to late with good lobbying.

Agree.

Please, no more talk of joining a watered down WAC. That conference is over, done, toast. Let them die a quick, painless death.

Travis · August 24, 2010

Wouldn't want a WAC/SBC merger. They would bring down our conference prestige them sorry good for nothin's.

PlummMeanGreen · August 24, 2010

Once again...you don't want to go the the WAC conf...esp if the are considering Texas State (FCS div) and UT san antonio (not even playing football yet)...we want to move up and that means MWC or conf USA....otherwise stay where we are....the TD experiment and the delay on stadium construction has put the hurt on UNT...but maybe its not to late with good lobbying.

Amen! Now is not the time for UNT to start doing the kum-bah-yah thing with lesser programs. We need to do like every other NCAA big time aspiring school is doing and that is--take care of North Texas. Cold, cruel, calculating as this may sound, but we don't help ourselves by helping others who have not had to go thru their own 40 years of wandering in the wildnerness to get where I believe UNT is on the verge of getting and that means we will somehow have to change neighborhoods in the next re-alignment. It may happen with UNT and 2 or 3 more schools from the Sun Belt, too.

We just have to remove ourselves from many of the kinds of schools we have too many times gotten way too comfy' with which is just one of the kinds of attitudes necessary in Denton that will get us to the next level. Some well placed politikin' & having a new friend (sponsor) from the kind of leagues that would raise our stock would really help right now.

The new stadium should help but that is just a new "most impressive" vehicle for us to put on the table. With this new vehicle, we still have to pave new high roads for ourselves and that is what we all hope the Big 3 athletic movers & shakers on our campus will help us do sooner than later. The windows of opportunity may be getting smaller and we may have no options, but we have to excercise all "upwardly bound" options that we believe works longterm (if there is still such a thing in the NCAA) for the University of North Texas. Just my .02....

GMG!

Edited August 24, 2010 by PlummMeanGreen

VideoEagle · August 24, 2010

A WAC/SBC merger makes sense. Make a 16-team conference and divide it into two divisions. Hold the football championship game in Denton because it is central and the basketball championship in New Orleans because it's fun.

The downside would be that UNT would be in the western division, but maybe schools like Idaho and Hawaii go elsewhere and the travel would not be as bad.

I don't think merger is a good idea. Idaho, USU and Hawaii are not going elsewhere as there is no "elsewhere" for them to go.

Better to let the WAC die or go FCS and we can grab NMSU and maybe La Tech.

The SBC got the reputation as the worst conference for picking up FCS schools that wanted to move up. Actually, the SBC only picked up one when we were face with what the WAC is currently facing. USA and one of the Floridas was already a member for all other sports. If the SBC is a bad for allowing current members to move up, what about the Big East that allowed UConn to move up and is encouraging Nova to do the same thing.

The SBC added one. Now the WAC must at two and possibly three all at once. No doubt they will be the lowest ranked conference for the next decade.

Censored by Laurie · August 24, 2010

A WAC/SBC merger makes sense. Make a 16-team conference and divide it into two divisions. Hold the football championship game in Denton because it is central and the basketball championship in New Orleans because it's fun.

The downside would be that UNT would be in the western division, but maybe schools like Idaho and Hawaii go elsewhere and the travel would not be as bad.

Miami, Fl to San Jose, CA...3000 miles. Even without Idaho and Hawaii a WAC/SBC merger makes no sense.

I'm really starting to think you're either doing a bit (based mostly on the football championship game in Denton statement) or you simply want change for change's sake irregardless of practicality because it gives you some sense that the athletic department isn't just waiting for chips to fall.

GrandGreen · August 24, 2010

The WAC could be so down that the University of Laverne Leopards and the UC Santa Cruz Banana Slugs were the premier programs and there would still be people on this broad trying to make it work for North Texas.

Magic95Fan · August 24, 2010

The WAC is a bad idea for us. We go up or stay in a reasonably stable SBC.

Daddy Dumpsalot · August 24, 2010

The WAC is a bad idea for us. We go up or stay in a reasonably sucky SBC.

fixed

jdennis82 · August 24, 2010

fixed

what was your thought on the hoops road trip to boise last year on 11/28? with your obsession over joining the wac, i have to assume you jumped at the opportunity to enjoy an idaho vacation with the mean green.

emmitt01 · August 24, 2010

The WAC is a bad idea for us. We go up or bankrupt the student fees we're taking in flying our women's tennis team to San Jose and Honolulu...but make a few wrongheaded fans happy about our "prestige" change.

Now it's fixed.

UNTflyer · August 24, 2010

what was your thought on the hoops road trip to boise last year on 11/28? with your obsession over joining the wac, i have to assume you jumped at the opportunity to enjoy an idaho vacation with the mean green.

Because our fans travel so well to Louisiana and Arkansas??

Look, a merger has to be considered. What happens if MUTS and Troy go to CUSA? Suddenly we have 7 members and we're scrambling for an 8th. If FAU, WKU, or FIU are picked up by the Big East then we're dead. let's not be so quick to dismiss an SBC-WAC merger, because if the dominos fall a certain way we'll be begging to make it happen.

TheTastyGreek · August 24, 2010

Because our fans travel so well to Louisiana and Arkansas??

I travel there. :cry:

MeanGreenTexan · August 24, 2010

Because our fans travel so well to Louisiana and Arkansas??

Look, a merger has to be considered. What happens if MUTS and Troy go to CUSA? Suddenly we have 7 members and we're scrambling for an 8th. If FAU, WKU, or FIU are picked up by the Big East then we're dead. let's not be so quick to dismiss an SBC-WAC merger, because if the dominos fall a certain way we'll be begging to make it happen.

I think it would be a good argument to consider MT & Troy ahead of UNT for CUSA expansion right now. MT especially. However, even without green-tinted glasses, UNT has too much going for it (outside of football results) to worry that package-wise, we've been passed by anyone in the Belt. We simply have too much to offer, and now that Mr. Rawlins is in the drivers seat, we have too many friends in high places in CUSA.

UNTLifer · August 24, 2010

I would be shocked if Troy was invited anywhere based upon their academics.

GrayEagle · August 25, 2010

If we can get it we need to consider a WAC/SBC merger. Besides, there will only be about ten teams left that aren't in a better conference.

We won't be in CUSA because SMU won't let us and besides Middle Tennessee, Florida Atlantic, Troy and Louisiana Tech are ahead of us anyway.

We are certainly not going to be asked to the Mountain West because we don't have a single ally in that league...plus TCU would stop us if we even got close.

The WAC is the only conference that wants us. Hang the cost, it's so refreshing to hear that we're wanted I'd go anywhere just to be associated with friends. Of course, by then all we'd get would be San Jose, Idaho and New Mexico State. Hawaii would go independent, Utah State would be in the MWC and La Tech in CUSA. It has been written.

PlummMeanGreen · August 25, 2010

If we can get it we need to consider a WAC/SBC merger. Besides, there will only be about ten teams left that aren't in a better conference.

We won't be in CUSA because SMU won't let us and besides Middle Tennessee, Florida Atlantic, Troy and Louisiana Tech are ahead of us anyway.

We are certainly not going to be asked to the Mountain West because we don't have a single ally in that league...plus TCU would stop us if we even got close.

The WAC is the only conference that wants us. Hang the cost, it's so refreshing to hear that we're wanted I'd go anywhere just to be associated with friends. Of course, by then all we'd get would be San Jose, Idaho and New Mexico State. Hawaii would go independent, Utah State would be in the MWC and La Tech in CUSA. It has been written.

Jack, you sound like Moses in Cecil B. De Mille's "Ten Commandments" with your last sentence. :lol: As I recall that movie it was Moses before the Pharoah saying: "Thus it is said--thus it is written", right? Seriously, I think you are (unfortunately for us at this moment in time) correct in your assessment; yet as we should all know by now...things don't stay the same in the NCAA. If UHouston goes MWC, I don't think CUSA expands with either La Tech or us.

Wouldn't CUSA want a southeastern footprint school with some semblance of a TV market instead of a hard to get to frontier outpost? I don't think SMU's one vote will be the deal-maker, either, with whichever school they would expand CUSA.

No matter what league UNT is in & with our new stadium at the Mean Green Village, SMU will be eating our dust--even if we never play them again in this century. SMU doesn't define what we of UNT want to do longterm with our football program anyway. They use no logic in their scheduling and I guess Calif-Northridge-types will really create interest and pull em' into Ford from University Park, Texas--SMU's actual & real home city.

But can most all of us agree with: "Just Take Care of Business, North Texas...Good Things Will Come?" (especially in the ever-changing re-alignment climate of the NCAA). This new stadium at the Mean Green Village will (amazingly) help us lose our "cooties" overnight and so I suppose all our astute critics (especially in DFW) will have to go back to their other old urban (and tired) tale of us being a commuter school? Hellsbells! We have more dorms than SMU has students! .........Thus, it has been written (again)!

GMG!

Edited August 25, 2010 by PlummMeanGreen