Big East Expanding to 12: SMU and Houston in play

wardly · October 11, 2011

everything i read says big east wants the 3 service academies. looks like afc is good to go, navy on fence, and army not really interested. the other 2 high on list are temple and ucf. ecu is a fall back choice. if navy and army say no, then smu and houston come into play. if cusa loose both ecu and cfu,look for them to reload in east division, not west. this would bring fau and fiu in play, as everyone wants a presence in florida and cusa already has 4 texas schools. our best hope is that smu and houston move to big east, which would assure us cusa offer in order to keep a presence in dfw. everything should be settled by end of month, and a lot of movement depends upon what mizoo does. cusa stands to loose posibility 4 schools.

Harry · October 11, 2011

Keep in mind the Big East wants a leg in Texas and Florida for recruiting purposes. That includes football and basketball.

buff64 · October 11, 2011

Why doesn't UNT apply to the Big East ? Seems to me that with the addition of the western schools ( SMU, Houston, etc.) the Big East would divide into two divisions , East and West. We would have auto. BCS bids possible and games with natural in-state rivals . Not to mention national exposure. All this would lead to increased attendance. Certainly UNT BB is ready.

buff64 · October 11, 2011

everything i read says big east wants the 3 service academies. looks like afc is good to go, navy on fence, and army not really interested. the other 2 high on list are temple and ucf. ecu is a fall back choice. if navy and army say no, then smu and houston come into play. if cusa loose both ecu and cfu,look for them to reload in east division, not west. this would bring fau and fiu in play, as everyone wants a presence in florida and cusa already has 4 texas schools. our best hope is that smu and houston move to big east, which would assure us cusa offer in order to keep a presence in dfw. everything should be settled by end of month, and a lot of movement depends upon what mizoo does. cusa stands to loose posibility 4 schools.

Army was an orginal member of CUSA ,left the conference when it became clear that they could not compete on a regular basis.

ForneyGreen · October 11, 2011

everything i read says big east wants the 3 service academies. looks like afc is good to go, navy on fence, and army not really interested. the other 2 high on list are temple and ucf. ecu is a fall back choice. if navy and army say no, then smu and houston come into play. if cusa loose both ecu and cfu,look for them to reload in east division, not west. this would bring fau and fiu in play, as everyone wants a presence in florida and cusa already has 4 texas schools. our best hope is that smu and houston move to big east, which would assure us cusa offer in order to keep a presence in dfw. everything should be settled by end of month, and a lot of movement depends upon what mizoo does. cusa stands to loose posibility 4 schools.

I think that even this scenario provides options for UNT, because we could be a potential candidate for either CUSA (if they can be convinced to reload in Texas) OR MWC (after losing Air Force). I know that MWC might seem far-fetched based on where we are at this time (attendance, etc.), but if I were Rick V., I would be keeping close contact with our old friends at Nevada and Boise St. in hopes of convincing them that UNT would be a great addition to the MWC.

UNTDude · October 11, 2011

Why doesn't UNT apply to the Big East ? Seems to me that with the addition of the western schools ( SMU, Houston, etc.) the Big East would divide into two divisions , East and West. We would have auto. BCS bids possible and games with natural in-state rivals . Not to mention national exposure. All this would lead to increased attendance. Certainly UNT BB is ready.

Basketball is ready but football is not. As many have posted on GMG in the past we need to put butts in the seats and head to a couple of bowls before we get a sniff from a conference like the Big East. Central Florida is a a model of where UNT needs to be before the larger conferences start looking. They have been to bowls the last two years, and four appearances in the last 6 years. They also have a new on campus stadium - (Bright House networks 45,000) and the nations third largest enrollment 55,000+. UNT is doing all the right things but are a few years away from getting the type of consideration that a UCF or East Carolina are receiving. Enrollment and stadium are only two pieces to a much larger puzzle.

Green Mean · October 11, 2011

Why wouldn't the Big East consider Southern Miss as an option? Seems like a decent fit plus you can have outreach to an SEC region.

Mean Green 93-98 · October 11, 2011

Why wouldn't the Big East consider Southern Miss as an option? Seems like a decent fit plus you can have outreach to an SEC region.

Hattiesburg is in the middle of nowhere. If the BE is going to extend into the south, it will be limited to campuses within an hour or so of a major airport.

bleedgreen4ever · October 11, 2011

The Big East will invite SMU, not UNT. We should focus on CUSA and MWC. We shoudl then start winning out one of those conferences and then hopefully down road receive some interest from an AQ conference.

mgfan · October 11, 2011

Looks like Missouri is stay for now. According to ESPN. I believe this is good for us. Now the BE can stabilize and pick up some C-usa schools, which gives us a chance to move up.

http://espn.go.com/college-sports/story/_/id/7087967/big-12-set-10-teams-2012-including-missouri-tigers

Edited October 11, 2011 by mgfan

untjim1995 · October 11, 2011

Basketball is ready but football is not. As many have posted on GMG in the past we need to put butts in the seats and head to a couple of bowls before we get a sniff from a conference like the Big East. Central Florida is a a model of where UNT needs to be before the larger conferences start looking. They have been to bowls the last two years, and four appearances in the last 6 years. They also have a new on campus stadium - (Bright House networks 45,000) and the nations third largest enrollment 55,000+. UNT is doing all the right things but are a few years away from getting the type of consideration that a UCF or East Carolina are receiving. Enrollment and stadium are only two pieces to a much larger puzzle.

I love Johnny Jones and the improvements we have made, but the Big East is one of the premier leagues in basketball. We are nowhere near being ready to compete at that level, nor is anyone in the Belt. Our hoops program would be much more competitive in CUSA or MWC. Obviously, if an AQ league is interested that would be beyond awesome, but that ain't gonna happen. As a matter of fact, I am with wardly on this. I think that the BE will fill their league with service academies, Temple, Villanova, UCF, and/or ECU. I suspect that any CUSA vacancies are to be filled by SBC eastern teams, such as MTSU and FIU. If we lose those two programs, I don't know who will replace them--probably more FCS move-ups, which does nothing for us at all. I am afraid that it will get worse for us before it gets better in all of this mess.

Green Mean · October 11, 2011

Hattiesburg is in the middle of nowhere. If the BE is going to extend into the south, it will be limited to campuses within an hour or so of a major airport.

What about the BE considering Memphis, MT, and LaLa?

Memphis from a basketball perspective would be more than ideal and in football they shouldn't be this bad and it seems that they have been much better in the past.

MT is one of those schools that geographically could fit in well as well as them being a pretty large public university.

And LaLa has good football attendance and are in the middle of a talented recruiting region for both football and even basketball.

I know that recruiting the SBC to go to the BE is more than a longshot but I don't think they would be bad options because of what they have to offer and what potential they have.

Mean Green 93-98 · October 11, 2011

What about the BE considering Memphis, MT, and LaLa?

Memphis has always been mentioned in the past as a leading candidate to go to the BE. I suppose the reason they're being mentioned in the second tier of targets now is because their basketball has slipped since the Coach Cal days, and their football has gone to awful.

MT would seem like a pretty good candidate, but I imagine the BE would prefer C-USA teams to Belt teams.

I don't see LaLa at this time--they're making some noise in football this year, and having good attendance, but neither of those things were true just a year ago. At last years homecoming, LaLa only had 15,641. That's pretty pathetic. And again, they're just too far from a major airport. That ain't happenin'.

wardly · October 11, 2011

Why doesn't UNT apply to the Big East ? Seems to me that with the addition of the western schools ( SMU, Houston, etc.) the Big East would divide into two divisions , East and West. We would have auto. BCS bids possible and games with natural in-state rivals . Not to mention national exposure. All this would lead to increased attendance. Certainly UNT BB is ready.

big difference in big east basketball and the belt. it would be simular to when we were in the valley and lucky to win a game. we would be d.a.l. in beast east.

forevereagle · October 11, 2011

I don't see LaLa at this time--they're making some noise in football this year, and having good attendance, but neither of those things were true just a year ago. At last years homecoming, LaLa only had 15,641. That's pretty pathetic. And again, they're just too far from a major airport. That ain't happenin'.

They also don't have much to offer in the TV market category. That is the major player in most of the moves now. It is all about having access to TVs for contract negotiations. If you don't have a market nearby, you'd better have a major following that will watch.

Rudy · October 12, 2011

We could finally put SMU talk behind us!

yep, They would be in an AQ conference and we wouldn't.

wardly · October 12, 2011

I think that even this scenario provides options for UNT, because we could be a potential candidate for either CUSA (if they can be convinced to reload in Texas) OR MWC (after losing Air Force). I know that MWC might seem far-fetched based on where we are at this time (attendance, etc.), but if I were Rick V., I would be keeping close contact with our old friends at Nevada and Boise St. in hopes of convincing them that UNT would be a great addition to the MWC.

if i had a choice,i would go to cusa even if smu and houston were not there. its a 12 hour drive to albq., and we won't have a 100 fans at ull this saturday which is 1/2 the distance. big west, wac, mwc, were and are in wrong direction. just an old man's opinion.

UNTflyer · October 12, 2011

Ok assuming SMU and Houston go the the BEAST, and we get an invite to CUSA. Does a CUSA sans Stangs and Coogs do us much better than the Belt currently does?

God, yes. Tulsa, UTEP, UAB, Memphis, Rice, Southern Miss, Tulane... a much better home schedule than University of Louisiana-Lafayette, or Florida International Airport.

PlummMeanGreen · October 12, 2011

The Big East will invite SMU, not UNT. We should focus on CUSA and MWC. We shoudl then start winning out one of those conferences and then hopefully down road receive some interest from an AQ conference.

:ph34r: :ph34r: :ph34r: :ph34r: Win? Like those 4 SBC championships in a row that gave us so much notoriety and interest today in re-alignment talk?

There are reasons some of us see the SBC as a continued albatross to our future. Of course, we have not helped the cause by losing too much and also being "a trade school for aspiring assistant coaches"' headquarters in decade's past as they became HFC's at North Texas knowing if they did well they could get the hell out Denton (not to be confused with San Antonio who in Year 1 has outdone * Denton-esque kind support a thousand fold & all that for a freakin' upstart program to boot (long sentence here) and......

.......if our "assistant to HFC's at UNT" Vince Lombardy's waiting to happen HFC's of the past did well here they could get the the hell out of Denton onto a Big Time job. That has been our past---

----Dan McCarney & Apogee Stadium gives us hope for a future but.................... PLEASE RE-ALIGNMENT GODS....PLEASE SMILE ON US FOR ONCE INSTEAD OF SMILING ON RE-CYCLED (once again) HAS-BEEN SCHOOLS FROM THE PAST TO FILL IN HOLES IN SOME OF THESE COOKIE CUTTER CONFERENCES. (Check on their resume's for a change as to what they really do not bring to the table).

SMU has had 3 (?) winning seasons since their Death Penalty and couldn't draw flies if they were a horse manure factory but what theyd did 60 years ago (with non-stop lies about their real attendance figures at Ford) still (amazingly) makes some of these "Big East type" conference leader's pants go crazy. I sometimes think a bunch of over-paid neanderthals are runnning some of these NCAA conference asylums quite frankly with greed as the main theme.

*Those from Denton who do support our program are the best of the best--they are in the minority but they are as good as they come as far as doing the civic thing by supporting the 4' th largest university in Texas that has more than supported Denton. The DRC's Donna Fielders editorial & her newfound joy of being a new Mean Green fan is what can really happen in Denton many times over---yes, even little ol "Little D." I just want to know why it takes so long for the locals to discover all this?

Long Story Short :angry: : I don't think we get any interest from any league this time around but......this musical chairs cake walk ain't near done yet even after this latest round. We just have to take care of our business in Denton like TCU did in Fort Worth (with a much larger budget and endowment to draw from, of course).

Sorry, I should have taken my meds before I posted this one.

Green Mean · October 12, 2011

When conferences consider schools I wonder if endowment and amount of money generated/donated makes a difference. While it is improving for us I am not sure we have the 'resources' financially to maybe compete with other schools. In other words I think Coach Mac also has to take the approach of being a Mack Brown type because not only he's fielded winning teams but he has funneled ungodly amounts of money to the athletics program and the school in general. Again it is just a random thought in my head that could be a factor when it comes to upgrading to a better conference.

greenminer · October 12, 2011

:ph34r: :ph34r: Win? Like those 4 SBC championships in a row that gave us so much notoriety and interest today in re-alignment talk?

Is that point valid? Was realignment even a thought back then?

I wonder if we were in year 3 of that run right now, if we would be getting much better consideration.

Edited October 12, 2011 by greenminer

PlummMeanGreen · October 12, 2011

Is that point valid? Was realignment even a thought back then?

I wonder if we were in year 3 of that run right now, if we would be getting much better consideration.

I think re-alignment has been a constant theme since the Southwest Conference broke apart and even based on the fast paced rise of going up the conference ladder success of South Florida who was an upstart and then just a few years later are suddenly in the Big East?

Also, what I was trying to say (w/o success) was that UNT's more recent albeit mid 2,000's run of success should be more revelant to conferences looking for replacement schools than SMU's 3 winning seasons over a longer span of years beginning in 1990 when they returned from the DP.

Yet SMU is back in a win cycle and we are not at present, but one must think that these conference leaders are looking at criteria than those who have just won for only the last 1 or 2 years, too. Just sayin...

GMG!

Edited October 12, 2011 by PlummMeanGreen

Mean Green 93-98 · October 12, 2011

Is that point valid? Was realignment even a thought back then?

Yes--it was right around that time that C-USA passed us over when we were trying so hard to get in.

I wonder if we were in year 3 of that run right now, if we would be getting much better consideration.

Absolutely.

Comet7745 · October 12, 2011

I think re-alignment has been a constant theme since the Southwest Conference broke apart and even based on the fast paced rise of going up the conference ladder success of South Florida who was an upstart and then just a few years later are suddenly in the Big East?

Also, what I was trying to say (w/o success) was that UNT's more recent albeit mid 2,000's run of success should be more revelant to conferences looking for replacement schools than SMU's 3 winning seasons over a longer span of years beginning in 1990 when they returned from the DP.

Yet SMU is back in a win cycle and we are not at present, but one must think that these conference leaders are looking at criteria than those who have just won for only the last 1 or 2 years, too. Just sayin...

GMG!

A lot of SMU's crap seasons have to do with the fact that school officials didn't give two ****s about the football program. They argued against it because of the scandals that were created - it was tarnishing the image of the university as a whole. That is why you saw terrible SMU football for two decades. It wasn't until President Turner, the Steve Orsini hire, the creation of the Circle of Champions, and the subsequent hiring of June Jones that you see the program pick up again. There is a huge commitment from school officials and rich alumni to get back to the school's winning ways. In just a few years we went from hardly sniffing a bowl to probably participating in three in a row after 4 years with June Jones (3 bowls after 4 years of actually caring is not bad in my opinion). In that short time period SMU has contended for a conference championship and has finally been getting top 25 votes again (after 25 years). This commitment towards football isn't going to dissipate into the ether, that's why SMU is getting AQ recognition. When the school flexes its muscle and utilizes its resources they can create a very appealing athletics department. So seriously, enough about that the whole "SMU was **** for the last 20 years." Of course we were, we didn't care, now we do and are beating ranked teams again. If you're going to fault us, fault us on sub-par attendance or exorbitant tuition rates or something tangible like that.

Edited October 12, 2011 by Comet7745

NT80 · October 12, 2011

They also don't have much to offer in the TV market category. That is the major player in most of the moves now. It is all about having access to TVs for contract negotiations. If you don't have a market nearby, you'd better have a major following that will watch.

Lack of TV market is the main reason East Carolina is not being seriously considered for the Big East. While they have home crowds of 30-40K they have no TV market to sell to ESPN. Marshall is similar.

Edited October 12, 2011 by NT80