Benson leaving? The plot thickens

Harry · February 16, 2012

As if UTSA’s future wasn’t muddled enough following the news of a Mountain West/Conference USA merger, the picture has become even cloudier with the apparent departure of Western Athletic Conference commissioner Karl Benson, who according to multiple reports will take over at the Sun Belt as soon as Thursday.

Benson, of course, declined comment. (Which is revealing in itself considering Benson has moved decisively to quash falsehoods in the past, such as last summer’s report that Utah State was leaving the WAC.)

I haven’t spoken to anybody about this yet, so I have no idea how UTSA’s brain trust is looking at this.

But I have to imagine that a commissioner with knowledge and esteem for their potential, moving into a position of power with a league further up the food chain, would be nothing but a positive for the Roadrunners.

The possibilities are wide-ranging. What if the Sun Belt needs to restock its membership following a raid from the new league, particularly if North Texas is one of the departures? What if Benson decides to be even more bold, and engineer some sort of merger with the WAC?

In those or any other cases involving the need for new members, if Benson picked UTSA once, wouldn’t he do it again?

While that’s all speculation, his move does raise enough interesting scenarios that it takes just a little bit of the urgency out of UTSA’s current status.

(It also makes you wonder who in the hell will be crazy enough to replace Benson as head of a league that has been teetering on the brink of disaster for the better part of two years.)

In regards to the new Mountain West/C-USA league, a recent report by ESPN’s impeccably plugged-in Andy Katz lists 10 specific expansion candidates (in no particular order): UTSA, NC-Charlotte, Florida International, North Texas, Louisiana Tech, Middle Tennessee State, Western Kentucky, Old Dominion, UMass and Temple.

Some of those names have been floating around for months (North Texas and Lousiana Tech, especially), while others (Old Dominion? Western Kentucky?) are relatively new.

read more: http://blog.mysanantonio.com/utsa/2012/02/benson-leaving-the-plot-thickens/

buff64 · February 16, 2012

Just a question ,didn't the Big East offer membership to Temple not long ago ?

PlummMeanGreen · February 16, 2012

Just a question ,didn't the Big East offer membership to Temple not long ago ?

It seems Temple U was actually kicked out of the Big East or were asked to leave, but maybe they were asked to come back? I guess I should Google it.

And left out WAC'ster not getting in the Sun Belt maybe? Well, some of us know that feeling when we were (for all practical purposes ) left out of D1-A in the early 80's because we (and many others) didn't meet their newly created criteria (which was our fault). And is it really true that we had a UNT AD back then who only had to send a fee to the NCAA offices in Shawnee Mission, KS, for us to have bought more time in D1-A to fix our criteria short-comings and it slipped his mind in sending that fee?

On Another Front: To 1 or 2 young guns who think we've only been seroius about being FBS for only the last 10 years, please get and read a copy of Dr. James Rogers "The History of North Texas" which will prove we have been serious about FBS (NCAA D1-A) much longer than 10 years.

GMG!