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I really can’t fault them too much. I mean getting a speculative sports story wrong is understandable in today’s political climate with our leaders courting conspiracy theory nuts into the main stream using them to get votes. But is also a very sad commentary on the state of College Sports when South Florida moving to the Pacific Coast Conference for money at the expense of everything else make sense based on similar recent conference re-alignment.

For sure, but there are still too many people who fall for any realignment buzz they hear on Twitter just because the messenger paid for a check mark.

Althetic ?

Disclosure: I know it's hard to find any information on Twitter right now that isn't just pure speculation. But admittedly, speculating is fun. I have long been in the boat to move to a rebuilt Pac-12 as long as there were enough teams to have several travel partners this far east. But there's been some rumblings that we aren't pursuing moving conferences again. I assume our exit fee may not be paid for, but also rising travel costs are being considered. The strong rumors now are Memphis, Tulane, and a combination of UTSA/UNLV/USF. While losing our next biggest rival after SMU, leaving Rice as our next closest regional rivalry, would suck, there should also be considerations about basketball taken into account for how the AAC can keep up. If the PAC gets at least Memphis and Tulane, I assume UNLV (and there's even talks of Gonzaga/St. Mary's for basketball), the AAC needs to not only go after Air Force, but work on doing its part in annihilating the MWC. We need to go after Nevada, Utah State, and New Mexico - three NCAAT teams in 2024. (If you really want to irk some Mempiss fans on Twitter, you could even argue these moves would replace the "dead weight" in basketball.) We are in our greatest period of sustained success in men's basketball and we need to reward our coaches and players - we should be in a conference where 22/23 regular season + conference tourney wins gets us into the NCAAT even if we don't win the conference tournament.

The AAC didn't have a choice, ESPN arranged the terms to avoid changing the media deal. The AAC could have taken less teams, but everyone would have gotten a haircut, and judging by the teams they lost it could have been significant. Our deal at least ramps up to match the legacy teams as time goes on.