Conference USA responded as well as it could have

Harry · November 30, 2012

Losing East Carolina, which along with Tulane announced earlier this week that it was joining the Big East, was a huge blow to Conference USA.

There’s no way to sugarcoat that news, and frankly, most C-USA officials didn’t try.

The Pirates have the most rabid football following in the league, who loyally fill Dowdy-Ficklen Stadium’s 50,000 seats. The Pirates have a long tradition of winning. And for Old Dominion, especially, it was a tough loss.

ECU is the closest Football Bowl Subdivision team to Norfolk. Officials envisioned a spirited rivalry between the two schools when the Monarchs begin playing C-USA football in 2014.

Yet C-USA officials reacted quickly, adding Middle Tennessee State and Florida Atlantic on Wednesday, and in the process, improved the league's television profile.

The league added two pretty good football programs. Middle Tennessee has the Sun Belt’s best team. The Blue Raiders have won the Sun Belt Conference all-sports trophy eight times and their football team, 8-3 entering its regular-season finale on Saturday, upset Georgia Tech in Atlanta.

Florida Atlantic, also from the Sun Belt, opened a breathtakingly beautiful $70 million, 30,000-seat stadium on the shores of the Atlantic Ocean in 2011 and although 3-8 this season, has won two bowl games.

Neither has the football resume of ECU, but both programs will be stronger than Tulane, a C-USA bottom feeder whose games at the Louisiana Superdome draw embarrassingly small crowds.

Big East officials touted the New Orleans media market when they welcomed the Green Wave. But having lived in New Orleans as a child, and having visited there a dozen times since, I can tell you that Tulane is but a footnote in New Orleans market. The Saints and Hornets and LSU football are all the rage in the Big Easy.

Read more: http://hamptonroads.com/2012/11/conference-usa-responded-well-it-could-have

wardly · November 30, 2012

Harry, I don't know what you were smoking in reference to FAU's new $70 million stadium as breathtakingly beautiful, but I gotta get me some of that. I attended the FAU/UNT game this season along with about 13,000 fans. The seats are all metal bleachers,some with chairbacks,most without. Our $70 million statium is breathtakingly beautiful. Theirs is a giant erector set, just like FIU's. Having said that,stomping your feet on metal floors sure makes a lot of noise and their new statium is a great improvement over their previou digs, which was an old soccer stadium that seated 10,000 max.I think long term both programs will do well in CUSA.

All About UNT · November 30, 2012

Harry, I don't know what you were smoking in reference to FAU's new $70 million stadium as breathtakingly beautiful, but I gotta get me some of that. I attended the FAU/UNT game this season along with about 13,000 fans. The seats are all metal bleachers,some with chairbacks,most without. Our $70 million statium is breathtakingly beautiful. Theirs is a giant erector set, just like FIU's. Having said that,stomping your feet on metal floors sure makes a lot of noise and their new statium is a great improvement over their previou digs, which was an old soccer stadium that seated 10,000 max.I think long term both programs will do well in CUSA.

that wasn't Harry that stated that... this is a clip from an article.

shaft · November 30, 2012

I like how the author spins CUSA East being devoid of competitive programs is a good thing because it makes it easier for ODU.

VideoEagle · November 30, 2012

I like how the author spins CUSA East being devoid of competitive programs is a good thing because it makes it easier for ODU.

Bet you didn't realize Rice was one of CUSAs strongest programs, either. I certainly didn't.

eulessismore · November 30, 2012

Bet you didn't realize Rice was one of CUSAs strongest programs, either. I certainly didn't.

Well, they've looked pretty strong when they played us in recent years. Bailiff, their HC, seems like a good one.

Edited November 30, 2012 by eulessismore

GrandGreen · November 30, 2012

I don't understand the inflatuation with Florida. Neither of the new CUSA schools have any following, they actually make NT look good.

I would have chosen ULL or WKU which are much more developed overall athletic programs and offer descent markets and frankly whould have about killed the Belt.

NT has a very narrow thread of separation now, but I have always thought the best solution would have been a CUSA/Belt spit with one taking the Western and the other the Eastern teams. I wouldn't want ULM or Troy in anything but a more regional arrangement makes sense.

NM Green · November 30, 2012

Market market market. The Miami Boca market is rich with talent. THey have excellent potential and a guaranteed trip to South Florida every year is a great thing for traveling fans.

GMG

UNT 90 Grad · November 30, 2012

that wasn't Harry that stated that... this is a clip from an article.

That's thrown me off many times before as well. I'll be reading through a Harry post thinking it is from him until you get to the end and see the link. It'd be nice if these were put in quote boxes.

MeanGreenGlory · November 30, 2012

Can CUSA raise the exit fee even more to discourage any other teams from leaving?

MeanGreenTexan · November 30, 2012

Can CUSA raise the exit fee even more to discourage any other teams from leaving?

Well, in doing that, it makes it more difficult for UNT to leave as well... in case MWC comes calling multiple teams eastward.

Eagle1855 · November 30, 2012

Maybe I'm alone, but I don't really care about our conference anymore. I used to care. I really did. I used to think it mattered. Realignment and its tradition-and-geography-be-damned money grab has broken me. Now I'm reading articles linked to Texas Monthly about the importance of the UTSA and Texas State rivalry- two teams that are in their infancy at this level (one, at ANY level).

I just want to win. Just fill up that fancy new bad-ass stadium and watch some good football. The rest? It's whatever.

glick1980 · November 30, 2012

Market market market. The Miami Boca market is rich with talent. THey have excellent potential and a guaranteed trip to South Florida every year is a great thing for traveling fans.

GMG

Marshall and some of the other eastern schools also recruit Florida heavily.

KRAM1 · November 30, 2012

Well I'm just mad they didn't go get Southern Cal, OSU, OU and Notre dame for CUSA! Come on ...Middle and FAU, really? Let's go after the big boys...shoot big...go get those 5 stars that are just begging to come to CUSA! Really what's wrong with all these AD's...let's fire them all!!! Now! No justice...no peace...I want Southern cal, OU and OSU or I am never going to give another dime to Gay-Lesbian Coalition! Let's get real here folks...AD's go do your job...you are just sitting in your collective ivory towers letting the inmates run the asylum. Where are the collective PR machines when you need them? Doesn't CUSA have any SID's? They are not doing their jobs!!! Fire them...fire them all.....bring me Southern cal or bring me heads on a platter!

Hey...it's Friday and it's about 4PM....having some fun, yes? :hair: :judge:

PlummMeanGreen · December 1, 2012

Maybe I'm alone, but I don't really care about our conference anymore. I used to care. I really did. I used to think it mattered. Realignment and its tradition-and-geography-be-damned money grab has broken me. Now I'm reading articles linked to Texas Monthly about the importance of the UTSA and Texas State rivalry- two teams that are in their infancy at this level (one, at ANY level).

I just want to win. Just fill up that fancy new bad-ass stadium and watch some good football. The rest? It's whatever.

I love that Oiler derrick, Eagle1855. I digress (again) but I once watched Billy Cannon, George Blanda, Don Floyd (ex TCU great), Charlie Tolar, Charlie Hennigan...enuf..... all wearing that helmet in old Robertson (then known as Jeppessen) Stadium. Wonder when UH has their implosion ceremony of that stadium if they haven't already?

2 things to build on in CUSA if we don't go get lucky like we did in CUSA only because of our location (hardly our athletic records of the last 10 years) and when it was a desired conference to be in and our hopefully getting invited to MWC because of (once again) our locatiom. Lest all have already forgotten a TCU football team went to a Rose Bowl as a full fledged member of the MWC).

(1) Apogee Stadium: The best of all the new recently built stadiums of the SBC and CUSA from all accounts. Thanks UNT students whose referendum finally passed after a 2'nd attempt, then its passage allowing Apogee to be financed. Also...............thanks HKS architect firm and the BOR's who approved them to design it and not make it another erector set type of stadium which seems popular in Florida.

(2). Rice U: The Owls athletic program gives us a trip to Houston every other year in football and basketball which we've never had such a luxury to the Bayou City on a regular basis. Not even in the old Mo' Valley days did we have that since UH was leaving that league as we were joining it.

Still, this re-alignment business ain't over with and may never be over with as all the former non-AQ conferences continue to re-arrange the deck chairs according to which schools they think they belong with the most no matter if some of those schools have a football fan base of about 500 like 2 private universities now in the Big East. I guess the crumbs left behind by the NCAA power-brokers even have different levels of quality and what makes most of us want better crumbs. Why not since upward mobility has been a definite trait of most all the taxpayers of this country since its very beginnings.

GMG!

Edited December 1, 2012 by PlummMeanGreen

wardly · December 1, 2012

Harry, my bad. Ward

Proud North Texan · December 1, 2012

Guys, be realistic, this new C-USA is waaaaaaaaaaaaaaay better then the SBC!! even with new adding!!

NT91 · December 1, 2012

I want to get away from the SBC teams. We must win to do that.

UNT 90 Grad · December 1, 2012

Guys, be realistic, this new C-USA is waaaaaaaaaaaaaaay better then the SBC!! even with new adding!!

Agreed. MTSU, FIU, and FAU all won't even be in our division, right? I know we'll still play them periodically, but at least our division hasn't started morphing into the Sun Belt (knock on wood). Nothing against our Sun Belt bretheren, but we're geared up for change.

island eagle · December 1, 2012

Agreed. MTSU, FIU, and FAU all won't even be in our division, right? I know we'll still play them periodically, but at least our division hasn't started morphing into the Sun Belt (knock on wood). Nothing against our Sun Belt bretheren, but we're geared up for change.

Meanwhile, the Big East continues to morph into the CUSA. If and when the basketball schools and more established programs abandon ship, the conference will be in trouble with its only solution to try to pull in teams from so-called "lesser" conferences. It is looking less and less like a step up for UH and SMU and more like an increasingly nonviable marriage of convenience that isn't working for anyone.