New C-USA Map

[Harry]

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[Harry]

Hated to see the defections but I still love the geographic look of this conference.

[Green Crazy]

still a step up from where we were.

[Harry]

Sure points to Georgia as the missing piece. Arkansas wouldn't hurt either.

[Hunter Green]

Don't even think it Harry! Arky St. and La La first. They've paid their dues.

[greenminer]

it looks like Texas is puking a buffalo.

[Harry]

Don't even think it Harry! Arky St. and La La first. They've paid their dues.

No I was just stating that based on the map. I'm good with Arky State and La La

[UNT Five&Dime]

it looks like Texas is puking a buffalo.

I see a Bison pooping Texas.

[Mean Green 93-98]

With UAB going west (I assume) that puts a tremendous gap between the F_U's and the rest of C-USA East.

[Mean Green 93-98]

I just talked to a coach from ASU yesterday . . . he seems pretty convinced that they and others are going to C-USA at some point. Looking at that map, Arkansas is a huge gap between the four Texas teams and LaTech, and all the schools up in the northeast part of the footprint.

Edited April 1, 2013 by Mean Green 93-98

[GrayEagle]

I just talked to a coach from ASU yesterday (new to the staff, previously coached on the Hogs staff) . . . he seems pretty convinced that they and others are going to C-USA at some point. Looking at that map, Arkansas is a huge gap between the four Texas teams and LaTech, and all the schools up in the northeast part of the footprint.

Then why not go ahead and do it now? Banowsky seems prone to overdo expansion and do it quickly. This would at least add members who have paid their dues.

I'm not that opposed to Western Kentucky except that we lose a western school and replace it with yet another eastern one. That, and Arky State and ULala have been members of Division 1A much longer; plus have better facilities and larger attendance. They just moved the West Division eastern terminus to Birmingham, Alabama.

[TheColonyEagle]

Ark State and ULaLa will be added as soon as Rice and UTEP are gone. I guarantee they are looking for the quickest exit they can find.

Then we'll have the band pretty much back together.

The irony is La Tech could have just joined the old Sunbelt which is now the new CUSA. They opposed it for all those years and will find themselves right in the middle of it.

We will have replaced road trips to Jonesboro, Murfreesboro, Lafayette, Bowling Green, Miami, Boca Raton and Monroe with road trips to Jonesboro, Murfreesboro, Lafayette, Bowling Green, Miami, Boca Raton and Rustin. And we do get to go to San Antonio every other year....so we have that going for us.

[DallasGreen]

The Mountain West does not want UTEP and who anywhere wants another private school??? Even the Big 12 would tell you they have two too many private schools. Don't know where you get your info, but I don't see either one of those moves on the horizon. I agree ASU & U-LaLa would be great additions now. I would not be oppossed to New Mexico State in the unlikely event that UTEP were to bolt. Personally I love going to LaLa, Boca, and Miami. Much better destinations than Troy and Jonesboro.

[Arkstfan]

MWC isn't adding UTEP unless the Pac-12 wakes up one day and wants UNLV and Boise State.

Everything done today is temporary if the Big 10 truly desires to go to 16 teams.

[forevereagle]

I would not be oppossed to New Mexico State in the unlikely event that UTEP were to bolt.

I like having UTEP in the conference, but if they leave, why would you voluntarily keep the geographic outlier and not find a school that is a better fit in the conference? I just don't see that NMSU adds something that ASU or ULL doesn't with a better geographic fit.

[untjim1995]

I think the MWC will come this way again--but they will wait to see if a western CUSA school in Texas will do well enough to consider coming back this way. Wouldn't surprise me to see the MWC ask UTEP and UTSA to join if the Roadrunners get off to a good start in CUSA in the first 3-5 years. They get two great TV markets, two bowl cities for tie-ins, and more Texas exposure for recruiting.

The Pac-12 will never take any of those schools from the MWC. They'll go after the Big XII when it falls apart down the road. They will love the additions of some combo of Texas, Tech, OU, OSU, KU, and KSU to join Colorado and Utah in a Pac 12 Eastern Division.

[GrayEagle]

The irony is La Tech could have just joined the old Sunbelt which is now the new CUSA. They opposed it for all those years and will find themselves right in the middle of it

There is one major difference. Nowhere do you see Monroe and LaTech in the same sentence.

[wardly]

I read where someone said something to the effect that if you have 16 teams you basically have 2 conferences under one banner.UTEP and RICE are not going anywhere,and I see no Georgia schools available.I doubt that neither So.Miss.nor UAB are excited about being in the Western Division of CUSA. If we are going to expand from 14 to 16 schools then ASU and ULL make sense.However,that would kill the Sun Belt,and I don't know if CUSA has the desire to do so. Granted we have taken 5 schools from them, but 2 more and CUSA becomes the Belt. Out of 14 programs now in CUSA, only 3 remain from original conference before Big Least sucked them dry. As it is,CUSA is CUSA in name only.We might as well take ASU,ULL,and New Mexico State and form our own 9 school conference and become a mini South West Conference.

[Harry]

I read where someone said something to the effect that if you have 16 teams you basically have 2 conferences under one banner.UTEP and RICE are not going anywhere,and I see no Georgia schools available.I doubt that neither So.Miss.nor UAB are excited about being in the Western Division of CUSA. If we are going to expand from 14 to 16 schools then ASU and ULL make sense.However,that would kill the Sun Belt,and I don't know if CUSA has the desire to do so. Granted we have taken 5 schools from them, but 2 more and CUSA becomes the Belt. Out of 14 programs now in CUSA, only 3 remain from original conference before Big Least sucked them dry. As it is,CUSA is CUSA in name only.We might as well take ASU,ULL,and New Mexico State and form our own 9 school conference and become a mini South West Conference.

I agree with much of what you say however, I don't see ULL and ASU moving to C-USA killing the Belt. There are plenty of FCS move ups looking to take their place and the new world Gang of 5 order allows them a platform for access to bowls and BCS money. As stated on here before, college football is one of the last bastions of live TV programming that advertising covets.

[Arkstfan]

There is one major difference. Nowhere do you see Monroe and LaTech in the same sentence.

I saw them mentioned in the same sentence in a lot of Independence Bowl articles about La.Tech having to sit at home because they wouldn't play Monroe.

[Arkstfan]

I read where someone said something to the effect that if you have 16 teams you basically have 2 conferences under one banner.UTEP and RICE are not going anywhere,and I see no Georgia schools available.I doubt that neither So.Miss.nor UAB are excited about being in the Western Division of CUSA. If we are going to expand from 14 to 16 schools then ASU and ULL make sense.However,that would kill the Sun Belt,and I don't know if CUSA has the desire to do so. Granted we have taken 5 schools from them, but 2 more and CUSA becomes the Belt. Out of 14 programs now in CUSA, only 3 remain from original conference before Big Least sucked them dry. As it is,CUSA is CUSA in name only.We might as well take ASU,ULL,and New Mexico State and form our own 9 school conference and become a mini South West Conference.

14 means that every playing date you have to have a cross-divisional game. It means that UNT might go into the last game of the season fighting for the division title against UTEP with UNT playing at La.Tech while UTEP is hosting Charlotte.

[Arkstfan]

No ULL and ASU to CUSA doesn't kill the Belt, it kills the barely interesting CUSA and any remaining enthusiasm most have for it.

Yeah conferences are much more interesting when you don't have to face schools that put 20,000+ plus in the stands and win 8 of the last 8 meetings.

[untjim1995]

No ULL and ASU to CUSA doesn't kill the Belt, it kills the barely interesting CUSA and any remaining enthusiasm most have for it.

Just curious--why do you feel this way? ULL and ASU are probably the two SBC schools that I felt like we should have felt comfortbale being aligned with. I don't mind WKU or MUTS, either. Not thrilled with the Florida Airport schools, but I get the market thing. But we got rid of ULM, Troy, and South Alabama and got La Tech, Southern Miss, and UAB in aour conference. I'd make that trade every day. I just think ULL and Arky State are getting screwed in this deal. The only current CUSA school that I could see moving out is UTEP and I don't see that happening anytime soon. Rice isn't going anywhere. Neither are USM, UAB or Marshall. The SBC jumpers and FCS move-ups are here for a while. I just don't see an opening for either of them anytime soon, which is too bad. I'd much rather have ULL and Arky State than Charlotte or ODU.

[Arkstfan]

It kills the enthusiasm for CUSA because it is bringing more of the teams we wanted to get away from into the conference we fled to. The complaints of fans not coming because we play schools they have never heard of doesn't change. I hate the FAU/FIU additions too, but at least they are in another division of the conference and bring large markets. ASU and ULL would be in our division and don't bring the markets. I don't love the start-up programs out East either, but they seem to have good fan support and are again in the other division. MUTS and Wky were the two best athletic programs in the Belt, so I don't have as much of a problem with them moving up. ULL and ASU don't have that.

As it stands now, we get pretty well-known programs in the West. If we added ASU and ULL, USM would stay East. Given that they are arguably the most-recognized program remaining in CUSA, I want to keep them West.

It is nothing personal against those two programs. Yes, Arkiefan I know you guys kick our butts in FB and such. Realignment doesn't seem to be too much about that though. Tulane to the BE proves that.

First. Your geography is off. If CUSA goes 16 with ASU and ULL the only way USM goes to the east is if they go east and WKU or MTSU, or UAB comes west.

Second. Go look at the USM roster. One Texan, a couple Cali kids, decent group of Louisiana kids, lot of Mississippi, but far more Alabama and Florida kids than Texas, California, and Louisiana combined. You might like having USM west, that doesn't mean it will be healthy for USM or that USM can restore its program cut off from its recruiting base.

Third. I've been hanging out here since UNT was in the Big West. Over the years I saw plenty of FIU and FAU don't belong. Lots of questioning how Troy and ULM do business. But Arkansas State and Louisiana are the sorts of programs UNT wants away from? That's straight from 1984 declaring that the enemy Eurasia has always been the ally and ally Eastasia has always been the enemy.

It reminds me of a fan from another school who said Arkansas State wasn't good enough academically to be in the same conference as his juggernaunt academic ivy tower. Of course a high school grad meeting the minimum standards for unconditional admission at his junior Ivy League school wouldn't even be eligible for admission at a hick school like Arkansas State for having too low of a GPA or test scores.

Finally I think it would be hilarious if it weren't so sad to see UNT fans talking about Karl Benson. Benson was hired because Lane Rawlins and Gary Ransdell were the leaders of the pack pushing Karl Benson over Tom Burnett.

At least you had no hand in the NMSU debacle. We were all set to admit them as a full member until Ransdell rallied the eastern schools to make NMSU football only. That's been the real fun. We get some turds dropped on us then the people who dealt them walk away defending the move by complaining the place smells like manure.

[untjim1995]

It kills the enthusiasm for CUSA because it is bringing more of the teams we wanted to get away from into the conference we fled to. The complaints of fans not coming because we play schools they have never heard of doesn't change. I hate the FAU/FIU additions too, but at least they are in another division of the conference and bring large markets. ASU and ULL would be in our division and don't bring the markets. I don't love the start-up programs out East either, but they seem to have good fan support and are again in the other division. MUTS and Wky were the two best athletic programs in the Belt, so I don't have as much of a problem with them moving up. ULL and ASU don't have that.

As it stands now, we get pretty well-known programs in the West. If we added ASU and ULL, USM would stay East. Given that they are arguably the most-recognized program remaining in CUSA, I want to keep them West.

It is nothing personal against those two programs. Yes, Arkiefan I know you guys kick our butts in FB and such. Realignment doesn't seem to be too much about that though. Tulane to the BE proves that.

I'd love to play in a league with any of the teams that have left CUSA to go the America 12, especially those in Texas, OK, LA, and Florida. But at UNT, as we all know too well, there's not much you can do when the other schools that had options and were previously in CUSA literally want nothing to do with us as a conference mate. At that point, you just have to try and build a coalition of teams that have actually done something in the money sports. I don't care about the Bubas Cup--I care about the UNTJIM CUP: how have you done in football and mens hoops, with a small amount of emphasis on women's hoops. Arky State and ULL have both done well in a few of those sports.