(12-20-2014 02:34 PM)HamiltonJames Wrote:  

(12-20-2014 12:12 PM)USM@FTL Wrote:  Is anyone from the AAC interested? This is the REALLY intriguing question of the affair. Houston was thrown about on this board as seemingly wild speculation, but I have had some time to think about it. It's viable, but improbable. UTSA, UTEP, UNT, and Rice would bring more fans EACH than Tulsa, SMU, Tulane, and Memphis COMBINED. Ok, I pulled that out of my butt, but that's mostly true. C-USA has some appeal.

Not intriguing at all. The answer is no. Worrying about visiting fans in any serious matter is the concern of the sunbelt profile school.
You're making the same mistake your president did 3 years ago. USM, at its essence, is a sunbelt school. But, it benefited from 30 years of association with academic schools, and urban high research schools in bigger markets. They were the different school in the Metro/C-USA. And they distinguished themselves from many smaller publics in the south.
But they (and others) threw it all way with an ill-fated vote 3 years ago by rejecting measured expansion (actually replacement), and the MWC alliance. Now they are indistinguishable from the rest.
USM (and the rest of the league) should start the first step toward creating its own identity by holding this league at 13.

So the bottom half of the AAC is something to be proud of? We have a winning record against most of them and I know USM does by a large amount.

(12-20-2014 02:13 PM)Kittonhead Wrote:  Interesting about the income distribution issue in the MWC.

The AAC could offer both Colorado St and AFA to give AFA confidence they'll have rivals in a future AAC alignment.

Or C-USA could offer New Mexico, Air Force and Colorado State. Put them with the four Texas schools and Louisiana Tech in the West. That's solid.

There is no financial incentive to go back to 14 or even 16.

However, 13 is absolutely horrible for scheduling both football and basketball. Convenience will probably trump balance sheets again.

We will add someone for that reason. Unless there is a high probability they know a current school will leave. But I'm absolutely blown away that it appears no one within C-USA seemed to be aware of the situation at UAB.

It seems like UAB fans have known about this for a while and have had this looming over them for a couple of years yet BB and company was caught off guard. Had they had a sense of what might be developing then Western (and I only use them cause they were the last ones to come in) should have been held as a future option rather than making that invite so quickly. Had we done that we would have been looking at 12 and a better AAV for each school And then we could have gone to the networks to see if there was any incentive to add additional schools.

So, I doubt C-USA will make a proactive decision here (as opposed to reactive=replace cause one was lost), but it would behoove the league to hold tight for at least six more months and see if any other shoes drop. That would be a proactive decision...do nothing for now.

The only reason I see to add a team now is if we think future moves are going to take us down to 11...and the team we want to add for 12 to keep our champ game is a FCS team that has to go through the transitional period.

I say add ULL so we can have our bball Tourny in New Orleans.

(12-20-2014 03:00 PM)Thegoldstandard Wrote:  You may be a little off base on how our administration voted. Our AD was publicly for the merger. Perhaps you confused us with east carolina who cried from day one.

He was for it - up until the point he voted against it. Same with most C-USA presidents.
Point made on ECU - incredible how so many teams were worried/influenced by what they wanted. But they were. Most of the presidents caved getting all jazzed up about travel costs and a team leaving...creating acrimony.
Banowsky's opposition to the merger didn't help either.

I'm for retraction to 12.

(12-20-2014 05:28 PM)lmckay92 Wrote:  I'm for retraction to 12.

Excellent Idea at least until expansion is shown to be an enhancement of the TV PACKAGE or INCREASES the per school PAYDAYS!

(12-20-2014 05:28 PM)lmckay92 Wrote:  I'm for retraction to 12.

Thats all fine and good but who do you tell to shove off.

(12-20-2014 12:12 PM)USM@FTL Wrote:  UTSA, UTEP, UNT, and Rice would bring more fans EACH than Tulsa, SMU, Tulane, and Memphis COMBINED. Ok, I pulled that out of my butt, but that's mostly true. C-USA has some appeal.

Memphis drew 33,000, Tulane 25,000, SMU 21,000, and Tulsa 20,000 this season.

Why would NIU, Ohio, Toledo, or anyone else leave MAC. More specifically, why would they pay the heavy EXIT and ENTRANCE fees for a lateral move? They wouldn't.

I'm indifferent on the 12/13/14. I don't want MTSU and WKU split-up and I would prefer we both stay in the east. Those are my two most important things.

If I had to think about another school to add, I think ULL makes the most sense.

(12-20-2014 06:49 PM)galojah Wrote:  Why would NIU, Ohio, Toledo, or anyone else leave MAC. More specifically, why would they pay the heavy EXIT and ENTRANCE fees for a lateral move? They wouldn't.

I'm indifferent on the 12/13/14. I don't want MTSU and WKU split-up and I would prefer we both stay in the east. Those are my two most important things.

If I had to think about another school to add, I think ULL makes the most sense.

We don't want ULL.
UTEP doesn't want NM ST
USM doesn't want USA.

In fact I really hate it when former Belt schools incessantly bring them up in expansion threads. Having them in CUSA would be a detriment to our program. Why can't you guys understand that.

Fair enough Kingkong. I just don't see any other alternatives that are realistic. ULL has good football, usually good basketball, great baseball and fits the western geographical need that we seem to need.


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(12-20-2014 07:42 PM)galojah Wrote:  Fair enough Kingkong. I just don't see any other alternatives that are realistic. ULL has good football, usually good basketball, great baseball and fits the western geographical need that we seem to need.


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ARK State, Georgia Southern both make strong arguments. Even if they moved one of WKU and MTSU, I'm almost positive there would be a permanent cross over game as a consolation. The problem is that the West has fewer viable options than the East. I would venture to say that a compromise candidate like GA Southern or GA State would fill the void. It may end up being crazy like the AAC which has Navy in the west or the SEC that has Missouri in the East. MAYBE both WKU and MTSU move west and USM goes east.

(12-20-2014 06:47 PM)cotton1991 Wrote:  

(12-20-2014 12:12 PM)USM@FTL Wrote:  UTSA, UTEP, UNT, and Rice would bring more fans EACH than Tulsa, SMU, Tulane, and Memphis COMBINED. Ok, I pulled that out of my butt, but that's mostly true. C-USA has some appeal.

Memphis drew 33,000, Tulane 25,000, SMU 21,000, and Tulsa 20,000 this season.

I am sure those are accurate numbers - especially the last 3

(12-20-2014 12:55 PM)David Krysakowski Wrote:  How about adding Texas State?

Eastern Division
Charlotte
Florida Atlantic
Florida International
Marshall
Middle Tennessee
Old Dominion
Western Kentucky

Western Division
Louisiana Tech
North Texas
Rice
Southern Mississippi
Texas-El Paso (UTEP)
Texas-San Antonio
Texas State

No. C-USA doesn't need more than four Texas teams. We already have representation in the Houston, Dallas, San Antonio, and El Paso. I don't believe the conference needs a team in the San Marcos market too.

If we can't attract NIU from the MAC, or a quality program from the MWC (New Mexico, Air Force, Colorado St.) or AAC (???), than we need to just stay at 13. The more Sun Belt programs we add the more like the Sun Belt we become. That should not be our goal.

(12-20-2014 06:49 PM)galojah Wrote:  Why would NIU, Ohio, Toledo, or anyone else leave MAC. More specifically, why would they pay the heavy EXIT and ENTRANCE fees for a lateral move? They wouldn't.

I'm indifferent on the 12/13/14. I don't want MTSU and WKU split-up and I would prefer we both stay in the east. Those are my two most important things.

If I had to think about another school to add, I think ULL makes the most sense.

Story out of NIU is they are not happy with their situation with the MAC at all. They are sort of like Arkansas State in that I don't think they'll openly push unless the AAC opens up, but that doesn't mean they are happy and content with their current league.

The one thing NIU has in the MAC, is they might stand a far greater chance of getting the G5 Access Bid in their current league than they would moving to CUSA simply because the MAC is not top heavy at all. They also don't have the prisoners dilemma that a lot of SBC schools face because the number of MAC schools that would leave for CUSA are probably able to be counted on one hand.

I don't see Arkansas State getting into the AAC. They are all about Markets.

(12-20-2014 08:23 PM)Kingkong13 Wrote:  I don't see Arkansas State getting into the AAC. They are all about Markets.

Markets aside, we're never getting into the AAC as long as the Memphis High is in it.

Our administration is an odd duck though. When we talk to fans and everything else, we make a very big deal about this whole peer school concept...and amazingly our peer schools represent the entire AAC. Our AD has been openly critical of CUSA, I think if offered, we would accept because we'd hate the idea of the SBC leaving around us, but he'd have to completely do a 180 on his opinion of the league if it were to happen.

Fan wise, there's little pressure. We had multiple fans at the basketball game today that had never heard of Marshall before, and assumed they were from Texas. There's just that little knowledge of non SEC and Sun Belt teams in this state.

I would rather not add. But if we have to add a western team, ULL is absolutely unacceptable to Tech. Adding a new team right in the middle of our recruiting territory would be a huge hit. Every time I read a CUSA member mention adding them it bumps my blood pressure up.

Arkansas State is close to the Memphis market and they have had some good runs on football.