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What if Pacific, Cal St Fullerton, and Long Beach St had not dropped football?
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Fighting Muskie Offline
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What if Pacific, Cal St Fullerton, and Long Beach St had not dropped football?
I've always been a fan of hypotheticals so here's one for you:

In the early 90's, rather than dropping football Pacific, Cal St Fullerton, and Long Beach St all keep their programs active.

With only 2 non-football members in UCSB and UC Irvine the conference never loses its football focus.

The loss of UNLV and San Jose St in '96 is softened by the additions on Idaho, Boise St, and UNT but with with 9 football members (Pac, LB St, Fullerton, Nevada, Utah St, NMSU, & the 3 newcomers) there's no need to bring in LA Tech, ULL, Ark St, and NIU in as affiliates.

Other California football schools keep their eyes on the prize-a spot in the California centric Big West FCS football. Cal St Northridge doesn't shutter football but stays the ship in the Big Sky for a few more years until the departures of Nevada and Boise St in 2000 and 2001 free up spots for Sacramento St and Cal St Northridge in the Big West.

Eventually losses of UNT to the Sunbelt (NMSU stays put for now) and then the defections of Utah St, Idaho, and NMSU to the WAC in 2005 create room for UC Davis and Cal Poly.

The further we go out the harder it gets to predict what alignment changes take place put suffice it to say I think the Big West enters the 2010-2013 realignment cycle with:

Pacific
UC Davis
Sacramento St
Cal Poly
Cal St Northridge
Cal St Fullerton
Long Beach St

And non-football UC Irvine, UCSB, and UC Riverside

and possibly a few other football schools they picked off the Big Sky.

After the 2010-2013 cycle I think most if not all of those schools wind up either under the Big West or WAC banner with NMSU and Idaho.
(This post was last modified: 02-16-2018 11:13 AM by Fighting Muskie.)
02-16-2018 09:29 AM
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BePcr07 Offline
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Post: #2
RE: What if Pacific, Cal St Fullerton, and Long Beach St had not dropped football?
Strictly looking at Western-focused conferences and schools...

The last season for Long Beach St was 1991, Cal St Fullerton played their last season in 1992, and Pacific dropped football in 1995.

In 1991 the Big West was Fresno St, San Jose St, Pacific, Long Beach St, Cal St Fullerton, UNLV, Utah St, and New Mexico St. The WAC was BYU, San Diego St, Air Force, Utah, Hawaii, Wyoming, UTEP, Colorado St, and New Mexico.

In 1992, Nevada joined the Big West from I-AA and Fresno St moved to the WAC. Arkansas St, Louisiana Tech, Northern Illinois, and UL Lafayette never get invites the following season.

In 1996, Boise St and Idaho join the Big West from I-AA. Without those 3 California schools dropping football, North Texas never gets an invite to join the Big West. San Jose St and UNLV moved to the WAC which now boasted 16 schools (including Rice, SMU, TCU, and Tulsa.)

In 1999, the Mountain West was created. These would be the Western-based conferences in football excluding the PAC. Each of the 3 conferences have 8 schools.

Big West: Long Beach St, Cal State Fullerton, Pacific, Idaho, Boise St, Nevada, Utah St, New Mexico St
WAC: Hawaii, TCU, Fresno St, Rice, SMU, UTEP, San Jose St, Tulsa
MWC: Utah, BYU, Colorado St, Air Force, Wyoming, New Mexico, San Diego St, UNLV

In 2000, Nevada leaves the Big West for the WAC.

In 2001, TCU joins CUSA from the WAC. The Big West doesn't dissolve football so Boise St, Idaho, New Mexico St, and Utah St remain.

In 2005, Rice, SMU, Tulsa, and UTEP join CUSA from the WAC. TCU joins the MWC from CUSA. This drops the WAC down to 4 schools (Hawaii, Fresno St, San Jose St, Nevada). The WAC disappears and its 4 schools join the Big West. Now we have:

Big West: Hawaii, Fresno St, San Jose St, Long Beach St, Cal St Fullerton, Pacific, Nevada, Idaho, Boise St, Utah St, New Mexico St
MWC: TCU, Utah, BYU, New Mexico, Colorado St, Air Force, Wyoming, UNLV, San Diego St

In 2011, Utah joins the PAC and BYU goes independent. Boise St joins the MWC from the Big West.

In 2012, TCU joins the XII. The MWC adds Fresno St, Hawaii, and Nevada from the Big West. The Big West invites FCS schools Texas St and UTSA.

Big West: San Jose St, Long Beach St, Cal St Fullerton, Pacific, Idaho, Utah St, New Mexico St, Texas St, UTSA
MWC: Hawaii, San Diego St, Fresno St, Nevada, UNLV, Boise St, Wyoming, Colorado St, Air Force, New Mexico

This is where I see the conferences holding except if UTSA accepts their CUSA invite.
02-16-2018 10:45 AM
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Fighting Muskie Offline
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RE: What if Pacific, Cal St Fullerton, and Long Beach St had not dropped football?
BePcr07--

I think you got mixed up in '05. The WAC had 6 schools, not 4. Boise had departed the Big West a few years prior so they were there. The other school was LA Tech, which joined the WAC in 2001 with Boise, at the request of the central time zone teams who left for C-USA.

I think those 6 still have enough pull to deprive the Big West of NMSU, Idaho, and Utah St.

My guess is that in 00 or 01 is when Sacramento St, Cal St Northridge and possibly Cal Poly and UC Davis come on board to the Big West. If not then, in 05.

I guess the Big West might have been able to turn 5 of the 6 WAC schools to make one big conference but usually the better conference pulls members up rather than schools dropping down to a less prestigious one.
(This post was last modified: 02-16-2018 11:30 AM by Fighting Muskie.)
02-16-2018 11:27 AM
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Wedge Offline
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Post: #4
RE: What if Pacific, Cal St Fullerton, and Long Beach St had not dropped football?
Support for football at those schools was thin, in terms of both donations and ticket sales, with combined revenue from ticket sales + donations at the level of many D-I schools that don't have a varsity football team and thus have much lower annual expenses for athletics.

Yes, the support is just as thin at several schools that still have FBS football -- there is at least one school that is trying to run an entire athletic department including FBS football with combined ticket sales + donations of less than $1 million/year -- but that doesn't mean Fullerton, Long Beach, and Pacific made the wrong decision.

In other words, this thread is basically, "What if it didn't cost anything to run a college athletic department at any level with as many sports as you want? What would college sports look like then?"

07-coffee3
(This post was last modified: 02-16-2018 01:25 PM by Wedge.)
02-16-2018 12:09 PM
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The Cutter of Bish Offline
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Post: #5
RE: What if Pacific, Cal St Fullerton, and Long Beach St had not dropped football?
Yeah, imagine the saturation of programs in the west were BYU to have departed MWC after those guys lost UU and TCU...WAC still had the stuff there to survive, I suspect, because WAC would probably be Big West with football.

The kneejerk thing MWC did after BYU tried to sabotage the MWC with WAC 1-1 arrangements, gobbling all of the WAC schools it did, was needless for them. It wouldn't have been done if there were more programs to grab.

Hard to imagine SJSU getting tapped ahead of Fullerton or LBSU, too, if either program had a better pulse in the sport than SJSU. You'd still have Idaho and NMSU hanging around with those five. USU's probably there. Maybe someone from Texas slides in, or LaTech stays put. Sure, MWC still takes a part of the conference...BYU still has a comparable conference to park its ollies.
02-16-2018 12:34 PM
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chargeradio Offline
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Post: #6
RE: What if Pacific, Cal St Fullerton, and Long Beach St had not dropped football?
I think Utah State still makes a 12-team MWC as Utah is too important to leave out of the conference footprint, especially when it comes to TV contracts.

I imagine the WAC would have been down to the folllowing:

Idaho
New Mexico State
Pacific
2 of Long Beach/Fullerton/San Jose State

I don’t know if three or more Big Sky schools jump up, but it certainly would be easier to justify for Montana and Montana State.
02-16-2018 12:57 PM
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BePcr07 Offline
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Post: #7
RE: What if Pacific, Cal St Fullerton, and Long Beach St had not dropped football?
(02-16-2018 11:27 AM)Fighting Muskie Wrote:  BePcr07--

I think you got mixed up in '05. The WAC had 6 schools, not 4. Boise had departed the Big West a few years prior so they were there. The other school was LA Tech, which joined the WAC in 2001 with Boise, at the request of the central time zone teams who left for C-USA.

I think those 6 still have enough pull to deprive the Big West of NMSU, Idaho, and Utah St.

My guess is that in 00 or 01 is when Sacramento St, Cal St Northridge and possibly Cal Poly and UC Davis come on board to the Big West. If not then, in 05.

I guess the Big West might have been able to turn 5 of the 6 WAC schools to make one big conference but usually the better conference pulls members up rather than schools dropping down to a less prestigious one.

In my timeline I state that I don’t believe Louisiana Tech it any of the outliers get invited.
02-16-2018 01:13 PM
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Fighting Muskie Offline
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RE: What if Pacific, Cal St Fullerton, and Long Beach St had not dropped football?
(02-16-2018 01:13 PM)BePcr07 Wrote:  
(02-16-2018 11:27 AM)Fighting Muskie Wrote:  BePcr07--

I think you got mixed up in '05. The WAC had 6 schools, not 4. Boise had departed the Big West a few years prior so they were there. The other school was LA Tech, which joined the WAC in 2001 with Boise, at the request of the central time zone teams who left for C-USA.

I think those 6 still have enough pull to deprive the Big West of NMSU, Idaho, and Utah St.

My guess is that in 00 or 01 is when Sacramento St, Cal St Northridge and possibly Cal Poly and UC Davis come on board to the Big West. If not then, in 05.

I guess the Big West might have been able to turn 5 of the 6 WAC schools to make one big conference but usually the better conference pulls members up rather than schools dropping down to a less prestigious one.

In my timeline I state that I don’t believe Louisiana Tech it any of the outliers get invited.

But LA Tech was added to the WAC to balance things for the central time zone schools after TCU left:

Your western 5 were: Hawaii, Fresno St, SJSU, Nevada, and Boise
Your eastern 5 were: UTEP, Tulsa, SMU, Rice, LA Tech

This equilibrium arrangement was busted just 4 years later in 2005 but I still think that in 2001 conditions necessitated their addition.
02-16-2018 02:20 PM
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Fighting Muskie Offline
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RE: What if Pacific, Cal St Fullerton, and Long Beach St had not dropped football?
(02-16-2018 12:09 PM)Wedge Wrote:  Support for football at those schools was thin, in terms of both donations and ticket sales, with combined revenue from ticket sales + donations at the level of many D-I schools that don't have a varsity football team and thus have much lower annual expenses for athletics.

Yes, the support is just as thin at several schools that still have FBS football -- there is at least one school that is trying to run an entire athletic department including FBS football with combined ticket sales + donations of less than $1 million/year -- but that doesn't mean Fullerton, Long Beach, and Pacific made the wrong decision.

In other words, this thread is basically, "What if it didn't cost anything to run a college athletic department at any level with as many sports as you want? What would college sports look like then?"

:coffee3:

Finances were definitely rough back then but in the 2000s the model was all about tv markets and I think Big West football with a presence in both NorCal and LA could have gotten a modest tv deal to help pay the bills. Moving to a mostly California model would bring the same travel cost savings as the current Big West without sacrificing football.
02-16-2018 02:25 PM
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The Cutter of Bish Offline
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Post: #10
RE: What if Pacific, Cal St Fullerton, and Long Beach St had not dropped football?
Back then, if you even wanted to watch WAC games, you were staying up VERY late for those shootouts. I remember them well...and miss them terribly, though they had to be **** on the fans. Added **** if you had to deal with BYU and its no-play-on-Sunday thing with some of those kickoff times. In the pecking order of television, with the WAC being that far down, yet still being a fantastic conference, there was virtually no way Big West could ever keep the eyes. And, surprise surprise...the WAC couldn't compete against the MWC.
02-16-2018 02:54 PM
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Wedge Offline
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RE: What if Pacific, Cal St Fullerton, and Long Beach St had not dropped football?
(02-16-2018 02:25 PM)Fighting Muskie Wrote:  
(02-16-2018 12:09 PM)Wedge Wrote:  Support for football at those schools was thin, in terms of both donations and ticket sales, with combined revenue from ticket sales + donations at the level of many D-I schools that don't have a varsity football team and thus have much lower annual expenses for athletics.

Yes, the support is just as thin at several schools that still have FBS football -- there is at least one school that is trying to run an entire athletic department including FBS football with combined ticket sales + donations of less than $1 million/year -- but that doesn't mean Fullerton, Long Beach, and Pacific made the wrong decision.

In other words, this thread is basically, "What if it didn't cost anything to run a college athletic department at any level with as many sports as you want? What would college sports look like then?"

07-coffee3

Finances were definitely rough back then but in the 2000s the model was all about tv markets and I think Big West football with a presence in both NorCal and LA could have gotten a modest tv deal to help pay the bills. Moving to a mostly California model would bring the same travel cost savings as the current Big West without sacrificing football.

There's not enough TV money in it for that from the schools' point of view. To continue to play FBS/I-A football, any of those schools would have had to spend an additional $10-15 million every year, on top of the subsidy they already use to finance their other D-I sports, even though they had less than 5,000 actual butts-in-seats at their home football games.

And yes, there are some schools in FBS who are still paying that kind of money out of school funds for that exact situation, but there's no reason to expect these schools to have done the same.
(This post was last modified: 02-16-2018 04:08 PM by Wedge.)
02-16-2018 04:07 PM
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Jjoey52 Offline
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Post: #12
What if Pacific, Cal St Fullerton, and Long Beach St had not dropped football?
I always thought those schools should have dropped down to FCS, they could have been successful at that level. They could never compete with the USC, UCLA, CAL and other bigger schools.


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02-16-2018 05:34 PM
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Stugray2 Offline
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RE: What if Pacific, Cal St Fullerton, and Long Beach St had not dropped football?
(02-16-2018 12:09 PM)Wedge Wrote:  Support for football at those schools was thin, in terms of both donations and ticket sales, with combined revenue from ticket sales + donations at the level of many D-I schools that don't have a varsity football team and thus have much lower annual expenses for athletics.

Yes, the support is just as thin at several schools that still have FBS football -- there is at least one school that is trying to run an entire athletic department including FBS football with combined ticket sales + donations of less than $1 million/year -- but that doesn't mean Fullerton, Long Beach, and Pacific made the wrong decision.

In other words, this thread is basically, "What if it didn't cost anything to run a college athletic department at any level with as many sports as you want? What would college sports look like then?"

07-coffee3

Cough, cough, Eastern Michigan?
02-16-2018 11:04 PM
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RE: What if Pacific, Cal St Fullerton, and Long Beach St had not dropped football?
Well if Fullerton and Long Beach had magically been able to afford football, there probably would have been a few changes.

WAC had such limited options in reality that they might have taken a different path. Even if Fullerton, Long Beach, and Pacific were terrible that would have bolstered the records of other Big West schools making them look better.

There are 70+ schools that receive at least 75 cents of every athletic dollar from the school either from student fees, tuition, or university auxiliary funds (dorm revenue, bookstore, parking, etc.)

At that level you really should be looking very hard at whether Division I really makes good sense for your institution. The Division II model can be cheaper (few athletes receive a full ride so they are just getting a discount while still paying part) and if you are so inclined you can offer more sports.
02-17-2018 03:52 AM
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NoDak Offline
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RE: What if Pacific, Cal St Fullerton, and Long Beach St had not dropped football?
Fullerton St and LBSU are in the LA metro, where FCS makes even less sense than FBS. There isn't hardly FCS teams in major metro regions except private ones.

UTSA, FAU, FIU, Charlotte, UCF, Ga St etc more or less skipped the FCS stage to go big.

Sac St and UC Davis are actually advertising to their potential urban students that their irrevelant schools by staying FCS. Stony Brook is another.
02-17-2018 11:13 PM
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miko33 Offline
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RE: What if Pacific, Cal St Fullerton, and Long Beach St had not dropped football?
No doubt all those schools that dropped football in the 90s would be in the PAC or BIG12 today if they wouldn't have made such short sighted decisions. Invoking the butterfly effect theory - the AAC never comes into existence and Big East football still lives today.
02-19-2018 11:37 AM
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The Cutter of Bish Offline
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RE: What if Pacific, Cal St Fullerton, and Long Beach St had not dropped football?
(02-19-2018 11:37 AM)miko33 Wrote:  No doubt all those schools that dropped football in the 90s would be in the PAC or BIG12 today if they wouldn't have made such short sighted decisions. Invoking the butterfly effect theory - the AAC never comes into existence and Big East football still lives today.

What wouldn't be a joke would be SDSU fighting like mad to stay way ahead of the other Cal State schools. It's one thing to share a spot with them for the olympic sports...with football, I think there would have been a stronger push to be in the PAC or Big XII for sure, with or without BYU, TCU, and Utah doing what they did.
02-19-2018 12:39 PM
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