Thanks for dropping by PirateTreasureNC.

I think you are pretty much right on in your evaluations. The big question is how long do some of the top teams have to wait for most of those "others" mentioned to develope. Many of us aren't willing to wait long for them to grow if there is a better alternative.

IMO.

If you think we have attendance problems now... wait until our conference schedule includes UTSA, UNT, UNCC etc. on a regular basis... If we were having trouble getting people out to see SMU, UH and UCF, we're going to be in hot water in regards to attendance with our new conference opponents.

That said, we also needed some basketball help so maybe it balances out in the end.

IMO if ECU, USM, or UTEP were to leave CUSA, there'd be tremendous pressure on us to find another conference or even go independent in CFB. Whats the old saying from that Ron Howard movie about firemen? I think it goes "you go - we go".

A conference is basically a group of schools that have "like" goals and desires. Once many of the schools previously mentioned are gone, the dynamic that kept the league together is gone because of that change. Its like having several of the better homeowners in your neighborhood sell their homes in a tough market and those homes are purchased by the government for public housing. It may be good for the new "owners", but forces everyone elses "home worth" (property value) to tank.

(10-24-2012 10:10 AM)rabidTU Wrote:  IMO if ECU, USM, or UTEP were to leave CUSA, there'd be tremendous pressure on us to find another conference or even go independent in CFB. Whats the old saying from that Ron Howard movie about firemen? I think it goes "you go - we go".

A conference is basically a group of schools that have "like" goals and desires. Once many of the schools previously mentioned are gone, the dynamic that kept the league together is gone because of that change. Its like having several of the better homeowners in your neighborhood sell their homes in a tough market and those homes are purchased by the government for public housing. It may be good for the new "owners", but forces everyone elses "home worth" (property value) to tank.

Exactly! That's probably the best way I've seen it put so far.

I'm still having trouble getting up for this new conference situation... I just know how I feel when going to a game against say... Nicholls St. or UNT... I know we're going to win, and win easily for that matter. It's just not the same feeling as going to a game that matters against someone you have history with or a legitimate rivalry. As much as I hate UH and SMU, I will miss playing them every year...

I guess the only games we have to really get excited for in conference now are those against, ECU, USM, Marshall and maybe UTEP sometimes.

(10-24-2012 10:10 AM)rabidTU Wrote:  IMO if ECU, USM, or UTEP were to leave CUSA, there'd be tremendous pressure on us to find another conference or even go independent in CFB. Whats the old saying from that Ron Howard movie about firemen? I think it goes "you go - we go".

A conference is basically a group of schools that have "like" goals and desires. Once many of the schools previously mentioned are gone, the dynamic that kept the league together is gone because of that change. Its like having several of the better homeowners in your neighborhood sell their homes in a tough market and those homes are purchased by the government for public housing. It may be good for the new "owners", but forces everyone elses "home worth" (property value) to tank.

That used to be the real version, now it is the Utopia version of a conference. The idea of a conference now is tv markets. But I have always wondered if your stadium isn't full then how are you getting tv ratings because low attendance at your games to me says you don't also have fans watching at home because the interest isn't there for you.

That said, as much as people want local/regional rivalries in my experience that isn't necessarily a good measure either. I will give you guys ECUs onw stint in the CAA. That was a conference consisting of, at the time, schools from NC and VA. But it was like 80/20 VA/NC composition--ECU and UNC Wilmington were the only two NC schools. I went to mainly ECU basketball games as a student and at that time we were in the CAA. The only good crowds we had were for UNCW. None of those VA schools drew well. No one cared about the CAA basketball tourney. The conference wasn't on tv for the most part. One could argue the ACC -Shadow effect on the CAA though and that would be legit.

About the only common points most CUSA members had/have was we were all considered to be 2nd class citizens in our own states but we each had had moments of decent success in football, basketball, or baseball. For the most part most of the schools had played each other as independents or OOC games for a while till we actually got into CUSA. ECU had played Memphis, Tulsa, USM, Marshall, UCF, Houston, and Cincinnati for years before we ever got into CUSA.

I think the economics of college athletics have changed so much that pressures on schools and conferences have kind of gotten off track.

***************

I'm not totally sold on CUSA's decision to add SBC, WAC, and 1aa call ups for football purposes but with schools like Charlotte, who was a former CUSA member (sans football of which they didn't have) and ODU, who has been legit as a basketball school and their 1aa football performance has been stellar at that level lead to be not as worried about them.

FIU is a trade off for UCF and we all knew a Florida school of some kind would come to basically fill in that USF then UCF role. I'm still not sure of the fan support at that school for any of its sports and to be honest it looked like last year was their miracle year of football.

UNT and UTSA got in because we were replacing two Texas schools. Arguably even in results but a hit in terms of name recognition.

La Tech, IMO, was a no brainer.

The thing that has always troubled me about CUSA was the lack of similarity in the geography and the "gaps" in distance among the schools like ECU/Marshall from the rest (a reason to add UNCC and ODU). The SBC actually figured that out pretty quickly and geography has been a steadying force in whatever success they've had. But CUSA went for the TV markets from the beginning and have now lost some of that edge. The TV market strategy always threatens the individual schools that linger at the bottom in football in medium TV markets, but benefits the more TV friendly traditional ones like TU (and UTEP) IMO because a school like UAB won't get much TV time OR attendence out of it. And sooner or later, that threatens their existence in the conference because the other league members see them as a drag on the rest. They add very little and cost a lot in other words - too bad. Now we have done it (TV markets) again with the newest members and expect the leftover "perceived good" programs, even though fewer in number, to carry a threatened conference. How long will it take? Maybe never!

That is the big picture IMO from my comfortable seat in Broken Arrow Oklahoma.

Since I'm a rivals client, I tend to keep up with the recruiting of our conference members with that service. It would be unethical to post too many specifics about the commits of our conference opponents, but let me say there is a huge difference between the kinds of recruits Houston, SMU, UCF, ECU etc are recruiting and the ones committing to our new conference rivals. This is what I mean by us recruiting to our competition and the weaknesses we now face in this new CUSA. We won't have to recruit the kinds of players we do now to win a lot of games in this league. That is a prescription for long term disaster IMO.

If you compare NT to SMU or ODU to ECU or FIU to UCF or UTSA to Houston you can see the huge dropoff. If any of you subscribe to rivals or any of the other services, just keep an eye on who gets commitments and who offered a kid or has stars by that commits name. If I were a B12 fan, I'd think it was funny, but I'm not and it ain't.

Three quick points:

1. I apologise for stepping into this conversation as a troller.

2. Congratulations on your bowl win.

3. Don't underestimate ODU. This young football program has exceeded expectations each step of the way, and I don't expect the step to FBS and C-USA to be any different. The Monarchs will be competitive in 2014, and I have no hesitation to predict a winning season with an offense that will average over 30 points a game.

Cheers!

(01-01-2013 11:57 AM)ODU AGGIE Wrote:  Three quick points:

1. I apologise for stepping into this conversation as a troller.

2. Congratulations on your bowl win.

3. Don't underestimate ODU. This young football program has exceeded expectations each step of the way, and I don't expect the step to FBS and C-USA to be any different. The Monarchs will be competitive in 2014, and I have no hesitation to predict a winning season with an offense that will average over 30 points a game.

Cheers!

Thanks for stopping by.

IMO here's our semi-universal opinions on the way this has been handled.

When several of the better programs left; CUSA started trying to replace them "from below", which was basically their only option. But the mistake was to throw a lot of invites to whoever would accept them imo. In effect, there were too many invited too quickly. When that occurred, it looked like they were just filling in - body for body wo regard to the already established programs that remained - like USM, UTEP, Marshall etc. It looked like a desperate move to avoid what occurred to the WAC. If you are an established program this just isn't acceptable at this time.

I certainly wish you and all the others who've enterred the league the best, but we have to play at a level that will enable us to maintain or gain attendence, notoriety and acceptable perception. TBH, playing some of the yet to be established programs is a threat to our existance because you, unfortunately don't have the name recognition we need to sell tickets to TU FB as an opponent.

TU has been playing CFB since the 1800's and we've pretty much dominated all the conferences we've been connected with (except our short stay in the WAC), so it is important for us to play at the highest level we can against teams we "perceive" as rivals.

If we are in the same league together, I certainly look forward to growing this conference with you, but our desire is to leave it at this time if we can. Who knows what's next?

Obviously the ODU University leadership felt it was the best for ODU when we left the CAA for C-USA, so I fully understand the position you are in and can appreciate the angst that Tulsa fans feel. We were looking forward to a long-term rivalry with ECU, and now, like you, wonder just what the hades is going on. At this point, it seems impossible to predict, so I guess the only thing to do is to sit back and enjoy the ride. Suffice to say, I would love to see an ODU - TU championship C-USA game in the near future.

By the way, I grew up in the Dallas area and am very much aware of TU. In fact, I flew in the USAF with a guy that played QB at Tulsa. His first name was Marv. I will leave it to you to see if you can figure out who he is.

Our friends at ECU just played bait and switch it seems. Their fans never were big proponents of CUSA from the gitgo. IMO The league sold its soul to keep ECU, UCF, Houston and SMU's regions thinking that geograpy was the answer as if all they had to do was replace one team with another next door.

Its not your fault, or any of the new members who are just trying to better yourselves. The real enemy is ESPN and the New England based sports media that don't even care that much for CFB since they have the Giants, Jets and "Pats" etc. Its just something to fiddle with to them. They get a big kick out of manipulating a team in Texas or Mississippi and watching them jump on command. IMO.

OK boys and girls, its time to make our comparison between the present CUSA and the future AAC. This is a little different than before because we now have two new data models - one with the conference we are in now, CUSA and the other is our future destination, AAC.

So where does Phil Steele rate CUSA right now and where would he rate the AAC if next year were this year?

Hope this isn't confusing, but its designed off last years thread.

Ready, set, go!

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I'm using PSteeles power poll this year since that is the only one that gages all the teams.

2013 CUSA

Marshall----------------46
Tulsa-------------------48
E Carolina---------------56
Rice--------------------77
So Miss-----------------94
Tulane------------------97
UAB---------------------98
N Texas-----------------101
La Tech-----------------102
Middle Tenn St-----------108
UTEP--------------------112
FAU---------------------117
FIU----------------------118
UTSA--------------------120
Old Dominion-------------123*
UNCC--------------------127*

*Not counted in 2013
UNCC is not yet listed in PS yet thus they are assigned the lowest team number - there are currently 126 teams in
D-I CFB

Total Points = 1,294 pts
Average school score = 92.4


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Future AAC (2014)

Tulsa------------------48
Cincy------------------50
ECU-------------------51
UCF-------------------56
SMU-------------------59
Houston---------------73
UCONN----------------74
USF-------------------76
Navy------------------88
Tulane-----------------97
Temple----------------111
Memphis---------------103


Total Points = 886

School Score Average = 73.8

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Make your own result

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