I don't see us wanting anything to do with Idaho and that airplane hanger they play in.

(07-28-2012 12:49 PM)LR Eagle Wrote:  

(07-28-2012 12:34 PM)Proud El Pasoan Wrote:  Wouldn't be surprised if New Mexico State and Idaho want to try to join C-USA.

http://www.cbssports.com/collegefootball...xico-state

They may want to, but I highly doubt anyone wants them. Especially not Idaho, they need to just bite the bullet and head to FCS or DII.

Sounds like they have not given up the ghost yet.
http://www.appstatenation.com/2012/07/27...#more-1338

(07-28-2012 12:32 PM)LR Eagle Wrote:  They'll just do more chicken give aways. UTSA is in for a shock soon, they may get 60 or 70 dropped on them a few times. We'll see if anyone cares about them then.

Fixed

(07-28-2012 08:19 AM)919R Wrote:  

(07-27-2012 10:17 PM)RUNVSFD MINER Wrote:  

(07-27-2012 10:05 PM)blunderbuss Wrote:  

(07-27-2012 10:04 PM)RUNVSFD MINER Wrote:  I've been all for staying in CUSA.

But if they choose to expand too much, then the conference will be on the verge of completely losing its identity.

CUSA lost it's identity the day we lost UL, UC, USF, Marquette, DePaul & Marquette. The identity was one of the best mid major hoops conferences in the nation. I think the expansion is a good way to create a new identity. 16 works out better for scheduling and travel. It essentially is 2 bus leagues under the same banner.

But we aren't even talking comparable programs anymore.
Opinions will vary, and all are entitled to it, but I see the writing on the wall.

Really? Who was the 2nd most successful bball program in the ORIGINAL CUSA (you know, before UTEP was even in CUSA)?

Read the threads/posts in their entirety, if you're gonna chime in.
I wasn't referring to UTSA, ODU, UNT, or Charlotte. We are talking about FAU, Delaware, TX State, Nichols State, South Central Louisiana Mud-dawgs, and anyone else that we are throwing out there.

Feakin Rookies!

(07-28-2012 12:28 AM)Kronke Wrote:  

(07-27-2012 10:14 PM)MUHERD76 Wrote:  

(07-27-2012 09:48 PM)CougarRed Wrote:  I feel sorry for East Carolina, Tulsa and Southern Miss.

Stop hijacking the thread.

Besides, talk about feeling sorry for somebody. I feel sorry for Houston. You guys will get crushed consistently in BE basketball with no rivalries in the league other than SMU. Have fun with that....lol

SMU + Boise, Louisville, Cincy, etc. will do just fine. Thanks.

Have fun playing a bunch of FCS startups, that are now considered your equals :)

Have fun being a TV market in the Big East. The best teams are still in CUSA.

(07-28-2012 01:32 PM)MU ATO Wrote:  Have fun being a TV market in the Big East. The best teams are still in CUSA.

I'll give you maybe Southern Miss and ECU attendance. But if you think the nBE isn't a major, then C-USA may as well be FCS (and it's not but I'm just making an analogy).

(07-28-2012 01:50 PM)Caltex2 Wrote:  

(07-28-2012 01:32 PM)MU ATO Wrote:  Have fun being a TV market in the Big East. The best teams are still in CUSA.

I'll give you maybe Southern Miss and ECU attendance. But if you think the nBE isn't a major, then C-USA may as well be FCS (and it's not but I'm just making an analogy).

Memphis hoops was the ONLY major loss to CUSA. Losing a hoops program like Memphis would be a major blow to any conf.

UCF, SMU, & Houston are hardly losses. TV markets that have already been replaced. Their athletic programs had their moments but not exactly dominant in any way shape or form.

I think C-USA is set for now. As is the MWC. The Big East will make another move down the road to even their numbers when Navy joins. I think the next few off-seasons could hold just as much drama.

The Big12 reminds me of a stirring volcano. I can't see it sitting there for long, behind the Big10 and Pac12, and way behind the SEC. I think it's certain that something will happen there within 5 years, either additions or defections followed by additions. Big "eruption" with lots of outcomes possible. The ACC, then the Big East hold the Big12's obvious targets. C-USA doesn't come into play until they've been raided.

A Big14 that adds FSU, Clemson, Georgia Tech, and Miami immediately competes with the SEC for comparable TV money. That's a HUGE, gutsy play. The ACC would have to react. Obvious candidates being Louisville, UConn, Vandy?, and maybe others at that point. .

A Big12(8) that loses Texas and Oklahoma to the SEC drops to Big East levels revenue-wise. Huge loss. Obvious candidates to fill that football void, poorly, would be Louisville, Cincy, Boise State, and even, potentially, C-USA schools. The Big12(8) could cherry-pick rationally and come up with some entertaining and lucrative configurations. WVU gives them a toehold in the East. How far they would want to go is anybody's guess.

C-USA would react. C-USA has the benefit of having many suitors with favorable geography. The MWC looks like they're just waiting on SDSU and BSU to eventually come back, along with BYU, otherwise all they have is Idaho and NMSU.

MTSU, FAU, Ark. State, and ULaLa would all make good replacements for eventual C-USA defections. I would be surprised if the present, new configurations held up long enough for USM and ECU to play ODU and Charlotte in football. 2015 is a long way away in the realignment scenarios.

MU_ATO Wrote:Memphis hoops was the ONLY major loss to CUSA. Losing a hoops program like Memphis would be a major blow to any conf.

UCF, SMU, & Houston are hardly losses. TV markets that have already been replaced. Their athletic programs had their moments but not exactly dominant in any way shape or form.

You're making it out to be as if we'll be worse off. The Big East in basketball will be more or less the same as it was before the losses of Pitt, Syracuse and West Virginia with Memphis and Temple and with SMU as well as UH starting to pull in major recruits (plus UCF has facilities but they still have to prove some things). The nBE will still send 7-10 teams to the Dance and there are more chances for quality wins than there ever was in C-USA, where there was 3-4 chances in a given year (and to some, one).

nBE football is basically C-USA 1.0 but that's better than C-USA 3.0. Louisville and Cincinnati has improved their programs to BCS caliber since they left, South Florida and Rutgers have shown flashes of brilliance, UConn has been at least as good as, say, ECU. Houston has picked up it's recruiting as well as UCF, Boise is coming in as a perennial top 25 program while Temple and Memphis at least are moving in the right direction.

It's not the SEC but it's more than a combination of solid markets.

Southern Mississippi to the West. MTSU and GSU to the East

What a cluster

(07-28-2012 05:45 AM)MUHERD76 Wrote:  

(07-27-2012 11:45 PM)GCEagle Wrote:  Might as well add a bunch of garbage teams, this conference could not possibly get any worse.

You have two options.....pursue membership in the WAC/MAC/Sunbelt....or build this league right like CUSA is doing. Adding schools that make sense for the long term of CUSA. I personally like the vision and direction this league is going for the long-term over the aforementioned conferences including the MWC and the Big East. Some of you obviously can see and understand these moves while others cant. I'm 100% on board with what CUSA is going to accomplish. I think Banowsky has out smarted Thompson and CUSA will come out way better in the end.

I agree. After CUSA is finished expanding, it will have a national presence and regional appeal. It wouldn't bother me if CUSA went to 16 or 18 schools. There's really no reason to have any crossover games in football until the conference playoff/championship. If we went to 18, the top two from each division could advance to the playoff. That would only improve our television deal and exposure.

FWIW, I'm a UH alum and I think my school is making a very bad decision going to the Big East. That conference is no better than CUSA. We're making a big mistake. Thank God I'm also a huge Rice fan. I can, at least, travel to several of their road games every year.

(07-28-2012 02:58 PM)DFWMINER Wrote:  What a cluster

Programs that are similiar will eventually seek to be together. In my uneducated opinion, if the conference adds programs that are clearly below CUSA's level, I have to believe that the stronger athletic programs will leave for a smaller, yet stronger athletic association of like programs, or look to a MWC type conference who has a core of like programs.

Also in my uneducated opinion, the conference is finished adding teams unless it's forced to add teams if the MWC or others make an offer that a CUSA member can't refuse. The one exception would be some type of "merger/association" with another conference such as the MWC. None of the programs mentioned add anything.

Long time away from the boards, I am a college FB fan, surprised looking at the CUSA line up how different it is. It is a conference that is can be successful, but it takes patience. Very surprised on a casual browse to see the big city flavor, Dallas,Houston, San Antonio, Miami,Charlotte.

IMO, your newcomers offer a ton of potential. Old Dominion and Charlotte have a lot of work,but have big upside. Not sure there are any realistic acceptable candidate for expansion. There are not candidates that will bring $$$ or cache. Stick with this group. The only reason to expand is if you feel the musical chairs games are not over and someone is leaving CUSA.

(07-28-2012 03:04 PM)Kronke Wrote:  

(07-28-2012 02:38 PM)Caltex2 Wrote:  You're making it out to be as if we'll be worse off. The Big East in basketball will be more or less the same as it was before the losses of Pitt, Syracuse and West Virginia with Memphis and Temple and with SMU as well as UH starting to pull in major recruits (plus UCF has facilities but they still have to prove some things). The nBE will still send 7-10 teams to the Dance and there are more chances for quality wins than there ever was in C-USA, where there was 3-4 chances in a given year (and to some, one).

LOL, don't waste your time rationalizing with MU_ATO.

Rationalizing? LOL. Caltex did the nothing but rationalize big east basketball. Memphis is a good replacement for Syracuse (although not their equal). No one replaces Pitt, their one bad year notwithstanding. Temple is solid. UCF is a NIT team in a good year. And UH and SMU were long-time C-USA bottom-feeders who he rationalizes with "Stepped up recruiting" (SMU got some transfers and stuff but nothing close to elite high schoolers). Of course it's still a quality hoops league.

Football is good, but not a power and the new line of demarcation is whether you are a power league or whether you aren't. BE isn't and never was, they just got favorable treatment in the BCS/AQ system. That favoritism is gone. How the incumbent BE teams react to their massive pay cuts is something else that bears watching (Rutgers already feeds itself with $28 million per annum from taxpayers/students).

(07-28-2012 12:19 PM)SouthernMiss3613 Wrote:  We shouldn't take anymore teams that don't have on campus stadiums. Watch what happens when UTSA has 3 losing seasons in a row. They won't have 5k people at their games.

I'm not sure how off-campus stadium correlates to low attendance when you have 3 losing seasons. Look at Texas State, they have been around for 100+ years, with 34k students and countless alumni, yet they still struggled to get 15k students to their games. And even now in the FBS, they are only projecting 6000 season tickets. On the other side, if ECU had to play off-campus for some reason, their loyal fanbase would follow them anywhere. Even if they had 15 losing seasons in a row.

And you are being generous with your 5k projection. After we go 1-11 for the next 3 years(excluding this upcoming season), we will have a tough time selling 2k tickets. And half of those will be included "free" with your favorite chicken meal. I too fail to understand the logic behind our ridiculously tough OOC schedule starting 2013. Add the CUSA games, and we are just headed to the inevitable, that is, falling flat on our ass.

Here is the thing though, you don't know it yet, but the joke is on you Southern Piss. Because while we struggle to sell a couple thousand tickets a season, we are still receiving conference revenue that you made for us. So while we take our lumps for the next few seasons, we are also building our program and getting paid for it. And just as Houston sucked before CUSA, they eventually progressed and left you behind. In the not so far future, we will be competitive, and we will look more attractive than you or El Paso, even if we don't dominate the conference. So when the bigger conferences come knocking, we will forget about you faster than last week's slut. The only thing that will make that day more pleasurable, is if ECU leaves too, and you are still stuck here with 4 other move ups.

LOL at UTSA fans talking smack. You better hope and pray that you never play ECU or USM. It will get ugly. Quick.

(07-28-2012 03:26 PM)GCEagle Wrote:  LOL at UTSA fans talking smack. You better hope and pray that you never play ECU or USM. It will get ugly. Quick.

I'm not talking smack about us beating anybody. About 3/4 of CUSA will definitely put 50 points on us before the first half. Especially ECU and Southern Miss. Then your 2nd and 3rd string will come out the second half and put another 50 points on us. So what? It happens, but it won't happen forever. That's what my post was about, try working on your reading comprehension.

(07-28-2012 03:22 PM)EdisonDoyle Wrote:  

(07-28-2012 03:04 PM)Kronke Wrote:  

(07-28-2012 02:38 PM)Caltex2 Wrote:  You're making it out to be as if we'll be worse off. The Big East in basketball will be more or less the same as it was before the losses of Pitt, Syracuse and West Virginia with Memphis and Temple and with SMU as well as UH starting to pull in major recruits (plus UCF has facilities but they still have to prove some things). The nBE will still send 7-10 teams to the Dance and there are more chances for quality wins than there ever was in C-USA, where there was 3-4 chances in a given year (and to some, one).

LOL, don't waste your time rationalizing with MU_ATO.

Rationalizing? LOL. Caltex did the nothing but rationalize big east basketball. Memphis is a good replacement for Syracuse (although not their equal). No one replaces Pitt, their one bad year notwithstanding. Temple is solid. UCF is a NIT team in a good year. And UH and SMU were long-time C-USA bottom-feeders who he rationalizes with "Stepped up recruiting" (SMU got some transfers and stuff but nothing close to elite high schoolers). Of course it's still a quality hoops league.

Football is good, but not a power and the new line of demarcation is whether you are a power league or whether you aren't. BE isn't and never was, they just got favorable treatment in the BCS/AQ system. That favoritism is gone. How the incumbent BE teams react to their massive pay cuts is something else that bears watching (Rutgers already feeds itself with $28 million per annum from taxpayers/students).

Rutgers receives 47% of it's athletic budget from state/student subsidies. Among the state supported programs, none of us have much room throw stones at each other in regard to subsidies. Although some are less dependent than others, I'll take the high road and just leave my comments at that without pointing fingers.

(07-28-2012 03:26 PM)GCEagle Wrote:  LOL at UTSA fans talking smack. You better hope and pray that you never play ECU or USM. It will get ugly. Quick.

UTSA should get a pretty good idea of what they will be up against in CUSA when they visit Ruston this year