(07-11-2013 07:21 AM)perimeterpost Wrote:  

(07-11-2013 12:28 AM)nzmorange Wrote:  

(07-10-2013 11:56 AM)john01992 Wrote:  The AAC perception that you are seeing now is only slightly less than what the big boys and media really thought about post-Miami/VT Big East football. Just recall all the complaints from Big East fans about how Big East football was disrespected by the media. It was disrespected, even though the BE held onto the BCS label.

funny thing is......

since 2005 the BE has a 5-4 BCS record, vs acc in BCS games their record is 2-1

louisville stomped florida, but louisville finished in a 4 way tie for first place in the big east.....what does that say?

the big east was always underrated and i think that will show when LV pitt rutgers, & cuse play in their new conferences

+1

what does it say when 2 of those 4 teams were undefeated and ranked until they lost against MAC teams?

the BE gave the AQ conferences a majority vote over the non-AQs, 6-5. Once the AQs had successfully manipulated the BCS to their advantage and didn't need BE's vote anymore they raided it and left the scraps for the non-AQs. The BE was considered the only hope for non-AQs to become AQ because it was inferior to the rest. There's a reason the new AAC teams weren't picked up by AQ conferences before.

Actually they didn't even leave the scraps. There is nothing left of Big East Football from before the raid except for Temple, whose demise as a BCS program came at their own hand. Every other original Big East Football program has been absorbed into a P5 conference.

The current AAC is actually an entirely new collection with Temple being the only tenuous tie to the old Big East Football. It's really a collection of vintage CUSA schools reunited and expanding to bring in Temple, UConn, and Navy.

(07-10-2013 09:43 AM)brista21 Wrote:  Another Rutgers bash, big surprise. Your bashes would make more sense if it were 2003 not 2013. You act like we're continuing to have 4 wins or less a season.

OK, no more Rutgers bashing. After looking at your records over the last 10 years, y'all aren't doing to badly. 8-9 wins a year is respectable for any BCS league. Still need some more 10+ win seasons but definitely not bottom of the barrel any more.

Give the league a little time before judging. Many of these schools are in the midst of facilities expansion/renovation/construction, coaching changes, and financial changes to their athletic departments (substantial increase in revenue). Temple's recruiting has skyrocketed and the others will see improved classes as well.

(07-11-2013 08:03 AM)pzz189 Wrote:  Give the league a little time before judging. Many of these schools are in the midst of facilities expansion/renovation/construction, coaching changes, and financial changes to their athletic departments (substantial increase in revenue). Temple's recruiting has skyrocketed and the others will see improved classes as well.

I think that Temple has a real shot at becoming a special program. I'm not so optimistic about the rest of this bunch.

(07-10-2013 09:14 PM)Captain Bearcat Wrote:  

(07-10-2013 11:17 AM)MUHERD76 Wrote:  Football isn't that much different? Are you serious? You list Tulane, Memphis, SMU and Temple as comparable football programs to the likes of WVU, Pitt, Cuse, Louisville, Rutgers?.....LOL. Hell Tulane cant get 500 people to there games. Temple is historically known as one of the worst football programs of all time and has trouble with fan support. Memphis? Great in basketball I'll give you that but football?. SMU? Its own players say that they would rather play on the road instead of the home crowd that shows up.

Wow. Just Wow.

Actually, I was saying that Houston, Navy, ECU, and UCF are comparable football programs to those. I'm well aware that there's some deadweight there.

ECU, Navy, UCF and Houston are good programs but nowhere near comparable to Pitt, Cuse or WVU. It's not even debatable. Rutgers is not so much a big loss as those three but still a loss.

It has to suck for Cincy. I can understand the frustration and disappointment. I really can. Reality will set in soon when you see Cincy playing on TV at Tulane, SMU, Memphis or Temple and there are as many players and personnel on the field as there is fans in the stands. I watched it for years while those schools were in CUSA. Sickening to watch. Memphis has good upside to bring its attendance up to the low to mid 30 range if they get the program on the right track. ECU always has good support so no worries there.

The attendance issue for some CUSA schools is one reason I was somewhat happy to see these changes made. That opened the door to bringing in more regional opponents that the fans can travel to. The schools brought into CUSA may not be sexy on the surface (at least for a few years) but I think we've at least got rid of some of the "empty stands" that are shown on TV. Good luck to you guys. I hope it works out. I have nothing but good things to say about Cincy. I've enjoyed several trips to Cincy to watch Marshall and Cincy play. The fans were great every time.

(07-11-2013 09:03 AM)MUHERD76 Wrote:  

(07-10-2013 09:14 PM)Captain Bearcat Wrote:  

(07-10-2013 11:17 AM)MUHERD76 Wrote:  Football isn't that much different? Are you serious? You list Tulane, Memphis, SMU and Temple as comparable football programs to the likes of WVU, Pitt, Cuse, Louisville, Rutgers?.....LOL. Hell Tulane cant get 500 people to there games. Temple is historically known as one of the worst football programs of all time and has trouble with fan support. Memphis? Great in basketball I'll give you that but football?. SMU? Its own players say that they would rather play on the road instead of the home crowd that shows up.

Wow. Just Wow.

Actually, I was saying that Houston, Navy, ECU, and UCF are comparable football programs to those. I'm well aware that there's some deadweight there.

ECU, Navy, UCF and Houston are good programs but nowhere near comparable to Pitt, Cuse or WVU. It's not even debatable. Rutgers is not so much a big loss as those three but still a loss.

It has to suck for Cincy. I can understand the frustration and disappointment. I really can. Reality will set in soon when you see Cincy playing on TV at Tulane, SMU, Memphis or Temple and there are as many players and personnel on the field as there is fans in the stands. I watched it for years while those schools were in CUSA. Sickening to watch. Memphis has good upside to bring its attendance up to the low to mid 30 range if they get the program on the right track. ECU always has good support so no worries there.

The attendance issue for some CUSA schools is one reason I was somewhat happy to see these changes made. That opened the door to bringing in more regional opponents that the fans can travel to. The schools brought into CUSA may not be sexy on the surface (at least for a few years) but I think we've at least got rid of some of the "empty stands" that are shown on TV. Good luck to you guys. I hope it works out. I have nothing but good things to say about Cincy. I've enjoyed several trips to Cincy to watch Marshall and Cincy play. The fans were great every time.

Rutgers is an enormous loss. There's a reason why the B1G went after them.

(07-11-2013 09:06 AM)Melky Cabrera Wrote:  

(07-11-2013 09:03 AM)MUHERD76 Wrote:  

(07-10-2013 09:14 PM)Captain Bearcat Wrote:  

(07-10-2013 11:17 AM)MUHERD76 Wrote:  Football isn't that much different? Are you serious? You list Tulane, Memphis, SMU and Temple as comparable football programs to the likes of WVU, Pitt, Cuse, Louisville, Rutgers?.....LOL. Hell Tulane cant get 500 people to there games. Temple is historically known as one of the worst football programs of all time and has trouble with fan support. Memphis? Great in basketball I'll give you that but football?. SMU? Its own players say that they would rather play on the road instead of the home crowd that shows up.

Wow. Just Wow.

Actually, I was saying that Houston, Navy, ECU, and UCF are comparable football programs to those. I'm well aware that there's some deadweight there.

ECU, Navy, UCF and Houston are good programs but nowhere near comparable to Pitt, Cuse or WVU. It's not even debatable. Rutgers is not so much a big loss as those three but still a loss.

It has to suck for Cincy. I can understand the frustration and disappointment. I really can. Reality will set in soon when you see Cincy playing on TV at Tulane, SMU, Memphis or Temple and there are as many players and personnel on the field as there is fans in the stands. I watched it for years while those schools were in CUSA. Sickening to watch. Memphis has good upside to bring its attendance up to the low to mid 30 range if they get the program on the right track. ECU always has good support so no worries there.

The attendance issue for some CUSA schools is one reason I was somewhat happy to see these changes made. That opened the door to bringing in more regional opponents that the fans can travel to. The schools brought into CUSA may not be sexy on the surface (at least for a few years) but I think we've at least got rid of some of the "empty stands" that are shown on TV. Good luck to you guys. I hope it works out. I have nothing but good things to say about Cincy. I've enjoyed several trips to Cincy to watch Marshall and Cincy play. The fans were great every time.

Rutgers is an enormous loss. There's a reason why the B1G went after them.

I'm not saying they aren't a loss. I totally agree that they are a big loss. It's just a different kind of loss than what I was talking about. I was strictly talking about the history and tradition football-wise that those schools bring to the table. The Big went after Rutgers for primarily one thing......expanding its TV inventory and northeast presence.

(07-11-2013 06:46 AM)Melky Cabrera Wrote:  

(07-10-2013 11:36 PM)Blackhawk-eye Wrote:  

(07-10-2013 08:42 AM)Captain Bearcat Wrote:  The Big East was considered a major conference. The AAC is not. Why not?

The football is not THAT much different:
BE: WVU, Louisville, Pitt, Rutgers, Syracuse
AAC: ECU, Navy, UCF, Houston, Temple, SMU, Tulsa, Memphis, Tulane

Yes it is, it's much different.

The AAC line-up shown above represents the very last group of upwardly mobile CUSA schools, or maybe slightly upwardly-sideways mobile schools. I mean that's clearly a legacy CUSA league with a new paint job.

Most of those schools are trying real hard to justify a seat at the table, but they'll never make enough headway in their own states/regions to make the needle move. Too much SEC, B1G Ten, Big XII, ACC competition and tradition for anyone to notice "The American".

The MWC has an easier road and less competition.

I'm with you up until that last sentence.

Having lost the states of Colorado and Utah, what states does the Mountain West control without any serious competition?

Nevada (2.8 million)
New Mexico (2.1 million)
Idaho (1.6 million)
Hawaii (1.4 million)
Wyoming (0.6 million)

That's a group of states with a population of 8.5 million.

The AAC controls only the state of Connecticut (3.6 million) with no competition, but that leaves a difference of only 4.9 million, or the combined populations of Nevada and New Mexico. That's a serious advantage? Does that really make the Mountain West more appealing to the networks?

Basically the Mountain West has the same problem as the AAC but without the big metro markets to bring to the networks.

The problem is not college competition. For college sports, Memphis, UC, and ECU dominate their metro markets just as much as any MWC team dominates its state.

The problem is pro competition. Every AAC school except ECU has a pro team in its market (55% of CT's population is in the NYC metro). Most of the MWC does not have pro sports competition.

This means that the AAC schools have higher ceilings, but lower floors. If Wyoming and Tulane both do well, Tulane can attract more casual fans. If they do well for years, the casual fans become diehards and Tulane becomes much bigger than Wyoming. On the other hand, if Boise and Houston hit rough patches, fans in Boise will still go to the games. Fans in Houston will switch to the Texans, Rockets, or Astros.

(07-11-2013 09:31 AM)MUHERD76 Wrote:  

(07-11-2013 09:06 AM)Melky Cabrera Wrote:  

(07-11-2013 09:03 AM)MUHERD76 Wrote:  

(07-10-2013 09:14 PM)Captain Bearcat Wrote:  

(07-10-2013 11:17 AM)MUHERD76 Wrote:  Football isn't that much different? Are you serious? You list Tulane, Memphis, SMU and Temple as comparable football programs to the likes of WVU, Pitt, Cuse, Louisville, Rutgers?.....LOL. Hell Tulane cant get 500 people to there games. Temple is historically known as one of the worst football programs of all time and has trouble with fan support. Memphis? Great in basketball I'll give you that but football?. SMU? Its own players say that they would rather play on the road instead of the home crowd that shows up.

Wow. Just Wow.

Actually, I was saying that Houston, Navy, ECU, and UCF are comparable football programs to those. I'm well aware that there's some deadweight there.

ECU, Navy, UCF and Houston are good programs but nowhere near comparable to Pitt, Cuse or WVU. It's not even debatable. Rutgers is not so much a big loss as those three but still a loss.

It has to suck for Cincy. I can understand the frustration and disappointment. I really can. Reality will set in soon when you see Cincy playing on TV at Tulane, SMU, Memphis or Temple and there are as many players and personnel on the field as there is fans in the stands. I watched it for years while those schools were in CUSA. Sickening to watch. Memphis has good upside to bring its attendance up to the low to mid 30 range if they get the program on the right track. ECU always has good support so no worries there.

The attendance issue for some CUSA schools is one reason I was somewhat happy to see these changes made. That opened the door to bringing in more regional opponents that the fans can travel to. The schools brought into CUSA may not be sexy on the surface (at least for a few years) but I think we've at least got rid of some of the "empty stands" that are shown on TV. Good luck to you guys. I hope it works out. I have nothing but good things to say about Cincy. I've enjoyed several trips to Cincy to watch Marshall and Cincy play. The fans were great every time.

Rutgers is an enormous loss. There's a reason why the B1G went after them.

I'm not saying they aren't a loss. I totally agree that they are a big loss. It's just a different kind of loss than what I was talking about. I was strictly talking about the history and tradition football-wise that those schools bring to the table. The Big went after Rutgers for primarily one thing......expanding its TV inventory and northeast presence.

All good points.

History and tradition go only so far. Frankly, Syracuse and Pitt haven't lived up to that history and tradition in football in a long time. They were mostly disappointing to me.

Rutgers has an emerging football program that has been on a nice run. I think they can keep it up.

Agree that the B1Gwent after them for TV and its Northeast presence, but that's enormous - especially for the AAC. Rutgers is the flagship in a state of almost 9 million and is the only FBS program in the heart of a metro area of about 20 million. Programs like that don't grow on trees.

IMO, the Northeast is where the AAC could have established its own presence out of the shadow do the P5. UConn, Rutgers, Temple, and Navy would have been the only presence in a corridor from southern New England to Annapolis. Of course Penn Stae and Maryland would still have been a factor, but there was enough separation from them for the AAC to command attention in their own right. The introduction of the B1G into that mix, playing games right in error NYC and in suburban DC is a huge and potentially crushing blow as I see it. Now every corner of the conference is playing in someone else's shadow except maybe UConn.

(07-11-2013 09:35 AM)Captain Bearcat Wrote:  

(07-11-2013 06:46 AM)Melky Cabrera Wrote:  

(07-10-2013 11:36 PM)Blackhawk-eye Wrote:  

(07-10-2013 08:42 AM)Captain Bearcat Wrote:  The Big East was considered a major conference. The AAC is not. Why not?

The football is not THAT much different:
BE: WVU, Louisville, Pitt, Rutgers, Syracuse
AAC: ECU, Navy, UCF, Houston, Temple, SMU, Tulsa, Memphis, Tulane

Yes it is, it's much different.

The AAC line-up shown above represents the very last group of upwardly mobile CUSA schools, or maybe slightly upwardly-sideways mobile schools. I mean that's clearly a legacy CUSA league with a new paint job.

Most of those schools are trying real hard to justify a seat at the table, but they'll never make enough headway in their own states/regions to make the needle move. Too much SEC, B1G Ten, Big XII, ACC competition and tradition for anyone to notice "The American".

The MWC has an easier road and less competition.

I'm with you up until that last sentence.

Having lost the states of Colorado and Utah, what states does the Mountain West control without any serious competition?

Nevada (2.8 million)
New Mexico (2.1 million)
Idaho (1.6 million)
Hawaii (1.4 million)
Wyoming (0.6 million)

That's a group of states with a population of 8.5 million.

The AAC controls only the state of Connecticut (3.6 million) with no competition, but that leaves a difference of only 4.9 million, or the combined populations of Nevada and New Mexico. That's a serious advantage? Does that really make the Mountain West more appealing to the networks?

Basically the Mountain West has the same problem as the AAC but without the big metro markets to bring to the networks.

The problem is not college competition. For college sports, Memphis, UC, and ECU dominate their metro markets just as much as any MWC team dominates its state.

The problem is pro competition. Every AAC school except ECU has a pro team in its market (55% of CT's population is in the NYC metro). Most of the MWC does not have pro sports competition.

This means that the AAC schools have higher ceilings, but lower floors. If Wyoming and Tulane both do well, Tulane can attract more casual fans. If they do well for years, the casual fans become diehards and Tulane becomes much bigger than Wyoming. On the other hand, if Boise and Houston hit rough patches, fans in Boise will still go to the games. Fans in Houston will switch to the Texans, Rockets, or Astros.

Boy, that's really skewing the argument. You don't think there are Rockies fans in Wyoming? Sure, Boise isn't losing fans to the pros, but it's entire state has a population of only about a million people. The 45% of CT outside the NYC metro area is larger than that, so why do you write off UConn?

In the MWC, SDSU, Fresno, San Jose St, Air Force, Colorado ST, Wyoming, and Utah St are all dealing with pro sports in their backyards. That's more than half the league. The rest are in such small population states that they are hardly a blip on the radar of the TV networks. The problem that the Big XII has with small markets outside Texas is nothing compared with the microscopic markets in the MWC.

(07-11-2013 09:43 AM)Melky Cabrera Wrote:  

(07-11-2013 09:31 AM)MUHERD76 Wrote:  

(07-11-2013 09:06 AM)Melky Cabrera Wrote:  

(07-11-2013 09:03 AM)MUHERD76 Wrote:  

(07-10-2013 09:14 PM)Captain Bearcat Wrote:  Actually, I was saying that Houston, Navy, ECU, and UCF are comparable football programs to those. I'm well aware that there's some deadweight there.

ECU, Navy, UCF and Houston are good programs but nowhere near comparable to Pitt, Cuse or WVU. It's not even debatable. Rutgers is not so much a big loss as those three but still a loss.

It has to suck for Cincy. I can understand the frustration and disappointment. I really can. Reality will set in soon when you see Cincy playing on TV at Tulane, SMU, Memphis or Temple and there are as many players and personnel on the field as there is fans in the stands. I watched it for years while those schools were in CUSA. Sickening to watch. Memphis has good upside to bring its attendance up to the low to mid 30 range if they get the program on the right track. ECU always has good support so no worries there.

The attendance issue for some CUSA schools is one reason I was somewhat happy to see these changes made. That opened the door to bringing in more regional opponents that the fans can travel to. The schools brought into CUSA may not be sexy on the surface (at least for a few years) but I think we've at least got rid of some of the "empty stands" that are shown on TV. Good luck to you guys. I hope it works out. I have nothing but good things to say about Cincy. I've enjoyed several trips to Cincy to watch Marshall and Cincy play. The fans were great every time.

Rutgers is an enormous loss. There's a reason why the B1G went after them.

I'm not saying they aren't a loss. I totally agree that they are a big loss. It's just a different kind of loss than what I was talking about. I was strictly talking about the history and tradition football-wise that those schools bring to the table. The Big went after Rutgers for primarily one thing......expanding its TV inventory and northeast presence.

All good points.

History and tradition go only so far. Frankly, Syracuse and Pitt haven't lived up to that history and tradition in football in a long time. They were mostly disappointing to me.

Rutgers has an emerging football program that has been on a nice run. I think they can keep it up.

Agree that the B1Gwent after them for TV and its Northeast presence, but that's enormous - especially for the AAC. Rutgers is the flagship in a state of almost 9 million and is the only FBS program in the heart of a metro area of about 20 million. Programs like that don't grow on trees.

IMO, the Northeast is where the AAC could have established its own presence out of the shadow do the P5. UConn, Rutgers, Temple, and Navy would have been the only presence in a corridor from southern New England to Annapolis. Of course Penn Stae and Maryland would still have been a factor, but there was enough separation from them for the AAC to command attention in their own right. The introduction of the B1G into that mix, playing games right in error NYC and in suburban DC is a huge and potentially crushing blow as I see it. Now every corner of the conference is playing in someone else's shadow except maybe UConn.

I couldn't agree with you more. I think the problem though was the availability of programs in the northeast region. My guess is that they felt uneasy about programs like UMass and Delaware. Maybe felt like Buffalo was to far from reaching its potential. Villanova had nowhere to play. In a perfect world, those programs would have been ready and they simply could have gone after them and kept the northeast presence. If the aforementioned schools had been ready the new Big East football could have looked like this and may have been able to keep the basketball schools around as well:

UCONN
Cincy
Navy
Temple
USF
UCF
UMASS
Buffalo
Delaware
Villanova (when they were ready and had a place to play)

(07-11-2013 10:24 AM)MUHERD76 Wrote:  

(07-11-2013 09:43 AM)Melky Cabrera Wrote:  

(07-11-2013 09:31 AM)MUHERD76 Wrote:  

(07-11-2013 09:06 AM)Melky Cabrera Wrote:  

(07-11-2013 09:03 AM)MUHERD76 Wrote:  ECU, Navy, UCF and Houston are good programs but nowhere near comparable to Pitt, Cuse or WVU. It's not even debatable. Rutgers is not so much a big loss as those three but still a loss.

It has to suck for Cincy. I can understand the frustration and disappointment. I really can. Reality will set in soon when you see Cincy playing on TV at Tulane, SMU, Memphis or Temple and there are as many players and personnel on the field as there is fans in the stands. I watched it for years while those schools were in CUSA. Sickening to watch. Memphis has good upside to bring its attendance up to the low to mid 30 range if they get the program on the right track. ECU always has good support so no worries there.

The attendance issue for some CUSA schools is one reason I was somewhat happy to see these changes made. That opened the door to bringing in more regional opponents that the fans can travel to. The schools brought into CUSA may not be sexy on the surface (at least for a few years) but I think we've at least got rid of some of the "empty stands" that are shown on TV. Good luck to you guys. I hope it works out. I have nothing but good things to say about Cincy. I've enjoyed several trips to Cincy to watch Marshall and Cincy play. The fans were great every time.

Rutgers is an enormous loss. There's a reason why the B1G went after them.

I'm not saying they aren't a loss. I totally agree that they are a big loss. It's just a different kind of loss than what I was talking about. I was strictly talking about the history and tradition football-wise that those schools bring to the table. The Big went after Rutgers for primarily one thing......expanding its TV inventory and northeast presence.

All good points.

History and tradition go only so far. Frankly, Syracuse and Pitt haven't lived up to that history and tradition in football in a long time. They were mostly disappointing to me.

Rutgers has an emerging football program that has been on a nice run. I think they can keep it up.

Agree that the B1Gwent after them for TV and its Northeast presence, but that's enormous - especially for the AAC. Rutgers is the flagship in a state of almost 9 million and is the only FBS program in the heart of a metro area of about 20 million. Programs like that don't grow on trees.

IMO, the Northeast is where the AAC could have established its own presence out of the shadow do the P5. UConn, Rutgers, Temple, and Navy would have been the only presence in a corridor from southern New England to Annapolis. Of course Penn Stae and Maryland would still have been a factor, but there was enough separation from them for the AAC to command attention in their own right. The introduction of the B1G into that mix, playing games right in error NYC and in suburban DC is a huge and potentially crushing blow as I see it. Now every corner of the conference is playing in someone else's shadow except maybe UConn.

I couldn't agree with you more. I think the problem though was the availability of programs in the northeast region. My guess is that they felt uneasy about programs like UMass and Delaware. Maybe felt like Buffalo was to far from reaching its potential. Villanova had nowhere to play. In a perfect world, those programs would have been ready and they simply could have gone after them and kept the northeast presence. If the aforementioned schools had been ready the new Big East football could have looked like this and may have been able to keep the basketball schools around as well:

UCONN
Cincy
Navy
Temple
USF
UCF
UMASS
Buffalo
Delaware
Villanova (when they were ready and had a place to play)

Army would be a good add instead of Villanova.

(07-11-2013 10:27 AM)Blackhawk-eye Wrote:  

(07-11-2013 10:24 AM)MUHERD76 Wrote:  

(07-11-2013 09:43 AM)Melky Cabrera Wrote:  

(07-11-2013 09:31 AM)MUHERD76 Wrote:  

(07-11-2013 09:06 AM)Melky Cabrera Wrote:  Rutgers is an enormous loss. There's a reason why the B1G went after them.

I'm not saying they aren't a loss. I totally agree that they are a big loss. It's just a different kind of loss than what I was talking about. I was strictly talking about the history and tradition football-wise that those schools bring to the table. The Big went after Rutgers for primarily one thing......expanding its TV inventory and northeast presence.

All good points.

History and tradition go only so far. Frankly, Syracuse and Pitt haven't lived up to that history and tradition in football in a long time. They were mostly disappointing to me.

Rutgers has an emerging football program that has been on a nice run. I think they can keep it up.

Agree that the B1Gwent after them for TV and its Northeast presence, but that's enormous - especially for the AAC. Rutgers is the flagship in a state of almost 9 million and is the only FBS program in the heart of a metro area of about 20 million. Programs like that don't grow on trees.

IMO, the Northeast is where the AAC could have established its own presence out of the shadow do the P5. UConn, Rutgers, Temple, and Navy would have been the only presence in a corridor from southern New England to Annapolis. Of course Penn Stae and Maryland would still have been a factor, but there was enough separation from them for the AAC to command attention in their own right. The introduction of the B1G into that mix, playing games right in error NYC and in suburban DC is a huge and potentially crushing blow as I see it. Now every corner of the conference is playing in someone else's shadow except maybe UConn.

I couldn't agree with you more. I think the problem though was the availability of programs in the northeast region. My guess is that they felt uneasy about programs like UMass and Delaware. Maybe felt like Buffalo was to far from reaching its potential. Villanova had nowhere to play. In a perfect world, those programs would have been ready and they simply could have gone after them and kept the northeast presence. If the aforementioned schools had been ready the new Big East football could have looked like this and may have been able to keep the basketball schools around as well:

UCONN
Cincy
Navy
Temple
USF
UCF
UMASS
Buffalo
Delaware
Villanova (when they were ready and had a place to play)

Army would be a good add instead of Villanova.

I forgot about Army. Probably a good chance they would have jumped on that.

Oh well....what could have been.

(07-11-2013 07:39 AM)ChrisLords Wrote:  

(07-10-2013 09:43 AM)brista21 Wrote:  Another Rutgers bash, big surprise. Your bashes would make more sense if it were 2003 not 2013. You act like we're continuing to have 4 wins or less a season.

OK, no more Rutgers bashing. After looking at your records over the last 10 years, y'all aren't doing to badly. 8-9 wins a year is respectable for any BCS league. Still need some more 10+ win seasons but definitely not bottom of the barrel any more.

Fair enough. I'm not saying we're world beaters either I just think middle of the pack BCS is a fair and accurate label these days. And I don't see a reason we can't keep that up or with the right leadership start to do even better than that in the Big Ten.

(07-11-2013 02:23 PM)brista21 Wrote:  

(07-11-2013 07:39 AM)ChrisLords Wrote:  

(07-10-2013 09:43 AM)brista21 Wrote:  Another Rutgers bash, big surprise. Your bashes would make more sense if it were 2003 not 2013. You act like we're continuing to have 4 wins or less a season.

OK, no more Rutgers bashing. After looking at your records over the last 10 years, y'all aren't doing to badly. 8-9 wins a year is respectable for any BCS league. Still need some more 10+ win seasons but definitely not bottom of the barrel any more.

Fair enough. I'm not saying we're world beaters either I just think middle of the pack BCS is a fair and accurate label these days. And I don't see a reason we can't keep that up or with the right leadership start to do even better than that in the Big Ten.

Especially if they can take advantage of the PSU sanctions. If they can pounce on the Nitany Lions the first few years that might tip things in their favor between the two for a little while. At least give Rutgers a better chance than if they had to go against a PSU at full strength right out of the gate.

(07-10-2013 08:42 AM)Captain Bearcat Wrote:  The Big East was considered a major conference. The AAC is not. Why not?

The football is not THAT much different:
BE: WVU, Louisville, Pitt, Rutgers, Syracuse
AAC: ECU, Navy, UCF, Houston, Temple, SMU, Tulsa, Memphis, Tulane

Other than WVU, those BE teams haven't performed any better over the last 6 years than the AAC additions.

You're making the same mistake other Big East fans made last year when they expected the Big East to get a contract for $15 million per school despite losing WVU, Pitt, and Syracuse: You put way too much emphasis on "results on the field", which actually means very little to media companies and hence to the Power conferences who made up the playoff system.

Pitt, Syracuse, and WVU were FAR bigger national media brand names than newcomers like UCF, Houston, and Temple. That's why the Big East lost its name, got peanuts for TV, and was kicked out of the Power conferences group.

(07-11-2013 04:54 PM)NJRedMan Wrote:  

(07-11-2013 02:23 PM)brista21 Wrote:  

(07-11-2013 07:39 AM)ChrisLords Wrote:  

(07-10-2013 09:43 AM)brista21 Wrote:  Another Rutgers bash, big surprise. Your bashes would make more sense if it were 2003 not 2013. You act like we're continuing to have 4 wins or less a season.

OK, no more Rutgers bashing. After looking at your records over the last 10 years, y'all aren't doing to badly. 8-9 wins a year is respectable for any BCS league. Still need some more 10+ win seasons but definitely not bottom of the barrel any more.

Fair enough. I'm not saying we're world beaters either I just think middle of the pack BCS is a fair and accurate label these days. And I don't see a reason we can't keep that up or with the right leadership start to do even better than that in the Big Ten.

Especially if they can take advantage of the PSU sanctions. If they can pounce on the Nitany Lions the first few years that might tip things in their favor between the two for a little while. At least give Rutgers a better chance than if they had to go against a PSU at full strength right out of the gate.

PSU's sanctions combined with RU, Pitt, and Temple moving up have been like a free-for-all for PA recruiting. You guys are getting some nice swings in while PSU's hands are tied