Did I ever tell you what the definition of insanity is? It's reorganizing the Sun Belt and Conference USA and acting like you're the first person to do it.

They should just take C-USA East and SBC East and make them a conference and same with the respective West divisions.

In actuality, it would probably take an agreement between C-USA East and C-USA West to agree to spin off one side of the league and then each of the new leagues to grab SBC or FCS schools that they want. Left behind would be the picked over remains of the SBC which would then need to go into a rebuilding phase. There's just too many SBC schools like ULM and Coastal Carolina that no one would want.

(09-12-2018 03:58 PM)ValleyBoy Wrote:  Don't need a map to split 14 teams in half then add 1 to each side.

With possession of a map, I can see that if you split 14 teams in half and end up with Western Kentucky in the "West" with NMSU, your split doesn't make any sense.

Charlotte, Old Dominion, Marshall, Western Kentucky and Middle Tennessee make for a coherent group together in a conference. The FxU pair don't make geographic sense for that block ... that is more recruiting sense in having an annual trip to South Florida.

(09-12-2018 07:57 PM)Fighting Muskie Wrote:  They should just take C-USA East and SBC East and make them a conference and same with the respective West divisions.

In actuality, it would probably take an agreement between C-USA East and C-USA West to agree to spin off one side of the league and then each of the new leagues to grab SBC or FCS schools that they want. Left behind would be the picked over remains of the SBC which would then need to go into a rebuilding phase. There's just too many SBC schools like ULM and Coastal Carolina that no one would want.

Problem is there are only two organizational entities with a spot in the Access Bowl chase. If CUSA splits, whichever "half" is the "new" half does not get into the Access Bowl chase until the next CFP agreement is hammered out.

But within the existing organizational entities, the supermajorities to boot members out applies, and between schools that prefer the division they are presently in and schools voting against their own expulsion, a "grand reshuffle" is unlikely to ever have the votes.

In the aftermath of a grander realignment among the big name football schools, such as is presently being speculated on in other threads, where the existing CFP / Access Bowl system is scratched and something new takes its place, then it becomes much more likely.

(09-12-2018 04:17 PM)ValleyBoy Wrote:  

(09-12-2018 04:09 PM)mturn017 Wrote:  

(09-12-2018 03:58 PM)ValleyBoy Wrote:  

(09-12-2018 03:39 PM)mturn017 Wrote:  

(09-12-2018 03:23 PM)ValleyBoy Wrote:  CUSA fans what to split so bad just go ahead and do the following.

Split into 2 new conferences

CUSA West
1. UTSA
2. Rice
3. UNT
4. UTEP
5. LaTech
6. WKU
7. MT
8. NMSU (add)

CUSA East

1. FAU
2. FIU
3. ODU
4. Marshall
5. Charlotte
6. UAB
7. Southern Miss
8. Liberty or ODU (add)

Somebody get this guy a map.

If you don't the above swap FAU and FIU for WKU and MT.

Don't need a map to split 14 teams half then add 1 to each side.

What?

Look CUSA did not use a map when adding members because they went the market route why should they change now. If CUSA does not like what they have now it is up to CUSA members to fix it.

By the way the SunBelt used a map when adding members which is why the members of the SunBelt are happy with their conference makeup.

I mean I think most TXST fans are happy with the Sun Belt, but as stated many times on the Sun Belt board it would be nice to be with the Texas teams in CUSA...

(09-12-2018 07:57 PM)Fighting Muskie Wrote:  They should just take C-USA East and SBC East and make them a conference and same with the respective West divisions.

In actuality, it would probably take an agreement between C-USA East and C-USA West to agree to spin off one side of the league and then each of the new leagues to grab SBC or FCS schools that they want. Left behind would be the picked over remains of the SBC which would then need to go into a rebuilding phase. There's just too many SBC schools like ULM and Coastal Carolina that no one would want.

I like it!

CUSA West + SBC West = CUSA 12

CUSA East + SBC East = SBC 12

CUSA 12 West
North Texas
Rice
UTEP
Texas State
UTSA
Louisiana Tech

CUSA 12 East
Arkansas State
Louisiana
Louisiana-Monroe
Southern Miss
South Alabama
UAB

SBC 12 North
Appalachian State
Charlotte
Marshall
Middle Tennessee
Old Dominion
Western Kentucky

SBC 12 South
Coastal Carolina
Georgia Southern
Georgia State
Troy
Florida Atlantic
FIU

CUSA 12 Non-Football
UTA
UALR

More regional fit with CUSA schools...

That is why Lamar should be in the SBC, and boot UTA back to the WAC. Lamar would make a much better travel partner for Texas State. All I am seeing is that east vs west in the conference who they wanted to join. I bet the west schools would like Lamar or Sam Houston State if they can't have. In the future, I could see Central Oklahoma could be a target for a future FBS team. They could make another heavy populated parts of the state. That is in the future if UCO gets an invite to an FCS conference. Missouri Southern in Joplin could make another sense for their population. You might see some large cities that would love to make a lot of money from D1 fans playing their schools in all sports.

(09-12-2018 04:50 PM)mturn017 Wrote:  

(09-12-2018 04:38 PM)arkstfan Wrote:  If there is a commissioner, or university president/chancellor, or athletic director at a CUSA or Sun Belt school who has the magnetic personality and skills of persuasion to convince the 24 Sun Belt /CUSA football schools (or 26 hoops schools) to realign in a purely geographic manner I would love to be introduced to them.

Now you want to tell me that ODU and MTSU might get disgruntled and try to convince App and another seven to nine schools to join them in going rogue and starting something new? I'll listen.
Want to tell me that USM is tired of how they are aligned and will start calling their peers in the region about a defection? I'll listen to that as well.

There is essentially no precedent for nice, neat, and orderly.

Big 10 birthed anew, MAC as well but with only one charter left. ACC and SEC were the result of members of the Southern Conference getting frustrated and choosing to do their own thing. Big 12 was born out of the Big 8 needing the prime properties of the SWC in order to survive. The Pac-12 emerged out of the preceding conference being in turmoil. The MWC was birthed out of frustration over WAC16. Conference USA born out of the inability of Great Midwest and Metro to meet the new need to have a football conference and resulted in not everyone getting invited to come along. AAC was birthed out of the collapse of the Big East and the Big East football league rose out of the need to have a football league and the Great Metro failing to launch. Sun Belt football was born out of the inability of the Big West to fill its ranks with western schools and the desire of the Sun Belt football members to have a league.

Seriously if MTSU, ODU, WKU, Marshall sat down and said we want a 12 team conference they might well end up producing something that looks like the monthly SBC/CUSA merger posts but it is just as likely that it varies in spots.

I have no doubt there's been conversations. ODU and MT's AD's have made public comments saying a realignment should happen. App's AD made a statement the weekend we were there to play. Isn't it harder now to create new conferences and retain your autobid though? And the CFP contract lists the conferences by name. If you're not one of those I don't think you're getting paid. But otherwise I agree with you. It'll be some sort of power-move when it happens or else the P5 expands and the AAC is left with scattered pieces and some amount of horse trading happens to get in generally more regional conferences.

The NCAA has a lousy track record of enforcing its own rules on autobids so the NCAA element isn't a big issue. First thing someone yells is it is anti-competitive because it designed to prevent realigning into conferences that are more consumer friendly.

The CFP is a different bag of cookies. Who knows what happens there but if it results in the same net number of conferences and FBS schools may not be any significant issue.

(09-13-2018 08:58 AM)arkstfan Wrote:  

(09-12-2018 04:50 PM)mturn017 Wrote:  

(09-12-2018 04:38 PM)arkstfan Wrote:  If there is a commissioner, or university president/chancellor, or athletic director at a CUSA or Sun Belt school who has the magnetic personality and skills of persuasion to convince the 24 Sun Belt /CUSA football schools (or 26 hoops schools) to realign in a purely geographic manner I would love to be introduced to them.

Now you want to tell me that ODU and MTSU might get disgruntled and try to convince App and another seven to nine schools to join them in going rogue and starting something new? I'll listen.
Want to tell me that USM is tired of how they are aligned and will start calling their peers in the region about a defection? I'll listen to that as well.

There is essentially no precedent for nice, neat, and orderly.

Big 10 birthed anew, MAC as well but with only one charter left. ACC and SEC were the result of members of the Southern Conference getting frustrated and choosing to do their own thing. Big 12 was born out of the Big 8 needing the prime properties of the SWC in order to survive. The Pac-12 emerged out of the preceding conference being in turmoil. The MWC was birthed out of frustration over WAC16. Conference USA born out of the inability of Great Midwest and Metro to meet the new need to have a football conference and resulted in not everyone getting invited to come along. AAC was birthed out of the collapse of the Big East and the Big East football league rose out of the need to have a football league and the Great Metro failing to launch. Sun Belt football was born out of the inability of the Big West to fill its ranks with western schools and the desire of the Sun Belt football members to have a league.

Seriously if MTSU, ODU, WKU, Marshall sat down and said we want a 12 team conference they might well end up producing something that looks like the monthly SBC/CUSA merger posts but it is just as likely that it varies in spots.

I have no doubt there's been conversations. ODU and MT's AD's have made public comments saying a realignment should happen. App's AD made a statement the weekend we were there to play. Isn't it harder now to create new conferences and retain your autobid though? And the CFP contract lists the conferences by name. If you're not one of those I don't think you're getting paid. But otherwise I agree with you. It'll be some sort of power-move when it happens or else the P5 expands and the AAC is left with scattered pieces and some amount of horse trading happens to get in generally more regional conferences.

The NCAA has a lousy track record of enforcing its own rules on autobids so the NCAA element isn't a big issue. First thing someone yells is it is anti-competitive because it designed to prevent realigning into conferences that are more consumer friendly.

The CFP is a different bag of cookies. Who knows what happens there but if it results in the same net number of conferences and FBS schools may not be any significant issue.

The NCAA would not stop it from happening if the programs involved did this on their own. They are more willing than ever to consider new rules and exemptions to avoid being sued it seems.

Nobody "improves" by doing this in the sense that one conference offers more money, prestige or competitiveness. The SBC probably pays slightly better now but it is minimal as part of a budget.

This should be considered to generate more fan interest and to save $ on travel for all the non-revenue sports.

Look at the budget trimming that is starting to happen in the AAC and tell me that finding ways to be more efficient isn't a good idea. Fan egos aside, it just makes a lot of "cents".

(09-13-2018 05:04 AM)DavidSt Wrote:  That is why Lamar should be in the SBC, and boot UTA back to the WAC. Lamar would make a much better travel partner for Texas State. All I am seeing is that east vs west in the conference who they wanted to join. I bet the west schools would like Lamar or Sam Houston State if they can't have. In the future, I could see Central Oklahoma could be a target for a future FBS team. They could make another heavy populated parts of the state. That is in the future if UCO gets an invite to an FCS conference. Missouri Southern in Joplin could make another sense for their population. You might see some large cities that would love to make a lot of money from D1 fans playing their schools in all sports.

There it is. The traditional DavidSt D2 call-up hijack post.

(09-12-2018 11:52 AM)cmett003 Wrote:  I have finally found the best realignment for the 2 conferences.

New Sunbelt (12 football, 14 basketball, UTEP goes to MW)
FAU
FIU
UTSA
Texas State
Rice
North Texas
La Tech
La Monroe
La Lafayette
Southern Miss
South Alabama
Arkansas State
Arkansas LR (bball only)
UT Arlington (bball only)

New C-USA (14 teams)
Old Dominion
JMU
Liberty
Marshall
WKU
App State
Charlotte
Coastal Carolina
MTSU
UAB
Troy
Ga State
Ga Southern
UMass

Although I dont think everyone will be happy with this, its the best possible alignment.

The Florida teams need to be in the east. Honestly—it doesn’t matter if one conference has 14 and the other has ten. No point in a “regional” conference having to travel from El Paso to the Atlantic. That’s the whole point of the exercise.

(09-12-2018 04:38 PM)arkstfan Wrote:  If there is a commissioner, or university president/chancellor, or athletic director at a CUSA or Sun Belt school who has the magnetic personality and skills of persuasion to convince the 24 Sun Belt /CUSA football schools (or 26 hoops schools) to realign in a purely geographic manner I would love to be introduced to them.

Now you want to tell me that ODU and MTSU might get disgruntled and try to convince App and another seven to nine schools to join them in going rogue and starting something new? I'll listen.
Want to tell me that USM is tired of how they are aligned and will start calling their peers in the region about a defection? I'll listen to that as well.

There is essentially no precedent for nice, neat, and orderly.

Big 10 birthed anew, MAC as well but with only one charter left. ACC and SEC were the result of members of the Southern Conference getting frustrated and choosing to do their own thing. Big 12 was born out of the Big 8 needing the prime properties of the SWC in order to survive. The Pac-12 emerged out of the preceding conference being in turmoil. The MWC was birthed out of frustration over WAC16. Conference USA born out of the inability of Great Midwest and Metro to meet the new need to have a football conference and resulted in not everyone getting invited to come along. AAC was birthed out of the collapse of the Big East and the Big East football league rose out of the need to have a football league and the Great Metro failing to launch. Sun Belt football was born out of the inability of the Big West to fill its ranks with western schools and the desire of the Sun Belt football members to have a league.

Seriously if MTSU, ODU, WKU, Marshall sat down and said we want a 12 team conference they might well end up producing something that looks like the monthly SBC/CUSA merger posts but it is just as likely that it varies in spots.

There may be a point where the western schools get tired of hearing the eastern schools complain and offer a straight up trade sending 4 + Marshall back to the Sun Belt-ODU, UNCC, WKU, MTSU, Marshall (the one they would regret losing) for Texas St., Arkansas St., ULM, ULL and USA.

Then the Sun Belt is Marshall, ODU, UNCC, WKU, MTSU, App St., Coastal Carolina, Georgia St., Georgia Southern, Troy and 2 bb schools-UALR and UTA, who probably leave.

CUSA is UTEP, UNT, UTSA, Rice, Texas St., La Tech, ULL, ULM, Arkansas St., USM, UAB, USA, FAU and FIU.

Although it they really tried to just split equally, UTA and UALR go CUSA while USA stays in Sun Belt and FAU goes to Sun Belt so each conference has one Florida school.

(09-13-2018 09:49 AM)Crump1 Wrote:  

(09-13-2018 08:58 AM)arkstfan Wrote:  

(09-12-2018 04:50 PM)mturn017 Wrote:  

(09-12-2018 04:38 PM)arkstfan Wrote:  If there is a commissioner, or university president/chancellor, or athletic director at a CUSA or Sun Belt school who has the magnetic personality and skills of persuasion to convince the 24 Sun Belt /CUSA football schools (or 26 hoops schools) to realign in a purely geographic manner I would love to be introduced to them.

Now you want to tell me that ODU and MTSU might get disgruntled and try to convince App and another seven to nine schools to join them in going rogue and starting something new? I'll listen.
Want to tell me that USM is tired of how they are aligned and will start calling their peers in the region about a defection? I'll listen to that as well.

There is essentially no precedent for nice, neat, and orderly.

Big 10 birthed anew, MAC as well but with only one charter left. ACC and SEC were the result of members of the Southern Conference getting frustrated and choosing to do their own thing. Big 12 was born out of the Big 8 needing the prime properties of the SWC in order to survive. The Pac-12 emerged out of the preceding conference being in turmoil. The MWC was birthed out of frustration over WAC16. Conference USA born out of the inability of Great Midwest and Metro to meet the new need to have a football conference and resulted in not everyone getting invited to come along. AAC was birthed out of the collapse of the Big East and the Big East football league rose out of the need to have a football league and the Great Metro failing to launch. Sun Belt football was born out of the inability of the Big West to fill its ranks with western schools and the desire of the Sun Belt football members to have a league.

Seriously if MTSU, ODU, WKU, Marshall sat down and said we want a 12 team conference they might well end up producing something that looks like the monthly SBC/CUSA merger posts but it is just as likely that it varies in spots.

I have no doubt there's been conversations. ODU and MT's AD's have made public comments saying a realignment should happen. App's AD made a statement the weekend we were there to play. Isn't it harder now to create new conferences and retain your autobid though? And the CFP contract lists the conferences by name. If you're not one of those I don't think you're getting paid. But otherwise I agree with you. It'll be some sort of power-move when it happens or else the P5 expands and the AAC is left with scattered pieces and some amount of horse trading happens to get in generally more regional conferences.

The NCAA has a lousy track record of enforcing its own rules on autobids so the NCAA element isn't a big issue. First thing someone yells is it is anti-competitive because it designed to prevent realigning into conferences that are more consumer friendly.

The CFP is a different bag of cookies. Who knows what happens there but if it results in the same net number of conferences and FBS schools may not be any significant issue.

The NCAA would not stop it from happening if the programs involved did this on their own. They are more willing than ever to consider new rules and exemptions to avoid being sued it seems.

Nobody "improves" by doing this in the sense that one conference offers more money, prestige or competitiveness. The SBC probably pays slightly better now but it is minimal as part of a budget.

This should be considered to generate more fan interest and to save $ on travel for all the non-revenue sports.

Look at the budget trimming that is starting to happen in the AAC and tell me that finding ways to be more efficient isn't a good idea. Fan egos aside, it just makes a lot of "cents".

They only need 6 for the continuity rules and there is the "WAC grace period" anyway. Logical realignments leave 6 current members in each conference.

(09-13-2018 08:58 AM)arkstfan Wrote:  ...The CFP is a different bag of cookies. Who knows what happens there but if it results in the same net number of conferences and FBS schools may not be any significant issue.

This.

If a new conference is created, it will mean an existing conference has been raided beyond repair.

I've thought about this for years, and I believe the key school in all of this is UTEP. If UTEP has no invite for the MWC, Texas political pressure will be huge to keep those Texas CUSA schools together. This lends itself to the CUSA West exit strategy.

Without UTEP, the pull will be greater for some CUSA West schools to follow an MT/WKU/Marshall led grouping or to join the SBC.

(09-13-2018 05:04 AM)DavidSt Wrote:  That is why Lamar should be in the SBC, and boot UTA back to the WAC. Lamar would make a much better travel partner for Texas State. All I am seeing is that east vs west in the conference who they wanted to join. I bet the west schools would like Lamar or Sam Houston State if they can't have. In the future, I could see Central Oklahoma could be a target for a future FBS team. They could make another heavy populated parts of the state. That is in the future if UCO gets an invite to an FCS conference. Missouri Southern in Joplin could make another sense for their population. You might see some large cities that would love to make a lot of money from D1 fans playing their schools in all sports.

You realize that Lamar isn't closer than Arlington and involves going through Houston and it's traffic... would definitely not be a better travel partner, especially since they're also a downgrade athletically. None of us want them or Sam Houston.

(09-13-2018 10:24 AM)Attackcoog Wrote:  

(09-12-2018 11:52 AM)cmett003 Wrote:  I have finally found the best realignment for the 2 conferences.

New Sunbelt (12 football, 14 basketball, UTEP goes to MW)
FAU
FIU
UTSA
Texas State
Rice
North Texas
La Tech
La Monroe
La Lafayette
Southern Miss
South Alabama
Arkansas State
Arkansas LR (bball only)
UT Arlington (bball only)

New C-USA (14 teams)
Old Dominion
JMU
Liberty
Marshall
WKU
App State
Charlotte
Coastal Carolina
MTSU
UAB
Troy
Ga State
Ga Southern
UMass

Although I dont think everyone will be happy with this, its the best possible alignment.

The Florida teams need to be in the east. Honestly—it doesn’t matter if one conference has 14 and the other has ten. No point in a “regional” conference having to travel from El Paso to the Atlantic. That’s the whole point of the exercise.

You must have missed where UTEP lands in this scenario.

As Crump points out, this isn't about a big financial gain if it happens, it's about shaving a few dollars in expenses and trying to stimulate fan interest with regional regular season games as well as having the conference post-season events in close regional locations.

There are ways it could all be done "disorderly" and result in no new conference being created.

For example say CUSA East as a group choses to defect (maybe add UAB). They announce their intent to withdraw from CUSA and form a new league. CUSA West then invites 3-5 Sun Belt and tada you have CUSA. The remaining Sun Belt invite in the CUSA East schools and once they acquire a vote they utilize the Sun Belt bylaws to either change the minimum criteria to be a member (3/4ths vote) or to expel members (unanimous vote of all members other than the school(s) subject to the vote) to get it formed into what they want.

They can rename the Sun Belt anything they want by a 3/4ths vote and call it a new league while still being the Sun Belt under the CFP contract and NCAA rules.

(09-13-2018 11:58 AM)cmett003 Wrote:  

(09-13-2018 10:24 AM)Attackcoog Wrote:  

(09-12-2018 11:52 AM)cmett003 Wrote:  I have finally found the best realignment for the 2 conferences.

New Sunbelt (12 football, 14 basketball, UTEP goes to MW)
FAU
FIU
UTSA
Texas State
Rice
North Texas
La Tech
La Monroe
La Lafayette
Southern Miss
South Alabama
Arkansas State
Arkansas LR (bball only)
UT Arlington (bball only)

New C-USA (14 teams)
Old Dominion
JMU
Liberty
Marshall
WKU
App State
Charlotte
Coastal Carolina
MTSU
UAB
Troy
Ga State
Ga Southern
UMass

Although I dont think everyone will be happy with this, its the best possible alignment.

The Florida teams need to be in the east. Honestly—it doesn’t matter if one conference has 14 and the other has ten. No point in a “regional” conference having to travel from El Paso to the Atlantic. That’s the whole point of the exercise.

You must have missed where UTEP lands in this scenario.

ha---I did miss it. Still---San Antonio to the Atlantic is pretty far. FIU and FAU belong with the east teams. 10 in the west and 14 in the east probably works best.

(09-13-2018 12:13 PM)arkstfan Wrote:  As Crump points out, this isn't about a big financial gain if it happens, it's about shaving a few dollars in expenses and trying to stimulate fan interest with regional regular season games as well as having the conference post-season events in close regional locations.

There are ways it could all be done "disorderly" and result in no new conference being created.

For example say CUSA East as a group choses to defect (maybe add UAB). They announce their intent to withdraw from CUSA and form a new league. CUSA West then invites 3-5 Sun Belt and tada you have CUSA. The remaining Sun Belt invite in the CUSA East schools and once they acquire a vote they utilize the Sun Belt bylaws to either change the minimum criteria to be a member (3/4ths vote) or to expel members (unanimous vote of all members other than the school(s) subject to the vote) to get it formed into what they want.

They can rename the Sun Belt anything they want by a 3/4ths vote and call it a new league while still being the Sun Belt under the CFP contract and NCAA rules.

I could also see the announcement of the east group' intention to defect triggering substantive talks between conferences and their membership that result in a more cooperative reorganization since it would be to everyone's benefit to maintain existing autobids. I mean--once its clear upheaval is going to occur anyway---there might be more motivation for everyone in both conferences to go ahead a work together in order to have at least some level of control in shaping the final end products. Autobid preservation for everyone might be a decent carrot to bring the defectors to the table to attempt to work with everyone. The defectors have little to lose since they have already signaled a wilingness to go it alone if they cant get a final product that is acceptable.

The UTEP to the MWC scenario would be great for UTEP fans but it won't happen with the MWC currently at 12. The 6 schools that could be the basis of a new C-USA west would be NMSU, UTEP, Texas St, UTSA, UNT and Rice. But that's only 6 and 8 are needed to be an FBS conference. If no other schools were willing to join that group then 2 FCS move ups would be needed or it's a no go.

Just wait until the AAC contract comes in way below fans' expectations and we can throw them in the pot too. They cover the same geography and need to be part of the regional split. MWC and MAC are pretty well set for geography unless you want to put Marshall and Cincy in the MAC. This will be fun.