(06-21-2016 06:00 AM)RedParallax Wrote:  

(06-20-2016 06:26 PM)Cyniclone Wrote:  

(06-20-2016 06:08 PM)FlyHawk98 Wrote:  See this is what frustrates me about our local writers publishing crap like this.

I have not heard a SINGLE Marshall fan advocate for moving back to the MAC. Are we frustrated with some of the things in CUSA? Absolutely. Would any of us like to leave CUSA for the MAC? Absolutely not.

This TV deal is good for the MAC. They do not have large fan bases and they most likely never will. So if no one is going to show up anyways, might as well play on Tues/Weds for the money and exposure. Smart move by them. We have a solid G5 fan base at Marshall. Whatever we got in TV money would be lost at the gate on Tues/Weds nights instead of Saturday night games.

EDIT: Sorry, I had to come back and add more.

Huntington and the surrounding areas have a culture that is more aligned with the south as opposed to the midwest. Most of our alumni also move south upon graduation. So playing in CUSA gives us the opportunity to play closer to our alumni as opposed to playing in the midwestern towns of the MAC.

Same reason Ohio University right up the road would never join CUSA. They definitely align more with the midwest. Most of their alumni are in those areas.

We get that too, though not as much from the reporters as short-sighted fans and willfully ignorant observers who think that ODU would have been better off staying in the CAA and FCS. There's basically no benefit to staying FCS, and all those rivalries that people miss in basketball can be taken care of in non-conference scheduling (this season alone there's at least six games against former CAA opponents). I don't think anyone, short of the faculty senate types who I'm guessing would disband the entire AD, thinks that ODU is better off in the CAA. It's kind of hard to get excited about Maine and Albany coming in when N.C. State and Marshall have already appeared.

Give it time for those fans to shut up about preferring to have stuck in FCS. That B.S. will die down with FBS level success that ODU will inevitably have. Marshall had those same folks in the late 90's and early 2000's after we moved up to FBS, even when we were beating teams like South Carolina, Clemson, and Kansas State while dominating the MAC. Every fan base has fools.

Nearly every time ODU sports/football/basketball posts something there is somone clamoring for the CAA. I miss the CAA days, but now that VCU, George Mason, and Georgia State are gone, there is no way I would want back in. We got football at a time where the CAA was one of the most dominant conferences in 1-AA (back when they called it that), but it isn't the same anymore. Sure, playing JMU in football would be nice but then what, Elon? Albany? Yeah right. I'll be fine with playing Conference USA schools in football AND basketball, there is no comparison. And we play 15 ACC school in the next 10 years, including one year that we play both UVA and Virginia Tech in the same OOC. That wouldn't happen if we were in the CAA