The unofficial online home for fans of the UAB Blazers. Part of Collegiate Sports Nation (CSN).

Get on it and blow it up NOW before the treebaggers find it:

http://www.al.com/sports/index.ssf/2012/...e_fut.html

Hopefully, one day we will be in a position where we won't have to "settle" and that we will determine our own destiny. Let's put our best face forward and move on. It's a done deal.

Every conference is held hostage by change, and the relationships with their brethren. Eventually the Fighting Irish will be forced to join a conference as a full member, the days of going it alone are over. Money is driving athletics, so why pay ND, millions, when you can pay a conference millions for more, bigger, and bigger, names and numbers.

UAB, because of strong academics, solid athletic programs, and location is well known in the academic community, for example, with out doing a google search, beside basketball, what else is Memphis the University known for. Okay what about Houston, SMU, UCF, Lousiville, etc..

I could ask the same question about other conference, but the point is we aren't an undesireable insitiution, our world class medical school and hosptials, academics, good sports and location will always keep us relevant.

My point is we would be welcome in many conferences with similiar strong commitments,

Notre Dame has become insignificant in college football. Their TV contract is ridiculous. It is a huge waste of money.

Quote:Mackin said the benefits include an enhanced media contract that "should increase TV revenue and exposure" and a group of schools that draw viewers across five time zones. Other benefits include the stability of having a large number of universities in the conference and that the merging schools have "national stature." Travel budgets would seemingly be an obvious concern with the spread-out conference.

Quote:"This will be a regional conference with two divisions -- East and West," Mackin said. "Travel costs should not be affected because we will be playing our Conference USA schools and they would be playing the Mountain West schools. To give you an example, our soccer program would not be going to Wyoming. They would stay in their same footprint."

Quote:Mackin shot down suggestions that seeking a spot in the Sun Belt Conference would be the best option for the Blazers.

"This new conference must be viewed as having increased value because most of the Sun Belt teams have requested that they be considered by membership in the new conference," Mackin said, adding that the requests came in calls to the C-USA office.

Quote:the proposed conference appears to be stronger in basketball than some would think, according to Mackin. The Mountain West Conference had five teams ranked in the top 68 in RPI as of Thursday morning. The group includes No. 11 UNLV, No. 19 San Diego State, No. 21 Colorado State, No. 41 New Mexico and No. 68 Wyoming. As a conference, the Mountain West has the fifth best RPI, one spot ahead of the ACC.

Quote:One of the strengths of the merger in football is the bowl package of each conference, even though the changing landscape of conference realignment could create some changes. As of now, C-USA has bowl ties with the Liberty Bowl, Hawaii Bowl, Bell Helicopter Armed Forces Bowl, New Orleans Bowl, Beef 'O' Brady's Bowl and TicketCity Bowl with a back-up spot in the Military Bowl. The MWC has bowl ties with the New Mexico Bowl, Independence Bowl, Poinsettia Bowl and Las Vegas Bowl.

Oh and Jon Soloman can suck it.

That pretty much explains what some of us have been mentioning.

(02-10-2012 09:10 AM)ATTALLABLAZE Wrote:  

Quote:Mackin said the benefits include an enhanced media contract that "should increase TV revenue and exposure" and a group of schools that draw viewers across five time zones. Other benefits include the stability of having a large number of universities in the conference and that the merging schools have "national stature." Travel budgets would seemingly be an obvious concern with the spread-out conference.

Quote:"This will be a regional conference with two divisions -- East and West," Mackin said. "Travel costs should not be affected because we will be playing our Conference USA schools and they would be playing the Mountain West schools. To give you an example, our soccer program would not be going to Wyoming. They would stay in their same footprint."

Quote:Mackin shot down suggestions that seeking a spot in the Sun Belt Conference would be the best option for the Blazers.

"This new conference must be viewed as having increased value because most of the Sun Belt teams have requested that they be considered by membership in the new conference," Mackin said, adding that the requests came in calls to the C-USA office.

Quote:the proposed conference appears to be stronger in basketball than some would think, according to Mackin. The Mountain West Conference had five teams ranked in the top 68 in RPI as of Thursday morning. The group includes No. 11 UNLV, No. 19 San Diego State, No. 21 Colorado State, No. 41 New Mexico and No. 68 Wyoming. As a conference, the Mountain West has the fifth best RPI, one spot ahead of the ACC.

Quote:One of the strengths of the merger in football is the bowl package of each conference, even though the changing landscape of conference realignment could create some changes. As of now, C-USA has bowl ties with the Liberty Bowl, Hawaii Bowl, Bell Helicopter Armed Forces Bowl, New Orleans Bowl, Beef 'O' Brady's Bowl and TicketCity Bowl with a back-up spot in the Military Bowl. The MWC has bowl ties with the New Mexico Bowl, Independence Bowl, Poinsettia Bowl and Las Vegas Bowl.

Oh and Jon Soloman can suck it.

The deal is done and there ain't a thing I can do about it. Remember this: The exact same arguments were used for the Great Midwest and C-USA at its' creation. If this is the best option we have, we have to take it. Hopefully we can improve our on field/court performance and maybe put more butts in some seats. Don't really see this merger as a catalyst to doing this, though.

(02-10-2012 09:45 AM)bpblazer Wrote:  

(02-10-2012 09:10 AM)ATTALLABLAZE Wrote:  

Quote:Mackin said the benefits include an enhanced media contract that "should increase TV revenue and exposure" and a group of schools that draw viewers across five time zones. Other benefits include the stability of having a large number of universities in the conference and that the merging schools have "national stature." Travel budgets would seemingly be an obvious concern with the spread-out conference.

Quote:"This will be a regional conference with two divisions -- East and West," Mackin said. "Travel costs should not be affected because we will be playing our Conference USA schools and they would be playing the Mountain West schools. To give you an example, our soccer program would not be going to Wyoming. They would stay in their same footprint."

Quote:Mackin shot down suggestions that seeking a spot in the Sun Belt Conference would be the best option for the Blazers.

"This new conference must be viewed as having increased value because most of the Sun Belt teams have requested that they be considered by membership in the new conference," Mackin said, adding that the requests came in calls to the C-USA office.

Quote:the proposed conference appears to be stronger in basketball than some would think, according to Mackin. The Mountain West Conference had five teams ranked in the top 68 in RPI as of Thursday morning. The group includes No. 11 UNLV, No. 19 San Diego State, No. 21 Colorado State, No. 41 New Mexico and No. 68 Wyoming. As a conference, the Mountain West has the fifth best RPI, one spot ahead of the ACC.

Quote:One of the strengths of the merger in football is the bowl package of each conference, even though the changing landscape of conference realignment could create some changes. As of now, C-USA has bowl ties with the Liberty Bowl, Hawaii Bowl, Bell Helicopter Armed Forces Bowl, New Orleans Bowl, Beef 'O' Brady's Bowl and TicketCity Bowl with a back-up spot in the Military Bowl. The MWC has bowl ties with the New Mexico Bowl, Independence Bowl, Poinsettia Bowl and Las Vegas Bowl.

Oh and Jon Soloman can suck it.

The deal is done and there ain't a thing I can do about it. Remember this: The exact same arguments were used for the Great Midwest and C-USA at its' creation. If this is the best option we have, we have to take it. Hopefully we can improve our on field/court performance and maybe put more butts in some seats. Don't really see this merger as a catalyst to doing this, though.

As I said in another thread - if we don't win football games, none of these points are going to matter for long. Don't be surprised if teams from this new merged conference jump ship or get plucked by another conference. And if UAB's still struggling to put out an attractive product on the football field, it's not going to matter what basketball is doing because it's obvious that football is the driving force behind all of these changes.

I get that we don't have any other options. I'm just saying that it's a shame that we don't. People have failed to do their jobs and now we're having to settle. I do see some things that make this look better, that I wasn't aware of. But I still feel like we're getting left behind right now.

I think that somewhere down the road that those that have "left us behind" will catch up with reality & come back to us.

That doesn't mean that they will want to join CUSA/MWC, but just that they will realize that the BCS money will dry up & they will be stuck playing across the country with nothing to gain for it.

(02-10-2012 10:05 AM)the_blazerman Wrote:  I think that somewhere down the road that those that have "left us behind" will catch up with reality & come back to us.

That doesn't mean that they will want to join CUSA/MWC, but just that they will realize that the BCS money will dry up & they will be stuck playing across the country with nothing to gain for it.

I tend to lean this way, also. I also want a super conference to come forward that has about 18-24 teams who think they can go it alone and leave the rest of us alone to do what we want to do.
Can we call this the "college football bubble"? And when will it burst like the housing, dot-com and tulip bubbles?

Yep. I would hope then that all us little dogs would step up so that scheduling for these "Super Teams" would be impossible.

Light this article up and refrute the gumps. They are starting to find it. Must be breakfast time at the soup kitcken.

I think the merged CUSA-MWC has the potential to be one of the better basketball leagues in the nation. Probably at least a 3-4 bid type of league. Ideally I would like to see at least a few crossover matchups with some of the better teams from each division: UAB, Tulsa, UTEP, Southern Miss, Marshall... and then Colorado State, Air Force, UNLV, Nevada, New Mexico. It will certainly be a better basketball league than CUSA has been the last 5-6 years.

TV deal with this merger will likely be pretty good. I honestly think the CUSA-MWC merger teams could come out as good or maybe better than the Big East teams (especially if the Big East BCS spot gets snagged as many suspect).

I am excited. Keep posting on the article folks!

(02-10-2012 11:16 AM)ATTALLABLAZE Wrote:  I am excited. Keep posting on the article folks!

I'll be excited when it's a done deal.....

(02-10-2012 09:10 AM)ATTALLABLAZE Wrote:  

Quote:Mackin said the benefits include an enhanced media contract that "should increase TV revenue and exposure" and a group of schools that draw viewers across five time zones. Other benefits include the stability of having a large number of universities in the conference and that the merging schools have "national stature." Travel budgets would seemingly be an obvious concern with the spread-out conference.

Should is the key word here. It does not say will. The Mountain West has a pathetic history of deciding its TV future and the fact that C-USA is basically going to throw away the existing contracts with Fox and CBS and have already ticked of ESPN. The term should is very shaky to say the least.

Quote:"This will be a regional conference with two divisions -- East and West," Mackin said. "Travel costs should not be affected because we will be playing our Conference USA schools and they would be playing the Mountain West schools. To give you an example, our soccer program would not be going to Wyoming. They would stay in their same footprint."

To make this scenario viable C-USA MUST add at least two new eastern/southern schools. These all-sport schools must be decided upon by only the current remaining C-USA members.

Using Mackin's example. Our soccer program will not being going to Wyoming...well Wyoming doesn't sponsor a men's soccer program. In fact, without cross-divisional play, we will be looking for a new home for men's soccer. After the defections, C-USA will only have UAB, Tulsa and Marshall remaining as full conference members, even if the affiliate members come along (South Carolina, Kentucky & FIU), that is still 2 members short for a ncaa conference. Air Force, New Mexico and UNLV are the only of the remaining or announced future members of the Mountain West that sponsor the sport, but as he stated, we won't be playing across divisions. (FYI: Temple and UMass both sponsor men's soccer & Charlotte just played in the National Championship game).

Quote:Mackin shot down suggestions that seeking a spot in the Sun Belt Conference would be the best option for the Blazers.

"This new conference must be viewed as having increased value because most of the Sun Belt teams have requested that they be considered by membership in the new conference," Mackin said, adding that the requests came in calls to the C-USA office.

There is only 1 current Sun Belt member that holds any value in my opinion and that is Western Kentucky. They have a historically strong basketball program and were a I-AA power in football before they moved up and have now turned the corner with a new coaching staff in place.

Quote:the proposed conference appears to be stronger in basketball than some would think, according to Mackin. The Mountain West Conference had five teams ranked in the top 68 in RPI as of Thursday morning. The group includes No. 11 UNLV, No. 19 San Diego State, No. 21 Colorado State, No. 41 New Mexico and No. 68 Wyoming. As a conference, the Mountain West has the fifth best RPI, one spot ahead of the ACC.

Left out was this:

Quote:On the C-USA side, four teams are rated in the top 63 with No. 10 Southern Miss leading the way. The others are No. 17 Memphis, No. 61 Central Florida and No. 63 Marshall. Overall, the conference is rated ninth in the RPI, one spot ahead of the Pac-12.

Looking at only the members that will be left: The remaining 5 MWC teams would have an avg RPI as of this morning of .5803 which would rank them at #2 only behind the Big Ten. The remaining 8 CUSA teams would have an average of .5321 ranking them #9. Simply by moving UTEP to the Western Division as has been suggested drops the West to #7 in the RPI Conference ratings (the East would remain at #9). Taking into account the additions of Nevada and Fresno State (along with UTEP) to the west, that combo of schools would still rank #7. As a whole, the alliance would have an average of .5475 which would still rank #7 landing between the A-10 and the Missouri Valley Conferences.

Just for fun: moving UTEP to the West and adding Temple to the east would vault the East into 7th place by itself.

Quote:One of the strengths of the merger in football is the bowl package of each conference, even though the changing landscape of conference realignment could create some changes. As of now, C-USA has bowl ties with the Liberty Bowl, Hawaii Bowl, Bell Helicopter Armed Forces Bowl, New Orleans Bowl, Beef 'O' Brady's Bowl and TicketCity Bowl with a back-up spot in the Military Bowl. The MWC has bowl ties with the New Mexico Bowl, Independence Bowl, Poinsettia Bowl and Las Vegas Bowl.

Quantity over quality. If the proposed new rules on bowl eligibility pass, 6-7 bowls games will go out of business. Of the bowls listed above, the Liberty will soon be history. Most of the 8 remaining games with primary affiliations are likely candidates to be eliminated.

Oh and Jon Soloman can suck it.

I'm sure he has, can, and will continued to do so...or at the very least continue kissing it.

Was this response serious? After somebody calls his fan base illiterate, you would think he could at least use spell check on his reply. WOW.

Oh No BPblazer , you got us there! That stereotype ruined my day, my week, my year, even my life! And the way you disrespect Paul Bryant, HOW DARE YOU!

Really? Your 100% eactly the same as the Alabama fans you despise, and you just proofed it.

Looking forward to going to a conference game in Las Vegas.