If this has been discussed previously, I apologize. But in the wake of B1G/Pac 12 working realtionship agreement, do you think it might be a good or bad idea to have that realtionship with the Sun-Belt Conference?

I know the first thought would that we would be lowering our standards if we did this, and maybe we are, but if you really look at the whole thing, the Sun-Belt is very MAC-like in institutions and revenues.

I think it would be good scheduling-wise to have every MAC team schedule a 2 year home/home contract with a Sun Belt team. I would rather see Troy or Arkansas St. than Cal-Poly or Tenn. Martin. and it may help each other power rankings because there would OOC Div. 1 wins instead of Div II wins.

I'm sure the Basketball teams wouldn't mind a scheduled game down South during the winter and it maybe a good situation the baseball teams to start the season in the South.

Again, just curious to see what other people would feel about a situation like this.

(02-29-2012 02:59 PM)Highhouse Wrote:  If this has been discussed previously, I apologize. But in the wake of B1G/Pac 12 working realtionship agreement, do you think it might be a good or bad idea to have that realtionship with the Sun-Belt Conference?

I know the first thought would that we would be lowering our standards if we did this, and maybe we are, but if you really look at the whole thing, the Sun-Belt is very MAC-like in institutions and revenues.

I think it would be good scheduling-wise to have every MAC team schedule a 2 year home/home contract with a Sun Belt team. I would rather see Troy or Arkansas St. than Cal-Poly or Tenn. Martin. and it may help each other power rankings because there would OOC Div. 1 wins instead of Div II wins.

I'm sure the Basketball teams wouldn't mind a scheduled game down South during the winter and it maybe a good situation the baseball teams to start the season in the South.

Again, just curious to see what other people would feel about a situation like this.

This is a good idea, but it doesn't necessarily have to be with the Sun-Belt Conference. What the Big Ten and PAC-12 have built together is brilliant I think. The Big Ten captures the East Coast and the PAC-12 captures the West Coast (and some huge markets in California). First with their long-term Rose Bowl matchup and now with out of conference match-ups it brings tremendous interest from coast to coast in both leagues. I'm deep in PAC-12 country and of course the PAC-12 fans feel that the PAC-12 is better than the Big Ten, but guess what, they all follow Big Ten football on TV and news solely to see who their team might face in the Rose Bowl as the Big Ten race unfolds. And that interest will deepen with the scheduling agreement. PAC-12 fans will casually watch a Big Ten game over any other conference especially if that Big Team will be on their schedule the next year. This provides both conferences with national fan-bases as opposed to just regional fan bases. Its BRILLIANT.

We need to pick a conference like the Mountain West Conference or Alliance West and play schedule them and play them in a bowl every year to do the same. East vs West. or North vs South with Sun-Belt because we already have the champions face off (sometimes) in Mobile like the Rose Bowl.

Matching up with a Sun Belt team every year in the non-conference makes sense. It matches us up with a conference that we should beat 60% of the time. However, that in itself doesn't help us. We need to replace those games with the patsies on our schedule. The payday we give teams like Tenn. Martin and Nichols State every year would be eliminated and replaced with travel to a Sun Belt school every other year. This makes $$$ sense to me and it strengthens our schedules.

However, I don't know if our leadership will want to do this because of the number of home games issue. With a 4 game non conference schedule, most MAC teams get 1 of those at home every year. They usually get a second one at home every other year. In short, instead of having 3 non conference home games in two seasons, we would be getting only 2. That's this biggest problem IMO. The money is nice, but if a scheduling snafu occurs, a MAC team could potentially be facing 4 straight on the road to start the season. The could negate this issue be scheduling less BCS schools on their home turf, but the unfortunate reality is that the pay-days are worth it.

I do support a bball relationship with another conference. Possibly the Summit, Horizon, CAA, etc... A conference that is a 2 bid league that is ranked higher than us.

I like it for football. I see more value for recruiting in the MAC playing SB teams rather than MWC or WAC teams. I doubt that CUSA teams would want to play at our place as a conference.

Ask I have said there are two issues

1) Differning Number of Teams
2) Agreements Between Belt Team (A) and MAC Team (B) don't benefit the whole conference. If this is done it has to be our number one (preseason) verse their number (2) and vice Versa down the line.

Every MAC team goes back and fourth between road and home. with our every other year road games being in November..

I would be interested in NIU playing Arkansas St in the first few weeks of the season.

What is this new fascination with Sun Belt? I can't even name more than 3 teams from the conference. And I'm not convinced learning anymore is worth the effort...
I have actually been to 1 game at a SunBelt venue. That was at FIU in Miami, FL and the brand new football stadium had the feel of a dated single A baseball field.