Honestly, I see TCU regressing back to late SWC at some point. It's only a matter of time. Still, it's commendable that they rebuilt the way they did.

(12-14-2014 02:54 PM)HeartOfDixie Wrote:  Taking the average G5 program and throwing them into the P5 world means throwing programs into direct competition with schools twice to five times their size with resources up to 10x greater.

We've also yet to see how TCU and Lousiville will pan out over time.

Personal homerism aside, it's hard to compare Louisville's situation and TCU's. For one, Louisville did go from P5 - P5. Whatever one thought of the Big East, it was still much difference monetarily than a G5 conference. Second, Louisville actually has the most revenue of any current full ACC team and the largest budget based on last year: and that was with a huge discrepancy in TV money from the AAC vs. the other in the ACC. They don't have an issue with competing with better financed teams. So whether UofL is successful or not over the long haul, TCU faces a much steeper battle, as they had a much smaller budget for years before joining the Big XII, as compared to a school like West Virginia, who while they moved "up" in competition, they had comparable revenue and budget to other Big 12 teams prior to joining. Same with Syracuse and Pitt. only TCU and Utah had the deal with both going "up" in competition, and competing with teams with decades of financial advantages over what they had.

(12-15-2014 12:05 PM)adcorbett Wrote:  

(12-14-2014 02:54 PM)HeartOfDixie Wrote:  Taking the average G5 program and throwing them into the P5 world means throwing programs into direct competition with schools twice to five times their size with resources up to 10x greater.

We've also yet to see how TCU and Lousiville will pan out over time.

Personal homerism aside, it's hard to compare Louisville's situation and TCU's. For one, Louisville did go from P5 - P5. Whatever one thought of the Big East, it was still much difference monetarily than a G5 conference. Second, Louisville actually has the most revenue of any current full ACC team and the largest budget based on last year: and that was with a huge discrepancy in TV money from the AAC vs. the other in the ACC. They don't have an issue with competing with better financed teams. So whether UofL is successful or not over the long haul, TCU faces a much steeper battle, as they had a much smaller budget for years before joining the Big XII, as compared to a school like West Virginia, who while they moved "up" in competition, they had comparable revenue and budget to other Big 12 teams prior to joining. Same with Syracuse and Pitt. only TCU and Utah had the deal with both going "up" in competition, and competing with teams with decades of financial advantages over what they had.

Louisville was CUSA just 10 years ago.

(09-27-2013 09:23 AM)Wilkie01 Wrote:  Funny, Louisville fans never consider Pitt as a Big Boy like we did Miami, Virginia Tech and Syracuse. We considered Pitt more like BC, Rutgers, Temple and UConn.

This is exactly my point. Louisville has been good in football for about 10 minutes and in that 10 minutes we haven't been anything special, so of course we haven't earned your respect.

Prior to the original defections, we were used to playing against schools with which we had an actual shared history and a mutual respect. Then suddenly we were thrust into a situation where we had a bunch of strangers come into our league and of course they were thrilled to be there because they had upgraded neighborhoods.

For schools like Pitt though, replacing Miami with Louisville was not seen as an upgrade or even a small downgrade. It was seen as a mammoth drop in competition. Similarly, replacing Virginia Tech and Boston College with Cincinnati and South Florida was definitely not seen as an upgrade. It was seen as a severe downgrade, even though in reality there wasn't that big of a difference between the schools.

I mean as a Louisville fan I'm sure you can imagine how odd and frustrating it would be if one day all of the teams you played against and who knew and respected your history were replaced with a bunch of strangers who didn't know who Denny Crum was and had no idea how good Louisville basketball was in the early and mid-1980s. That is basically what happened with us and it was not good at all and it kept the casual fans away.

For the record, Houston and SMU were exactly the schools I was thinking of when I think of schools that used to play big time football but who were cast aside by conference realignment dominoes falling the wrong way. They were each in strong recruiting areas and in large television markets. Also, they each had plenty of shared history with other regional powers. Hell, Houston was all set to go with Texas A&M to the SEC before government officials talked them out of it with promises of something better and more local. Then, a short time later, they were left out of the XII altogether. That is one of the all-time screw jobs I have ever seen and I have always felt badly for the Cougars. One day the sands shifted and they were left behind - almost through no fault of their own.

Tulane is another perfect example of what can happen to an urban school playing in an NFL market once it stops playing against names its citizens know and respect. I hope for their sake that Cincinnati and Connecticut are not the latest examples of it because history has shown that it doesn't typically end well for those schools.

(12-15-2014 08:59 PM)herdfan2013 Wrote:  

(12-15-2014 12:05 PM)adcorbett Wrote:  

(12-14-2014 02:54 PM)HeartOfDixie Wrote:  Taking the average G5 program and throwing them into the P5 world means throwing programs into direct competition with schools twice to five times their size with resources up to 10x greater.

We've also yet to see how TCU and Lousiville will pan out over time.

Personal homerism aside, it's hard to compare Louisville's situation and TCU's. For one, Louisville did go from P5 - P5. Whatever one thought of the Big East, it was still much difference monetarily than a G5 conference. Second, Louisville actually has the most revenue of any current full ACC team and the largest budget based on last year: and that was with a huge discrepancy in TV money from the AAC vs. the other in the ACC. They don't have an issue with competing with better financed teams. So whether UofL is successful or not over the long haul, TCU faces a much steeper battle, as they had a much smaller budget for years before joining the Big XII, as compared to a school like West Virginia, who while they moved "up" in competition, they had comparable revenue and budget to other Big 12 teams prior to joining. Same with Syracuse and Pitt. only TCU and Utah had the deal with both going "up" in competition, and competing with teams with decades of financial advantages over what they had.

Louisville was CUSA just 10 years ago.

Doesn't matter. 10 years of being in a BCS/Power conference makes a difference compared to a team who went straight from the MWC to a P5. He was comparing how schools compete with teams with much larger budgets. Thus is Louisville entered the ACC, already having more revenue and a larger budget than every other school in said new conference other than Notre Dame, they are not at the same disadvantage. That was the point. For better or worse, budgetary reasons would not be an excuse if they failed.