RE: COMMISSIONER OF THIS CONFERENCE IS TOO BUSY
My sense is that BB views Conf USA as an a conference of opportunity rather than a place schools want to stay long term. I know for example, that TH, when he was AD at ECU, had no intention of keeping ECU in Conf USA long term. In this Conference world, you are either actively looking to move up, or you are in the process of slowly dying. I do not know for sure, but I am willing to bet that at no time did BB say to Terry Holland, Hey Terry, why don't you think about sticking around in Conf USA and helping to build this conference. This probably did not happen, because BB is on record saying that it is a good thing when schools move up to other Conferences.
No G5 school wants to stay G5. The AAC, or the MWS are not places where any of the AAC schools want to stay for long. Why should Conf USA be a place where schools want to stay for long? Having said this, I think that what is missing from the COnf USA leadership is a plan for the in between time, the time in which schools are working to build their resumes so they can move up. Right now, it looks like the leadership of Conf USA, sees the schools like they are a loose group of tenants renting space at the Conf USA Storage facility. To further this analogy, the Storage facility promises to provide locks on the doors, and 24 hour maintenance, but not much else.
The realignment game however, is drawing to a close in the P5 world. There are maybe 3-5 slots left in these conferences. This means that the majority of the G5 teams, will remain G5 for a long, long time. Based on this reality then, is there something more the COnf USA leadership can be doing to make Conf USA a home where schools want to be associated with. Or is there something so compelling about Conf USA that the leadership can help create, that schools in this league will think twice before accepting a call to the MWC or the AAC.
(This post was last modified: 04-22-2014 08:12 AM by baruna falls.)
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