(12-30-2014 02:17 PM)arkstfan Wrote: If you look at where the U.S. Army gets enlistments, a disproportion share come from the south. Yet the academy plays very few games in the south. Why not put more effort into recruiting the south where there is a more natural bent to enlistment?
Is that actually right?
Taking out Navy and Army as a "quasi conference", Army's 2015 schedule is tilted to the Northeast, with half of its ten "quasi OOC" games:
Fordham, @Uconn, @PennState, Bucknell, @Rutgers
... but other than their home region, they play more Southern schools than anywhere else:
Southeast: 2, Wake Force, Duke
South Central: 2, Tulane, @Rice
Great Lakes: 1, @EMU
Plains: 0
Mountain West: 0 other than Air Force
West Coast: 0
... 80% of their out of region, "quasi OOC" games.
(12-30-2014 04:53 PM)The Cutter of Bish Wrote: (12-28-2014 10:11 PM)BruceMcF Wrote: The Academy "national following" is awfully easy to over-state, since the majority of officers that did not go to the Academies are much less likely to pay a lot of attention to any games other than the inter-service games. Its not nothing ... which is why a service academy will have a warm welcome in a Go5 conference, but would struggle to bring enough value to justify an add to any of the P5 conferences.
It wasn't a mere coincidence that the AQ conference that made an invite to the most successful of the service academies was the one that lost its AQ status and dropped down into the Go5. And Army is further from being P5 material than Navy was.
Except that Army and Navy were usually at the table of every attempt to start a northeastern football conference up until the Big East, and even then, were still offered spots throughout its formative years, pre and post-ACC-raids.
But that at least is as much about histories of the old Eastern Independent schools playing each as the "national following" point that people pull out whenever they want to play a service academy card in a game of fantasy Conference Realignment.
Quote: And Air Force was on the short list with the likes of Pitt and Arkansas to replace some of what was lost in the Big XII. Before TCU. Before WVU and UL.
And yet, despite being on the short list, when the Big12 was desperate to make some adds when it looked like the Big12 was going to implode ... it wasn't AF that made the move. A conference looking at realignment has to start out with schools on its list that it will, in the end, not have the votes to invite, because members will want to know that they have looked carefully at all plausible candidates.
Quote: Overstated? I don't think so. You might, and to some extent, I can't say I fully disagree with the logic, but that doesn't stop other conferences from approaching them, even if they know the answer.
They obviously have an open door at the American ... but in the P5? Certainly not in the Pac12, the BigTen or the SEC, so that leaves the Big12 and the ACC. Navy might have an open line to talk to the ACC, given its position, but neither Army nor Air Force would. And there's no indication that AF is in the frame for the Big12, so that would leave out Army and Navy there.
Quote: The SA's work well with others. They travel well. They don't compete for the same kind of kids as others do. They don't just bring tradition and legacy...they practically ooze it. For some reason, the snobs who sit at the top of most schools want to work with that, even if the meatheads in the offices overlooking the gyms don't.
All part of the reason why they would generally be welcome in any Go5 conference, even one where the travel would be an inconvenience (witness Navy playing in the American West).