(03-18-2015 02:20 PM)pilot172000 Wrote: SWC failed because of the 80's. Not because of regional rivals. Arkansas leaving hurt the SWC terribly but it was the first true wave of conference expansion that caused its demise. Also we are talking about a much smaller scale of athletics as opposed to the SWC. You need regional rivals with a decent proximity for both recruiting and attendance. Take it from the Tech folks who played in the WAC for a dozen years.
what did "the 80s" have to do with anything that statement has no meaning
and the SWC failed because it was a conference with two powers Texas and A&M and occasionally UH or Tech having a decent season and Baylor, SMU, Rice and TCU all stuck completely sucking and having nothing to offer any recruit that the other 3 did not offer other than being bad in a different city
and the SWC failed because outside of Texas no one cared what happened in the SWC unless A&M or Texas were good and were in contention to play for a MNC or in a major bowl
again you can say that a new regional conference would be relevant, but there is only 100% of all established history to disprove that
would ECU, Wake, UNC, Duke, NCState and Appy State combined with GSU, GUSII, GaTech and Georgia be good.....no it would suck
Akron, Bowling Green, Toledo, Cincy, Kent, Miami (Oh), Toldeo, tOSU, KU, Louisville, WKU <<<<< SUCKS
Texas, A&M, Tech, SMU, UH, Rice, UTSA, Texas State, Baylor, TCU UTSA, north Texas state<<<<<<<<<<<<<<< SUCKS.....NO ONE CARES.....that is 3 good teams and 9 dwarfs all fighting to be not terrible or possible perhaps just decent for a few years
Cal, Stanford, UCLA, USC, Fresno, UCSD, SJSU, AU, ASU, UO, OsU, WSU, WU, Boise <<<<<< 3 or 4 good teams and a bunch of games no one wants to see or cares about and a bunch of programs moving from semi-relevance to irrelevance as they all lose any differentiation from one another
LSU, LaTech, ULM, Louisiana, Tulane, stAte, Arkansas USM, Ole' Miss, MSU, + two other warm bodies NO ONE CARES....that is 3 or 4 teams that would dominate and 8 or 9 teams that would wallow in misery.....and compare what LaTech did in the WAC to what ULM and Louisiana did in a "more regional conference"......compare where La Tech is now compared to ULM and Louisiana.....not a great deal better conference wise, but better than the Sunbelt and a bunch of D1-AA teams
UF, FSU, Miami, UCF, USF, FIU, FAU + a bunch of teams from NC....NO ONE CARES.....it would be 3 or 4 good teams and 8 or 9 teams always fighting to be the crab that climbs to the top of the pot and gets boiled last
Alabama, Auburn, Troy, UAB, USA, MSU, Ole' Miss, LSU, Tulane, ULM, Louisiana, LaTech, LSU, MSU.....where is the clicker so I can change the channel off this garbage......that is 3-4 teams rotating being good and really good and 10 or 11 trying to stay relevant and failing at it
all of those conference suck and all of those conferences completely and totally suck compared to the conferences that the top teams out of those conferences are in now.....and taking the top teams out of those conferences above and replacing them with more close in regional teams that would be at the bottom of the above conferences just makes them suck even more and it just makes them even less nationally relevant
what is a better conference Troy, USA, UAB, USM, Tulane, La Tech, Louisiana, stAte, north Texas state, Rice, UH, UTSA, Texas State, UTEP, SMU and Tulsa
or ECU, USF, UCF, USM, Tulane, UH, SMU, Tulsa, LaTech, Louisiana, Memphis, Cincy
which of the above two conferences offers the teams in that conference a chance to be different than the multitude of programs in most of those states that are similar......which of the above two conferences offers their members the chance to still play games in the OOC against regional teams, but to not hurt the strength of the conference overall when they win that game because the team that lost was also now in the same conference
which of the above two conferences offers their members the chance to go out and win over other regional teams in the OOC and then to bring that strength back to the conference
which of the above two conferences offers the chance for their conference members to play games that are relevant regionally in the OOC and that yet still matter to people outside of the region because their conference mates are spread much further across the country and one would assume the conference mates in other regions would want their conference mates to win in the OOC because that is better for the conference
when you get 4_ team in the same conference you get what I will call the "north Texas state effect" where one team and their fans sit around hoping that their 3 other conference mates in the same state all lose every game because they believe that makes them look "good"
if you have Tulane, ULM, Louisiana, and LaTech all in the same conference then the same thing happens....fans openly cheer for their conference mates to totally suck because that is the only way they feel they can offer something to recruits....and often the result is that all those programs suck and recruits go elsewhere....like to programs outside the conference and then the conference sucks
there has never been any evidence to support otherwise period and there never will be period