(12-01-2015 09:09 PM)westernwilly Wrote: (12-01-2015 08:15 PM)BruceMcF Wrote: (12-01-2015 06:03 PM)bopol Wrote: (12-01-2015 04:10 AM)BruceMcF Wrote: (11-30-2015 07:57 AM)wleakr Wrote: Do folks in the Cleveland are (Kent/Akron) really identify with NE? Doesn't appear that way to me when I visit...
"The NE" is awfully vague for that kind of statement ... is Buffalo "northeastern"? is Pittsburgh?
I think more of Great Lakes. That is Buffalo/Cleveland/Toledo/Pittsburgh/Detroit/Gary/Chicago/Milwaukee are all big industrial places. Get off the Great Lakes in NY/Penn, you start to get NE. Get off the Great Lakes in Illinois/Indiana, you've got full blown farming Midwest.
Yes ... and there are a lot more similarities between the urban Great Lakes and the urban Mid-Atlantic than between the urban Great Lakes and New England, no matter that there was once, over two hundred years ago, a connection between NE Ohio and Connecticut.
This just occurred to me, most of the MAC is more Great Lakes than Midwestern. BSU, Ou and MU are the exception.
I agree that Cleveland/NEO is more industrial Great Lakes than anything. But the industrial Great Lakes isn't stereotypical Midwestern like a lot of people from the Northeast to Mid Atlantic portray it as. NEO, specifically, has more connection to the NE or Mid Atlantic than it does the " Heartland".
So no, it isn't a New England/Northeast/East Coast/Mid Atlantic type area. But it isn't Midwest either. Cleveland is the bridge between NE/East Coast and Midwest. Just like Pittsburgh is a bridge city between East Coast/Mid Atlantic to Appalachia.
It doesn't really matter at this point, I was just throwing it out there that if both Temple and UMass would've stuck around full-time, they wouldn't have been the cultural outliers as many of their fans would've thought.
Like wleakr said, the MAC is actually a Great Lakes dominated league. And the Great Lakes area of the Midwest, overall, is culturally closer to being East coast than rural Midwest. Cleveland (Akron/Kent) and Buffalo/Rochester are just the cities, geographically, that are the most northeast of the Great Lakes region.
Moving it forward, its why if the MAC ever does expand, my opinion as somebody who lives in Northeast Ohio, would be to go East. But I'm sure others would say to look in the Midwest.
I have been pro Akron leaving the MAC if the chance came, even to CUSA. Though that stance has softened to the point where maybe I'd reconsider (the Akron/Kent duplication is the only reason while I'm still on the fence). But seeing some of the strides the MAC is making, I do think it could make a jump to being the best G5 league with a couple solid additions. Personally, Temple and UMass would've been it.
Neither are happening, so the league, IMO, needs to figure out who's next. Get two solid schools to get to 14 and continue to expand its reach. And if UMass reconsiders and wants in full time, I'd take them back.
BTW, I will say this. In the new era of conference realignment, there is now way the MAC shoud've taken in Akron in the early 90s. But that was a different era. And now, even with the Akron/Kent duplication, no way the league could voluntarily lose either... They have been the two best overall athletic department's in the league for the past decade now. And booting EMU also seems popular, until you look at the success it has had other than football (right now the third best overall AD going by Director's Cup). But with the MAC being Ohio/Michigan dominated is , IMO, more reason why the MAC can't settle at 12 and be satisfied. It has to expand its reach. Proximity is a plus, but since this league is so compact, it can easily add a couple more schools and not water down the product, and if they are in big markets, it won't be a net financial loss for existing members.