Even with the small time thinking of Toledo et al.

The City of Toledo is larger than 33 State Capitals and would be the largest city in most states. It just seems small compared to the "neighboring"....Detroit, Cleveland, Chicago, Columbus, Indianapolis, Cincinnati, etc....

Toledo also has a good size airport and lots of highway access.
(you can get here by boat........)

If any combination of Cincy, Houston, Memphis, or UConn would leave the AAC, switching over to that conference would not make much sense. A core group of the top MAC schools and maybe Western Kentucky, Marshall, MTSU, Southern Miss. and Temple, I think would be a decent league. You could have a north-south divisional set up. If Cincy, UConn, and Memphis could be thrown into that mix, all the better.

(12-30-2015 10:32 AM)FMRocket Wrote:  If any combination of Cincy, Houston, Memphis, or UConn would leave the AAC, switching over to that conference would not make much sense. A core group of the top MAC schools and maybe Western Kentucky, Marshall, MTSU, Southern Miss. and Temple, I think would be a decent league. You could have a north-south divisional set up. If Cincy, UConn, and Memphis could be thrown into that mix, all the better.

I agree that if we want a new conference affiliation, it is more likely to be something like a brand-new conference made up of upper tier MAC, C-USA & Sun Belt schools...I like the north/south thing...question is: who starts the process? There may be an opportunity after the Big 12 makes their moves, with likely poaching by the AAC after that...schools "left" like WKU & Marshall may want to ditch C-USA...

(12-29-2015 05:47 PM)northcoastRocket Wrote:  Personally, I think that joining the AAC has as good a chance at reducing the UT fan base as it does of increasing it. I just can't see the average UT fan being any more excited about playing Tulsa or Tulane or USF or SMU than Miami or OU or Ball State. Also, kiss any road support goodbye, as there is only 1 school (Cinci) that is even remotely driveable, and even that's a stretch for most fans, or for weekday games. There are more than a few UT basketball fans that like the fact they can drive to EMU, BG, Kent and Akron with little effort. In the AAC, nope not even an option. The added travel costs for all sports would be tremendous.

Of course, just playing UConn twice every year in WBB might be enough to raise our RPI enough to get an at large bid to the NCAAs ... cause we aren't going to be winning the conference, for the foreseeable future.

This post (outside of playing and losing to UConn twice helping at-large chances in women's basketball) is similar to my argument. The bold part is especially true. Don't forget that if UT wants to keep up in the arms race in the AAC, tickets would go up by a lot for football and basketball.

(12-29-2015 09:28 PM)northcoastRocket Wrote:  What I think would be the best thing for NCAA D1 football would be a promotion/relegation system like many of the international soccer leagues use. The champs from the G5 conferences would move up to the P5 and the worst P5 teams would move down to the G5 every year. Pair up the conferences. MAC <> BIG; Mountain West <> PAC12; AAC <> Big XII; Sun Belt <> SEC; CUSA <> ACC. Would force the bottom dwelling P5 schools to actually compete to maintain their status, and give the best G5 schools a chance to prove themselves worthy of moving up.

Of course it will never happen because of the $ involved, but I think it would add a ton of excitement to the game.

This would be phenomenal, but it will never happen. What about taking it a step further and having the FCS conferences tied into the G5 conferences? That would make UMass/EMU games in front of 243 people actually meaningful.

(12-30-2015 10:48 AM)bcunn3128 Wrote:  

(12-30-2015 10:32 AM)FMRocket Wrote:  If any combination of Cincy, Houston, Memphis, or UConn would leave the AAC, switching over to that conference would not make much sense. A core group of the top MAC schools and maybe Western Kentucky, Marshall, MTSU, Southern Miss. and Temple, I think would be a decent league. You could have a north-south divisional set up. If Cincy, UConn, and Memphis could be thrown into that mix, all the better.

I agree that if we want a new conference affiliation, it is more likely to be something like a brand-new conference made up of upper tier MAC, C-USA & Sun Belt schools...I like the north/south thing...question is: who starts the process? There may be an opportunity after the Big 12 makes their moves, with likely poaching by the AAC after that...schools "left" like WKU & Marshall may want to ditch C-USA...

This is exactly what I posted on a different thread. I don't think it could be that difficult to start.
If you get the top schools to agree to a new conference you could have an awesome conference.
The question is. Who and from where. And the left over schools. Not our concern.