RE: CUSA/Group of 5 TV dollars.
I think that we are mostly in agreement that a reorganization into travel friendly conferences makes sense with the TV contract as low as it is. C-USA should be able to split into two with both conferences getting an auto-bid (like the Big East and American), allowing the Sun Belt to survive as well. Ten team conferences make a lot of sense right now- allows for a championship game and a round-robin in basketball while dividing the pot by the fewest amount of teams. I'm guessing that the western division of C-USA would split off, as they seem the most unhappy at the moment:
Southwest
East: Southern Miss, Louisiana Tech, Rice, Louisiana-Lafayette, Arkansas State
West: North Texas, UTSA, UTEP, New Mexico State, Texas State
The remaining teams in C-USA and the Sun Belt could reorganize as follows:
Sun Belt
West: ULM, Troy, South Alabama, Georgia State, Jacksonville State
East: Appalachian State, Coastal Carolina, Georgia Southern, FIU, FAU
C-USA
North: Marshall, Old Dominion, James Madison, Eastern Kentucky, UMass (FB only)
South: Western Kentucky, Middle Tennessee, Chattanooga, Charlotte, UAB
While I think a reborn Southwest Conference has legs, I'm less confident in the Sun Belt and C-USA both getting back to 10. Too many FCS moveups, which is part of the reason C-USA is in this mess. One or two is fine, but they added six teams with fewer than ten years of FBS experience in football. A lot of those programs could turn out to be good, but I think the lack of known football brands really hurt them.
(This post was last modified: 06-07-2016 09:20 PM by BullsFanatic.)
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