If they made some agreement to waive exit/entrance fees between C-USA and Sunbelt, they could do something like this...

Sunbelt
West - New Mexico St, UTEP, North Texas, Texas St, UTSA, Rice
East - Louisiana Tech, Monroe, Lafayette, SoMiss, South Alabama, Troy

C-USA
North - Arkansas St, WKU, MTSU, UAB, Marshall, App St, ? (Maybe Chattanooga or something - I just glanced at FCS Top 25)
South - FIU, FAU, Ga Southern, Georgia St, Charlotte, Coastal Carolina, Old Dominion

If anyone gets picked off by another conference, the two conferences can decide who they want to replace them - They'd have a huge pool of teams in their footprint, and can shift teams from one conference to the other to make things work geographically. The Sunbelt and C-USA aren't going to make big money on media rights, so they may as well organize themselves to make fan travel easier.

(10-05-2016 08:30 AM)49RFootballNow Wrote:  

(10-04-2016 10:41 AM)Georgia_Power_Company Wrote:  

(10-04-2016 09:58 AM)MplsBison Wrote:  Tom #59,

All well and good. I definitely agree that "break apart, piece back together" is message board talk only.

But I still would like to see all CUSA and Sun Belt programs ranked on attendance and head coaching salary.


My hunch is that, although not automatic, most CUSA programs will come out higher than most Sun Belt programs. Ark St is probably the best chance for being an exception.

I was board today so here you go ranked by 2015 attendance with 2015 salary data:

While it might well explain some of our crappy coaching this year, I find it unlikely the rest of our football staff makes $47K together, since Lambert is making $600K by himself:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brad_Lambert#cite_note-1

Where did you get these figures from?

Attendance came from the NCAA website. Coaching staff pay came from here: http://sports.usatoday.com/ncaa/salaries but you're correct it does appear that Charlotte's total is off in that database or perhaps that total is the staff pay excluding the Head Coach.

(10-04-2016 06:03 PM)Tom in Lazybrook Wrote:  

(10-04-2016 05:29 PM)FIUFan Wrote:  

(10-04-2016 04:44 PM)TrojanCampaign Wrote:  No one was going to save CUSA's TV money it left with Houston, Memphis, SMU, and UCF. What Davidst was trying to say and for once he was actually correct is that CUSA made horrible decisions.
They made a knee jerk reaction and added teams like FIU, FAU, UNT, UNCC, UTSA, and ODU. All because a few current CUSA teams were too desperate to see that the money was never coming back despite what cities schools are in.

OK Mr. Hindsight, please list the schools you would replace on your list and with which school. Ga Southern and App. St. were FCS replacements for the schools that left. Would you choose one or both of those over ODU and Charlotte, who were also C-USA FCS call-ups? If so, then we can agree to disagree. This leaves schools like Troy, Ga. State, UL-L, UL-M and ASU (Tx State and USA were call ups or just beginning football). Also remember that when FIU and UNT were called up, FIU was coming off back to back bowl seasons.

Sure C-USA is having a down year but it's very convenient to dismiss the fact that we were in the running for the Access Bowl these past two seasons.

Try educating yourself a bit before spouting off, will ya.

Oh, sure, CUSA picked first. And they picked poorly.

Round 1 expansion. CUSA picks two from ODU, UNCC, JMU, App, Ga Southern, Coastal, Ga State, USA, Troy, FIU, FAU, WKU, MTSU, ULL, ULM, ArkSt, UNT, UTSA, LaTech, and Texas State. And they pick......FIU and UNT.

Round 2 expansion. Same list... CUSA picks MTSU (a good pick) and FAU.

Then the Belt makes their one and only marketz move...Georgia State. I think they faked out CUSA.

So when Round 3 came around, and the list was CUSA picks from ODU, UNCC, JMU, App, Ga Southern, Coastal, Ga State, USA, Troy, WKU, ULL, ULM, ArkSt, UTSA, LaTech, and Texas State....CUSA just went all 'cookie monster' on marketz and took FOUR teams, probably to prevent the Belt from taking those teams. They took ODU, UNCC, UTSA, and La Tech. Now they're too damn big. And they've got a lot to digest.

Then the Belt takes Idaho and NMSU plus Texas State.

Round 4, CUSA did the right move, and took WKU.

Then SBC took App and Ga Southern.

----

Then the NCAA changed the rules and the ESPN TV deal bubble burst. The Belt, seeing an opportunity to retrench and take advantage admitted Coastal and ejected NMSU and Idaho.

I think your timing is off.

December 2011-February 2012: UCF, Houston, SMU and Memphis announced that they were moving from CUSA to the AAC.
March 2012: Media reports indicated that Charlotte and UTSA were contacted about joining and in fact had received informal invitations
April 2012: Georgia State accepted a Sun Belt invitation.
May 2012: Charlotte, Louisiana Tech, North Texas, Florida International, UTSA and Old Dominion accepted CUSA invitations. It was never confirmed what Charlotte and UTSA did with their Sun Belt invites, whether they rejected them outright or just waited and then accepted the CUSA bids.
November 2012: Tulane and East Carolina (football only) accepted AAC invitations. Two days later, Florida Atlantic and Middle Tennessee accepted CUSA invitations.
March 2013: Appalachian State and Georgia Southern accepted all-sports Sun Belt invitations. Idaho and New Mexico State accepted football-only invitations. This all happened on the same day.
April 2013: Western Kentucky accepted a CUSA invitation in anticipation that Tulsa would leave for the AAC, which it announced the next day.

So Georgia State was not only the Sun Belt's first move, it also took place before any of CUSA's moves, albeit by only a few weeks. Also, Charlotte and UTSA were at the very least in the mix for inclusion, if not outright invited, because Charlotte was looking to move its nascent football program up and the rest of its sports out of the ill-fitting A-10, while UTSA's WAC home was on the verge of collapse. Appalachian and Georgia Southern didn't come until later. That means this notion that the Sun Belt eschewed markets in favor of established programs isn't exactly accurate, because they could have ended up with three market-driven additions before CUSA made its first move, and they didn't add App and GaSo until nearly a year later.

(10-04-2016 06:03 PM)Tom in Lazybrook Wrote:  Oh, sure, CUSA picked first. And they picked poorly.
Round 1 expansion. CUSA picks two from ODU, UNCC, JMU, App, Ga Southern, Coastal, Ga State, USA, Troy, FIU, FAU, WKU, MTSU, ULL, ULM, ArkSt, UNT, UTSA, LaTech, and Texas State. And they pick......FIU and UNT.
Round 2 expansion. Same list... CUSA picks MTSU (a good pick) and FAU.
Then the Belt makes their one and only marketz move...Georgia State. I think they faked out CUSA.
So when Round 3 came around, and the list was CUSA picks from ODU, UNCC, JMU, App, Ga Southern, Coastal, Ga State, USA, Troy, WKU, ULL, ULM, ArkSt, UTSA, LaTech, and Texas State....CUSA just went all 'cookie monster' on marketz and took FOUR teams, probably to prevent the Belt from taking those teams. They took ODU, UNCC, UTSA, and La Tech. Now they're too damn big. And they've got a lot to digest.
Then the Belt takes Idaho and NMSU plus Texas State.
Round 4, CUSA did the right move, and took WKU.
Then SBC took App and Ga Southern.
Then the NCAA changed the rules and the ESPN TV deal bubble burst. The Belt, seeing an opportunity to retrench and take advantage admitted Coastal and ejected NMSU and Idaho.
And meanwhile, the Belt teams got better in football, and outside of WKU, yours did not. And the Belt had some success in basketball. We haven't passed CUSA. But we've caught up. And our conference makes a lot more sense going forward than CUSA. Even before USM and/or Rice/Marshall bolt.

Who won? I'd say the Belt. Its a far better conference than it was 10 or even 5 years ago. It has depth and a stable of improving teams. We're getting more TV exposure (if not more money). We've got a stable of appropriate bowls. We're getting home games with P5s. Our basketball (although not USA) has gotten a lot better. Our baseball is excellent too. We have our problems (most notably ULM, who refuses to budget appropriately) but ours seem to be going away. We're no longer a joke. The conference is reasonably stable. And with 2 extra slots, we have flexibility for the future. And in any 'desparate' situation, we simply just add back NMSU and UMass as football onlies.
Meanwhile, CUSA has finished below the Belt 2 of the last 4 years (including this year), has had its TV deal slashed and is equal to the Belt, has seen its basketball product fall to Belt levels (or even lower), has higher travel costs, and unhappy members. WKU has performed especially well, but the depth isn't there. And CUSA is trapped by its huge size.
We haven't passed you guys permanently, but we've caught up for sure. And for CUSA to blow that after 4 rounds of expansion where CUSA hold every card, is just amazing.
By the way, when are you going to get rid of Garcia? All smack aside, why do you guys keep him?

I'm not going to speak to every school and scenario you have listed there, however, I will say that the first two adds to C-USA, replacing UCF and SMU or Houston, were FIU and UNT. Fairly clear choices given FIU was already an associate member, coming off two bowls, a Florida school for recruiting, large student body = financial strength, large market, relatively easy to get to and debateably a destination city for traveling schools. As for UNT replacing the first Texas school to the BigEast, many of the same points hold.

As far as your point of the 'catch-up', I think all the G-5's are pretty much in the same boat now, esp. with the cable-cutters and the generous [*cough] $12M max play-off payout from the Access Bowl to each conference. I mean other than a few stand-outs, there aint much difference (e.g. USA over #19 San Diego St.).

Finally, Pete Garcia's contract will not be renewed. Though expiring this year, he will remain in his current position through the end of the 2017-2018 school year (so an extra year to wrap-up projects already begun).

I'm sure Charlotte coaching salaries will ramp up to CUSA standards, if not there already.


The real outlier is ULM. Why are they so low???

(10-05-2016 10:49 AM)Georgia_Power_Company Wrote:  

(10-05-2016 08:30 AM)49RFootballNow Wrote:  

(10-04-2016 10:41 AM)Georgia_Power_Company Wrote:  

(10-04-2016 09:58 AM)MplsBison Wrote:  Tom #59,

All well and good. I definitely agree that "break apart, piece back together" is message board talk only.

But I still would like to see all CUSA and Sun Belt programs ranked on attendance and head coaching salary.


My hunch is that, although not automatic, most CUSA programs will come out higher than most Sun Belt programs. Ark St is probably the best chance for being an exception.

I was board today so here you go ranked by 2015 attendance with 2015 salary data:

While it might well explain some of our crappy coaching this year, I find it unlikely the rest of our football staff makes $47K together, since Lambert is making $600K by himself:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brad_Lambert#cite_note-1

Where did you get these figures from?

Attendance came from the NCAA website. Coaching staff pay came from here: http://sports.usatoday.com/ncaa/salaries but you're correct it does appear that Charlotte's total is off in that database or perhaps that total is the staff pay excluding the Head Coach.

Yeah, looking at the chart I think you only got the staff pay minus HC pay. Charlotte's total with HC is $1,247,025

(10-04-2016 05:29 PM)FIUFan Wrote:  

(10-04-2016 04:44 PM)TrojanCampaign Wrote:  No one was going to save CUSA's TV money it left with Houston, Memphis, SMU, and UCF. What Davidst was trying to say and for once he was actually correct is that CUSA made horrible decisions.
They made a knee jerk reaction and added teams like FIU, FAU, UNT, UNCC, UTSA, and ODU. All because a few current CUSA teams were too desperate to see that the money was never coming back despite what cities schools are in.

OK Mr. Hindsight, please list the schools you would replace on your list and with which school. Ga Southern and App. St. were FCS replacements for the schools that left. Would you choose one or both of those over ODU and Charlotte, who were also C-USA FCS call-ups? If so, then we can agree to disagree. This leaves schools like Troy, Ga. State, UL-L, UL-M and ASU (Tx State and USA were call ups or just beginning football). Also remember that when FIU and UNT were called up, FIU was coming off back to back bowl seasons.

Sure C-USA is having a down year but it's very convenient to dismiss the fact that we were in the running for the Access Bowl these past two seasons.

Try educating yourself a bit before spouting off, will ya.

A down year


Ga Southern and App. St. were FCS replacements for the schools that left. Would you choose one or both of those over ODU and Charlotte, who were also C-USA FCS call-ups? If so, then we can agree to disagree. This leaves schools like Troy, Ga. State, UL-L, UL-M and ASU (Tx State and USA were call ups or just beginning football). Also remember that when FIU and UNT were called up, FIU was coming off back to back bowl seasons.

FCS schools or not Georgia Southern and App State have accomplished more than FIU, UAB, FIU, and FAU. They have consistently been among the best programs in FCS. Troy also has a very strong history in football and is usually one of the best teams in the SBC.

They should have added Troy, MTSU, WKU, ULL, La Tech, App State, Georgia Southern, and then stopped.

(10-05-2016 11:48 AM)49RFootballNow Wrote:  

(10-05-2016 10:49 AM)Georgia_Power_Company Wrote:  

(10-05-2016 08:30 AM)49RFootballNow Wrote:  

(10-04-2016 10:41 AM)Georgia_Power_Company Wrote:  

(10-04-2016 09:58 AM)MplsBison Wrote:  Tom #59,

All well and good. I definitely agree that "break apart, piece back together" is message board talk only.

But I still would like to see all CUSA and Sun Belt programs ranked on attendance and head coaching salary.


My hunch is that, although not automatic, most CUSA programs will come out higher than most Sun Belt programs. Ark St is probably the best chance for being an exception.

I was board today so here you go ranked by 2015 attendance with 2015 salary data:

While it might well explain some of our crappy coaching this year, I find it unlikely the rest of our football staff makes $47K together, since Lambert is making $600K by himself:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brad_Lambert#cite_note-1

Where did you get these figures from?

Attendance came from the NCAA website. Coaching staff pay came from here: http://sports.usatoday.com/ncaa/salaries but you're correct it does appear that Charlotte's total is off in that database or perhaps that total is the staff pay excluding the Head Coach.

Yeah, looking at the chart I think you only got the staff pay minus HC pay. Charlotte's total with HC is $1,247,025

Yeah I looked again and all of the figures are for staff pay excluding the HC so it's still telling that the bulk of CUSA and SB are paying $900k to $1100K for assistant coaches but a few teams are well below that average. A HC can't do it all by himself and without a great staff the even best HC will be a failure.

(10-05-2016 11:09 AM)Cyniclone Wrote:  

(10-04-2016 06:03 PM)Tom in Lazybrook Wrote:  

(10-04-2016 05:29 PM)FIUFan Wrote:  

(10-04-2016 04:44 PM)TrojanCampaign Wrote:  No one was going to save CUSA's TV money it left with Houston, Memphis, SMU, and UCF. What Davidst was trying to say and for once he was actually correct is that CUSA made horrible decisions.
They made a knee jerk reaction and added teams like FIU, FAU, UNT, UNCC, UTSA, and ODU. All because a few current CUSA teams were too desperate to see that the money was never coming back despite what cities schools are in.

OK Mr. Hindsight, please list the schools you would replace on your list and with which school. Ga Southern and App. St. were FCS replacements for the schools that left. Would you choose one or both of those over ODU and Charlotte, who were also C-USA FCS call-ups? If so, then we can agree to disagree. This leaves schools like Troy, Ga. State, UL-L, UL-M and ASU (Tx State and USA were call ups or just beginning football). Also remember that when FIU and UNT were called up, FIU was coming off back to back bowl seasons.

Sure C-USA is having a down year but it's very convenient to dismiss the fact that we were in the running for the Access Bowl these past two seasons.

Try educating yourself a bit before spouting off, will ya.

Oh, sure, CUSA picked first. And they picked poorly.

Round 1 expansion. CUSA picks two from ODU, UNCC, JMU, App, Ga Southern, Coastal, Ga State, USA, Troy, FIU, FAU, WKU, MTSU, ULL, ULM, ArkSt, UNT, UTSA, LaTech, and Texas State. And they pick......FIU and UNT.

Round 2 expansion. Same list... CUSA picks MTSU (a good pick) and FAU.

Then the Belt makes their one and only marketz move...Georgia State. I think they faked out CUSA.

So when Round 3 came around, and the list was CUSA picks from ODU, UNCC, JMU, App, Ga Southern, Coastal, Ga State, USA, Troy, WKU, ULL, ULM, ArkSt, UTSA, LaTech, and Texas State....CUSA just went all 'cookie monster' on marketz and took FOUR teams, probably to prevent the Belt from taking those teams. They took ODU, UNCC, UTSA, and La Tech. Now they're too damn big. And they've got a lot to digest.

Then the Belt takes Idaho and NMSU plus Texas State.

Round 4, CUSA did the right move, and took WKU.

Then SBC took App and Ga Southern.

----

Then the NCAA changed the rules and the ESPN TV deal bubble burst. The Belt, seeing an opportunity to retrench and take advantage admitted Coastal and ejected NMSU and Idaho.

I think your timing is off.

December 2011-February 2012: UCF, Houston, SMU and Memphis announced that they were moving from CUSA to the AAC.
March 2012: Media reports indicated that Charlotte and UTSA were contacted about joining and in fact had received informal invitations
April 2012: Georgia State accepted a Sun Belt invitation.
May 2012: Charlotte, Louisiana Tech, North Texas, Florida International, UTSA and Old Dominion accepted CUSA invitations. It was never confirmed what Charlotte and UTSA did with their Sun Belt invites, whether they rejected them outright or just waited and then accepted the CUSA bids.
November 2012: Tulane and East Carolina (football only) accepted AAC invitations. Two days later, Florida Atlantic and Middle Tennessee accepted CUSA invitations.
March 2013: Appalachian State and Georgia Southern accepted all-sports Sun Belt invitations. Idaho and New Mexico State accepted football-only invitations. This all happened on the same day.
April 2013: Western Kentucky accepted a CUSA invitation in anticipation that Tulsa would leave for the AAC, which it announced the next day.

So Georgia State was not only the Sun Belt's first move, it also took place before any of CUSA's moves, albeit by only a few weeks. Also, Charlotte and UTSA were at the very least in the mix for inclusion, if not outright invited, because Charlotte was looking to move its nascent football program up and the rest of its sports out of the ill-fitting A-10, while UTSA's WAC home was on the verge of collapse. Appalachian and Georgia Southern didn't come until later. That means this notion that the Sun Belt eschewed markets in favor of established programs isn't exactly accurate, because they could have ended up with three market-driven additions before CUSA made its first move, and they didn't add App and GaSo until nearly a year later.

North Texas had their C-USA invitation by February. The commissioner wasn't too happy with the North Texas athletic administration at the basketball tournament that year.

I know some Belt fans are still butt hurt and like to say they should have gotten in ahead of us, but they usually choose to ignore what some of us have done since joining C-USA three seasons ago. FIU had some success in the Belt in the years leading up to joining C-USA. North Texas went 9-4 and won the Heart of Dallas Bowl in their first year in the conference. And that year, C-USA quite a few good teams.

When you look at the Sun Belt additions, many have done something, or are building towards becoming a member. Here is what the new additions have accomplished in only 3 seasons in C-USA.

North Texas- 2014 HOD Bowl Champs over the MWC
MT- 2 bowl appearances in 3 seasons
WKU- 2 bowls in 2 seasons, 2014 Bahamas Bowl Champ, 2015 Miami Beach Bowl Champs
FAU- 6-6 in 2013
FIU- not much

5 bowl appearances between the 5 former Belt teams. Not bad.

(10-05-2016 10:42 AM)C00G Wrote:  If they made some agreement to waive exit/entrance fees between C-USA and Sunbelt, they could do something like this...

Sunbelt
West - New Mexico St, UTEP, North Texas, Texas St, UTSA, Rice
East - Louisiana Tech, Monroe, Lafayette, SoMiss, South Alabama, Troy

C-USA
North - Arkansas St, WKU, MTSU, UAB, Marshall, App St, ? (Maybe Chattanooga or something - I just glanced at FCS Top 25)
South - FIU, FAU, Ga Southern, Georgia St, Charlotte, Coastal Carolina, Old Dominion

If anyone gets picked off by another conference, the two conferences can decide who they want to replace them - They'd have a huge pool of teams in their footprint, and can shift teams from one conference to the other to make things work geographically. The Sunbelt and C-USA aren't going to make big money on media rights, so they may as well organize themselves to make fan travel easier.

I like your Sunbelt lineup except Ark St should replace UL-Mon and UAB replaces Troy. Much better east/west arrangement. Also the name Sunbelt would have to be changed as would C-USA.

(10-05-2016 10:42 AM)C00G Wrote:  If they made some agreement to waive exit/entrance fees between C-USA and Sunbelt, they could do something like this...

Sunbelt
West - New Mexico St, UTEP, North Texas, Texas St, UTSA, Rice
East - Louisiana Tech, Monroe, Lafayette, SoMiss, South Alabama, Troy

C-USA
North - Arkansas St, WKU, MTSU, UAB, Marshall, App St, ? (Maybe Chattanooga or something - I just glanced at FCS Top 25)
South - FIU, FAU, Ga Southern, Georgia St, Charlotte, Coastal Carolina, Old Dominion

If anyone gets picked off by another conference, the two conferences can decide who they want to replace them - They'd have a huge pool of teams in their footprint, and can shift teams from one conference to the other to make things work geographically. The Sunbelt and C-USA aren't going to make big money on media rights, so they may as well organize themselves to make fan travel easier.

Trade places with La tech and Arkansas State