I'm scratching my head as to why the Sunbelt and Southland both still have two non-football schools each. Both leagues have more than 10 members which isn't optimal for basketball and their non-football members have no intention of starting the sport. To me it seems like they they just take up space and benefit from being associated with the league peers without having to make the same athletic department investments.

IMHO both leagues should boot their nonfootball members. New Orleans, Little Rock, A&M CC, and UTA can all join UTRGV and UMKC in the east division of the WAC. Seattle, Utah Valley, Cal St Bakersfield, Cal Baptist, GCU, and NMSU form the west division.

(01-16-2017 10:17 PM)Fighting Muskie Wrote:  I'm scratching my head as to why the Sunbelt and Southland both still have two non-football schools each. Both leagues have more than 10 members which isn't optimal for basketball and their non-football members have no intention of starting the sport. To me it seems like they they just take up space and benefit from being associated with the league peers without having to make the same athletic department investments.

IMHO both leagues should boot their nonfootball members. New Orleans, Little Rock, A&M CC, and UTA can all join UTRGV and UMKC in the east division of the WAC. Seattle, Utah Valley, Cal St Bakersfield, Cal Baptist, GCU, and NMSU form the west division.

Like old big east

UNO used to have fine basketball, but they can't afford much now.
A&M CC could have merged with Kingsville, giving it an instant fb team.
UTA could still add fb, like it used to play.

The Southland needs to be a bus league.
The Sun Belt was formerly desperate for teams, as it was always losing FBS schools, but never had its core autobid threatened with the extra bb teams.

There's no I-AAA conference in the Southwest is one reason why.

I can't speak for the Southland, but here's one view from the Belt

Short answer...Its mutually beneficial.

1) There is no chance of a split over Little Rock and UTA. They know that if the football teams need to take a team, that it will be done.
2) UTA and Little Rock help the conference out. They perform well in basketball and provide travel partners for our teams
3) Neither UTA nor Little Rock have any better options for conference affiliation. Their other choices are the Southland (which is - quite frankly - a terrible basketball conference), the Summit (higher travel costs and far flung), the OVC (for Little Rock - meh), and the WAC (No...just no).

They help us, we help them. We get along. They know that they're safe here, but they also know that they are in a 'football first' conference. But that conference remains the best place for them to play.

I expect Little Rock and UTA to enjoy the benefits of Sun Belt membership for the forseeable future.

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Neither team is likely to add football either in the near future.

Little Rock in the SBC was hold over from the days when the Sun Belt didn't require football.

UTA in the SBC was added to attract Texas State to the conference, divisional balance and the Dallas media market.

There is always a chance that once again the SBC will face a major raid where its autobid could be close to threatened so I guess they'll keep them around.

Little Rock and New Orleans were there before the Sun Belt became an FBS conference.

The Sun Belt started as a non-football conference, and in its early years, was actually a good one. Little Rock predates Belt football. UT-Arlington would normally be a head scratcher, except for its location (literally in the same town as the DFW airport), and for having an above average academic reputation. Arlington wanted out of the Southland due to schools like Incarnate Word and Abilene Christian, then felt they had to get out of the WAC simply because it was disintegrating. C-USA and the American obviously don't need another school in the same market, so that leaves either the Summit or the Sun Belt.

The Southland probably would like to expel Texas A&M-Corpus Christi and New Orleans if they don't eventually add football, but A&M may back into it due to the Kingsville merger. I could see New Orleans joining the Atlantic Sun if they are the last non-football member - North Alabama, Lipscomb, Jacksonville, North Florida, USC Upstate, Stetson, and Kennesaw State are driveable from the Big Easy.

New Orleans to the ASun is a great idea.

Its a lineup more akin to the original SBC than the Southland which is a borderline DII league.

New Orleans was supposed to have started football in 2015, but put a delay on the first season.

Little Rock
UTA
Texas A&M-C.C. all could start football when they want to. UTRGV is looking to play in FBS one day.

A future non-football league could be formed with these schools.

Little Rock
UMKC
Oral Roberts
UTA
Texas A&M-C.C.
UAFS (D2 Fort Smith)
Drury (D2 Springfield, Mo.)
UTRGV
New Orleans
Cameron (D2 Lawton, Oklahoma)
Christian Brothers (D2 Memphis)
UMSL (D2 Saint Louis)

Could throw Denver or Metro State into the mix.

(01-16-2017 10:58 PM)chargeradio Wrote:  The Sun Belt started as a non-football conference, and in its early years, was actually a good one. Little Rock predates Belt football. UT-Arlington would normally be a head scratcher, except for its location (literally in the same town as the DFW airport), and for having an above average academic reputation. Arlington wanted out of the Southland due to schools like Incarnate Word and Abilene Christian, then felt they had to get out of the WAC simply because it was disintegrating. C-USA and the American obviously don't need another school in the same market, so that leaves either the Summit or the Sun Belt.

The Southland probably would like to expel Texas A&M-Corpus Christi and New Orleans if they don't eventually add football, but A&M may back into it due to the Kingsville merger. I could see New Orleans joining the Atlantic Sun if they are the last non-football member - North Alabama, Lipscomb, Jacksonville, North Florida, USC Upstate, Stetson, and Kennesaw State are driveable from the Big Easy.

UT-Arlington was a actually kind of a football move. We needed a team to give Texas State a travel partner.

It is true that UALR was in the Sun Belt before the Sun Belt added football but so were Denver and UNO. The Sun Belt changed its membership requirements to force Denver out and to put UNO on notice that they had to step up the pace of restoring sports after Katrina, but the rules were crafted to leave UALR alone. Later after the two left, UALR cut tennis in a budget savings effort and fell below the Sun Belt minimum standards and were permitted to stay.

Arkansas State won't vote to expel UALR, we don't need enemies when fighting for state budget dollars. We also like the fact that we can have 1000 people at a UALR basketball game, most fans who don't get to Jonesboro often if ever during basketball season.

ULM isn't going to vote them out either, having a league opponent 175 miles away is great for their Olympic sports.

The rest of the league is fine with flying into Little Rock and then leaving out of Memphis or going back to Little Rock to fly out for the AState/UALR road swing in hoops and volleyball or if they can bus, hit both on one bus trip.

Texas Arlington helps bridge to Texas State on those Olympic sports road trips.

The geographic center of AState, ULM, Louisiana Lafayette, and Texas State is basically a spot slightly east of downtown Shreveport, LA. Little Rock is about 210 miles North, northeast of that spot and Arlington is about 215 miles west of that spot. In other words, they both fit snugly in the Sun Belt west footprint.

Yeah, the Sun Belt's case is unusual. Both UALR and UTA fit almost perfectly into the footprint of the Western half of the league, and they provide travel partners for Texas State and Arkansas State.

While 10 does make some sense in Olympic Sports, the Sun Belt is designed in such a way that it would hurt travel. As it is right now, Olympic Sports teams make only one trip to Arkansas, Texas, and Louisiana...(or less in basketball where not everyone sees each other twice) You take out UTA and UALR, and it doesn't decrease travel really as Texas State becomes isolated without an easy travel partner, and the closest school to Arkansas State suddenly becomes ULM over 300 miles away.

With the league mandate to cut missed class time as much as possible for Olympic Sports Athletes, we have to maintain a travel partner schedule to make this work. Travel partners don't work without UTA and UALR.

(01-17-2017 01:17 PM)chiefsfan Wrote:  Yeah, the Sun Belt's case is unusual. Both UALR and UTA fit almost perfectly into the footprint of the Western half of the league, and they provide travel partners for Texas State and Arkansas State.

While 10 does make some sense in Olympic Sports, the Sun Belt is designed in such a way that it would hurt travel. As it is right now, Olympic Sports teams make only one trip to Arkansas, Texas, and Louisiana...(or less in basketball where not everyone sees each other twice) You take out UTA and UALR, and it doesn't decrease travel really as Texas State becomes isolated without an easy travel partner, and the closest school to Arkansas State suddenly becomes ULM over 300 miles away.

With the league mandate to cut missed class time as much as possible for Olympic Sports Athletes, we have to maintain a travel partner schedule to make this work. Travel partners don't work without UTA and UALR.

You don't have a H-H round robin for a conference schedule?

I know the history of the Sun Belt has teams before football, but right now they do dilute the $$ with 12 teams vs 10 if all teams played football. Hurts more because the SB is a 1 bid league. The Southland is hurt even more because they are so big for a 1 bid league.

UTA dropped the ball on football while nearby Texas Wesleyan added the sport.

(01-17-2017 04:28 PM)DavidSt Wrote:  UTA dropped the ball on football while nearby Texas Wesleyan added the sport.

One is a member of an FBS conference without the expense of football and the other is NAIA. I'm sure the UTA officials are kicking themselves.

(01-17-2017 04:46 PM)arkstfan Wrote:  

(01-17-2017 04:28 PM)DavidSt Wrote:  UTA dropped the ball on football while nearby Texas Wesleyan added the sport.

One is a member of an FBS conference without the expense of football and the other is NAIA. I'm sure the UTA officials are kicking themselves.

Texas Wesleyan was up there in D1 football at one point before the schools split to Universities and Colleges and then to divisions. Texas Wesleyan is still considered one of the private schools like SMU, Rice and Baylor.

(01-17-2017 01:37 PM)MWC Tex Wrote:  

(01-17-2017 01:17 PM)chiefsfan Wrote:  Yeah, the Sun Belt's case is unusual. Both UALR and UTA fit almost perfectly into the footprint of the Western half of the league, and they provide travel partners for Texas State and Arkansas State.

While 10 does make some sense in Olympic Sports, the Sun Belt is designed in such a way that it would hurt travel. As it is right now, Olympic Sports teams make only one trip to Arkansas, Texas, and Louisiana...(or less in basketball where not everyone sees each other twice) You take out UTA and UALR, and it doesn't decrease travel really as Texas State becomes isolated without an easy travel partner, and the closest school to Arkansas State suddenly becomes ULM over 300 miles away.

With the league mandate to cut missed class time as much as possible for Olympic Sports Athletes, we have to maintain a travel partner schedule to make this work. Travel partners don't work without UTA and UALR.

You don't have a H-H round robin for a conference schedule?

I know the history of the Sun Belt has teams before football, but right now they do dilute the $$ with 12 teams vs 10 if all teams played football. Hurts more because the SB is a 1 bid league. The Southland is hurt even more because they are so big for a 1 bid league.

We used to have a double round robin, but that stopped this year. Everybody plays their designated Rival Twice plus 6 other teams twice. 4 teams you only play once.

I'm not sure that UTA and UALR dilute the payouts much as all. They hardly get any league money outside a tiny portion of the TV contract, once the value for football has been removed. The only thing they get a full split on is NCAA Units for Men's basketball.

I get that some of these schools have some pluses. For UTA and UNO and to a lesser extent, the other two, provide a trip to an urban area for recruiting. All of these schools sit square in the conference footprint, or in the case of the SBC, the western region of the league.

For me the big issue is that they take up a spot that could be held by a football playing member. Let's say that Central Arknansas grew their program and made some big investments in athletics and we're ready for FBS--wouldn't you rather have them than Little Rock? UTA served a purpose when they were added but wouldn't it have made more sense to wait until someone like Lamar or Sam Houston was ready to make a big jump. UTRGV has football aspirations and could fit in either league once they launch football--they could fill A&M CC's spot in the SLC or UTA's in the SBC.

If A&M CC ends up inheriting a football program as a result of a merger then that's fine. The thing is they've used the "we're adding football" story since they joined. UTA has the means to play football and they conned both the WAC and SBC with empty promises of a start up team. Letting them in without a timeline in place was foolish and reactionary.

(01-18-2017 05:36 PM)Fighting Muskie Wrote:  I get that some of these schools have some pluses. For UTA and UNO and to a lesser extent, the other two, provide a trip to an urban area for recruiting. All of these schools sit square in the conference footprint, or in the case of the SBC, the western region of the league.

For me the big issue is that they take up a spot that could be held by a football playing member. Let's say that Central Arknansas grew their program and made some big investments in athletics and we're ready for FBS--wouldn't you rather have them than Little Rock? UTA served a purpose when they were added but wouldn't it have made more sense to wait until someone like Lamar or Sam Houston was ready to make a big jump. UTRGV has football aspirations and could fit in either league once they launch football--they could fill A&M CC's spot in the SLC or UTA's in the SBC.

If A&M CC ends up inheriting a football program as a result of a merger then that's fine. The thing is they've used the "we're adding football" story since they joined. UTA has the means to play football and they conned both the WAC and SBC with empty promises of a start up team. Letting them in without a timeline in place was foolish and reactionary.

Actually, UCA will NEVER get in the Sun Belt, so long as ULL and Ark State are in the league. They have a 'no Southland' school mantra. I suppose if they did something great, that we might reevaluate. UALR went to the round of 32 last year.

UTRGV was in the Sun Belt. They were ejected for extreme suckitude and after they decided to ask the NCAA to place the death penalty on their basketball program because they didn't want to pay a paltry buy out to their coach. They will NEVER be considered for the conference.

Lamar isn't getting a look by the Belt so long as ULL and stAte are in the league. SHSU would have to seriously upgrade their facilities in order to get a look. Lamar was in the Belt and left it because they couldn't compete.

TAMU-CC needs facilities and to figure out what to do with its program. It will also need serious success in order to be considered.

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And the Belt doesn't want more football teams right now.

We're good with UTA and Little Rock.