Ramblin Wreck
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If you could form a new conference to move past the AAC
Since you guys aren’t happy with CUSA and the AAC seems to think everyone is below them, just form a new conference.
Who would you raid and which teams would you poach? I’m not making rules for this game, but it will be more interesting if it is realistic. For example, no P5 team would join and probably no AAC team. Factors to consider....How important is geography? How important is basketball vs football strength?
Here is my first go at it -
Form a new conference with Liberty, Army and the better Sun Belt and CUSA programs. Maybe you could get BYU and Boise St to jump in.
Coastal Carolina
Louisiana
UAB
Marshall
Army
Liberty
Boise St
BYU
Your turn....
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12-27-2020 10:42 PM |
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BlazinBham
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RE: If you could form a new conference to move past the AAC
I’d go:
West:
UAB
USM
LA Tech
ULaLa
Troy
Ark state
East:
MTSU
Marshall
Charlotte
GA State
GA Southern
Coastal Carolina
That’s for 12 teams and football
If we went to 14, USA for 7th west team. Tie for 7th team between Liberty, App State, ODU in the East.
Geographically better besides trips up to Virginia.
The fans don’t travel in current CUSA, AAC, Or Sunbelt. Time to put teams together within traveling distance. Create some rivalries.
Notice I left off Texas and Florida. Well, those schools create traveling expenses, so.....
If Basketball Only:
UAB, WKU, MTSU, Murry State, Belmont, Davidson, FGCU, VCU, Wichita State, Richmond, Northern Iowa. Just do it.
(This post was last modified: 12-27-2020 11:08 PM by BlazinBham.)
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12-27-2020 10:51 PM |
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linus
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RE: If you could form a new conference to move past the AAC
UAB
Coastal Carolina
Charlotte
Georgia State
FIU
FAU
Liberty
ODU
Marshall
USM
10 team conference. Except for USM and Marshall all have easy flights. Most have decent to good facilities and either deep pockets (liberty) or major markets.
9 conference games, 3 non conference. Play everyone. If you want more hoop emphasis drop the Florida schools and add Middle and WKU. That would also tighten the footprint
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12-27-2020 10:56 PM |
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blazinrunner
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RE: If you could form a new conference to move past the AAC
No to Liberty. No, no, no!
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12-27-2020 11:57 PM |
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BlazinBham
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RE: If you could form a new conference to move past the AAC
They are in better shape for AAC than we are.
Hoops is coming off 29 and 30 win seasons and you see where they are heading on the gridiron.
Falwell has already resigned, so what other reason is there to not like them. Freeze won’t be there much longer than this upcoming season. I kept em out of my football league based on geography. Otherwise, they are easily in.
(This post was last modified: 12-28-2020 01:03 AM by BlazinBham.)
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12-28-2020 01:00 AM |
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BlazerGreen
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RE: If you could form a new conference to move past the AAC
BYU and Boise St. aren't joining CUSA and Belt teams in anything.
Making a new league out of the best of CSUK and the Belt is probably our best option right now and that is damn depressing to this old Blazer fan.
(This post was last modified: 12-28-2020 08:48 AM by BlazerGreen.)
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12-28-2020 08:48 AM |
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linus
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RE: If you could form a new conference to move past the AAC
(12-27-2020 11:57 PM)blazinrunner Wrote: No to Liberty. No, no, no!
(12-28-2020 08:50 AM)ATTALLABLAZE Wrote: The only dumb move is not adding Liberty. They would have wasted CUSA this season.
I like MTSU but they don’t travel well to their home stadium much less the road. Basketball at least beat us in attendance but then again so has most every other program in the country that their fans care about basketball.
CUSA was a great idea turned horrible by piss poor management by CUSA and some of its member institutions. If we don’t get the invite by the end of next season it may be time for an airport meeting. Best of the G5 not in the AAC. I want substance not a flash in the pan.
I hate Liberty as a school, but they have the deepest pockets outside the P5. If you’re building a conference you don’t want teams that are going to suck resources. They also have the potential to travel well
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12-28-2020 09:16 AM |
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Ramblin Wreck
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RE: If you could form a new conference to move past the AAC
(12-28-2020 09:16 AM)linus Wrote: (12-27-2020 11:57 PM)blazinrunner Wrote: No to Liberty. No, no, no!
(12-28-2020 08:50 AM)ATTALLABLAZE Wrote: The only dumb move is not adding Liberty. They would have wasted CUSA this season.
I like MTSU but they don’t travel well to their home stadium much less the road. Basketball at least beat us in attendance but then again so has most every other program in the country that their fans care about basketball.
CUSA was a great idea turned horrible by piss poor management by CUSA and some of its member institutions. If we don’t get the invite by the end of next season it may be time for an airport meeting. Best of the G5 not in the AAC. I want substance not a flash in the pan.
I hate Liberty as a school, but they have the deepest pockets outside the P5. If you’re building a conference you don’t want teams that are going to suck resources. They also have the potential to travel well
From a conference business stand point, Liberty should be a lock. Some people don’t like schools associated with churches in principle, which is stupid and discriminatory in my opinion. However, schools like BYU, Notre Dame and now Liberty have large fan bases that travel quite honestly because they are associated with churches. Their fans are passionate about their teams. While schools like FIU may have 55,000 students, they simply don’t care about sports as a platform for their school. From a business stand point alone, I’d jump at the chance to have a Liberty and BYU in my conference. Deep pockets and passionate fan bases.
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12-28-2020 09:40 AM |
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blazers9911
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RE: If you could form a new conference to move past the AAC
Geography is partly what killed this current conference. As much as I like BYU and Boise as overall athletic programs, it makes no sense to join them in a conference. We also need to remember any conference that is new, would not have entry into the basketball tournament. There is absolutely no perfect solution at this point, but to me we regionalize the sun belt and cusa as best as we can.
UAB
Troy
MTSU
WKU
Georgia state
Georgia southern
Coastal Carolina
App state
Marshall
Liberty
Southern Miss
Charlotte
This conference fits pretty nicely geographically, southern Miss actually winds up as a bit of an outlier though. Marshall is what it is, there is no perfect way to get there, but at least a few schools are kind of close.
Others i considered:
Louisiana
La tech
FAU(not FIU)
ODU
South Alabama
Arkansas state
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12-28-2020 10:26 AM |
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biglizard
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RE: If you could form a new conference to move past the AAC
The only obstacle from my standpoint is that ADs, fans and coaches don't vote on the issue. It's the university presidents. You can put together a very tough G5 conference with all the schools previously mentioned but school presidents will want to maintain or improve the school's academic reputation with any association athletic or otherwise. If you look at the list of schools we have little in common with most of them.
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12-28-2020 10:54 AM |
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BlazerFromMD
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RE: If you could form a new conference to move past the AAC
(12-28-2020 10:54 AM)biglizard Wrote: The only obstacle from my standpoint is that ADs, fans and coaches don't vote on the issue. It's the university presidents. You can put together a very tough G5 conference with all the schools previously mentioned but school presidents will want to maintain or improve the school's academic reputation with any association athletic or otherwise. If you look at the list of schools we have little in common with most of them.
+1, academically, we're ACC caliber
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12-28-2020 11:04 AM |
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BlazerGreen
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RE: If you could form a new conference to move past the AAC
How about this: all the G5 teams that can't put an average of 20,000 live humans in the seats go back to FCS.
(This post was last modified: 12-28-2020 12:30 PM by BlazerGreen.)
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12-28-2020 12:29 PM |
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BlazinBham
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RE: If you could form a new conference to move past the AAC
What about schools who surpass 20k due to inflation?
(This post was last modified: 12-28-2020 12:43 PM by BlazinBham.)
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12-28-2020 12:43 PM |
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UAB Schnauzer
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RE: If you could form a new conference to move past the AAC
(12-28-2020 12:29 PM)BlazerGreen Wrote: How about this: all the G5 teams that can't put an average of 20,000 live humans in the seats go back to FCS.
That was us
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12-28-2020 03:17 PM |
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Herd6993
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RE: If you could form a new conference to move past the AAC
Not sure if you guys would go for this, but here is what I think could be a nice conference to compete with the AAC.
01. Marshall
02. UAB
03. Coastal
04. James Madison , or Troy, or S. Miss
05. Liberty
06. ODU
07. UNCC
08. Appy State
09. GA Southern
10. GA State
11. WKU
12. MTSU
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12-28-2020 03:22 PM |
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MAN4UAB
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RE: If you could form a new conference to move past the AAC
I see no real benefit of forming a new conference out of the Sun Belt and CUSA. [/u]
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12-28-2020 07:33 PM |
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BlazinBham
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RE: If you could form a new conference to move past the AAC
What benefit are we getting if we don’t make the leap to AAC? CUSA football is dead, in relevance. Sunbelt smacks us all around. 6 of which are ahead of us in recruiting leading into Feb.
(This post was last modified: 12-28-2020 08:28 PM by BlazinBham.)
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12-28-2020 08:25 PM |
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Hilltopper2K
Sun Belt Nationalist
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RE: If you could form a new conference to move past the AAC
(12-28-2020 10:26 AM)blazers9911 Wrote: Geography is partly what killed this current conference. As much as I like BYU and Boise as overall athletic programs, it makes no sense to join them in a conference. We also need to remember any conference that is new, would not have entry into the basketball tournament. There is absolutely no perfect solution at this point, but to me we regionalize the sun belt and cusa as best as we can.
UAB
Troy
MTSU
WKU
Georgia state
Georgia southern
Coastal Carolina
App state
Marshall
Liberty
Southern Miss
Charlotte
This conference fits pretty nicely geographically, southern Miss actually winds up as a bit of an outlier though. Marshall is what it is, there is no perfect way to get there, but at least a few schools are kind of close.
Others i considered:
Louisiana
La tech
FAU(not FIU)
ODU
South Alabama
Arkansas state
I think you're pretty close to what I would want. I would value Louisiana, La Tech, and Arkansas State over Southern Miss, Charlotte, and Troy though.
To your point, the threshold for maintaining an auto bid to the tournament is 8 teams. Realistically any new conference would have to have a minimum of 8 teams that were in a conference together before.
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12-28-2020 08:25 PM |
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notnow
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RE: If you could form a new conference to move past the AAC
8 teams and us. 9 total
Who should jump with us.
USM WKU MTSU Ga St
Liberty Marshall Appy Charlotte
No football championship game
16 game basketball
Or anything else.
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12-28-2020 09:04 PM |
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