From the last expansion round to this one C-USA went from a conference who could take from other non-BCS leagues (WAC & SBC) to a league that was raided by one of those very conferences.

We obviously can’t go back and change history but what could C-USA have done differently to better position themselves?

Let’s stick with the guidelines that we can’t mess with the timeline of when C-USA was raided (obviously things would have gone differently had the Big East/AAC did all of their raiding all at once as opposed to over a protracted period of time).

Personally I think they needed to sign a better tv contract and not over-expand to 14.

(05-09-2022 01:12 PM)Fighting Muskie Wrote:  Personally I think they needed to sign a better tv contract and not over-expand to 14.

The TV contract had a lot to do with it. Marshall's president stated after the fact "I'm just glad to watch our games on something other than Facebook".

(05-09-2022 01:12 PM)Fighting Muskie Wrote:  From the last expansion round to this one C-USA went from a conference who could take from other non-BCS leagues (WAC & SBC) to a league that was raided by one of those very conferences.

We obviously can’t go back and change history but what could C-USA have done differently to better position themselves?

Let’s stick with the guidelines that we can’t mess with the timeline of when C-USA was raided (obviously things would have gone differently had the Big East/AAC did all of their raiding all at once as opposed to over a protracted period of time).

Personally I think they needed to sign a better tv contract and not over-expand to 14.

Bad media deal. Too many mouths to feed with not enough on the field success to generate money to feed them. Stagnant leadership.

Staying at 9 is a good move so far. If a new media deal can drag us out of the armpit of Stadium, Facebook, and CBS Sports Net then maybe the conference stands a chance.

Maintained 1.0 and added Central Florida and TCU in the early 2000s and found a way to swallow Big East football in the mid-2000s (plus Navy football and Notre Dame non-football) and shed non-football schools in some sort of exchange.

Charlotte > A10
DePaul, Marquette, Saint Louis > Big East

Something like -

North: Connecticut, Pittsburgh, Rutgers, Syracuse, Temple, West Virginia
South: Central Florida, East Carolina, South Florida, Southern Miss, Tulane, UAB
West: Cincinnati, Houston, Louisville, Memphis, Navy*, TCU
* Football-only
^ Non-football: Notre Dame

Not adding App and a bad TV deal.

The number wasn't the problem as the East/West model is the same model the Sun Belt is using.

The Sun Belt was rising with App and Louisiana and had a better TV deal.

Being afraid of FCS teams. Should have added App and JMU to strengthen their hold in the Mid Atlantic market. Possibly should have added a few others not in big markets.
Several conferences have missed on good schools using the too many in one market excuse. Most G5 schools have very few sidewalk fans and all bring their own followers and steal very few from others.

We could start with C-USA telling App State to look somewhere else if they wanted to move to FBS. App later became a major voice in who the SBC added, mostly when it came to Coastal, JMU, and ODU.

(05-09-2022 02:18 PM)Yosef181 Wrote:  We could start with C-USA telling App State to look somewhere else if they wanted to move to FBS. App later became a major voice in who the SBC added, mostly when it came to Coastal, JMU, and ODU (Marshall likely didn't take as much convincing).

CUSA did what it was told at the time, add big market teams to help bolster tv deal. That turned out to be a big fat lie, and we ended up with 300K per team playing games strung out over multiple streaming services. Hindsight is always 20/20, but dang that hurt.

Should have added Notre Dame and App St.

And maybe inked a deal with CBS for prime time Saturday spots (and millions of dollars more per team).

(05-09-2022 02:25 PM)GreenDaddy Wrote:  

(05-09-2022 02:18 PM)Yosef181 Wrote:  We could start with C-USA telling App State to look somewhere else if they wanted to move to FBS. App later became a major voice in who the SBC added, mostly when it came to Coastal, JMU, and ODU (Marshall likely didn't take as much convincing).

CUSA did what it was told at the time, add big market teams to help bolster tv deal. That turned out to be a big fat lie, and we ended up with 300K per team playing games strung out over multiple streaming services. Hindsight is always 20/20, but dang that hurt.

The story on the forums back then (I'm not sure how true this actually is) was that ECU tried to convince the rest of C-USA to add App State. When it became clear that no other C-USA member would support that move, ECU started recommending ODU and UNCC.

In terms of what was within their power to do, I think they did pretty well up until 2013. They couldn't have prevented the loss of schools to the Big East in 2005 or to the BE/AAC in 2013-14. In 2005, they restocked as best as they were able to (with the exception of UTEP), but in 2013-14, it's clear in retrospect that their "marketz" approach was inferior to the "quality" approach of the Sun Belt.

Only 5 schools remained in CUSA in 2014 that were present just 2 years earlier: Marshall, Rice, Southern Miss, UAB, UTEP. If they had added, say, Louisiana Tech instead of UTEP in 2005, LT would likely not have been invited by the BE/AAC due to its being in a small market. But this puts the league in a better position when rebuilding in 2013-14. Some of their adds in reality proved to be of decent quality, while some were clunkers.

Here's what, obviously with 20/20 hindsight, I think may be one of the best lineups CUSA could have realistically put together:

East: Appalachian State, Coastal Carolina, FAU, Georgia Southern, Marshall, Western Kentucky
West: Arkansas State, Louisiana Tech, Louisiana-Lafayette, Rice, Southern Miss, UAB

Who cares at this point.

I’m just glad the conference is staying at 9 and not going on panic mood in adding schools just because.

(05-09-2022 02:43 PM)Nerdlinger Wrote:  In terms of what was within their power to do, I think they did pretty well up until 2013. They couldn't have prevented the loss of schools to the Big East in 2005 or to the BE/AAC in 2013-14. In 2005, they restocked as best as they were able to (with the exception of UTEP), but in 2013-14, it's clear in retrospect that their "marketz" approach was inferior to the "quality" approach of the Sun Belt.

Only 5 schools remained in CUSA in 2014 that were present just 2 years earlier: Marshall, Rice, Southern Miss, UAB, UTEP. If they had added, say, Louisiana Tech instead of UTEP in 2005, LT would likely not have been invited by the BE/AAC due to its being in a small market. But this puts the league in a better position when rebuilding in 2013-14. Some of their adds in reality proved to be of decent quality, while some were clunkers.

Here's what, obviously with 20/20 hindsight, I think may be one of the best lineups CUSA could have realistically put together:

East: Appalachian State, Coastal Carolina, FAU, Georgia Southern, Marshall, Western Kentucky
West: Arkansas State, Louisiana Tech, Louisiana-Lafayette, Rice, Southern Miss, UAB

There’s nothing C-USA with the great Mike Slive as commissioner could have done to prevent Louisville, Cincinnati and South Florida (add Marquette and DePaul to the list) to leave for a BCS conference and what was about to become the best basketball league in the nation. Ditto years later when the Houston, UCF, SMU and Memphis were invited to what still was at the time an AQ conference. TCU? The MWC offered BYU and Utah and TCU wanted to distance themselves from the former SWC schools.

(05-09-2022 03:21 PM)UTEPDallas Wrote:  

(05-09-2022 02:43 PM)Nerdlinger Wrote:  In terms of what was within their power to do, I think they did pretty well up until 2013. They couldn't have prevented the loss of schools to the Big East in 2005 or to the BE/AAC in 2013-14. In 2005, they restocked as best as they were able to (with the exception of UTEP), but in 2013-14, it's clear in retrospect that their "marketz" approach was inferior to the "quality" approach of the Sun Belt.

Only 5 schools remained in CUSA in 2014 that were present just 2 years earlier: Marshall, Rice, Southern Miss, UAB, UTEP. If they had added, say, Louisiana Tech instead of UTEP in 2005, LT would likely not have been invited by the BE/AAC due to its being in a small market. But this puts the league in a better position when rebuilding in 2013-14. Some of their adds in reality proved to be of decent quality, while some were clunkers.

Here's what, obviously with 20/20 hindsight, I think may be one of the best lineups CUSA could have realistically put together:

East: Appalachian State, Coastal Carolina, FAU, Georgia Southern, Marshall, Western Kentucky
West: Arkansas State, Louisiana Tech, Louisiana-Lafayette, Rice, Southern Miss, UAB

There’s nothing C-USA with the great Mike Slive as commissioner could have done to prevent Louisville, Cincinnati and South Florida (add Marquette and DePaul to the list) to leave for a BCS conference and what was about to become the best basketball league in the nation. Ditto years later when the Houston, UCF, SMU and Memphis were invited to what still was at the time an AQ conference. TCU? The MWC offered BYU and Utah and TCU wanted to distance themselves from the former SWC schools.

Did you mean to be responding to my post or someone else's?

(05-09-2022 02:43 PM)Nerdlinger Wrote:  If they had added, say, Louisiana Tech instead of UTEP in 2005

I'll never dispute that this would have been better for the conference (and very much thought so at the time).

(05-09-2022 01:54 PM)solohawks Wrote:  Not adding App and a bad TV deal.

The number wasn't the problem as the East/West model is the same model the Sun Belt is using.

The Sun Belt was rising with App and Louisiana and had a better TV deal.

It was the kiss of death.

(05-09-2022 01:12 PM)Fighting Muskie Wrote:  From the last expansion round to this one C-USA went from a conference who could take from other non-BCS leagues (WAC & SBC) to a league that was raided by one of those very conferences.

We obviously can’t go back and change history but what could C-USA have done differently to better position themselves?

Let’s stick with the guidelines that we can’t mess with the timeline of when C-USA was raided (obviously things would have gone differently had the Big East/AAC did all of their raiding all at once as opposed to over a protracted period of time).

Personally I think they needed to sign a better tv contract and not over-expand to 14.

I think the expansion was done with a 2012 mindset that didn't turn out to have staying power, namely to expand mostly based on "markets" rather than with schools with traditions and histories of good football.

Even more than that though was the same mistake I think the AAC just made - overexpanding. IIRC, CUSA lost 8 schools in 2012-2013 and added a whopping 13 schools. Maybe on the mistaken belief that adding all that fat padding would protect against future raids, when it never does.

As for the TV deal, it was what it was, not sure anyone could have negotiated a better one. There just wasn't much value in the conference. You had an enormous number of mouths to feed, low value mouths.

If you want to hindsight CUSA's moves I would go back to 2005.
Start by adding La Tech over UTEP
East: ECU, UCF, Marshall, Southern Miss, UAB, Memphis,
West: Tulsa, SMU, Houston, Rice, Tulane, La Tech

This would have been my 2005 CUSA, knowing you needed 12 for the Made for TV Championship game
That CUSA West is a tight footprint while the East is a good "best of the rest" division that is probably the best you could assemble


When the Big East split, you still would have lost Houston, Tulane, Tulsa, SMU, Memphis, ECU, and UCF. However, this is when you focus on football quality and history and take a chance
In the East
App instead of Charlotte
Ga Southern instead of ODU
FAU instead of both FIU and FAU
MTSU and WKU

In the West
UTSA, N Texas, Arkansas St, and Louisiana instead of moving UAB to the west

This would have given you
CUSA East: Marshall, App, Ga Southern, UAB, MTSU, WKU, FAU
CUSA West: UTSA, N Texas, Rice, La Tech, Louisiana, Arkansas St, S Miss

That conglomeration would have grown well and would not have been lapped by the Sunbelt.

(05-09-2022 03:53 PM)quo vadis Wrote:  Even more than that though was the same mistake I think the AAC just made - overexpanding. IIRC, CUSA lost 8 schools in 2012-2013 and added a whopping 13 schools. Maybe on the mistaken belief that adding all that fat padding would protect against future raids, when it never does.

They lost 7 schools (ECU, Memphis, Houston, SMU, Tulane, Tulsa, UCF) and added 9 (Charlotte, FAU, FIU, Louisiana Tech, MTSU, North Texas, ODU, UTSA, WKU) to go from 12 total to 14. The 5 carryovers were Marshall, Rice, Southern Miss, UAB, and UTEP.

(05-09-2022 04:01 PM)solohawks Wrote:  If you want to hindsight CUSA's moves I would go back to 2005.
Start by adding La Tech over UTEP
East: ECU, UCF, Marshall, Southern Miss, UAB, Memphis,
West: Tulsa, SMU, Houston, Rice, Tulane, La Tech

This would have been my 2005 CUSA, knowing you needed 12 for the Made for TV Championship game
That CUSA West is a tight footprint while the East is a good "best of the rest" division that is probably the best you could assemble


When the Big East split, you still would have lost Houston, Tulane, Tulsa, SMU, Memphis, ECU, and UCF. However, this is when you focus on football quality and history and take a chance
In the East
App instead of Charlotte
Ga Southern instead of ODU
FAU instead of both FIU and FAU
MTSU and WKU

In the West
UTSA, N Texas, Arkansas St, and Louisiana instead of moving UAB to the west

This would have given you
CUSA East: Marshall, App, Ga Southern, UAB, MTSU, WKU, FAU
CUSA West: UTSA, N Texas, Rice, La Tech, Louisiana, Arkansas St, S Miss

That conglomeration would have grown well and would not have been lapped by the Sunbelt.

I like where you started, but the next need came in two waves (which may have impacted what you could predict or not predict).

Tulane and Tulsa trailed in leaving. So unless you know they're leaving that may change who you're looking at for 2013. And who you add the next year.

Also, while ASU was riding as high as they'd ever get around that time, ULL was not (once you account for the vacated wins). So their Napier era might have been hard to predict. And nobody could have seen that FAU would hit (to the extent that they did - I guess relative to FIU) and FIU wouldn't (I think FIU was invited first and neither had really shown much at that point).

I do think that based on their FCS success, App (for sure) and Georgia Southern (to a lesser extent) could have been predicted as better on-field teams than UNCC or ODU. WKU should have been among the first schools invited as it was instead of later (for Tulsa/Tulane) but markets had been where CUSA was focused since the beginning.