Today has done it. RC Johnson, in a race not to be outdone by Dave Mullins spoke with WMC-TV today in Memphis and said: "Memphis deserves to be in the SEC."
Keep in mind Memphis has operated very similar to ETSU only they've been blowing even more money with no real investment into their football program.
He's tried to sell his fans on Memphis getting into the Big East, when that didn't work he tried the Big 12, when they got laughed at (like C-USA did ETSU), now he's trying to bull his way into a conference where they would be DESTROYED in all sports but two, and one of those the SEC doesn't sponsor so they would still remain in C-USA for that.
RC Johnson, Dave Mullins, Shirley Raines and Paul Stanton have officially cemented themselves as clueless morons, incapable of any rational thought as it pertains to college athletics.

That's one way of looking at it. You could also consider that Memphis is a nationally recognized name because their basketball program is one of the best in the country.

Basketball maybe....in football they don't deserve to be in the TSSAA.

Lover, what is considered to be a "real investment" in their football program? The program has an $11.5 million budget. The overall athletic dept. budget is just under $37 million. That's more than Boise St., ECU., UCF, Houston, and pretty much all the other potential Big East candidates.

Clearly, they're not SEC material though. The Big East makes sense to me though. Great basketball addition and maybe their football will get better. They are simply atrocious at football, but lack of financial investment is not the issue.

(10-11-2011 09:58 AM)LetsgoBucs Wrote:  Lover, what is considered to be a "real investment" in their football program? The program has an $11.5 million budget. The overall athletic dept. budget is just under $37 million. That's more than Boise St., ECU., UCF, Houston, and pretty much all the other potential Big East candidates.

Clearly, they're not SEC material though. The Big East makes sense to me though. Great basketball addition and maybe their football will get better. They are simply atrocious at football, but lack of financial investment is not the issue.

That's just life. There are no guarantee's of success. There are however guarantee's of failure and dropping football altogether is one of them.

Are you serious right now? Have you seen the Liberty Bowl? How about Tommy West's presser after he was terminated? With the talent around West Tennessee/Mississippi they could take the second tier guys and win C-USA in football if they had a better administration. They're as incompetent as Mullins/Stanton and won't be heading to the Big East, or Big 12.
You saying they could go to the Big East especially after what Boston College's A.D. said about conference realignment shows you're completely out of touch with the reality of what's going on with intercollegiate athletics.

(10-11-2011 03:40 PM)Buccaneerlover Wrote:  Are you serious right now? Have you seen the Liberty Bowl? How about Tommy West's presser after he was terminated? With the talent around West Tennessee/Mississippi they could take the second tier guys and win C-USA in football if they had a better administration. They're as incompetent as Mullins/Stanton and won't be heading to the Big East, or Big 12.
You saying they could go to the Big East especially after what Boston College's A.D. said about conference realignment shows you're completely out of touch with the reality of what's going on with intercollegiate athletics.

Me, and ESPN, Sports Illustrated, Yahoo, and every other sports network who lists Memphis as a potential Big East target.

Big deal, Air Force, Army and Navy have all been listed as potential targets of the Big East. For basketball, Memphis makes sense but if they want to stay in the BCS in football Memphis won't help. However if the Big East wishes to reach 12 teams in football (which means 6 more teams if nobody else leaves) like I have heard they will be scrambling for warm bodies so yeah I could see Memphis making it in based on that.

At least they are trying to move up rather than move down.

stanton told everyone we would have a premier basketball program, we got downgraded. Memphis has a really good program.
stanton dropped football. Memphis has a football team.
stanton put us in the asuck. Memphis is trying to move to a better conference.

I would take the Memphis ad and president over ETSU's anyday, they aren't quitters.

Very true that they didn't drop the program altogether, they just haven't attempted to fund it and actually be competitive at it. That makes them just as bad if not worse.
If they Raines and Johnson were truly trying to upgrade Memphis' conference standing, they would look around at what EVERYBODY ELSE in the country is doing and would follow suit. It's an arms race in football, Florida Atlantic opens their new stadium this weekend. They too, were former A-Sun members.