(07-07-2017 06:09 PM)_C2_ Wrote:  Thanks for the pat on the back but there's no way Houston would have come along. Houston athletics was a mess and a joke until around 10 years ago. It was playing in a stadium that was put to shame by many local high school stadiums and the basketball arena wasn't so bad but definitely outdated. This is to say nothing of performance on the field of play. 1991-2005 was probably the darkest period in Houston sports history.

Alternatively, UH gets the call to the SEC or Big 8/12 in 1985-90 if the plate tectonics start activating back then.

(07-07-2017 06:29 PM)_C2_ Wrote:  The deal is that Texas and Texas A&M thought everyone in the SWC was deadweight, including Houston minus a few years here and there on the field of play. The original Big 8 deal was to bring in just those two but politics forced Tech and Baylor in. So C-USA or the WAC were the only realistic landing spots.

Houston definitely would have been in the fold a decade earlier but not after the early 90's, when everything fell off a cliff.

(07-07-2017 06:42 PM)_C2_ Wrote:  As your location says, it's a moot point. That said, the Big 8 deal was only gonna be for the main two from the SWC and nobody else.

(07-07-2017 08:12 PM)Fighting Muskie Wrote:  I love the speculative history.

I've always wondered about if an eastern all sports league might have emerged centered around Penn St and attracted both Florida St and Miami. The Florida schools and Penn St would be the stars of the show with VT, Syracuse, WVU, and BC making nice showings through the 90s and 00s. (Sorry Rutgers, Temple, and Pitt you're all still cellar dwellers in this timeline)

The question is would is league be able to earn big tv dollars and its best members not lured away? Perhaps Penn St, much like Texas, would prefer to be king in its league and enjoy having a voting block supporting them.

I'm guessing circa 2004 this league steals GT and Clemson from the ACC to get to 12 and start a title game and to better tie in the Florida schools to the rest of the league.

ACC is reduced to Maryland, UVA, UNC, Duke, NC St, WF and has to add Louisville, Cincy, USF, and UCF.

In 2012 this league expands again to 16 with Duke, UNC, Maryland, and UVA. NC St joins the SEC at roughly the same time (instead of Missouri) and Louisville slips into the Big 12.

(07-08-2017 12:24 PM)GoldenWarrior11 Wrote:  In 2010, the Pac-10 adds Texas, Oklahoma, Colorado, Texas Tech, Oklahoma State and Utah to get to 16. The SEC still adds Missouri and Texas A&M, and Nebraska goes to the B1G. Kansas, Kansas State, Iowa State, and Baylor then get taken by the Big East, getting the football league up to 12 total members for football, and 20 total members for basketball.

Big East - East Division
Connecticut
Syracuse
Pittsburgh
Rutgers
USF
West Virginia

Big East - West Division
Baylor
Cincinnati
Iowa State
Kansas
Kansas State
Louisville

Big East Basketball
Baylor
Cincinnati
Connecticut
DePaul
Georgetown
Iowa State
Kansas
Kansas State
Louisville
Marquette
Notre Dame
Providence
Seton Hall
St. Johns
Syracuse
Pittsburgh
Rutgers
USF
Villanova
West Virginia

(07-08-2017 12:48 PM)ken d Wrote:  It's fun to imagine what might have been, if only....

I wonder if the increasing frequency of alternate realignment scenarios on this forum is an indication that, deep down, we don't expect much actual realignment to occur in the foreseeable future. For all of our imaginings, actual realignment doesn't usually result in the kind of symmetry many internet denizens would like to see. Nor does it always meet our expectations about who should align with one another, based on geography, academic compatibility, size. etc.

If there is no more FBS realignment for several years, what are we going to talk about here?

(07-08-2017 12:48 PM)ken d Wrote:  It's fun to imagine what might have been, if only....

I wonder if the increasing frequency of alternate realignment scenarios on this forum is an indication that, deep down, we don't expect much actual realignment to occur in the foreseeable future. For all of our imaginings, actual realignment doesn't usually result in the kind of symmetry many internet denizens would like to see. Nor does it always meet our expectations about who should align with one another, based on geography, academic compatibility, size. etc.

If there is no more FBS realignment for several years, what are we going to talk about here?

(07-08-2017 03:55 AM)arkstfan Wrote:  Here's one that nearly happened.
End of 1981 NCAA votes to change the "or" in the I-A criteria to make stadium size and attendance mandatory and permits schools to ask for a waiver AState AD Larry Lacewell goes to his father's best friend Bear Bryant to ask for assistance getting a one year waiver for AState and he successfully swings the ten or so extra votes he wasn't able to drum up in reality getting AState the waiver.

If the waiver is granted the handshake deal on the table is:
Arkansas State, SW Louisiana (now ULL), McNeese State, Tulsa, Wichita State and Southern Miss will form a new football league. Independence Bowl indicates interest in the champion.

McNeese State never drops to I-AA.
Wichita State after the vote played football 5 more years. 1982 5 home games 2 non I-A, 1983 4 home games all non I-A, 1984 5 home games 4 non I-A, 1985 5 home games 2 non I-A, 1986 5 home games 4 non I-A.
With a conference and fewer games against non I-A maybe they ride it out. When they dropped there were claims that a professor had taken students out to the stadium and measured the length of each bleacher and applied the NCAA standard of how many inches equaled a seat and found it was like 4 or 8 seats short of 30,000 and Wichita State was to be reclassified and another version said that the consultants hired to evaluate athletics discovered Wichita State would have to reclassify because they were short on both home and the old home and away attendance measures and suggested dropping instead of reclassifying. In either version it was felt Wichita State couldn't survive the blow and mount a return. Under the old rules simply being in a 6 team league with four schools that met the standard would have staved off reclassification threats and may have saved Wichita State football.

If it comes together you have to wonder how the WAC and CUSA may have developed. Maybe the American South is never formed which means the Sun Belt maybe folds after the Metro and Great Midwest raids so never progressed to add football.
Depending on how the schools performed in the stability of a conference TCU, SMU and Rice raid the league to salvage the SWC and if they take Tulane who had nearly been admitted when Arkansas left goes SWC then CUSA maybe doesn't happen since it started with the minimum of six football counting Tulane. Could have prevented CUSA from happening or happening with different schools.