ericsaid
Heisman
Posts: 9,233
Joined: May 2013
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I Root For: App. State/ECU
Location: High Point, NC
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RE: SBC Has Won The Realignment Battle
(10-25-2021 08:21 AM)Cruhawk Wrote: (10-25-2021 05:48 AM)InjunJohn86 Wrote: I agree that the SBC has won this round. Tightened up each division and added schools that will help other sports and has great potential in football.
As far as the AAC goes, I was scratching my head about their adds and thought they were following the failed "markets model" that CUSA had previously done. Once I separated the teams in division, their might be a method to their madness. Their West division will have SMU, Tulsa, UNT, UTSA, Rice, Tulane and Memphis. That is a very tight fit and all in fertile recruiting areas. The East will have FAU, South Florida, Temple UAB, Charlotte, ECU and Navy. A bit more spread out but a eastern seaboard flavor. Does the new West help those schools? Jury is out but they do have something to pitch to recruits. Will be interesting to see if it works.
It's easy to dunk on the AAC for basically copying C-USA's playbook from 2011-2013, but there does seem to be more than meets the eye on the new setup. If you look at a map of all AAC teams with the new members added, almost every school has at least one nearby school to act as a travel partner with the exceptions of Tulsa (who at least has Wich State nearby for all sports), Temple (who still has Navy football closeby), and Tulane (which is still about a 5 hr drive from both Rice and UAB).
Listening to Aresco talk on the AAC's methodology for expansion, it almost sounds like he approached realignment through the lens of a venture capital firm or startup incubator ala Y-combinator: Look for schools with solid academic backgrounds in large metropolitan areas with substantial airports (growth potential and ease of logistics) that are both able and willing to invest in major college athletics, and take a shotgun-approach by adding as many that fit that criteria as possible in thoe hopes that at least one of them can be incubated into the next Cincinnati or UCF in-house.
Also, by taking all the C-USA's Texas schools, the AAC effectively boxes out it's closest competitor at the High G5/Low P5 level in the MWC from expanding further, and simultaneously kneecaps another G5 in the C-USA for the SBC/MAC to pick off if they so choose to.
Now, while most of the AAC's new additions don't really have a tradition of football success, I would argue all of them do have the potential to grow to at least a Cincinnati/UCF/Houston-level brand of athletic success:
- UAB & FAU: Large metros, combined to win the last 4 C-USA football titles, recent facilites investments, success in other sports as well (Basketball for UAB, Baseball for FAU)
- Charlotte & UTSA: New programs in large metros without P5/G5 competition, large enrollment, relatively decent fanbases, good facilities, prestigious public university system members, with some FB success in recent years.
- Rice & UNT: despite lack of recent football success, both are in major media/recruiting markets in Texas with success in other sports (Baseball & Basketball, respectively) with ability to invest in their programs, so they can never be truly counted out IMO.
Bottom line, I'd say that the AAC took a flyer on several programs based on growth potential, setting themselves up for a potentially lower floor than the Sun Belt, but also a higher potential ceiling.
They are a collection of schools with no shared history in urban areas that have minimal market penetration in their own markets.
Mike Aresco's explanation was that those programs have major airports nearby so that will help with the transfer portal. What you're going to see is ECU continue to dominate the conference in attendance and when Houston gets an idea that Ahlers isn't the guy, ECU is going to run that conference, most likely.
Football brands. Foundation. Support. That builds success. Not one of the programs added by the AAC has any of these things.
Brands? They don't exist
Foundation? Generally losing teams with the occassional success. UAB has had success but only after they killed their program
Support? UAB maybe had 13,000 fans at their game against Rice. Charlotte gets 12,000 for Duke. UNT gets decent support when winning, which isn't guaranteed. FAU may get 15,000. Rice.....
Basketball is fine. Football...I don't know where to start.
But let's be real, this was ESPN's doing. The AAC approached several Sun Belt programs who told the AAC no before talks got very far.
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