when C-USA was left with 8
move Marshall north & pick up 6 MAC schools.
that way the would have the MAC assets & their own

btw I remember when Benson could not get Boise in bowl games

(05-09-2022 07:16 PM)b0ndsj0ns Wrote:  

(05-09-2022 06:41 PM)Fighting Muskie Wrote:  I think the critical point was, after losing UCF, SMU, Houston, and Memphis and then calling off the alliance with the MWC, they added 6 to replace 4 and the projected line up would have been:

West: UTEP, UTSA, UNT, Rice, Tulsa, Tulane, LA Tech
East: USM, UAB, Marshall, ECU, ODU, Charlotte, FIU

IMHO, this was an over expansion they didn’t need. I would have left out ODU and Charlotte, despite the risk of alienating ECU and Marshall. ECU was going to turn around and leave soon any way and I would have then replaced ECU, Tulane, and Tulsa with MTSU, FIU, and WKU:

West: UTEP, UTSA, UNT, Rice, LA Tech, USM
East: UAB, MTSU, WKU, Marshall, FAU, and FIU

The tricky thing that I don’t think anyone could have expected ULL, App St, and Coastal to have the great seasons they’ve had recently.

It's easy to just say "who cares about alienating ECU and Marshall since ECU was leaving anyway" with the benefit of hindsight, but trust me as an ECU fan I remember that time very well and it was not an inevitability ECU was getting in the Big East. ECU would have also had a lot of power in the league office at that time and any horse-trading around getting certain candidates would have required accommodating ECU in some way, same as you'd have needed to accommodate USM/Tulane/UAB (the other remaining C-USA 1.0 members). Charlotte was not really ECU's idea, they were an original C-USA 1.0 all-sports member (less football of course) and from everything I heard at the time were told if they ever started football they'd pretty much get back into C-USA when they were "booted" back in the day. Now yes ODU was Terry Holland's pet project, he fought hard to convince ODU to want to move up and to convince C-USA to add them and to go above and beyond 12 members. However, what doomed C-USA had little to do with who they added or the number of schools added and everything to do with leaving ESPN and nuking the bridge on the way out the door. Lord Britton deserves far more blame for the demise of C-USA than Hot Wheels Judy does, really by the time she took over the damage was done. He was smart enough to quit before the revised TV deal was signed, but best believe he knew what that deal was gonna look like when he left.

The bolded part is false. Though it wasn't the defining factor, I would rate it as the second biggest factor. CUSA moved SoMiss and UAB to the west leaving Marshall alone with 6 new schools we had no history with. We lost SoMiss, UAB, UCF and ECU! Those are teams our fans cared about and had an emotional investment in. When those schools left we or were moved to the West we had no rivals left. Fans started to not care as they didn't know these new teams at all. Ticket sales started to stagnate and fan engagement started to wane. Combining that with not being on ESPN and the casual fan not being able to find the games was not a recipe for success. I leave out my comments regarding CUSA HQ and their love affair with everything Texas.

(05-09-2022 11:28 PM)TroyFootball05 Wrote:  

(05-09-2022 11:08 PM)TroyTBoy Wrote:  

(05-09-2022 10:57 PM)TroyFootball05 Wrote:  

(05-09-2022 10:31 PM)inutech Wrote:  

(05-09-2022 10:27 PM)Kit-Cat Wrote:  SBC was teetering until Karl Benson the realignment king realized astutely the SBC had longer term prospects than the WAC and moved to build the SBC into the super conference it is today.

Come on now.

Your realignment king has the world record for teams being stolen away.

Come on now.

That world record holder just stole your #1 football program.

Actually the AAC got the most desirable expansion properties. Marshall was on their cut list.

There's no actually about it. Marshall was the #1 football program in CUSA, by a wide margin. The SBC actually cares about winning football games.

Conference Records, Football
Marshall 68-34 (66.67%)
Louisiana Tech 61-41 (59.8%)
Western Kentucky 54-37 (59.34%)
UAB 42-32 (56.76%)
MTSU (51-48 (51.52%)
FAU 47-50 (48.45%)
North Texas 45-54 (45.45%)
Southern Miss 44-54 (44.9%)
ODU 31-42 (42.47%)
UTSA 40-56 (41.67%)
FIU 37-55 (40.22%)
Rice 34-59 (36.56%)
Charlotte 21-46 (31.34%)
UTEP 23-70 (24.73%)

https://www.tigerdroppings.com/rant/more.../99119936/

Out of curiosity, why is there such a difference in number of games played? I'm assuming, for example, you're including games for Marshall before 2014 when this version of CUSA started playing. Since 2014, Marshall only won one East Division title so the extra games aren't from playing in the CCG.

(05-09-2022 11:32 PM)TroyTBoy Wrote:  

(05-09-2022 11:28 PM)TroyFootball05 Wrote:  

(05-09-2022 11:08 PM)TroyTBoy Wrote:  

(05-09-2022 10:57 PM)TroyFootball05 Wrote:  

(05-09-2022 10:31 PM)inutech Wrote:  Come on now.

Your realignment king has the world record for teams being stolen away.

Come on now.

That world record holder just stole your #1 football program.

Actually the AAC got the most desirable expansion properties. Marshall was on their cut list.

There's no actually about it. Marshall was the #1 football program in CUSA, by a wide margin. The SBC actually cares about winning football games.

Conference Records, Football
Marshall 68-34 (66.67%)
Louisiana Tech 61-41 (59.8%)
Western Kentucky 54-37 (59.34%)
UAB 42-32 (56.76%)
MTSU (51-48 (51.52%)
FAU 47-50 (48.45%)
North Texas 45-54 (45.45%)
Southern Miss 44-54 (44.9%)
ODU 31-42 (42.47%)
UTSA 40-56 (41.67%)
FIU 37-55 (40.22%)
Rice 34-59 (36.56%)
Charlotte 21-46 (31.34%)
UTEP 23-70 (24.73%)

https://www.tigerdroppings.com/rant/more.../99119936/

The Belt better hope that Marshall doesn't just disappear like they did when they got the CUSA invite.

Marshall (like UTEP) suffered major performance anxiety when they got the CUSA ticket. There was a lot of high expectations for both that went unmet when they got the votes.

Marshall had NCAA sancitions levied the year before we moved to the CUSA. The scholarship reductions stymied our football program. We regularly beat CUSA teams before the NCAA lowered the hammer ask Louisville, Cincinnati and ECU.

(05-10-2022 07:06 AM)GreenBison Wrote:  

(05-09-2022 11:32 PM)TroyTBoy Wrote:  

(05-09-2022 11:28 PM)TroyFootball05 Wrote:  

(05-09-2022 11:08 PM)TroyTBoy Wrote:  

(05-09-2022 10:57 PM)TroyFootball05 Wrote:  Come on now.

That world record holder just stole your #1 football program.

Actually the AAC got the most desirable expansion properties. Marshall was on their cut list.

There's no actually about it. Marshall was the #1 football program in CUSA, by a wide margin. The SBC actually cares about winning football games.

Conference Records, Football
Marshall 68-34 (66.67%)
Louisiana Tech 61-41 (59.8%)
Western Kentucky 54-37 (59.34%)
UAB 42-32 (56.76%)
MTSU (51-48 (51.52%)
FAU 47-50 (48.45%)
North Texas 45-54 (45.45%)
Southern Miss 44-54 (44.9%)
ODU 31-42 (42.47%)
UTSA 40-56 (41.67%)
FIU 37-55 (40.22%)
Rice 34-59 (36.56%)
Charlotte 21-46 (31.34%)
UTEP 23-70 (24.73%)

https://www.tigerdroppings.com/rant/more.../99119936/

The Belt better hope that Marshall doesn't just disappear like they did when they got the CUSA invite.

Marshall (like UTEP) suffered major performance anxiety when they got the CUSA ticket. There was a lot of high expectations for both that went unmet when they got the votes.

Marshall had NCAA sancitions levied the year before we moved to the CUSA. The scholarship reductions stymied our football program. We regularly beat CUSA teams before the NCAA lowered the hammer ask Louisville, Cincinnati and ECU.

Are you saying you guys regularly beat Louisville, Cincinnati, & ECU? I'm a bit confused because if so, the record doesn't show that.

(05-09-2022 11:08 PM)TroyTBoy Wrote:  

(05-09-2022 10:57 PM)TroyFootball05 Wrote:  

(05-09-2022 10:31 PM)inutech Wrote:  

(05-09-2022 10:27 PM)Kit-Cat Wrote:  SBC was teetering until Karl Benson the realignment king realized astutely the SBC had longer term prospects than the WAC and moved to build the SBC into the super conference it is today.

Come on now.

Your realignment king has the world record for teams being stolen away.

Come on now.

That world record holder just stole your #1 football program.

Actually the AAC got the most desirable expansion properties. Marshall was on their cut list.

(snip)

Well, that's the opinion of Athletic Directors. Granted, they are knowledgeable about such things, it's their business, but it doesn't mean they are right.

Also, while the AAC did take the most desirable three schools (according to this list) the AAC didn't take the top six schools. They took 1, 2, 3, 5, 7 and 10. They took most of the top six, but not all. Old Dominion and WKU were passed over in favor of Rice, UTSA and in ODU's case, FAU as well.

What do those three seem to have over the two passed over? All are in "big markets", which means the AAC is still stuck in 2012 thinking on this.

As was CUSA that same year, because most of these leavers were schools added in 2012 from the SBC and elsewhere. Of the six schools leaving for the AAC, four of them came to CUSA during the 2012 shakeup, only Rice and UAB were there before that turmoil.

One more thing - the AAC is taking these four (the ones in the top six of the rankings you posted) allegedly high-value schools that joined CUSA in 2012, but what happened to CUSA during that time they had these high-value schools?

CUSA went in to the toilet bowl.

Which reminds me again that the rankings you posted are not 'fact", but the opinion of Athletic Directors. Granted, it is their business to know such things, so they are worth paying attention to. But they can be wrong. These schools didn't help CUSA avoid the turd bowl in 2012 and after, hopefully they help the AAC.

(05-10-2022 07:29 AM)WKUApollo Wrote:  

(05-10-2022 07:06 AM)GreenBison Wrote:  

(05-09-2022 11:32 PM)TroyTBoy Wrote:  

(05-09-2022 11:28 PM)TroyFootball05 Wrote:  

(05-09-2022 11:08 PM)TroyTBoy Wrote:  Actually the AAC got the most desirable expansion properties. Marshall was on their cut list.

There's no actually about it. Marshall was the #1 football program in CUSA, by a wide margin. The SBC actually cares about winning football games.

Conference Records, Football
Marshall 68-34 (66.67%)
Louisiana Tech 61-41 (59.8%)
Western Kentucky 54-37 (59.34%)
UAB 42-32 (56.76%)
MTSU (51-48 (51.52%)
FAU 47-50 (48.45%)
North Texas 45-54 (45.45%)
Southern Miss 44-54 (44.9%)
ODU 31-42 (42.47%)
UTSA 40-56 (41.67%)
FIU 37-55 (40.22%)
Rice 34-59 (36.56%)
Charlotte 21-46 (31.34%)
UTEP 23-70 (24.73%)

https://www.tigerdroppings.com/rant/more.../99119936/

The Belt better hope that Marshall doesn't just disappear like they did when they got the CUSA invite.

Marshall (like UTEP) suffered major performance anxiety when they got the CUSA ticket. There was a lot of high expectations for both that went unmet when they got the votes.

Marshall had NCAA sancitions levied the year before we moved to the CUSA. The scholarship reductions stymied our football program. We regularly beat CUSA teams before the NCAA lowered the hammer ask Louisville, Cincinnati and ECU.

Are you saying you guys regularly beat Louisville, Cincinnati, & ECU? I'm a bit confused because if so, the record doesn't show that.

When we were in the MAC we regularly beat those teams in our bowl games. He said we suffered performance anxiety when we joined CUSA. I was showing we regularly beat CUSA teams before we joined CUSA. But when we did join it wasn't performance anxiety it was a poor Head Coach hire and NCAA penalties that had us underperform.

(05-10-2022 07:50 AM)GreenBison Wrote:  

(05-10-2022 07:29 AM)WKUApollo Wrote:  

(05-10-2022 07:06 AM)GreenBison Wrote:  Marshall had NCAA sancitions levied the year before we moved to the CUSA. The scholarship reductions stymied our football program. We regularly beat CUSA teams before the NCAA lowered the hammer ask Louisville, Cincinnati and ECU.

Are you saying you guys regularly beat Louisville, Cincinnati, & ECU? I'm a bit confused because if so, the record doesn't show that.

When we were in the MAC we regularly beat those teams in our bowl games. He said we suffered performance anxiety when we joined CUSA. I was showing we regularly beat CUSA teams before we joined CUSA. But when we did join it wasn't performance anxiety it was a poor Head Coach hire and NCAA penalties that had us underperform.

Cincinnati - You split with them in two bowls. Winning the Motor City Bowl in 2000 and losing the Ft Worth Bowl in 2004

Louisville - You won both bowls - Motor City in 1998 and GMAC Bowl in 2002

ECU - You won the one bowl, the GMAC in 2001

So yes, you did. I stand corrected. I didn't realize you were just talking about Bowl games.

(05-10-2022 12:36 AM)chargeradio Wrote:  If UTEP stayed in the WAC, would NMSU still be a full member of the Sun Belt? If UTEP is still in the WAC in 2005, the WAC may have looked. I doubt WAC football survives past the 2012 season, as the Sun Belt might have taken UTEP to replace Western Kentucky:

SBC West: NMSU, UTEP, ULL, ULM, Texas St, Idaho*
SBC East: Ga So, Ga St, App St, Troy, USA, Ark St

When Idaho is non-renewed, add Coastal Carolina and move Arkansas State to the West.

When Rice, SMU and Tulsa accepted the C-USA invite in the fall of 2003, the WAC responded by inviting Utah State and NMSU. They were leaving the Sun Belt regardless with or without UTEP in the WAC. Idaho is the one who replaced UTEP in the WAC when both were invited to their respective new conferences in May 2004.

(05-10-2022 01:23 AM)TroyTBoy Wrote:  

(05-09-2022 11:55 PM)UTEPDallas Wrote:  There’s no reason for the MWC to expand regardless if it was last year, this year or next year.

Here's some Tuesday trivia:

The MWC has the same number of Access Bowl appearances as the MAC... with 1.

Correct. But the MWC is 1-0 in the NY6 while the MAC is 0-1.

The AAC has lost the last three NY6 bowls plus the CFP.

I don’t know why I have the feeling Liberty will be at least in the conversation for a NY6 bowl most years now they they’re joining a conference.

(05-10-2022 07:01 AM)GreenBison Wrote:  

(05-09-2022 07:16 PM)b0ndsj0ns Wrote:  

(05-09-2022 06:41 PM)Fighting Muskie Wrote:  I think the critical point was, after losing UCF, SMU, Houston, and Memphis and then calling off the alliance with the MWC, they added 6 to replace 4 and the projected line up would have been:

West: UTEP, UTSA, UNT, Rice, Tulsa, Tulane, LA Tech
East: USM, UAB, Marshall, ECU, ODU, Charlotte, FIU

IMHO, this was an over expansion they didn’t need. I would have left out ODU and Charlotte, despite the risk of alienating ECU and Marshall. ECU was going to turn around and leave soon any way and I would have then replaced ECU, Tulane, and Tulsa with MTSU, FIU, and WKU:

West: UTEP, UTSA, UNT, Rice, LA Tech, USM
East: UAB, MTSU, WKU, Marshall, FAU, and FIU

The tricky thing that I don’t think anyone could have expected ULL, App St, and Coastal to have the great seasons they’ve had recently.

It's easy to just say "who cares about alienating ECU and Marshall since ECU was leaving anyway" with the benefit of hindsight, but trust me as an ECU fan I remember that time very well and it was not an inevitability ECU was getting in the Big East. ECU would have also had a lot of power in the league office at that time and any horse-trading around getting certain candidates would have required accommodating ECU in some way, same as you'd have needed to accommodate USM/Tulane/UAB (the other remaining C-USA 1.0 members). Charlotte was not really ECU's idea, they were an original C-USA 1.0 all-sports member (less football of course) and from everything I heard at the time were told if they ever started football they'd pretty much get back into C-USA when they were "booted" back in the day. Now yes ODU was Terry Holland's pet project, he fought hard to convince ODU to want to move up and to convince C-USA to add them and to go above and beyond 12 members. However, what doomed C-USA had little to do with who they added or the number of schools added and everything to do with leaving ESPN and nuking the bridge on the way out the door. Lord Britton deserves far more blame for the demise of C-USA than Hot Wheels Judy does, really by the time she took over the damage was done. He was smart enough to quit before the revised TV deal was signed, but best believe he knew what that deal was gonna look like when he left.

The bolded part is false. Though it wasn't the defining factor, I would rate it as the second biggest factor. CUSA moved SoMiss and UAB to the west leaving Marshall alone with 6 new schools we had no history with. We lost SoMiss, UAB, UCF and ECU! Those are teams our fans cared about and had an emotional investment in. When those schools left we or were moved to the West we had no rivals left. Fans started to not care as they didn't know these new teams at all. Ticket sales started to stagnate and fan engagement started to wane. Combining that with not being on ESPN and the casual fan not being able to find the games was not a recipe for success. I leave out my comments regarding CUSA HQ and their love affair with everything Texas.

The bolded part isn't really false. If C-USA still had a good relationship with ESPN and hadn't nuked that bridge ESPN likely doesn't make it financially viable to move from C-USA to the Sun-Belt. C-USA could have added whoever would have been deemed the more "preferred" picks, but because they nuked the ESPN relationship the TV deal the league was getting was doomed to be a disaster no matter what.

(05-09-2022 10:57 PM)TroyFootball05 Wrote:  

(05-09-2022 10:31 PM)inutech Wrote:  

(05-09-2022 10:27 PM)Kit-Cat Wrote:  SBC was teetering until Karl Benson the realignment king realized astutely the SBC had longer term prospects than the WAC and moved to build the SBC into the super conference it is today.

Come on now.

Your realignment king has the world record for teams being stolen away.

Come on now.

That world record holder just stole your #1 football program.

Not the 'belt, Benson (although the Sunbelt has lost their share of schools too).

It wasn't all his fault, I think the MWC thing was a done deal when he took over. But then he saw half the next WAC leave for CUSA. And then the other half leave for the MWC. And what was left for CUSA/Belt. Then he took over the 'belt and watched CUSA take a zillion schools.

Nice guy, but as a commissioner I think his record is only "realignment king" if we're talking about getting realigned upon.

(05-10-2022 08:58 AM)b0ndsj0ns Wrote:  

(05-10-2022 07:01 AM)GreenBison Wrote:  

(05-09-2022 07:16 PM)b0ndsj0ns Wrote:  

(05-09-2022 06:41 PM)Fighting Muskie Wrote:  I think the critical point was, after losing UCF, SMU, Houston, and Memphis and then calling off the alliance with the MWC, they added 6 to replace 4 and the projected line up would have been:

West: UTEP, UTSA, UNT, Rice, Tulsa, Tulane, LA Tech
East: USM, UAB, Marshall, ECU, ODU, Charlotte, FIU

IMHO, this was an over expansion they didn’t need. I would have left out ODU and Charlotte, despite the risk of alienating ECU and Marshall. ECU was going to turn around and leave soon any way and I would have then replaced ECU, Tulane, and Tulsa with MTSU, FIU, and WKU:

West: UTEP, UTSA, UNT, Rice, LA Tech, USM
East: UAB, MTSU, WKU, Marshall, FAU, and FIU

The tricky thing that I don’t think anyone could have expected ULL, App St, and Coastal to have the great seasons they’ve had recently.

It's easy to just say "who cares about alienating ECU and Marshall since ECU was leaving anyway" with the benefit of hindsight, but trust me as an ECU fan I remember that time very well and it was not an inevitability ECU was getting in the Big East. ECU would have also had a lot of power in the league office at that time and any horse-trading around getting certain candidates would have required accommodating ECU in some way, same as you'd have needed to accommodate USM/Tulane/UAB (the other remaining C-USA 1.0 members). Charlotte was not really ECU's idea, they were an original C-USA 1.0 all-sports member (less football of course) and from everything I heard at the time were told if they ever started football they'd pretty much get back into C-USA when they were "booted" back in the day. Now yes ODU was Terry Holland's pet project, he fought hard to convince ODU to want to move up and to convince C-USA to add them and to go above and beyond 12 members. However, what doomed C-USA had little to do with who they added or the number of schools added and everything to do with leaving ESPN and nuking the bridge on the way out the door. Lord Britton deserves far more blame for the demise of C-USA than Hot Wheels Judy does, really by the time she took over the damage was done. He was smart enough to quit before the revised TV deal was signed, but best believe he knew what that deal was gonna look like when he left.

The bolded part is false. Though it wasn't the defining factor, I would rate it as the second biggest factor. CUSA moved SoMiss and UAB to the west leaving Marshall alone with 6 new schools we had no history with. We lost SoMiss, UAB, UCF and ECU! Those are teams our fans cared about and had an emotional investment in. When those schools left we or were moved to the West we had no rivals left. Fans started to not care as they didn't know these new teams at all. Ticket sales started to stagnate and fan engagement started to wane. Combining that with not being on ESPN and the casual fan not being able to find the games was not a recipe for success. I leave out my comments regarding CUSA HQ and their love affair with everything Texas.

The bolded part isn't really false. If C-USA still had a good relationship with ESPN and hadn't nuked that bridge ESPN likely doesn't make it financially viable to move from C-USA to the Sun-Belt. C-USA could have added whoever would have been deemed the more "preferred" picks, but because they nuked the ESPN relationship the TV deal the league was getting was doomed to be a disaster no matter what.

The irony is 11 of those 12 schools that nuked the deal already left or are about to leave. We can blame Banowski all we want but commissioners don’t make those type of decisions without presidents approval.

(05-09-2022 11:30 PM)TroyTBoy Wrote:  There was no reason to believe that UTEP would fall off like they did.

Other than the whole history of the program?

And geography?

Sure.

Sometimes small sample sizes (like one good season) maybe aren't huge predictors of success in college football. I think UTSA (for one example) has built some infrastructure to continue their success, but I'm really hoping they're to the AAC what UTEP was to CUSA after 2005.

Mostly not personal towards UTSA, I just want the #markets approach to fail (again).

(05-10-2022 09:19 AM)UTEPDallas Wrote:  

(05-10-2022 08:58 AM)b0ndsj0ns Wrote:  

(05-10-2022 07:01 AM)GreenBison Wrote:  

(05-09-2022 07:16 PM)b0ndsj0ns Wrote:  

(05-09-2022 06:41 PM)Fighting Muskie Wrote:  I think the critical point was, after losing UCF, SMU, Houston, and Memphis and then calling off the alliance with the MWC, they added 6 to replace 4 and the projected line up would have been:

West: UTEP, UTSA, UNT, Rice, Tulsa, Tulane, LA Tech
East: USM, UAB, Marshall, ECU, ODU, Charlotte, FIU

IMHO, this was an over expansion they didn’t need. I would have left out ODU and Charlotte, despite the risk of alienating ECU and Marshall. ECU was going to turn around and leave soon any way and I would have then replaced ECU, Tulane, and Tulsa with MTSU, FIU, and WKU:

West: UTEP, UTSA, UNT, Rice, LA Tech, USM
East: UAB, MTSU, WKU, Marshall, FAU, and FIU

The tricky thing that I don’t think anyone could have expected ULL, App St, and Coastal to have the great seasons they’ve had recently.

It's easy to just say "who cares about alienating ECU and Marshall since ECU was leaving anyway" with the benefit of hindsight, but trust me as an ECU fan I remember that time very well and it was not an inevitability ECU was getting in the Big East. ECU would have also had a lot of power in the league office at that time and any horse-trading around getting certain candidates would have required accommodating ECU in some way, same as you'd have needed to accommodate USM/Tulane/UAB (the other remaining C-USA 1.0 members). Charlotte was not really ECU's idea, they were an original C-USA 1.0 all-sports member (less football of course) and from everything I heard at the time were told if they ever started football they'd pretty much get back into C-USA when they were "booted" back in the day. Now yes ODU was Terry Holland's pet project, he fought hard to convince ODU to want to move up and to convince C-USA to add them and to go above and beyond 12 members. However, what doomed C-USA had little to do with who they added or the number of schools added and everything to do with leaving ESPN and nuking the bridge on the way out the door. Lord Britton deserves far more blame for the demise of C-USA than Hot Wheels Judy does, really by the time she took over the damage was done. He was smart enough to quit before the revised TV deal was signed, but best believe he knew what that deal was gonna look like when he left.

The bolded part is false. Though it wasn't the defining factor, I would rate it as the second biggest factor. CUSA moved SoMiss and UAB to the west leaving Marshall alone with 6 new schools we had no history with. We lost SoMiss, UAB, UCF and ECU! Those are teams our fans cared about and had an emotional investment in. When those schools left we or were moved to the West we had no rivals left. Fans started to not care as they didn't know these new teams at all. Ticket sales started to stagnate and fan engagement started to wane. Combining that with not being on ESPN and the casual fan not being able to find the games was not a recipe for success. I leave out my comments regarding CUSA HQ and their love affair with everything Texas.

The bolded part isn't really false. If C-USA still had a good relationship with ESPN and hadn't nuked that bridge ESPN likely doesn't make it financially viable to move from C-USA to the Sun-Belt. C-USA could have added whoever would have been deemed the more "preferred" picks, but because they nuked the ESPN relationship the TV deal the league was getting was doomed to be a disaster no matter what.

The irony is 11 of those 12 schools that nuked the deal already left or are about to leave. We can blame Banowski all we want but commissioners don’t make those type of decisions without presidents approval.

That's true about all of this.

We can say CUSA should have taken App instead of ODU or whatever but most of "CUSA" going forward had no say in that decision. The schools that voted on that decision are almost all gone (some of them before those schools ever played a down in CUSA).

Same for UTEP in 2004.

(05-10-2022 08:58 AM)b0ndsj0ns Wrote:  

(05-10-2022 07:01 AM)GreenBison Wrote:  

(05-09-2022 07:16 PM)b0ndsj0ns Wrote:  

(05-09-2022 06:41 PM)Fighting Muskie Wrote:  I think the critical point was, after losing UCF, SMU, Houston, and Memphis and then calling off the alliance with the MWC, they added 6 to replace 4 and the projected line up would have been:

West: UTEP, UTSA, UNT, Rice, Tulsa, Tulane, LA Tech
East: USM, UAB, Marshall, ECU, ODU, Charlotte, FIU

IMHO, this was an over expansion they didn’t need. I would have left out ODU and Charlotte, despite the risk of alienating ECU and Marshall. ECU was going to turn around and leave soon any way and I would have then replaced ECU, Tulane, and Tulsa with MTSU, FIU, and WKU:

West: UTEP, UTSA, UNT, Rice, LA Tech, USM
East: UAB, MTSU, WKU, Marshall, FAU, and FIU

The tricky thing that I don’t think anyone could have expected ULL, App St, and Coastal to have the great seasons they’ve had recently.

It's easy to just say "who cares about alienating ECU and Marshall since ECU was leaving anyway" with the benefit of hindsight, but trust me as an ECU fan I remember that time very well and it was not an inevitability ECU was getting in the Big East. ECU would have also had a lot of power in the league office at that time and any horse-trading around getting certain candidates would have required accommodating ECU in some way, same as you'd have needed to accommodate USM/Tulane/UAB (the other remaining C-USA 1.0 members). Charlotte was not really ECU's idea, they were an original C-USA 1.0 all-sports member (less football of course) and from everything I heard at the time were told if they ever started football they'd pretty much get back into C-USA when they were "booted" back in the day. Now yes ODU was Terry Holland's pet project, he fought hard to convince ODU to want to move up and to convince C-USA to add them and to go above and beyond 12 members. However, what doomed C-USA had little to do with who they added or the number of schools added and everything to do with leaving ESPN and nuking the bridge on the way out the door. Lord Britton deserves far more blame for the demise of C-USA than Hot Wheels Judy does, really by the time she took over the damage was done. He was smart enough to quit before the revised TV deal was signed, but best believe he knew what that deal was gonna look like when he left.

The bolded part is false. Though it wasn't the defining factor, I would rate it as the second biggest factor. CUSA moved SoMiss and UAB to the west leaving Marshall alone with 6 new schools we had no history with. We lost SoMiss, UAB, UCF and ECU! Those are teams our fans cared about and had an emotional investment in. When those schools left we or were moved to the West we had no rivals left. Fans started to not care as they didn't know these new teams at all. Ticket sales started to stagnate and fan engagement started to wane. Combining that with not being on ESPN and the casual fan not being able to find the games was not a recipe for success. I leave out my comments regarding CUSA HQ and their love affair with everything Texas.

The bolded part isn't really false. If C-USA still had a good relationship with ESPN and hadn't nuked that bridge ESPN likely doesn't make it financially viable to move from C-USA to the Sun-Belt. C-USA could have added whoever would have been deemed the more "preferred" picks, but because they nuked the ESPN relationship the TV deal the league was getting was doomed to be a disaster no matter what.

Do you mean if you hadn't nuked it? 9 of the 12 members who were a part of leaving ESPN in early 2011 are either currently in the AAC or will be soon (ECU, Houston, Memphis, Rice, SMU, Tulane, Tulsa, UAB, UCF). The other three were Marshall, Southern Miss, and UTEP.

The irony is that 11 of those 12 are now in ESPN conferences.

(05-09-2022 06:13 PM)TroyTBoy Wrote:  

(05-09-2022 05:55 PM)mturn017 Wrote:  

(05-09-2022 05:29 PM)BigEastMike Wrote:  The Sun Belt is what CUSA SHOULD be today.

Plus UTEP?

UTEP is a cornerstone of CUSA. Senior member.
Don't confuse a prolonged down period in success for being a bad member.
Very few programs at the G5 level can offer a venue like the Sun Bowl and a prior National Championship in Men's Basketball.
While a school like Coastal Carolina may be the flavor of the year, you just can't equate what they offer to UTEP.
ODU fans want a regional MAC type setup and that's fine. However, all of those schools would love to have UTEP's attributes; and its arguable they'll ever be in position to replicate them.

Look for UTEP to be a potential breakout candidate in the new alignment. CUSA just got SIGNIFICANTLY better in basketball (UTEP's most prized sport) and now UTEP has a geographical rival in football.

The Sunbelt benefitted greatly by being a smaller conference. CUSA will now have some of those advantages while the new Belt will have to try and work around a much bigger bottom.

CUSA has a much better vibe now that would benefit from a Round Robin structure.

Wasn’t a knock on UTEP. Just saying they were in the conference, as was Marshall. Just saying developing a conference that made sense geographically when you have schools from west Texas to West Virginia wasn’t going to happen. Ironically the west made a lot more sense in that aspect than the east.

(05-10-2022 07:01 AM)GreenBison Wrote:  I leave out my comments regarding CUSA HQ and their love affair with everything Texas.

I was going to say that'd be a first.

But then you didn't leave them out, did you?

(05-10-2022 09:19 AM)UTEPDallas Wrote:  

(05-10-2022 08:58 AM)b0ndsj0ns Wrote:  

(05-10-2022 07:01 AM)GreenBison Wrote:  

(05-09-2022 07:16 PM)b0ndsj0ns Wrote:  

(05-09-2022 06:41 PM)Fighting Muskie Wrote:  I think the critical point was, after losing UCF, SMU, Houston, and Memphis and then calling off the alliance with the MWC, they added 6 to replace 4 and the projected line up would have been:

West: UTEP, UTSA, UNT, Rice, Tulsa, Tulane, LA Tech
East: USM, UAB, Marshall, ECU, ODU, Charlotte, FIU

IMHO, this was an over expansion they didn’t need. I would have left out ODU and Charlotte, despite the risk of alienating ECU and Marshall. ECU was going to turn around and leave soon any way and I would have then replaced ECU, Tulane, and Tulsa with MTSU, FIU, and WKU:

West: UTEP, UTSA, UNT, Rice, LA Tech, USM
East: UAB, MTSU, WKU, Marshall, FAU, and FIU

The tricky thing that I don’t think anyone could have expected ULL, App St, and Coastal to have the great seasons they’ve had recently.

It's easy to just say "who cares about alienating ECU and Marshall since ECU was leaving anyway" with the benefit of hindsight, but trust me as an ECU fan I remember that time very well and it was not an inevitability ECU was getting in the Big East. ECU would have also had a lot of power in the league office at that time and any horse-trading around getting certain candidates would have required accommodating ECU in some way, same as you'd have needed to accommodate USM/Tulane/UAB (the other remaining C-USA 1.0 members). Charlotte was not really ECU's idea, they were an original C-USA 1.0 all-sports member (less football of course) and from everything I heard at the time were told if they ever started football they'd pretty much get back into C-USA when they were "booted" back in the day. Now yes ODU was Terry Holland's pet project, he fought hard to convince ODU to want to move up and to convince C-USA to add them and to go above and beyond 12 members. However, what doomed C-USA had little to do with who they added or the number of schools added and everything to do with leaving ESPN and nuking the bridge on the way out the door. Lord Britton deserves far more blame for the demise of C-USA than Hot Wheels Judy does, really by the time she took over the damage was done. He was smart enough to quit before the revised TV deal was signed, but best believe he knew what that deal was gonna look like when he left.

The bolded part is false. Though it wasn't the defining factor, I would rate it as the second biggest factor. CUSA moved SoMiss and UAB to the west leaving Marshall alone with 6 new schools we had no history with. We lost SoMiss, UAB, UCF and ECU! Those are teams our fans cared about and had an emotional investment in. When those schools left we or were moved to the West we had no rivals left. Fans started to not care as they didn't know these new teams at all. Ticket sales started to stagnate and fan engagement started to wane. Combining that with not being on ESPN and the casual fan not being able to find the games was not a recipe for success. I leave out my comments regarding CUSA HQ and their love affair with everything Texas.

The bolded part isn't really false. If C-USA still had a good relationship with ESPN and hadn't nuked that bridge ESPN likely doesn't make it financially viable to move from C-USA to the Sun-Belt. C-USA could have added whoever would have been deemed the more "preferred" picks, but because they nuked the ESPN relationship the TV deal the league was getting was doomed to be a disaster no matter what.

The irony is 11 of those 12 schools that nuked the deal already left or are about to leave. We can blame Banowski all we want but commissioners don’t make those type of decisions without presidents approval.

I mean yes that's very much true, I really was pitching him under the bus because most of both the departing and remaining C-USA members blame Jeep Judy for nearly everything and same thing applies commissioners make decisions at the approval of the presidents. Funny thing is you can probably find a bunch of posts with me celebrating that decision to ditch ESPN, and as much as I hate them I was wrong it was an awful thing for C-USA and it essentially killed the league.

(05-09-2022 02:16 PM)Gemofthehills Wrote:  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.

Not being afraid enough of FCS teams. ODU and UNCC were two of the most divisive elements and ended up adding nothing in football. And the flood of southern FCS teams really spread the talent around thinner. Southern FCS schools moving up included WKU in 2009, UTSA, Texas St. and USA in 2012, Georgia St. in 2013, ODU, Georgia Southern and App St. in 2014, UNCC in 2015, Coastal Carolina in 2017 and Liberty in 2018. That's 11 schools in a decade added to the 21 southern G5 schools that existed in 2008.

The BIG mistake was not killing off the Sun Belt by adding the successful football programs in addition to the markets. ULL and Arkansas St. should have been added instead of ODU and UNCC. Then CUSA would have been competing just with the AAC for recruits and publicity, not with 2 other G5 conferences. Adding those 2 and WKU in 2013 gets them to 14 and leaves the Sun Belt with nonfootball members UTA and UALR, football members ULM and Troy and new former FCS schools Georgia State and South Alabama. They also added Texas St. in 2013 who was only a couple years out of FCS. That's only 5 football schools and Georgia St. was in their transition year. ODU, UNCC, App St. and Georgia Southern weren't ready in 2013. If they added Troy instead of UTSA, the Sun Belt would have been left with 2 continuing football and 5 total continuing members.