(06-27-2020 12:46 AM)solohawks Wrote:  

(06-25-2020 01:54 PM)Fighting Muskie Wrote:  

(06-25-2020 12:22 PM)DFW HOYA Wrote:  This doesn't work because SMU wasn't one of the core elements of the conference that could have kept it together.

Every conference has one or two schools that are the underpinnings of a league: Michigan and Ohio State in the Big 10, USC and UCLA in the Pac-12, Harvard and Yale in the Ivy, Georgetown and Syracuse in the pre-2013 Big East. ESPN extracted the Orangemen out of the conference cloth but Georgetown was able to keep it viable. And if Duke and UNC left the ACC, would it still have the same weight behind it?

The SWC was built around Texas, Texas A&M, and to a lesser but underrated part, Arkansas. Without those three it collapsed of its own weight.

Imagine if, decades ago, Texas, TAMU, Arkansas, Oklahoma, and Nebraska had decided to form a league together.

Add in some supporting pieces and they could have been great. Unlike the shotgun wedding that the Big 12 was they’d have a long shared history together.

While unlikely due to the basketball centric nature of the SWC's most likely candidates and Houston's desire to align with larger public schools, SWC staying together and CUSA never bring formed would have been better long term.

Ideally the SWC 4 would have invited Tulane, Tulsa, Louisville, Cincinnati, Memphis, and Southern Miss to get to 10 for the 1996 football season. That would have created a balanced 5 public 5 private league with a solid central/southwestern footprint. This would be highly unlikely as UL/Cincy/Memphis wanted to partner with non football basketball schools instead of southwestern private schools. But long term it have led to more logic and stability in alignment. Perhaps if UAB had been allowed to join as a non football member it would have helped.

There would have eventually been a push for 12, and at that point WAC schools may have been able to be snatched away. UAB would also be more established in football and pushing to get in. So in say 1999 after getting the league restabilized, UAB gets in to fill out the eastern division while UTEP makes the jump to join a stable TX based western division with legacy SWC schools.

SWC East
Louisville
Cincinnati
Memphis
UAB
Southern Miss
Tulane

SWC West
Tulsa
SMU
TCU
Rice
Houston
UTEP

That is a conference with a solid foundation and could last long term if a few members ever got invited to a power conference.

The Metro and/or the Great Midwest would not have folded and would basically housed the non football schools that would have otherwise been in CUSA.

Again though if you're Louisville/Cincinnati/Memphis/UAB/Southern Miss/Tulane would you rather partner with Houston on your terms and fill out your conference with basketball centric schools in your region (DePaul, Marquette, Charlotte) or join Houston's conference and affiliate with private Texas schools who were in all sorts of shambles and had no basketball reputation (TCU, SMU, Rice)

Its worth noting that back then, I think you only needed 6 schools to create a FBS league.