(04-30-2021 07:08 PM)thrill_house Wrote:  They have boomers running the Big Ten who took the boomer approach of "just get the best football team you can" and it failed miserably as Nebraska added little to no market and ended up bringing a .500 team into the conference. Can't fault the Big Ten, they don't know what they're doing but finally got someone in their who had enough common sense to add programs in big recruiting states who gave them free W's. God help them the minute people realize Ryan Day can be outcoached and they no longer produce Top-10 teams.

The American and Big Ten aren't in different positions. They're both trying to produce the best football programs they can and compete for championships. If this is all about access to the playoff (and not making as much money as possible) the American will need to produce an unbeaten team for several years. It's blatantly obvious after this season that "this years unbeaten champ in the American" isn't going to be good enough and they need to develop a program to sustain success. The current blueprint of the conference doesn't set that up as it's committed to eyeballs on television markets instead of implanting yourself in a particular geographic region.

The best bets at becoming bellwethers UCF or Houston. They both have sizable local alumni bases and have shown the ability to attract power 5 coaches to their programs. As long as there's a new champion each year, the pipedream of a CFP bid not only goes away, but the potential of watching an Appalachian State type program (52-13 in 5 years; only the 4 perennial playoff teams posted a better record from 2016-20) steal the auto-bid to a big boy bowl becomes a real possibility. The brand that needs to be built is a top-tier football program, not "how do we get the biggest contract from a dying cable network that we can".

Of course they are. One has Michigan, Ohio St, and Penn State. These are programs that put 90K to 100K into stadiums every home game. One Ohio St game has as many people attending as an entire weekend slate of Sunbelt home games. So of course the Big-10 is in a different position than the AAC. They already have their brand name blue blood bell cows. Unfortunately for conference still in the development stage---there arent any of those big brand name blue bloods left. The old way of grabbing the top blue bloods in an region and filling the spaces around it with whatever is close was a great model for building a conference back in the day---but with no blue bloods available---that route is off the table.

Thus, there are only 2 models left for building a conference----geography and cherry picking. Pick an area and just take whatever's in the area---or forget geography---and just cherry pick the highest quality programs regardless of where they may be. The AAC is using the "cherry picking" model. So far---its resulted in the most successful of the 5 non-power conferences....so, it seems to me its hard to argue that the AAC "cherry picking" model is the wrong way to go given that its outperformed the other model thus far both financially and on the field. That said---if it ever becomes apparent that it no longer pays to fly all over the place---I suspect everyone will reconsider the value of the current model. Thus far---the "cherry picking" model, despite its far flung geography---has been worth it.