(04-30-2021 08:13 PM)slhNavy91 Wrote:  

(04-30-2021 07:21 PM)Attackcoog Wrote:  

(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.

(04-30-2021 02:31 PM)thrill_house Wrote:  To think, the "smartest people" in the conference got together had an "intelligent discussion", and said "Lets add Navy"? Are you legitimately throwing? Lets add a program who runs an offense that will drive everyone mad and win 2/3rd of their games? It's like building an upper middle class suburb and wonder why the value of the starter homes in the city are going down in value.

I look forward to 10 years from now when this entire conference gets nuked and we transition into a far more regional conference destroying C-USA and the Sun Belt along with us. We should thank the stars that Texas State, UTSA, Georgia State, Charlotte, Old Dominion, and Appalachian State moved up to FBS giving us this opportunity.

I want to make sure we don't lose track of these two points...

Do you really think Navy was a bad add for the Big East / American?
Big East had conversations with Navy every year for a at least a decade before agreement could be reached in 2011-12. Navy football-only was a good add because it's a national brand. Top 25 all-time in wins. Heisman winners. A national championship. Not Notre Dame, but able to succeed as an independent with its own TV contract, and year-by-year contracted bowl tie-ins. Sold a ton of tickets to all those bowls, and the chance of getting Navy makes the AAC more attractive to bowls. Eight million viewers watch Army-Navy every year, and even if the money doesn't go to the conference, those millions hear the announcers talk about how tough Navy's road through the American is. Navy's been in the NY6 conversation Thanksgiving weekend or later three of the six years we've been in the conference.

The short list of a potential 12th football team is all about brand as a football program, moreso than recent on-field performance or academics. And that brand conversation needs to be national. FCS has plenty of nice REGIONAL conferences. MAC has a nice regional profile, but no one is calling them P6.
AAC wants more. The institutions do. The majority of AAC fans want the AAC to keep that national relevance (a few silly ideas seen here like G5 playoffs notwithstanding).
You want a bus league, you're entitled to that opinion. My school is all-in on the P6 strategic goal of inclusion at the highest level of college football.

Navy, I am going to suggest that Trill House is a very young kid. Like most young kids there vision of the past and the future is short sighted. Maybe two years to the past and two years into the future? I would also suggest that Trill House has no Idea how brands are built, historical significance, how perception is built.

Navy was a great, no awesome addition to the AAC. Obviously the AAC saw that. If you were short sighted you would never see that value. You have to see and understand history and how perception is built to understand it. It is the same tunnel vision that leads some to say the SBC has now overtaken the AAC in perception. You could argue that if you limit your vision to two years back and two years forward.

Trill House, you might want to listen to a couple of these older posters. You don't have to, but it might behoove you. If you do not understand why Nebraska was a really good add for the BIG10, then you do not understand what they are doing and why they are doing it. Did it pay off immediately? No. Perception and long term value? Absolutely. But you have to understand the last 100 years of history and have vision of where things might be in 25 or 50 years.