(06-08-2021 08:07 PM)esayem Wrote:  

(06-08-2021 03:38 PM)quo vadis Wrote:  

(06-08-2021 03:34 PM)esayem Wrote:  

(06-08-2021 02:01 PM)quo vadis Wrote:  

(06-08-2021 01:53 PM)SMUstang Wrote:  I agree to some extent. Guess I was putting them in the same category as Tulane. Though they do have a recent history of excellent sports unlike Tulane. A football game between Buffalo and Tulane would be about as exciting as a Princeton vs Dartmouth game.

I'd actually tune in for a Buffalo vs Tulane football game. Tulane isn't a doormat anymore, they've been a 7-6 type team the past few years and their talent has upgraded. I'd think that would make for a good minor-level bowl game.

Buffalo does have some good fundamentals. But as "coog" said, they have zero brand value. They just have no name recognition at all. Save for Syracuse, NY state is just an empty wasteland for college athletics, in terms of national interest.

Army is national interest.

Army is located on federal territory. And Army's interest is very narrow, not like a normal university.

I would venture to guess there are plenty of Army vets who cheer for Army.

And right, let’s forget about West Point, NY and call it West Point, USA. Because people actually do that, right?

I think people just call it "West Point", nothing else. And I think most assume that because it's the US Military Academy, it is federal territory and not part of New York the way say Syracuse is. But I admit I haven't conducted a poll on it so who knows?

But IMO the real issue here is what I consider the overrating of the military academies on this board. Yes, all military academies, by their nature, have veterans scattered throughout the country. Plus, many civilians, like myself, have a soft spot for the academy football teams for patriotic reasons.

Still, I refuse to believe that Army, Navy or Air Force have much "brand value" from a conference POV. Maybe it's my age, but when I began watching football in the 1970s, the military academies were held in the lowest regard from an athletic perspective. They were regarded as the easiest "Little Sisters of the Poor" kinds of opponents. For year, decades, haters of Notre Dame took shots at them for scheduling Navy each year, as if that was almost the equivalent of scheduling a high school team or Junior College. The notion that any of the service academies was a "valuable brand" that a conference would be eager to court and sign up would have been a ludicrous concept.

And really, I don't see what objectively has changed about this. So I am mystified when fans of G5 conferences (and it's always G5 conferences, btw, nobody in the B1G or SEC to my knowledge has ever discussed inviting Army) discuss military academies in terms like "well we don't need to expand, but of course if we could get Army, well then that's totally different!". As if Army is Ohio State or USC.

I scratch my head at this, sometimes literally.