(07-14-2021 10:33 PM)Side.Show.Joe Wrote:  

(07-14-2021 07:53 PM)AppManDG Wrote:  

(07-13-2021 10:52 PM)UTEPDallas Wrote:  

(07-13-2021 08:19 PM)AppManDG Wrote:  

(07-11-2021 03:08 PM)UTEPDallas Wrote:  Your school president might disagree with you. You know realignment is more than football, right?

Yup.... It's also about financial security and we're far better off in the SB than CUSA.

No, you’re not.

C-USA has bigger budgets, schools ranked higher academically, better facilities, more home and home games against P5 schools (and P6 in basketball), a core of basketball schools with multiple NCAAs, it’s a better baseball league and the Olympic sports are better too (Marshall just won the men’s soccer national championship). Those are things school presidents consider when it comes to realignment not just “we’ve been better in football in two of the last 20 seasons so we’ll stay where we are”.

Personally, I’m against adding more schools regardless if they’re FBS or FCS or even worse, swap schools with the Sun Belt. C-USA needs to focus on what they have. The potential is there but sadly mediocrity has been the standard since the 2.0 days.

Schools are very similar academically with only Louisiana Lafayette, Rice, Texas State & UAB making The Princeton Review's Best 386 Colleges & Universities. I don't pay much attention to US News since their rankings are heavily infulenced by surveys. According to the Knight Comission CUSA & SB budgets are extremely similar with ULM being the lone exception. Baseball better in CUSA? Sun Belt RPI has been better 3 out of the last 5 years, so it's basically a wash. I'll put SB facilities up against CUSA's any day. BTW, bigger doesn't mean better. Especially when those seats aren't filled. The NCAA attendance data base for average attendance. The reality is all this is a just an exercise in fultility. We're happ where we are and so are you guys. That's all that matters. I just don't appreciate the unsubstantiated attitude of superiority from SOME CUSA fans. That ship sailed with the schools that bolted for the AAC.

That is a terrible way to measure universities. If you don't like US News, than look at the Carnegie Tier 1 list. Rice and UAB are both Carnegie Tier 1 Research universities. Neither ULL nor Texas State are in that category. I believe the Sun Belt's only football playing university listed as Tier 1 is Georgia State. C-USA has Rice, UAB, North Texas, FIU, and UTEP listed as Tier 1.

For the record C-USA basketball is far better than Sun Belt basketball. SB champs App St. got beat by Norfolk St. in a first four game in March Madness. Plus, North Texas bought our coach from Arkansas St. When we are able to buyout your best coaches contracts, it makes it hard for the Sun Belt to improve their basketball. But to your point, yes we are all happy where we are. So there is no need to sell either side on our opinions.

There may be more "basketball schools" in CUSA, but the reality is we're both one bid leagues.