A message to AAC executives:
Please invite Rice and Southern Miss. I request this for four reasons…

Public reasons:
1. Rice will enhance the academic standing of your conference.
2. Southern Miss used to play football at a higher level. They deserve a chance to return to the big time.

Private reasons:
3. Losing Rice & USM helps the athletic standing of the remaining C-USA teams. Why would we want both to continue being anchors in our league if given the opportunity for them to drag down sports in a rival conference!
4. We would all get to stop hearing from some Southern Miss posters about how great they were 15+ years ago, and that it was their recent conference affiliation that prevented their success instead of looking in the mirror.

As a bonus suggestion please also consider FIU. Their fans are very cordial and not abrasive as evidenced by the lack of negative posts here by FIU fans. And think about how BIG that Miami media market is! Some might say the fact that they can’t seem to draw 2K in attendance for any home basketball or football game is a sign they have poor fan support, but I suspect it’s just the opposite. Maybe the reason there’s never a crowd at their games is because all the fans are at home watching on TV—again, think big TV market and potential advertising dollar$.

I will remain on call during the next several weeks if anyone from the AAC would like further recommendations.