RE: "UNofficial let's invite IL State in '14" thread
ISU has everything the MAC looks for in a member school. Geography. Academics. Athletics. As long as there is a probable need for an additional MAC member, ISU should be the school of choice.
Yes, there is concern about media market. But no one mentions the Bloomington Normal media market. It's not a lot, but it's something, and it's captive, with it's own local media. They grow big farm boys and girls in Central Illinois, let's introduce them to MACtion, Chambana be damned.
As I've mentioned, until someone, anyone, (of reputation) can show me the marked MAC improvements by having non-midwestern schools in the MAC, I'm all ears. I want to see how having UCF helped the MAC with Florida recruiting. I want to see the numbers on increased viewership for MAC games in the Philadelphia TV market. Show me the increase in the front page of the sports section articles about UMass football. Show me how Marshall's time the MAC led to anything but scandal, ridicule and allegations of favoritism. Where are those hard numbers, the metrics, the dollars and the exposure? Where are the crowds? Why are we not in the BCS discussion?
Based on these numerous previous examples, and closely watching the current discussions, how in sam hell will bringing in a far-eastern school help the MAC? More than likely, they'd use us and abuse us, take us for a bumpy ride, and then throw us to the side when we've outlived our usefullness as they move to a new eastern based FBS conference.
Personally, I think there will be a new CAA-esques FBS conference in a few years, and when that happens, you think Towson (which yes, has been mentioned as a MAC addition!) would throw their lot in with an NIU, a BGSU and a Buffalo? Of course not. How MANY times will the MAC let this happen? And what type of la-la land do you think a school like Delaware, ODU or JMU or Stoney Brook or Vermont or Georgia Southern or North Dakata would commit to the MAC? WHAT TYPE OF LA-LA LAND? We'd gain nothing with those schools except increased travel times.
To think that James Madison will send 9,000 fans to the Pizza Bowl is ludicrous. To think Delaware will bring MAC love to Wilmington, DE and Philadelphia, PA is just plain stupid. Stoney Brook has less in common with MAC schools than it does with Suffolk CC and probably even Harvard. We are not an eastern conference, we do not have eastern values, we do not have an eastern student population, and our schools are not located on the gawd damn East Coast of the United States of America Why keep beating this dead Eastern horse?
Let's concentrate on building the MAC as a strong, stable mid-western conference of like minded academic and athletic schools with clean programs, high graduation rates and good, solid, honest institutions not motivated by anything more than that. Yes, it may be a weak field but ISU is that school. It is the only school who fits like a glove into the MAC.
And, (especially my Huskie friends,) let us not forget that NIU hasn't exactly set the MAC on fire, even after a decade plus of Athletic membership. When we joined the MAC, our football program was years away from having an FBS program, and we did not have a nationally relevant bball program. Football is the front porch today, yes but bball continues to toil in obscurity with no bright future, our Olympic programs typically land in the middle to bottom of their championships, and the Reese and Jacoby Trophies are but unreachable. To say ISU is not good for the MAC for those reasons is to ignore MAC history and ignore the ISU upside.
ISU has everything the MAC looks for in a member school. Geography. Academics. Athletics. As long as there is a probable need for an additional MAC member, ISU should be the school of choice. If UMass leaves, then fine, no ISU.
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