I ran an analysis earlier in the week to show that aside from losing the Memphis program, our league would remain largely unchanged from a strength of schedule standpoint as a result of the latest round of realignment. Now I wanted to look at the impact on football. C*USA will be the same as nBE when it comes to BCS bowl access: the highest ranked team goes. So, it should be our goal to position ourselves to have a team get there every year.
For rankings, I used the Warren Nolan Power Index over the last 5 seasons (including this one). I did not include UTSA, Charlotte, or ODU, since they have no FBS track record. It should be noted, however, that UTSA is currently ranked 69 this year (:rolltide:) and ODU's average ranking is 15 over the last 4 seasons in FCS. Here's what we've got:
Tulsa 36.6
Houston 47.8
La Tech 56.6
UCF 56.6
ECU 57.8
USM 60.2
MTSU 68.6
SMU 71.4
Marshall 77.8
FIU 79.2
Rice 79.4
UTEP 90.6
FAU 93.6
UAB 97.8
UNT 103
Memphis 105.8
Tulane 111.4
Good to see that we're cutting the two worst programs and adding North Texas so we won't be the worst.
Old conference 5-year average: 74.4
New conference 5-year average: 76.7
So, once again, not a huge discernable difference at all between the two.
Some interesting points:
-Tulane is the only team on this list to put up triple digits in all 5 years (congrats!) Memphis accomplished this three times, and UAB has accomplished this over the last two years.
-This total group of teams finished in the Top 30 11 times over the past 5 years. The new group claims
7 of these. La Tech and MTSU will be strong additions for football.
-While ECU has been very consistent, they have failed to crack the Top 40 over the last 5 years.
-It goes without saying that adding NMSU would be worse than retaining Tulane and Memphis.
-USM's average not counting this season was 44.