If I could rebuild it today. I would do it with these programs.

(New SWC)
1. Arkansas state
2. Colorado state
3. Houston
4. Louisiana Tech
5. New Mexico
6. North Texas
7. SMU
8. Texas state
9. Tulsa
10. UTEP

With ten members and six states. This might allow the conference to gain some very good media and bowl deals.

(11-20-2014 09:51 AM)10thMountain Wrote:  Hawg,

Originally, the SWC was supposed to be this 10 team league I've always referred to as the "Gulf Coast Conference" after it's similarity to the old ACC

Arkansas
Oklahoma
Oklahoma A&M (OSU)
Louisiana State
Mississippi A&M (MSU)
Ole Miss
Texas A&M
UT-Austin
Rice
Baylor

How great of a conference would that have been.

(11-20-2014 10:03 PM)hawghiggs Wrote:  If I could rebuild it today. I would do it with these programs.

(New SWC)
1. Arkansas state
2. Colorado state
3. Houston
4. Louisiana Tech
5. New Mexico
6. North Texas
7. SMU
8. Texas state
9. Tulsa
10. UTEP

With ten members and six states. This might allow the conference to gain some very good media and bowl deals.

I would make some changes . I'd go bigger. Add Memphis, Rice, and UTSA. Now you dominate the south/east portion of Texas that the Big-12 vacated and you have a pretty good basketball conference with Memphis, UTEP, New Mexico, Colorado St, LaTech, SMU, and Houston.

(11-20-2014 10:09 PM)Attackcoog Wrote:  

(11-20-2014 10:03 PM)hawghiggs Wrote:  If I could rebuild it today. I would do it with these programs.

(New SWC)
1. Arkansas state
2. Colorado state
3. Houston
4. Louisiana Tech
5. New Mexico
6. North Texas
7. SMU
8. Texas state
9. Tulsa
10. UTEP

With ten members and six states. This might allow the conference to gain some very good media and bowl deals.

I would make some changes . I'd go bigger. Add Memphis, Rice, and UTSA. Now you dominate the south/east portion of Texas that the Big-12 vacated and you have a pretty good basketball conference with Memphis, UTEP, New Mexico, Colorado St, LaTech, SMU, and Houston.

I was trying to keep a balance Texas teams vs Non-Texas teams. I also wanted to a round robin scheduling. This would help everyone get familiar with each other.

(11-20-2014 10:38 PM)hawghiggs Wrote:  

(11-20-2014 10:09 PM)Attackcoog Wrote:  

(11-20-2014 10:03 PM)hawghiggs Wrote:  If I could rebuild it today. I would do it with these programs.

(New SWC)
1. Arkansas state
2. Colorado state
3. Houston
4. Louisiana Tech
5. New Mexico
6. North Texas
7. SMU
8. Texas state
9. Tulsa
10. UTEP

With ten members and six states. This might allow the conference to gain some very good media and bowl deals.

I would make some changes . I'd go bigger. Add Memphis, Rice, and UTSA. Now you dominate the south/east portion of Texas that the Big-12 vacated and you have a pretty good basketball conference with Memphis, UTEP, New Mexico, Colorado St, LaTech, SMU, and Houston.

I was trying to keep a balance Texas teams vs Non-Texas teams. I also wanted to a round robin scheduling. This would help everyone get familiar with each other.

Nothing wrong with that.

(11-20-2014 05:40 PM)billybobby777 Wrote:  this ^^^

the WAC in this time period had a relationship to other power conferences similar to the Big East post 2003.

clearly not on the same level as the elite conferences, but superior to all the mid major conferences and capable of poaching leftover members from a collapsing power conference.

Agree that the WAC was pretty strong in the 80's and 90's. Point: top 10, 10-1, big 10 runner up Iowa played the WAC champ BYU in the holiday bowl in 91. When a league of 9, which the WAC was until Fresno got in in the 90's, has their champ play the big 10 runner up, your a respected conference. Also, the WAC had at least 3 bowl bids per year in an era when they were less than 20 bowls. They had holiday, copper, and freedom with occasional aloha bids during that period. Until 1978 they had the fiesta bowl but lost when Arizona and AZ St got plucked by the PAC 8. Amazingly, they got stronger after that blow and had a great run all the way until 98! The way the WAC self distrusted is mind boggling when I think about those days pre expansion of mid 90's.--San Jose, unlv and Tulsa adds we're AWFUL decisions.
"They added 6 new schools all at once, and had no real plan, and that was the beginning of the WAC's downward spiral."--spot on
[/quote]

At least UNLV and Tulsa contributed in basketball. The college sports world wasn't so football centric back then.

(11-20-2014 10:38 PM)hawghiggs Wrote:  

(11-20-2014 10:09 PM)Attackcoog Wrote:  

(11-20-2014 10:03 PM)hawghiggs Wrote:  If I could rebuild it today. I would do it with these programs.

(New SWC)
1. Arkansas state
2. Colorado state
3. Houston
4. Louisiana Tech
5. New Mexico
6. North Texas
7. SMU
8. Texas state
9. Tulsa
10. UTEP

With ten members and six states. This might allow the conference to gain some very good media and bowl deals.

I would make some changes . I'd go bigger. Add Memphis, Rice, and UTSA. Now you dominate the south/east portion of Texas that the Big-12 vacated and you have a pretty good basketball conference with Memphis, UTEP, New Mexico, Colorado St, LaTech, SMU, and Houston.

I was trying to keep a balance Texas teams vs Non-Texas teams. I also wanted to a round robin scheduling. This would help everyone get familiar with each other.

more conference games is a downfall for a G5 conference......playing teams in conference when your conference gets no respect brings you no respect

every in conference game is a win and a guaranteed loss for the conference while every OOC game is a chance for a win without the guaranteed loss to match

there was a story linked on here not long ago whee 2000 math probabilities were run using the PAC 12 and 9 conference games VS 8 conference games and pretty much in 99% of the cases it was a negative for conference strength and conference winning % for them to have 9 conference games instead of 8 and in the few cases where some teams in a season would have benefited from 9 conference games it was a team that would get nothing of real benefit from that slightly tougher strength of schedule because they were either very low in the conference standings or not bowl eligible

for a G5 to gain strength it has to do so at the expense of other conferences not at the expense of lower level teams in the conference

(11-20-2014 11:10 PM)TodgeRodge Wrote:  

(11-20-2014 10:38 PM)hawghiggs Wrote:  

(11-20-2014 10:09 PM)Attackcoog Wrote:  

(11-20-2014 10:03 PM)hawghiggs Wrote:  If I could rebuild it today. I would do it with these programs.

(New SWC)
1. Arkansas state
2. Colorado state
3. Houston
4. Louisiana Tech
5. New Mexico
6. North Texas
7. SMU
8. Texas state
9. Tulsa
10. UTEP

With ten members and six states. This might allow the conference to gain some very good media and bowl deals.

I would make some changes . I'd go bigger. Add Memphis, Rice, and UTSA. Now you dominate the south/east portion of Texas that the Big-12 vacated and you have a pretty good basketball conference with Memphis, UTEP, New Mexico, Colorado St, LaTech, SMU, and Houston.

I was trying to keep a balance Texas teams vs Non-Texas teams. I also wanted to a round robin scheduling. This would help everyone get familiar with each other.

more conference games is a downfall for a G5 conference......playing teams in conference when your conference gets no respect brings you no respect

every in conference game is a win and a guaranteed loss for the conference while every OOC game is a chance for a win without the guaranteed loss to match

there was a story linked on here not long ago whee 2000 math probabilities were run using the PAC 12 and 9 conference games VS 8 conference games and pretty much in 99% of the cases it was a negative for conference strength and conference winning % for them to have 9 conference games instead of 8 and in the few cases where some teams in a season would have benefited from 9 conference games it was a team that would get nothing of real benefit from that slightly tougher strength of schedule because they were either very low in the conference standings or not bowl eligible

for a G5 to gain strength it has to do so at the expense of other conferences not at the expense of lower level teams in the conference

That's the fools gold. No G5 conference is every really going to gain strength as far as football goes. Their is only two things it can ever really do. 1st, It can support one to three solid programs and have them cannibalize each other so one of them can appear strong(Boise state). The other thing that it can do is have solid media markets. If a G5 conference has several quality markets. Then television contracts and bowl games will follow. The proposed conference does just that.

The way to go is smaller, 10 team G5 conferences and independence for some of the better situated schools.

(11-21-2014 12:04 AM)hawghiggs Wrote:  

(11-20-2014 11:10 PM)TodgeRodge Wrote:  

(11-20-2014 10:38 PM)hawghiggs Wrote:  

(11-20-2014 10:09 PM)Attackcoog Wrote:  

(11-20-2014 10:03 PM)hawghiggs Wrote:  If I could rebuild it today. I would do it with these programs.

(New SWC)
1. Arkansas state
2. Colorado state
3. Houston
4. Louisiana Tech
5. New Mexico
6. North Texas
7. SMU
8. Texas state
9. Tulsa
10. UTEP

With ten members and six states. This might allow the conference to gain some very good media and bowl deals.

I would make some changes . I'd go bigger. Add Memphis, Rice, and UTSA. Now you dominate the south/east portion of Texas that the Big-12 vacated and you have a pretty good basketball conference with Memphis, UTEP, New Mexico, Colorado St, LaTech, SMU, and Houston.

I was trying to keep a balance Texas teams vs Non-Texas teams. I also wanted to a round robin scheduling. This would help everyone get familiar with each other.

more conference games is a downfall for a G5 conference......playing teams in conference when your conference gets no respect brings you no respect

every in conference game is a win and a guaranteed loss for the conference while every OOC game is a chance for a win without the guaranteed loss to match

there was a story linked on here not long ago whee 2000 math probabilities were run using the PAC 12 and 9 conference games VS 8 conference games and pretty much in 99% of the cases it was a negative for conference strength and conference winning % for them to have 9 conference games instead of 8 and in the few cases where some teams in a season would have benefited from 9 conference games it was a team that would get nothing of real benefit from that slightly tougher strength of schedule because they were either very low in the conference standings or not bowl eligible

for a G5 to gain strength it has to do so at the expense of other conferences not at the expense of lower level teams in the conference

That's the fools gold. No G5 conference is every really going to gain strength as far as football goes. Their is only two things it can ever really do. 1st, It can support one to three solid programs and have them cannibalize each other so one of them can appear strong(Boise state). The other thing that it can do is have solid media markets. If a G5 conference has several quality markets. Then television contracts and bowl games will follow. The proposed conference does just that.

fools gold is talking about media markets for programs that can't draw 10% of the alumni that live in the area to a game or fill the stands with a number of fans that even meets their enrollment

fools gold is talking about being a ***** program for "three solid programs" so you can watch them leave the conference as soon as a better offer comes along while your program still sucks and is in a conference that just got weaker and lost some more of your own fans that wonder why others can improve their lot while your program does nothing

fools gold is pretending that your top programs will really have respect for beating the little sisters of the poor in conference unless they do it often enough AND IMPROVE THEIR OOC LIKE BOISE AND TCU DID and GAIN RESPECT FOR THEMSELVES OUTSIDE OF THE CONFERENCE.....AND LEAVE while the rest of the conference hangs their hat on the fact that they lost to Boise or TCU or Utah and that should count for something!!!

An interesting article:

http://articles.baltimoresun.com/1990-12...a-football

(11-21-2014 02:35 AM)72Tiger Wrote:  An interesting article:

http://articles.baltimoresun.com/1990-12...a-football

That was a good find.

(11-21-2014 12:18 AM)TodgeRodge Wrote:  

(11-21-2014 12:04 AM)hawghiggs Wrote:  

(11-20-2014 11:10 PM)TodgeRodge Wrote:  

(11-20-2014 10:38 PM)hawghiggs Wrote:  

(11-20-2014 10:09 PM)Attackcoog Wrote:  I would make some changes . I'd go bigger. Add Memphis, Rice, and UTSA. Now you dominate the south/east portion of Texas that the Big-12 vacated and you have a pretty good basketball conference with Memphis, UTEP, New Mexico, Colorado St, LaTech, SMU, and Houston.

I was trying to keep a balance Texas teams vs Non-Texas teams. I also wanted to a round robin scheduling. This would help everyone get familiar with each other.

more conference games is a downfall for a G5 conference......playing teams in conference when your conference gets no respect brings you no respect

every in conference game is a win and a guaranteed loss for the conference while every OOC game is a chance for a win without the guaranteed loss to match

there was a story linked on here not long ago whee 2000 math probabilities were run using the PAC 12 and 9 conference games VS 8 conference games and pretty much in 99% of the cases it was a negative for conference strength and conference winning % for them to have 9 conference games instead of 8 and in the few cases where some teams in a season would have benefited from 9 conference games it was a team that would get nothing of real benefit from that slightly tougher strength of schedule because they were either very low in the conference standings or not bowl eligible

for a G5 to gain strength it has to do so at the expense of other conferences not at the expense of lower level teams in the conference

That's the fools gold. No G5 conference is every really going to gain strength as far as football goes. Their is only two things it can ever really do. 1st, It can support one to three solid programs and have them cannibalize each other so one of them can appear strong(Boise state). The other thing that it can do is have solid media markets. If a G5 conference has several quality markets. Then television contracts and bowl games will follow. The proposed conference does just that.

fools gold is talking about media markets for programs that can't draw 10% of the alumni that live in the area to a game or fill the stands with a number of fans that even meets their enrollment

fools gold is talking about being a ***** program for "three solid programs" so you can watch them leave the conference as soon as a better offer comes along while your program still sucks and is in a conference that just got weaker and lost some more of your own fans that wonder why others can improve their lot while your program does nothing

fools gold is pretending that your top programs will really have respect for beating the little sisters of the poor in conference unless they do it often enough AND IMPROVE THEIR OOC LIKE BOISE AND TCU DID and GAIN RESPECT FOR THEMSELVES OUTSIDE OF THE CONFERENCE.....AND LEAVE while the rest of the conference hangs their hat on the fact that they lost to Boise or TCU or Utah and that should count for something!!!

Ain't no place to go TR. It really is as simple as that. Between Boise state, TCU, and Utah. Only two of those programs actually changed their fortunes and those conferences are done with expansion. Boise state has become nothing more than a footnote in the post BCS world. G5 conferences can only hope to build up an take one or two shots at a big pay day game.

(11-21-2014 07:47 AM)hawghiggs Wrote:  Ain't no place to go TR. It really is as simple as that. Between Boise state, TCU, and Utah. Only two of those programs actually changed their fortunes and those conferences are done with expansion. Boise state has become nothing more than a footnote in the post BCS world. G5 conferences can only hope to build up an take one or two shots at a big pay day game.

After the first couple of chapters, I gave up on reading that book (TR). I actually thought this when the Big East was trying to expand (before it was poached). My thought was there was little that could be done to move up in football rankings (they were more or less stuck as the sixth conference), so when expanding, they should look to the sport they can control: basketball. Didn't mean make decisions that spite football, but if they were going to add teams to get to 12, while TCU was a good choice, I had thought then that Memphis and Temple added more to their future fortunes than better football schools, because there was really no way to move up. Just for example.

In this case, I tend to agree that if your fortunes are more or less sealed, which is probably the case for the teams in the MAC, CUSA, and Sunbelt (the MWC and AAC teams have some glimmer of hope), there may be other and better ways to promote and protect yourself, such as you mention. Similar to how many smaller non-football conferences operate.

(11-21-2014 02:35 AM)72Tiger Wrote:  An interesting article:

http://articles.baltimoresun.com/1990-12...a-football

Well that certainly would have changed some things if that came to life, and didn't immediately fold. I wonder if it would have lasted through the end of the decade?

I think it would have blown up by 2000.

(11-20-2014 03:24 PM)Wedge Wrote:  

(11-20-2014 03:20 PM)arkstfan Wrote:  

(11-20-2014 02:36 PM)Wedge Wrote:  They added 6 new schools all at once, and had no real plan, and that was the beginning of the WAC's downward spiral.

What is often forgotten is that the WAC appointed an expansion committee. The committee came back with the suggestion that the league go to 12 members and put forward eight schools that should be discussed.

The leadership vapor-locked because there was a real disagreement whether they should shore up the west or move into new fields. Going to new fields presented its own problem in that it was a travel mess.

The result was what only large committee or deliberative body could produce, sixteen teams without addressing the scheduling issues. Adding to the mayhem, the commissioner was on his way out the door and it wasn't going to be his problem, and the WAC hadn't yet hired Benson away from the MAC to sort it out.

That's something a good commissioner could have stopped. A good commissioner would tell the conference presidents and ADs that it's a bad idea to make such a big move without an almost-unanimous consensus, and that they should slow down until they've reached that broad consensus.

But the WAC had a guy with one foot out the door and another committee seeking a replacement.

(11-20-2014 05:20 PM)billybobby777 Wrote:  

(11-20-2014 04:01 PM)Kittonhead Wrote:  Part of the issue with the WAC demise is the timing involved.

Had the Airport 5 decided to give it a few more years they may have been happy with the SWC left over schools. Today schools that Wyoming, Colorado St and Air Force wanted to get away from like SJSU are right back in there again.

The airport 5 freaked because 2 were in 1 side and 3 on the other. Plus New Mexico. BYU, Utah and New Mexico were going to be playing AF, CSU and Wyoming every 8 years or so. Those 6 have long historical relationships. Now if the WAC would've added the 4 SWC schools and stayed at 14 and broke into "SW" and "Mountain" divisions it would've worked and even thrived. Here's what it would've looked like:
WAC SW: Houston, Rice, SMU, TCU, UTEP, New Mexico, San Diego st
WAC MTN: Air Force, Colorado St, Wyoming,BYU, Utah, Fresno St, Hawaii

UNLV, San Jose St and Tulsa would never have been invited. That league would have been better OVERALL than the big east or ACC at the time, who were mostly all Miami and Florida St respectively at the time. MHO

The MWC was formed for a simple reason and it wasn't TV. It was ticket sales. Schools got stuck with schedules that meant games that produced good gate would be played once every six years.

(11-20-2014 06:43 PM)TodgeRodge Wrote:  

(11-20-2014 11:23 AM)billybobby777 Wrote:  

(11-20-2014 07:40 AM)hawghiggs Wrote:  I wish some programs would reform a new version of the Southwest Conference. A very good conference could be built from the states of Arkansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, New Mexico, and Texas.

There would be great potential with recruiting!!! (The new SWC)
Houston
Rice
SMU
New Mexico
Tulane
Texas St
Tulsa
UTEP-if they'd give the new league the sun bowl bid.
Texas San Antonio-at least to consider
Louisiana Tech-at least to consider
Arkansas St-at least to consider

it is always laughable to see people talking about reforming a conference that failed and using the very reason that the failed conference failed as a selling point as to why the new conference would be successful

the SWC failed because outside The State of Texas few people cared what happened with the SWC other than a few OOC games and when bowl season came

and the SWC failed because so many of the schools had nothing to offer recruits that was different than many of the other SWC schools other than perhaps a chance to play for a team with a long streak of losing seasons going and perhaps possibly maybe hopefully could "turn it around" (probably for a season or two at the longest)

The SWC failed because:

1. There was a massive disparity in institutional commitment. No modern conference has a similar differential in commitment. There may be some that rival it in resources but none where the low-resource are so committed to not trying to narrow the gap.

2. It was a VASTLY different era. ESPN held no first tier television rights to a power league. ESPN2 was a few months old and geared toward alterate sports. There was no FS1, FS2, CBSS, NBCS, regional nets were less influential.

3. This was before carriage fees rather than advertising revenue were the primary source of income for sports nets.

No G5 does diddly for carriage fees nationally. G5 leagues are paid only for what audience they can bring for ad revenue and what ever investment the network wants to make in the online space (see MAC and MLS deals).

If by some magic the Southwestern AAC, CUSA and Sun Belt aligned, you maybe could extract another nickel or dime from providers in Arkansas where scientific polling places AState's fan base at 25% of UArk, in Louisiana if you are offering Tulane, La.Tech, Louisiana as part of your package you are in good shape add the Pelicans you can surely get more money, Oklahoma I don't know whether private Tulsa has the depth of support but bundled with the Thunder it helps the argument. In Texas, coupled with local NBA, MLB, NHL higher fees can be achieved.

No new SWC does much for you unless you can help a Fox or Comcast command more for their channel.

(11-21-2014 10:30 AM)adcorbett Wrote:  

(11-21-2014 07:47 AM)hawghiggs Wrote:  Ain't no place to go TR. It really is as simple as that. Between Boise state, TCU, and Utah. Only two of those programs actually changed their fortunes and those conferences are done with expansion. Boise state has become nothing more than a footnote in the post BCS world. G5 conferences can only hope to build up an take one or two shots at a big pay day game.

After the first couple of chapters, I gave up on reading that book (TR). I actually thought this when the Big East was trying to expand (before it was poached). My thought was there was little that could be done to move up in football rankings (they were more or less stuck as the sixth conference), so when expanding, they should look to the sport they can control: basketball. Didn't mean make decisions that spite football, but if they were going to add teams to get to 12, while TCU was a good choice, I had thought then that Memphis and Temple added more to their future fortunes than better football schools, because there was really no way to move up. Just for example.

In this case, I tend to agree that if your fortunes are more or less sealed, which is probably the case for the teams in the MAC, CUSA, and Sunbelt (the MWC and AAC teams have some glimmer of hope), there may be other and better ways to promote and protect yourself, such as you mention. Similar to how many smaller non-football conferences operate.

Or try to build up some other sports.

If an objective of the G5 athletic department a small college town CUSA, SBC, MAC ect. is to support the economy then if having more sports/more events that will bring people in will do that.

(11-20-2014 07:23 PM)TodgeRodge Wrote:  

(11-20-2014 06:49 PM)adcorbett Wrote:  Todge, to your first point, comparing the SWC a would be power conference to the above makes no sense. The suggestion is the assumption since no power conference can be attained, going regional might help rebuild rivalries and cut costs. I'm not sure the idea is foolproof, and the makeup needs work, but for many of the teams involved it would be little different monetarily. It's not a premis without merit, even if don't personally agree with it. It's not A nutty idea.

The dynamics of what works in a power conference vs a non-power conference don't necessariky mesh. What works for one may not work for the other. Case in point a national conference works far better for a power conference than one that isnt.

1. most power conferences are not national conferences they are far from it

2. cutting cost is loser talk

3. rivalries are meaningless when one team sucks every year much less when both suck and when no one nationally cares

example was the MAC game last night with Toledo VS Bowling Green.....for the "glass trophy" or something like that.......no one nationally really cared unless like me they just like to watch college football and it was a decent game because it was close and there was some divisional standing on the line......but still ask 1 MILLION college football fans and 12 will be able to tell you there was a rivalry trophy on the line last night and that is because those were the other 12 watching the game besides me and MAC regional fans

4. for small schools/G5 schools to build a fan base they will have to do it themselves and stop looking for other schools (small schools, G5 schools with fan support issues and G5 schools that suck and draw no fans)

look at Boise they did not play home games against top teams when they were building their program and they often still do not at best they get neutral site games, but their fans show up to THEIR GAMES to SUPPORT THEM

juxtapose this with former fellow Big West member north Texas state in a metro area of 6 million that constantly has their 18,500 fair weather fans clamoring to get in a conference "with other Texas teams"

so after a decade of sucking in The Sunbelt the get in CUSA with the priced 3 other Texas teams and barely average over 20K fans on their bestest season in the history of evAR! when they went 9-4 at a school that has 36,000 STUDENTS in a metro area of 6 million people......playing 3 other Texas teams!!!

Rice has their own attendance issues, UTSA brought some fans to see north Texas State get beat down by UTSA, UTEP brought a few, but past year UTEP sucked

this year they had SMU in the OOC, but SMU fans don't care about north Texas state and appearance north Texas state fans only marginally care more about SMU and SMU fans were mad at the state of the program overall

then UTEP, UTSA and Rice are on the road and then they are dropping a deuce this year so next year (and already this year) they will struggle to attract their 20,000 fans

Meanwhile Boise State with 22K students in a metro area of 215,000 and a STATE with 1.6 million people TOTAL is averaging 35K fans and wondering what is going wrong (even though they decided to stay in the most regional conference possible)

you have to get your own 40-50K fans and you have to do that on your own with wins and games against P5 teams either at home or that you win on the road or a neutral site and not with games against regional teams that suck or that are struggling because they have no fan support and they offer nothing different to the casual fan that the causal fan can't find with several other regional conference mates

when you are not a P5 school, do not have their fan support and their alumni base you have no business thinking like them or trying to reinvent the square wheel they failed with for tight regional conferences.......and still P5 conferences are not "national".......if you want to take a leap forward and catch up you do what they talk about doing and that is go more national and less regional

Most power conferences are national in AUDIENCE. Go look at the TV ratings. People will watch in California if an SEC game impacts the national picture and people in Michigan will watch if an ACC game is nationally relevant.

Cutting costs is "loser talk"? There is this area of the economy called "Wall Street" and when a CEO or CFO gets on a conference call with analysts an announces they have found a way to cut overhead 1% without harming revenue the price of their stock immediately goes up. That's not loser talk. The problem with regionalization is recruiting. I'll deal with that shortly.

Toledo vs. BGSU sucked in gate revenue because it was played on a cold weeknight vs. Saturday afternoon, that's a price of trying to play the same game as the P5, chasing NATIONAL rather than regional TV.

The reason Joe fan didn't care about Toledo-BGSU had nothing to do with it being a regional match-up. Replace BGSU with UNLV the audience is no better. The problem is relevance. Toledo played three non-conference FBS. They lost by 25 to Mizzou, 24 to Cincinnati, 7 to Iowa State. BGSU's non-conference FBS beat Indiana by 5, lost to WKU by 28, lost to Wisconsin by 51.

Weeknight games when NIU was doing well drew in excess of a million viewers multiple times because they were relevant, only BYU, Boise and a smattering of AAC games the past few years outdrew the hyper-regional MAC games with NIU.

Boise built a local ticket buying base by beating regional teams. They built a national TV audience for those regional games by being nationally relevant.

The drawback to a regional conference is recruiting.

How many of La.Tech, UL Lafayette, ULM, Tulane can you put in a league before the perceived equality of being in the same conference cannibalizes recruiting sending all to mediocrity?

This is why AState is the perfect swing team if AAC or CUSA or something new emerges in the south. No one else in Sun Belt, AAC, CUSA spends much time in Arkansas. There is talent but is dispersed over a pretty large footprint. A coach can spend two days in Dallas and see more kids than one coach can see in a week in Arkansas. AState is the only G5 that can afford to take the time going to every school and it works, with far more Arkansas players than any other state on roster by a wide margin. Good enough to produce 34 wins in four years.

Texas has a massive amount of talent but how many of Houston, SMU, UTSA, UNT, Rice, UTEP, TXST can be in the same league without over-dispersing the talent?

Recruiting is the real danger of regionalization. Look no further than the MAC where the Ohio schools struggle to sustain success with six of them in the state and two pairs (Toledo-BGSU and Kent-Akron) within 30 minutes of each other.

AState has one G5 stadium within 300 miles of its stadium. Toledo has 10 and has two closer than Memphis is to AState.

I think it is no accident that NIU, remote from most of the MAC has been the most sustained program of late.

Recruiting is THE NUMBER ONE DANGER of regionalization.

If you want to play the P5 game of chasing national television dollars the key isn't markets, the market game is BS rooted in a remote era of ratings depending on people keeping a paper diary and mailing it. The lack of data meant you didn't really know if games were being watched by any significant number of people you had to extrapolate and did that by making guesses based on market size.

Today anyone using a cable box can have their viewing habits dissected as can anyone using a satellite receiver connected to the internet or a phone line. If ESPN says X people watch Rice football Direct TV execs can use a few keystrokes to determine if it is true of their viewers.

Why do satellite and cable companies get into hardball negotiations with AMC and others? They already know how many customers regularly watch and have good estimates of what losing a channel means to their subscriber base.

The key to playing the national game in TV is to develop nationally relevant teams and if you put too many in one recruiting base they dilute the talent and the teams are unable to win at a pace to become relevant.

If AAC wants to add a team, New Mexico State or UAB is more valuable than Rice or USM because the latter two are going to compete head-to-head for too many players AAC teams already recruit.