Been doing a little research over at Jeff Sagarin's site and I compiled the following information.

If you take the 8 teams that are currently in the MWC(not including TCU) and you add the following teams:
Boise State
UTEP
Fresno State
Hawaii

you end up with an average sagarin rating of 74.80(12 teams).

Now, once again take the same 8 teams currently in that conference and factor in TCU but not the 4 WAC teams I previously listed and you end up with a conference rating of 72.15(9 teams). This will be the lineup they will feature in 2005.

Now take the 8 teams that will comprise the Big East football conference in 2005:Louisville, West Virginia, Syracuse, Pittsburgh, Connecticut, Cincinnati, Rutgers, and South Florida. They currently have an average sagarin rating of 72.29(8 teams).

Now these are the ratings for the BCS conferences:
Pac-10 79.87
Big-12 78.66
ACC 77.76(Sans Boston College, I got lazy but the average is roughly the same)
SEC 74.98
Big-10 72.79

Now include the 2005 Big East and the MWC-12(Sans TCU) and you get:
Pac-10 79.87
Big-12 78.66
ACC 77.76
SEC 74.98
MWC 74.80
Big-10 72.79
Big East 72.29

The MWC is ahead of the Big East and Big-10 and just below the SEC.

Here now is the same list but with the MWC in the 9 team configuration they will have in 2005 with TCU included:
Pac-10 79.87
Big-12 78.66
ACC 77.76
SEC 74.98
Big-10 72.79
Big East 72.29
MWC 72.15

Now the MWC is only the 7th highest rated conference. Incidentally, the current C-USA(2004) has a sagarin rating of 67.42. I did not take the time to compile a conference average for 2005 but given that most of the teams coming in have very low ratings I imagine that the 2005 version of C-USA would only be rated 8th or 9th.

We have seen that the 12 team MWC(minus TCU) is a top-5 conference, at least according to Sagarin but the 9 team version with TCU is only 7th best and trails all of the BCS conferences. I have a question for you in C-USA. Given this information would you have preferred the MWC had expanded by taking the top 4 WAC teams which would have made it a power conference with a solid argument for auto-BCS inclusion or are you happier with the current situation which means not having TCU but it also means that the MWC is not an 800-pound gorilla that might steal money from C-USA and other conferences? What do you think?

All this number crunching and no mention of CUSA's avg sagarin? :rolleyes:

Why do I care about the MWC on CUSA board.

the first problem with your chart is saragin. One year they had harvard ahead of UAB. Try again.

There is one good football team in the MWC this year; otherwise, they are a computer poll mirage. The MWC is a collection of mediocrities that rely on junk recruiting, jcs and all sorts of other contrivances to field football teams

New Mexico and Wyoming power teams? Uh, right

Leonardo, a DaVinci you are not

Wouldn't you end up with the original WAC (pre 1995) with Fresno added .... :rolleyes:

Isn't the lower the number the better? I'd rather my team be ranked #72 instead of #74.

What friggin' sport are we talking about? And what was I coming into this room for anyway?

TopCoog Wrote:the first problem with your chart is saragin. One year they had harvard ahead of UAB. Try again.

That's because that year Harvards strategy was BRILLIANT!!!!!

prettyricky Wrote:

TopCoog Wrote:the first problem with your chart is saragin. One year they had harvard ahead of UAB. Try again.

That's because that year Harvards strategy was BRILLIANT!!!!!

I almost spit banana chips all over the place. BRILLIANT!!!

I cannot take Jeff Sagarin's rankings seriously when he has 1-AA teams in the top 40 of 1-A. I think won-lost records of the teams is a better tool to use. The 6 new teams coming to CUSA have a combined record of 24-43, the 3 new teams going to the BE have a combined record of 20-13, and the only team going to the MWC, TCU, has a record of 5-6 so it looks like the BE has added more strength but then again they also had the biggest losses of any conference. The quartet of Hawaii, UTEP, Boise, and Fresno has a record of 34-11 so that would have strengthened the MWC for sure if they had been added instead of TCU but I don't think it would have been enough to make them a top 5 conference. It might have been enough to pass the new Big East though.

Airport Al and his MWC cronies (BYU, CSU, AFA, Wyo, Utah) wanted two things: to play each other every year and to control things so that no one could dictate anything to them. They have that now with a nine team MWC. They can't control things if they go above 9. They can't ensure that they'll play each other every year if they lose that control. So, the MWC will never go above 9 schools. They went to UNM, UNLV and SDS and said you have 45 minutes to decide if you're in or out and if you're not in, we'll talk to Hawaii, UTEP and Fresno in that order. I wish TCU well there.

That's the WAC before the 1996 expansion (the worst mistake ever made)....It's the original WAC10 plus Boise State and UNLV. This would have been a great conference and a strong candidate for BCS membership. Rice, Tulsa, San Jose State, SMU and TCU simply had no business in the WAC.