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How do you all feel about that, being reported on the main board....

I say blown them up when we play them in FB. Kind of a going away “present”..

Football will be better no matter who is added.

Add VCU for basketball and there will likely not be a huge drop off in on court performance. UConn is likely never getting back to the power it was under Calhoun. Maybe the Big East will help them get there but I don’t know. Wasn’t going to happen in the AAC. They’ve been god awful for years now.

There is a ton of smoke here - this story looks legit.

Big loss for the conference, IMO. UConn hoops has been down, but they still are a program that brought a lot of respect to the conference.

There isn't an obvious add for the conference to get back to 12 for football. I'm not big on Army. UMass is just a different version of UConn, except a considerably lower ceiling. Buffalo has been good of late but it's still a Pro town first - I don't think they can sustain. I don't think you go west of Texas either: the AAC is a Eastern and Central time zone conference.

So I guess it's a C-USA school. A whole bunch of them are possible. Marshall/FAU/Southern Miss/MTSU/UNT/La Tech/UAB/Charlotte/WKU/ODU. I could make a case for ANY one of those 10. But each of them has significant negatives too.

UConn is a big loss.

(06-22-2019 10:20 AM)CincyBro Wrote:  How do you all feel about that, being reported on the main board....

I might miss that home and home BB game a little, but I could get over it pretty quick. We can always try to schedule them out of conference.

For FB, I think we would not miss them very much. I could enjoy us going down to a 10 team league, play a 9 game conference schedule, and play a championship game like the Big12 does. Actually, we could do the 9 game league schedule with 11, and just rotate what team you have a bye with. It should not be that hard. I am not sure there is a need to backfill in FB.

I would not want UCONN as a FB only member.

Several years ago, we pushed to get to 12 members so that we could have a championship game. With the rule change, that is no longer a factor.

With 11, we could play 9 conf games, rotate you "bye". You don't have the same # of conference games every year, but I am not sure that is a really big problem.

It could help us eliminate the FCS game most every year.

If we want to plunder the MWC, Colorado State would be a worthy addition. Much better academics than Boise State and not as much of a stretch geographically (contiguous with both Oklahoma and Kansas), plus CSU just built a new stadium.

https://www.cbssports.com/college-basket...uncertain/

I think we should be trying to get in the Big East for basketball only too. AAC is fine for other sports but UCONN & UC (maybe Wichita) are the only big basketball names in the conference (despite their recent down years). Losing them is devastating, especially for people only casually paying attention.

I know others will name Houston, Memphis, UCF, etc. as quality basketball schools but they aren’t UCONN. Neither are VCU, Dayton or any of the other potential basketball replacements.

Don't sleep on UAB.

On the facilities front UAB has a new $175M, 45k seat stadium on the way in 2021, opened a $23M football operations facility in 2017 with a covered practice field, just built new facilities for soccer & track, renovated olympic sports weight room, and will start the process on a new basketball practice facility in November.

For recent success in football (which drives the bus), UAB won CUSA and its bowl game last year with an 11-3 record and has averaged over 25k fans since football's return in 2017 (led CUSA in attendance in 2017). We signed Bill Clark to a new 5 year contract in November that pays $1.45M in 2019 and goes to $1.65M in year 5.

Throw in other factors like Birmingham's market (#1 football watching market in America for the last 15 years), basketball history, geographic location, and profile as a strong urban research university (#23 in federal research funding) and I think we make a strong case.

Holy living ****... I hate UConn, but it stings to lose our closest thing to a conference rival and our old Big East bro. Ouch.

Have to move on, I guess... the positives are that UConn will never join a P5 now, so that's less competition. Also, their exit fees will be a nice bonus.

Buffalo would seem like a natural replacement... decent football and basketball lately, decent market, roughly the same geographic region. Colorado State would be interesting if we want to expand our footprint.

Can we just not replace UConn and pocket their money? Maybe ESPN will pay us to not fill their spot.

Do they just drop football?

(06-22-2019 11:38 AM)crex043 Wrote:  Can we just not replace UConn and pocket their money? Maybe ESPN will pay us to not fill their spot.

This. Just add a basketball school like VCU. Sucks to lose the UCONN brand but it's an understandable move for them.

How many of us think UC will be in the AAC in 6 years?

(06-22-2019 11:45 AM)Bearcatbdub Wrote:  Do they just drop football?

They'll go FCS and find their way back in with Villanove and Maine etc. Good riddance...they've been an anchor for the conference in primary revenue sports for quite some time.

(06-22-2019 11:46 AM)stpnum4 Wrote:  

(06-22-2019 11:38 AM)crex043 Wrote:  Can we just not replace UConn and pocket their money? Maybe ESPN will pay us to not fill their spot.

This. Just add a basketball school like VCU. Sucks to lose the UCONN brand but it's an understandable move for them.

How many of us think UC will be in the AAC in 6 years?

I’m guessing UC will be in a combination of leftover Big 12 schools and select current AAC schools. If that happens then this would likely turn out to be a terrible move by UConn.

(06-22-2019 10:55 AM)Nittany_Bearcat Wrote:  So I guess it's a C-USA school. A whole bunch of them are possible. Marshall/FAU/Southern Miss/MTSU/UNT/La Tech/UAB/Charlotte/WKU/ODU. I could make a case for ANY one of those 10. But each of them has significant negatives too.

F*** no.

(06-22-2019 11:32 AM)hooverblazer Wrote:  Don't sleep on UAB.

On the facilities front UAB has a new $175M, 45k seat stadium on the way in 2021, opened a $23M football operations facility in 2017 with a covered practice field, just built new facilities for soccer & track, renovated olympic sports weight room, and will start the process on a new basketball practice facility in November.

For recent success in football (which drives the bus), UAB won CUSA and its bowl game last year with an 11-3 record and has averaged over 25k fans since football's return in 2017 (led CUSA in attendance in 2017). We signed Bill Clark to a new 5 year contract in November that pays $1.45M in 2019 and goes to $1.65M in year 5.

Throw in other factors like Birmingham's market (#1 football watching market in America for the last 15 years), basketball history, geographic location, and profile as a strong urban research university (#23 in federal research funding) and I think we make a strong case.

Hells no.

No. No. No.

UAB should have left its football program dead. That was the correct move.

(06-22-2019 12:02 PM)BearcatJerry Wrote:  

(06-22-2019 10:55 AM)Nittany_Bearcat Wrote:  So I guess it's a C-USA school. A whole bunch of them are possible. Marshall/FAU/Southern Miss/MTSU/UNT/La Tech/UAB/Charlotte/WKU/ODU. I could make a case for ANY one of those 10. But each of them has significant negatives too.

F*** no.

This. If those are the only options don’t add anybody.

(06-22-2019 11:57 AM)BcatMatt13 Wrote:  

(06-22-2019 11:46 AM)stpnum4 Wrote:  

(06-22-2019 11:38 AM)crex043 Wrote:  Can we just not replace UConn and pocket their money? Maybe ESPN will pay us to not fill their spot.

This. Just add a basketball school like VCU. Sucks to lose the UCONN brand but it's an understandable move for them.

How many of us think UC will be in the AAC in 6 years?

I’m guessing UC will be in a combination of leftover Big 12 schools and select current AAC schools. If that happens then this would likely turn out to be a terrible move by UConn.

It's only terrible if you think they would they would be included in any future movement upwards. They clearly don't have any confidence in that.