(05-08-2020 04:27 PM)TexasTerror Wrote: Sometimes the answer is staring you in the face.
Thanks TT, we've danced around various boards over the years. Glad to see you're still out here.
In the Southland Conference's case, a solution to what I see as an issue was staring at it from about 120 miles southwest of the league headquarters in Frisco, Texas, in Stephenville.
Late in 2019, Tarleton State University announced that its athletic program would make the move up to Division I from Division II. The Texans will move from the Lone Star Conference to the Western Athletic Conference for most sports, while football will not yet join a conference, remaining as an independent Football Championship Subdivision program.
https://www.americanpress.com/opinion/da...02e10.html
I agree with his assessment. Tarleton wanted to join the league for years. Adding Tarleton now would had placed a team with DFW foothold back in the league (something it hasn't had since UTA left). We would have bridged the gap between ACU and the rest of the league and a quick 3 hour drive down 281 to UIW.
They would have added fast growing institution that is committed to success.
They didnt like us in 2005 because of facilities and chose Central Arkansas and Corpus. I thank them for this assessment because it forced us to put new facilities on the admin's radar.
I really thought ACUs addition in 2012 and our subsequent game against the Wildcats in Frisco (outside SLC headquarters) would have upped our profile.
Scheduling games against Sam, SFA, McNeese, and Northwest State put us in front of all of these administrators. They still did not want us.
If you look at the very public nature of our D1 courtship, we announced our intentions, hired a committee to review, got buy in from our stakeholders, published a report stating that D1 was feasible and the SLC should be preferred because of football, geography and similar budgets.
The WAC visited campus and wanted us. We drug our feet on acceptance. The SLC had their chance multiple times but didnt want us.
I would be curious to know but that's water under the bridge. Now I hope we thrash them in every meeting.