(06-26-2020 12:17 AM)chargeradio Wrote:  This would have been way ahead of its time, but I would have approached the Pac 10 for a merger:

North - Washington, Washington State, Oregon, Oregon State
Coastal - UCLA, Southern California, California, Stanford
Mountain - Arizona, Arizona State, Colorado, Utah
South - TCU, SMU, Houston, Rice

This would require some reforms that aren't even in place today with regards to conference championships, but getting everyone a conference game in Texas every year would be huge.

The Big 8/12 replaces Colorado with Colorado State.

The WAC, which lost Utah and Colorado State, and can't invite all of TCU, SMU, and Rice, now no longer has any need to invite Tulsa. The WAC stays at 10 teams for 1996. They add Nevada and Boise State for the 2000 season, forcing Big West football to collapse a year sooner.

Tulsa replaces Houston in Conference USA. Without SMU, Houston, and Rice in 2005, UTEP waita until 2014 to leave the WAC for C-USA in and is replaced by New Mexico State. WKU winds up becoming a permanent replacement for UAB after UAB drops football. UAB re-emerged as a member of the Sun Belt in 2017.

The Sun Belt keeps Louisiana Tech longer, but eventually loses them to C-USA, at which time they finally invite Louisiana-Monroe from FCS.

The Big 12 loses Nebraska to the Big 10, and Missouri and Texas A&M to the SEC effective with the 2012 season. They then are able to raid TCU and Houston from the Pac 16 (now Pac 14), and still take West Virginia from the Big East. The Big East responds by inviting SMU and Rice; Temple doesn't leave the Atlantic 10/MAC until 2014. BYU goes independent, and is replaced in the WAC by Utah State in 2012.

If the Pac-12 wouldn't take Texas, I doubt they would have taken the Big 12 rejects from Texas either.

(06-25-2020 07:18 PM)SMUstang Wrote:  

(06-25-2020 06:53 PM)RutgersGuy Wrote:  Honestly if the SWC was to rebuild I think SMU would have been left out.

TCU, Houston, Rice, Tulane, Tulsa, USM, CSU, Memphis, Louisville, Cincy, UAB

Excuse me, who is CSU? And how are they and Rice and USM any better than SMU? And UAB didn't even exist when the SWC broke up. That's a typical northeasterner for you, he knows nothing about the schools in Texas.

He's referring to right in the aftermath of the SMU death penalty I believe.

(06-26-2020 01:57 PM)Kit-Cat Wrote:  

(06-25-2020 07:18 PM)SMUstang Wrote:  

(06-25-2020 06:53 PM)RutgersGuy Wrote:  Honestly if the SWC was to rebuild I think SMU would have been left out.

TCU, Houston, Rice, Tulane, Tulsa, USM, CSU, Memphis, Louisville, Cincy, UAB

Excuse me, who is CSU? And how are they and Rice and USM any better than SMU? And UAB didn't even exist when the SWC broke up. That's a typical northeasterner for you, he knows nothing about the schools in Texas.

He's referring to right in the aftermath of the SMU death penalty I believe.

I understand why someone might think SMU would be excluded. Fortunately for SMU, they would not have been left out.

I don't think the cream of the WAC see joining the SWC remaining 4 as an upgrade from a solid, regionally friendly conference to join schools in DFW and Houston. I think SWC 2.0 would've looked something similar to CUSA starting out:

Football: Houston, Rice, TCU, SMU, Tulsa, Tulane, Southern Miss, Memphis, Louisville, Cincinnati
Non-Football: UAB, South Florida, Charlotte, Saint Louis, DePaul, Marquette

I don't think East Carolina gets in right away as a football-only. I don't think Army ever joins as a football-only.

Once UAB and South Florida start football for SWC 2.0...
West: Tulsa, TCU, SMU, Houston, Rice, Tulane
East: Southern Miss, UAB, Memphis, Louisville, Cincinnati, South Florida

Cincinnati, Louisville, South Florida, DePaul, Marquette to Big East still happens. So does Charlotte and Saint Louis to Atlantic 10. Welcome in East Carolina, Central Florida, Marshall, and UTEP. Boom - back to CUSA 2005-2012.

If the SWC was going to survive and play the 1996 season with mostly WAC replacements, what is the fate of C-USA football from 1996-2004? With no Houston and potentially no Tulane that leaves Cincy, Louisville, Memphis, and USM for 1996.

UAB and USF were in the process of bringing their programs up. You still probably get ECU and Army as associates. But it’s possible they’d need to bring in more affiliates from the ranks of:

UCF
Tulsa
UNT
ULL
LA Tech
Ark St

Your 2005 C-USA might look something like this:

West: Tulsa, UNT, Ark St, LA Tech, ULL, USM, Memphis
East: MTSU, UAB, ECU, Marshall, UCF, FAU, FIU

(06-26-2020 02:50 PM)Fighting Muskie Wrote:  If the SWC was going to survive and play the 1996 season with mostly WAC replacements, what is the fate of C-USA football from 1996-2004? With no Houston and potentially no Tulane that leaves Cincy, Louisville, Memphis, and USM for 1996.

UAB and USF were in the process of bringing their programs up. You still probably get ECU and Army as associates. But it’s possible they’d need to bring in more affiliates from the ranks of:

UCF
Tulsa
UNT
ULL
LA Tech
Ark St

Your 2005 C-USA might look something like this:

West: Tulsa, UNT, Ark St, LA Tech, ULL, USM, Memphis
East: MTSU, UAB, ECU, Marshall, UCF, FAU, FIU

It wouldnt matter. CUSA was designed as a basketball first conference that offered a place for its members to house their football teams (which is the biggest difference between CUSA and the old Metro Conference). CUSA football wasnt much early on. Louisville and Cinci were not good back then. Houston was in slump. S Miss was probably the best of the bunch---and they were generally just posting 7-8 win season that were just moderately over .500. Nobody in early CUSA was at the top of their game on the gridiron. The conference eventually found its footing---but early on, its football product was kinda sub-par.

Some of the schools in the WAC feared that the eastern schools along the Front Range would leave for the SWC. Thus they were willing to vote to admit them to not be left behind. The addition of the western schools was to get enough votes to make everyone happy. Thus the 16-team WAC was born. The rest is known history.

(06-26-2020 04:19 PM)Attackcoog Wrote:  

(06-26-2020 02:50 PM)Fighting Muskie Wrote:  If the SWC was going to survive and play the 1996 season with mostly WAC replacements, what is the fate of C-USA football from 1996-2004? With no Houston and potentially no Tulane that leaves Cincy, Louisville, Memphis, and USM for 1996.

UAB and USF were in the process of bringing their programs up. You still probably get ECU and Army as associates. But it’s possible they’d need to bring in more affiliates from the ranks of:

UCF
Tulsa
UNT
ULL
LA Tech
Ark St

Your 2005 C-USA might look something like this:

West: Tulsa, UNT, Ark St, LA Tech, ULL, USM, Memphis
East: MTSU, UAB, ECU, Marshall, UCF, FAU, FIU

It wouldnt matter. CUSA was designed as a basketball first conference that offered a place for its members to house their football teams (which is the biggest difference between CUSA and the old Metro Conference). CUSA football wasnt much early on. Louisville and Cinci were not good back then. Houston was in slump. S Miss was probably the best of the bunch---and they were generally just posting 7-8 win season that were just moderately over .500. Nobody in early CUSA was at the top of their game on the gridiron. The conference eventually found its footing---but early on, its football product was kinda sub-par.

C-USA was a basketball first conference but it was also about securing a football home for its football schools. By 1994ish when the merger talks were going on all of the big independents by the academies and ND had joined conferences and finding decent opponents and filling late season dates was getting harder.

UAB and USF were both well aware that football was king and that’s why the worked to move their football up to C-USA’s level so they could stay associated with Cincinnati, Louisville, and Memphis.

In this hypothetical C-USA would only have 10 members at its founding—no Houston or Tulane.

I definitely see ECU, Army, Tulsa, and UCF would be your top tier candidates for fb affiliates and maybe you even offer a pair of them full member status. Get all of these and you have 10 for football by 2003.

UNT, LA Tech, ULL, and Ark St are your second tier. You don’t need them all but a couple to round things out wouldn’t hurt. UNT, who didn’t come up to FBS until 1996, would be an inroads into DFW and Texas recruiting so maybe they get a look.

2005 would spell a new era for C-USA with Louisville, Cincinnati, USF, Army, Charlotte, DePaul, and Marquette all gone. Some of those second tier schools could get looks as full members or some new candidates like FAU, FIU, and MTSU creeping into the conversation

(06-25-2020 10:59 AM)Attackcoog Wrote:  

(06-25-2020 10:45 AM)schmolik Wrote:  I just couldn't have seen the remaining SWC teams (Houston, SMU, TCU, and Rice) being strong enough to attract enough teams to "save" it. We are talking about just four teams here and the WAC was pretty strong with BYU a lot stronger than it is now. That's why three of the SWC teams left for it. I couldn't see the SWC raiding the WAC. Maybe the Metro/Conference USA could have grabbed more than just Houston from the SWC and that might have worked better for them geographically (SMU eventually wound up in the AAC with Cincinnati, Memphis, UAB, etc).

Actually, they never tried---mainly because they couldnt agree on who to invite---and--best I can tell---Houston had, at best, minimal interest in staying tied to the same small private schools they internally believed had likely been the "tattle tales" that triggered so many NCAA investigation into SWC teams. Between the avalanche of NCAA investigations and all the backstabbing that had occurred during the Big-8 "merger" negotiations---I think the Houston administration lacked trust in their remaining SWC mates and believed their best path forward would be to join forces with other large public schools if at all possible. As a football fan, I wanted to rebuild the SWC around the remaining teams---but I can also understand why the Houston administration at that time may not have valued that path as much as I did. I mean---we could have all stayed together and moved to the WAC---and that was my second choice if we were not going to rebuild the SWC. At least UH could maintain some ties to the SWC---but the Houston administration passed on that WAC package deal option as well---so, that tends to support my view that the UH administration just had little interest in maintaining those ties at the time.

Houston thought they were too good for TCU, Rice and SMU. They didn't even tell them what they were doing. They kept the CUSA deal under wraps. Local sportswriters were wondering if UH even had a plan.

(06-25-2020 01:54 PM)Fighting Muskie Wrote:  

(06-25-2020 12:22 PM)DFW HOYA Wrote:  This doesn't work because SMU wasn't one of the core elements of the conference that could have kept it together.

Every conference has one or two schools that are the underpinnings of a league: Michigan and Ohio State in the Big 10, USC and UCLA in the Pac-12, Harvard and Yale in the Ivy, Georgetown and Syracuse in the pre-2013 Big East. ESPN extracted the Orangemen out of the conference cloth but Georgetown was able to keep it viable. And if Duke and UNC left the ACC, would it still have the same weight behind it?

The SWC was built around Texas, Texas A&M, and to a lesser but underrated part, Arkansas. Without those three it collapsed of its own weight.

Imagine if, decades ago, Texas, TAMU, Arkansas, Oklahoma, and Nebraska had decided to form a league together.

Add in some supporting pieces and they could have been great. Unlike the shotgun wedding that the Big 12 was they’d have a long shared history together.

While unlikely due to the basketball centric nature of the SWC's most likely candidates and Houston's desire to align with larger public schools, SWC staying together and CUSA never bring formed would have been better long term.

Ideally the SWC 4 would have invited Tulane, Tulsa, Louisville, Cincinnati, Memphis, and Southern Miss to get to 10 for the 1996 football season. That would have created a balanced 5 public 5 private league with a solid central/southwestern footprint. This would be highly unlikely as UL/Cincy/Memphis wanted to partner with non football basketball schools instead of southwestern private schools. But long term it have led to more logic and stability in alignment. Perhaps if UAB had been allowed to join as a non football member it would have helped.

There would have eventually been a push for 12, and at that point WAC schools may have been able to be snatched away. UAB would also be more established in football and pushing to get in. So in say 1999 after getting the league restabilized, UAB gets in to fill out the eastern division while UTEP makes the jump to join a stable TX based western division with legacy SWC schools.

SWC East
Louisville
Cincinnati
Memphis
UAB
Southern Miss
Tulane

SWC West
Tulsa
SMU
TCU
Rice
Houston
UTEP

That is a conference with a solid foundation and could last long term if a few members ever got invited to a power conference.

The Metro and/or the Great Midwest would not have folded and would basically housed the non football schools that would have otherwise been in CUSA.

Again though if you're Louisville/Cincinnati/Memphis/UAB/Southern Miss/Tulane would you rather partner with Houston on your terms and fill out your conference with basketball centric schools in your region (DePaul, Marquette, Charlotte) or join Houston's conference and affiliate with private Texas schools who were in all sorts of shambles and had no basketball reputation (TCU, SMU, Rice)

(06-27-2020 12:46 AM)solohawks Wrote:  

(06-25-2020 01:54 PM)Fighting Muskie Wrote:  

(06-25-2020 12:22 PM)DFW HOYA Wrote:  This doesn't work because SMU wasn't one of the core elements of the conference that could have kept it together.

Every conference has one or two schools that are the underpinnings of a league: Michigan and Ohio State in the Big 10, USC and UCLA in the Pac-12, Harvard and Yale in the Ivy, Georgetown and Syracuse in the pre-2013 Big East. ESPN extracted the Orangemen out of the conference cloth but Georgetown was able to keep it viable. And if Duke and UNC left the ACC, would it still have the same weight behind it?

The SWC was built around Texas, Texas A&M, and to a lesser but underrated part, Arkansas. Without those three it collapsed of its own weight.

Imagine if, decades ago, Texas, TAMU, Arkansas, Oklahoma, and Nebraska had decided to form a league together.

Add in some supporting pieces and they could have been great. Unlike the shotgun wedding that the Big 12 was they’d have a long shared history together.

While unlikely due to the basketball centric nature of the SWC's most likely candidates and Houston's desire to align with larger public schools, SWC staying together and CUSA never bring formed would have been better long term.

Ideally the SWC 4 would have invited Tulane, Tulsa, Louisville, Cincinnati, Memphis, and Southern Miss to get to 10 for the 1996 football season. That would have created a balanced 5 public 5 private league with a solid central/southwestern footprint. This would be highly unlikely as UL/Cincy/Memphis wanted to partner with non football basketball schools instead of southwestern private schools. But long term it have led to more logic and stability in alignment. Perhaps if UAB had been allowed to join as a non football member it would have helped.

There would have eventually been a push for 12, and at that point WAC schools may have been able to be snatched away. UAB would also be more established in football and pushing to get in. So in say 1999 after getting the league restabilized, UAB gets in to fill out the eastern division while UTEP makes the jump to join a stable TX based western division with legacy SWC schools.

SWC East
Louisville
Cincinnati
Memphis
UAB
Southern Miss
Tulane

SWC West
Tulsa
SMU
TCU
Rice
Houston
UTEP

That is a conference with a solid foundation and could last long term if a few members ever got invited to a power conference.

The Metro and/or the Great Midwest would not have folded and would basically housed the non football schools that would have otherwise been in CUSA.

Again though if you're Louisville/Cincinnati/Memphis/UAB/Southern Miss/Tulane would you rather partner with Houston on your terms and fill out your conference with basketball centric schools in your region (DePaul, Marquette, Charlotte) or join Houston's conference and affiliate with private Texas schools who were in all sorts of shambles and had no basketball reputation (TCU, SMU, Rice)

Its worth noting that back then, I think you only needed 6 schools to create a FBS league.

(06-26-2020 09:52 PM)bullet Wrote:  

(06-25-2020 10:59 AM)Attackcoog Wrote:  

(06-25-2020 10:45 AM)schmolik Wrote:  I just couldn't have seen the remaining SWC teams (Houston, SMU, TCU, and Rice) being strong enough to attract enough teams to "save" it. We are talking about just four teams here and the WAC was pretty strong with BYU a lot stronger than it is now. That's why three of the SWC teams left for it. I couldn't see the SWC raiding the WAC. Maybe the Metro/Conference USA could have grabbed more than just Houston from the SWC and that might have worked better for them geographically (SMU eventually wound up in the AAC with Cincinnati, Memphis, UAB, etc).

Actually, they never tried---mainly because they couldnt agree on who to invite---and--best I can tell---Houston had, at best, minimal interest in staying tied to the same small private schools they internally believed had likely been the "tattle tales" that triggered so many NCAA investigation into SWC teams. Between the avalanche of NCAA investigations and all the backstabbing that had occurred during the Big-8 "merger" negotiations---I think the Houston administration lacked trust in their remaining SWC mates and believed their best path forward would be to join forces with other large public schools if at all possible. As a football fan, I wanted to rebuild the SWC around the remaining teams---but I can also understand why the Houston administration at that time may not have valued that path as much as I did. I mean---we could have all stayed together and moved to the WAC---and that was my second choice if we were not going to rebuild the SWC. At least UH could maintain some ties to the SWC---but the Houston administration passed on that WAC package deal option as well---so, that tends to support my view that the UH administration just had little interest in maintaining those ties at the time.

Houston thought they were too good for TCU, Rice and SMU. They didn't even tell them what they were doing. They kept the CUSA deal under wraps. Local sportswriters were wondering if UH even had a plan.

To be fair, I think Houston was quiet because they wanted to make sure the landing spot was actually going to happen. There were lots of moving parts on the start of CUSA. The fate of the SWC was decided by early 1994. The Metro-Great Midwest merger had been kicked around since 1992---but they started hitting snags when everyone wasnt included. By late 1994, it was fairly clear that a new conference made from portions of the Metro and Great Midwest conferences was happening.

However, in-fighting and maneuvering within the Metro kinda locked up the process. Louisville, Tulane, and S Miss refused to actually withdraw from the Metro because they didnt want to pay an exit fee or lose their NCAA credits. They knew the remaining schools probably would have to go somewhere new----and if the exiting schools waited long enough, the number of schools leaving the Metro would outnumber those staying------allowing the exiting teams to disband the conference, thus, eliminating all exit fees. So...a game of chicken ensued. The article below explains it in more detail.


https://virginiatech.sportswar.com/artic...1994-2000/

(06-25-2020 07:18 PM)SMUstang Wrote:  

(06-25-2020 06:53 PM)RutgersGuy Wrote:  Honestly if the SWC was to rebuild I think SMU would have been left out.

TCU, Houston, Rice, Tulane, Tulsa, USM, CSU, Memphis, Louisville, Cincy, UAB

Excuse me, who is CSU? And how are they and Rice and USM any better than SMU? And UAB didn't even exist when the SWC broke up. That's a typical northeasterner for you, he knows nothing about the schools in Texas.

Well for one they didn't have a FB program that received the death penalty. Typical Texan ignoring pesky facts.

(06-27-2020 03:03 PM)Attackcoog Wrote:  

(06-27-2020 12:46 AM)solohawks Wrote:  

(06-25-2020 01:54 PM)Fighting Muskie Wrote:  

(06-25-2020 12:22 PM)DFW HOYA Wrote:  This doesn't work because SMU wasn't one of the core elements of the conference that could have kept it together.

Every conference has one or two schools that are the underpinnings of a league: Michigan and Ohio State in the Big 10, USC and UCLA in the Pac-12, Harvard and Yale in the Ivy, Georgetown and Syracuse in the pre-2013 Big East. ESPN extracted the Orangemen out of the conference cloth but Georgetown was able to keep it viable. And if Duke and UNC left the ACC, would it still have the same weight behind it?

The SWC was built around Texas, Texas A&M, and to a lesser but underrated part, Arkansas. Without those three it collapsed of its own weight.

Imagine if, decades ago, Texas, TAMU, Arkansas, Oklahoma, and Nebraska had decided to form a league together.

Add in some supporting pieces and they could have been great. Unlike the shotgun wedding that the Big 12 was they’d have a long shared history together.

While unlikely due to the basketball centric nature of the SWC's most likely candidates and Houston's desire to align with larger public schools, SWC staying together and CUSA never bring formed would have been better long term.

Ideally the SWC 4 would have invited Tulane, Tulsa, Louisville, Cincinnati, Memphis, and Southern Miss to get to 10 for the 1996 football season. That would have created a balanced 5 public 5 private league with a solid central/southwestern footprint. This would be highly unlikely as UL/Cincy/Memphis wanted to partner with non football basketball schools instead of southwestern private schools. But long term it have led to more logic and stability in alignment. Perhaps if UAB had been allowed to join as a non football member it would have helped.

There would have eventually been a push for 12, and at that point WAC schools may have been able to be snatched away. UAB would also be more established in football and pushing to get in. So in say 1999 after getting the league restabilized, UAB gets in to fill out the eastern division while UTEP makes the jump to join a stable TX based western division with legacy SWC schools.

SWC East
Louisville
Cincinnati
Memphis
UAB
Southern Miss
Tulane

SWC West
Tulsa
SMU
TCU
Rice
Houston
UTEP

That is a conference with a solid foundation and could last long term if a few members ever got invited to a power conference.

The Metro and/or the Great Midwest would not have folded and would basically housed the non football schools that would have otherwise been in CUSA.

Again though if you're Louisville/Cincinnati/Memphis/UAB/Southern Miss/Tulane would you rather partner with Houston on your terms and fill out your conference with basketball centric schools in your region (DePaul, Marquette, Charlotte) or join Houston's conference and affiliate with private Texas schools who were in all sorts of shambles and had no basketball reputation (TCU, SMU, Rice)

Its worth noting that back then, I think you only needed 6 schools to create a FBS league.

True but they were going to need at least 8 to make it worthwhile to stick around.

(06-27-2020 08:13 PM)solohawks Wrote:  

(06-27-2020 03:03 PM)Attackcoog Wrote:  

(06-27-2020 12:46 AM)solohawks Wrote:  

(06-25-2020 01:54 PM)Fighting Muskie Wrote:  

(06-25-2020 12:22 PM)DFW HOYA Wrote:  This doesn't work because SMU wasn't one of the core elements of the conference that could have kept it together.

Every conference has one or two schools that are the underpinnings of a league: Michigan and Ohio State in the Big 10, USC and UCLA in the Pac-12, Harvard and Yale in the Ivy, Georgetown and Syracuse in the pre-2013 Big East. ESPN extracted the Orangemen out of the conference cloth but Georgetown was able to keep it viable. And if Duke and UNC left the ACC, would it still have the same weight behind it?

The SWC was built around Texas, Texas A&M, and to a lesser but underrated part, Arkansas. Without those three it collapsed of its own weight.

Imagine if, decades ago, Texas, TAMU, Arkansas, Oklahoma, and Nebraska had decided to form a league together.

Add in some supporting pieces and they could have been great. Unlike the shotgun wedding that the Big 12 was they’d have a long shared history together.

While unlikely due to the basketball centric nature of the SWC's most likely candidates and Houston's desire to align with larger public schools, SWC staying together and CUSA never bring formed would have been better long term.

Ideally the SWC 4 would have invited Tulane, Tulsa, Louisville, Cincinnati, Memphis, and Southern Miss to get to 10 for the 1996 football season. That would have created a balanced 5 public 5 private league with a solid central/southwestern footprint. This would be highly unlikely as UL/Cincy/Memphis wanted to partner with non football basketball schools instead of southwestern private schools. But long term it have led to more logic and stability in alignment. Perhaps if UAB had been allowed to join as a non football member it would have helped.

There would have eventually been a push for 12, and at that point WAC schools may have been able to be snatched away. UAB would also be more established in football and pushing to get in. So in say 1999 after getting the league restabilized, UAB gets in to fill out the eastern division while UTEP makes the jump to join a stable TX based western division with legacy SWC schools.

SWC East
Louisville
Cincinnati
Memphis
UAB
Southern Miss
Tulane

SWC West
Tulsa
SMU
TCU
Rice
Houston
UTEP

That is a conference with a solid foundation and could last long term if a few members ever got invited to a power conference.

The Metro and/or the Great Midwest would not have folded and would basically housed the non football schools that would have otherwise been in CUSA.

Again though if you're Louisville/Cincinnati/Memphis/UAB/Southern Miss/Tulane would you rather partner with Houston on your terms and fill out your conference with basketball centric schools in your region (DePaul, Marquette, Charlotte) or join Houston's conference and affiliate with private Texas schools who were in all sorts of shambles and had no basketball reputation (TCU, SMU, Rice)

Its worth noting that back then, I think you only needed 6 schools to create a FBS league.

True but they were going to need at least 8 to make it worthwhile to stick around.

When they started---CUSA only had 6. Like I said, it was basically a basketball first conference that also sponsored football. Honestly, football was just a convenience for the schools that played. The hope was it would be as good as the Big East. It actually was a pretty good basketball conference---but a lot of people questioned its longevity from the very start due to it being so spread out.

(06-28-2020 12:09 AM)Attackcoog Wrote:  

(06-27-2020 08:13 PM)solohawks Wrote:  

(06-27-2020 03:03 PM)Attackcoog Wrote:  

(06-27-2020 12:46 AM)solohawks Wrote:  

(06-25-2020 01:54 PM)Fighting Muskie Wrote:  Imagine if, decades ago, Texas, TAMU, Arkansas, Oklahoma, and Nebraska had decided to form a league together.

Add in some supporting pieces and they could have been great. Unlike the shotgun wedding that the Big 12 was they’d have a long shared history together.

While unlikely due to the basketball centric nature of the SWC's most likely candidates and Houston's desire to align with larger public schools, SWC staying together and CUSA never bring formed would have been better long term.

Ideally the SWC 4 would have invited Tulane, Tulsa, Louisville, Cincinnati, Memphis, and Southern Miss to get to 10 for the 1996 football season. That would have created a balanced 5 public 5 private league with a solid central/southwestern footprint. This would be highly unlikely as UL/Cincy/Memphis wanted to partner with non football basketball schools instead of southwestern private schools. But long term it have led to more logic and stability in alignment. Perhaps if UAB had been allowed to join as a non football member it would have helped.

There would have eventually been a push for 12, and at that point WAC schools may have been able to be snatched away. UAB would also be more established in football and pushing to get in. So in say 1999 after getting the league restabilized, UAB gets in to fill out the eastern division while UTEP makes the jump to join a stable TX based western division with legacy SWC schools.

SWC East
Louisville
Cincinnati
Memphis
UAB
Southern Miss
Tulane

SWC West
Tulsa
SMU
TCU
Rice
Houston
UTEP

That is a conference with a solid foundation and could last long term if a few members ever got invited to a power conference.

The Metro and/or the Great Midwest would not have folded and would basically housed the non football schools that would have otherwise been in CUSA.

Again though if you're Louisville/Cincinnati/Memphis/UAB/Southern Miss/Tulane would you rather partner with Houston on your terms and fill out your conference with basketball centric schools in your region (DePaul, Marquette, Charlotte) or join Houston's conference and affiliate with private Texas schools who were in all sorts of shambles and had no basketball reputation (TCU, SMU, Rice)

Its worth noting that back then, I think you only needed 6 schools to create a FBS league.

True but they were going to need at least 8 to make it worthwhile to stick around.

When they started---CUSA only had 6. Like I said, it was basically a basketball first conference and that sponsored football. Honestly, football was just a convenience for the schools that played. The hope was it would be as good as the Big East. It actually was a pretty good basketball conference---but a lot of people questioned its longevity from the very start due to it being so spread out.

1995 CUSA had 11 full members with Houston on the way in 1996 though. Would SWC have entertained non football schools? I thought the impetus for CUSA was building a football league while still prioritizong basketball, which is why it quickly grew from 6 to 9 with football only membership and UAB's program completing its transition and prep to play higher level D1A football.

Would the SWC 4 have agreed to bring in midwestern Midwestern basketball centric privates non football privates? If so it would have worked. The basketball centric schools could have been promised their own division for basketball.

SWC East
*Marquette
*DePaul
*St Louis
Louisville
Cincinnati
Memphis

SWC West
Southern Miss
Tulane
Rice
SMU
TCU
Houston

You could add UAB (East) and Tulsa (West) to get to 14 all sports once UAB is ready for D1A, both solid basketball programs, and then an ECU or other football only school to get that #12 so a championship game could occur if desired

SWC Football
ECU (FBALL ONLY)
Louisville
Cincinnati
Memphis
UAB
S Miss

Tulane
Tulsa
Rice
Houston
SMU
TCU

Why didnt the SWC invite Tulane after Arkansas left?

https://virginiatech.sportswar.com/artic...1990-1994/

This article suggests that the Metro added VCU in additon to Charlotte and USF in preparation for a possible Tulane move to SWC. Any truth to that?

I’m no expert, but had the SWC schools failed to get voted into the WAC they would have had to resort to a rebuild. Cincinnati, Louisville, and Memphis were not going to build them into the C-USA plans nor were they going to join the SWC.

Tulane, Tulsa, UTEP, UNM, and UNT would have been the types of schools they’d have to look at. Tulane and Tulsa would have fit in well with the 3 SWC private schools.

(07-01-2020 08:10 AM)Fighting Muskie Wrote:  I’m no expert, but had the SWC schools failed to get voted into the WAC they would have had to resort to a rebuild. Cincinnati, Louisville, and Memphis were not going to build them into the C-USA plans nor were they going to join the SWC.

Tulane, Tulsa, UTEP, UNM, and UNT would have been the types of schools they’d have to look at. Tulane and Tulsa would have fit in well with the 3 SWC private schools.

I read a lot about the Metro last night and I dont think it could have gone any other way. Louisville didnt want to leave the Metro they wanted it dissolved so that they could get their NCAA tourney money and avoid paying exit fees. To do that 2 of the following 4 - VCU, VA Tech, Charlotte, and USF - had to come along. That looks to be the reason those 2 got in the original CUSA. Louisville leaving the Metro for the SWC wasnt a realistic option unless Charlotte and USF could come along too, plus the necessary Great Midwest basketball only schools - Marquette, DePaul, and St. Louis - and all the football playing schools. Basically you would have had the orginal CUSA plus the TX private schools playing under the SWC banner.

By the time 95 roles around Tulane is too intertwined with Louisville and the CUSA idea. It becomes much easier for Houston to leave for CUSA then to try to bring everyone else into the SWC to play under a damaged conference banner.

The SWC should have invited Tulane in 1991 to replace Arkansas before CUSA was even an idea. I gotta think Tulane would have taken that invite had it came. That would have put the SWC in a better position to bring all or some of Louisville and friends over into SWC after the Big 12 schools left. It just seemed like no one cared after Arkansas left and didnt think the SWC could be saved

the SWC leftovers could have saved it if they were united and started off with invites to Tulsa, Tulane and s miss to get the ball rolling for this setup:


12 team SWC

Tulsa
SMU
Tcu
Houston
Rice
Tulane


Cincinnati
Louisville
Memphis
S miss
UAB -no football at the time but could have offset with navy football only
ECU

Would have jumped to 14 with UCF and USF eventually or maybe not included ecu from the start and gone with USF

(07-01-2020 10:54 AM)bluesox Wrote:  the SWC leftovers could have saved it if they were united and started off with invites to Tulsa, Tulane and s miss to get the ball rolling for this setup:


12 team SWC

Tulsa
SMU
Tcu
Houston
Rice
Tulane


Cincinnati
Louisville
Memphis
S miss
UAB -no football at the time but could have offset with navy football only
ECU

Would have jumped to 14 with UCF and USF eventually or maybe not included ecu from the start and gone with USF

By 1994-95 it was too late and the CUSA plans were already in motion. Also, Louisville wasnt going to leave the Metro unless they could get it dissolved and that required taking Charlotte and USF plus the other football playing members. All the other non Louisville schools had hitched their wagon with Louisville and the desire to have a strong basketball conference as well as a football home. SWC would have had to take them all which might have been doable but not when there are "better" options out there.

If SWC was to have had any chance it would have had to have acted right away to replace Arkansas. By not doing when the Big 12 4 left, there were better options at the time than trying to convince others to help you rebuild