RE: Article proving that C-USA is garbage
From the article:
"Many members of this conference seem to want to bypass the process of building a winning program to get into a higher-profile conference and think that will somehow miraculously solve all of their problems."
Sounds like somebody has been reading the Parliament.
Both CUSA and SunBelt have the same problem with being too far-flung. It has long seemed to me that some sort of geographic realignment makes sense. Here is one that I would propose:
CUSA
CUSA WEST
NMSU (add)
UT-El Paso
UT-San Antonio
Texas State (S)
North Texas
UT-Arlington (S, non-football)
Rice
La Tech
CUSA EAST
Arkansas State (S)
UA-Little Rock (S, non-football)
UL-Monroe (S)
UL-Lafayette (S)
Southern Miss
UA-Birmingham
Florida Atlantic
Florida International
Travel pairs-NMSU/UTEP, UTSA/TxSt, UNT/UTA, Rice/LaTech, ArkSt/UALR, ULM/ULL, UAB/SoMiss, FIA/FAU. One alternative would be to put ULaLa in the west and LaTech in the east, and Rice/ULaLa and LaTech/UL-Monroe might make more sensible travel pairs. Rice has some history with both LaTech and ULaLa.
SUNBELT
SUNBELT SOUTH
Troy
South Alabama
Georgia State
Georgia Southern
Coastal Carolina
Charlotte ©
SUNBELT NORTH
Western Kentucky ©
Middle Tennessee ©
Marshall ©
Liberty (add)
ODU ©
Appalachian State
Travel pairs-Troy/SoAla, GaSt/GaSo, Coastal/Charlotte, WKy/MTenn, Marshall/AppSt, Liberty/ODU
(S) SunBelt teams moving to CUSA
© CUSA teams moving to SunBelt
Each league needs an even number in each division to facilitate travel pairs for non-football sports, which means 16 (8:8) or 12 (6:6). With the non-football schools both in CUSA, that makes football 14-12, which is about as evenly as they can be divided. For football CUSA would play 6 in division and 2 crossover on rotating basis, and SunBelt would play 5 in division and 3 crossover, total 8 conference games for both. For basketball CUSA could play 14 home-and-home in division and 4 home-and-home with one crossover pair on rotating basis, total 18, and SunBelt could play 10 home-and-home in division and 6 crossover, total 16.
FAU/FIU arguably belong with SunBelt and Troy/SoAla with CUSA, but doing that would mean only 4 former SunBelt members stay with the conference, and that would mean possible loss of their NCAA automatic bid. With the travel pairs, each conference should be able to cut back travel expenses significantly; the worst travel pair trips would probably be Huntington to Boone and Norfolk to Lynchburg, which are probably faster driving (4-5 hours) than any other way. Houston to Ruston is also over 3 hours, flying either to Shreveport or Monroe. Both conferences would have the potential to have some impacts in top 100 TV markets--CUSA (El Paso, San Antonio, Houston, DFW, Shreveport, Little Rock, Birmingham, Miami) and SunBelt (Atlanta, Mobile, Charlotte, Columbia, Nashville, Charleston/Huntington, Roanoke/Lynchburg, Norfolk)--albeit as a second or third school in most.
Realignment would provide an opportunity to develop more geographic rivalries, and would minimize the UTEP volleyball trips to Huntington, WV, or vice versa, which require significant inconvenient travel with little hope of generating much enthusiasm. There would still be some awkward trips, but the number would be minimized.
But the bottom line is this. Realignment could help with costs. But what really needs to happen is that the league needs to make serious commitments across the league to field competitive programs. And Rice, we're looking at you.
(This post was last modified: 01-01-2021 01:30 PM by Owl 69/70/75.)
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