Basically with this realignment talk and the potential impacts on playoff spot/spots I feel like a few conferences in particular really missed an opportunity to pretty much kill off the rest of the competition for the spot/better media deals

To run through what I’m talking about:

-The SBC could’ve reached out to middle Tennessee State/Western Kentucky to basically kill off the conference USA which would turn the G5 to a G4 mini league greatly upping the chances of the Sun Belt schools going to a playoff spots on top of getting way more money from ESPN. On top of this, while the Mac did not ultimately approach the two to join their league, if we would’ve gotten those two The Mac ultimately couldnt expand and basically become the default worst group of four conference ultimately eliminating them from any major playoff contention/money.

-The BIG XII should’ve grabbed Memphis and SMU or other schools, greatly decreasing the overall capability of the American

-And then the MWC should’ve been more aggressive and trying to give invites to some AAC schools giving them the Texas area etc and maybe making them more competitive

-Or hell on the flipside, The Pac 12 should’ve grabbed Boise/Fresno state which could boost their viewership and overall quality, which would force the MWC to try to backfill with FCS/American teams weakening them


Ultimately, if this happened or some of these happened the group of five would basically be reduced down to maybe two relevant leagues greatly more valuable in both media rights and overall competition etc

(11-27-2021 01:28 PM)Unknownghost Wrote:  -Or hell on the flipside, The Pac 12 should’ve grabbed Boise/Fresno state which could boost their viewership and overall quality, which would force the MWC to try to backfill with FCS/American teams weakening them

The PAC12 will never take Boise. Bosie could go 13-0 for the next 10 years and they would still not look at them. They care about their academics to much and Bosie just became an R2 in March of 2019.

I believe CUSA would've survived with or without MTSU or WKU in the fold. Definitely much more unstable without them, but otherwise would still be here.

Also I think worked out well for SBC, MTSU and WKU.

I think MTSU especially, but also WKU now that their hands are being forced, will just sit back and enjoy the free money coming their way from all the other schools jumping ship. Once that money is gone in a few years, they'll be happy to explore other options.
Likewise SBC only has two spots left to get to 16 (no way we go over that number) and has to be very picky. Unless we (TXST) ourselves bail to AAC or MWC, I just don't see any other school leaving the SBC anytime soon. In short there's no hurry to take either school and both schools I doubt are in a hurry to join.

These seem to me like moves that mostly have potential to hurt your own conference just for the sake of hurting another. Adding WKU/MTSU to go to 16 would make the Sun Belt too big and in danger of going the way of CUSA in my opinion. I agree with TxSt1992 that the Sun Belt should be extremely picky about who we'd go to 16 for... Wait and see if the AAC ends up going downhill as much as we expect and hope to grab ECU and someone.

Big 12 adding Memphis and SMU would water down the Big 12 a little more and divide media money further just to hurt a conference they probably aren't really worried about anyway. Mountain West going after SMU and someone else like maybe UTSA is probably the part of this scenario that makes the most sense to me, maybe they quietly reached out and SMU wasn't interested or maybe they were just happy staying at 12.

I also agree with TxSt1992 that CUSA was probably gonna survive either way. If MTSU/WKU going to the MAC would've killed off CUSA then cool, but if they left I think they still add the ones they added and then also pull more up from FCS that may or may not be worthy... Most likely not considering the footprint they're going for. Bad enough that Soft Houston with their high school facilities, cupcake football program, and their two fans are FBS without bringing up a bunch of others that are just as bad.

Yeah, if we MTSU and WKU then CUSA just slaps all of the FBS in the face and calls up Tarleton and ACU or someone else fresh out of D2. I know we suck at football but at least we look the part of an FBS school

CUSA would’ve invited 2 more to stay an FBS league. We made the right decision with expansion candidates. The only other thing we could’ve done would’ve been a home run western addition. But there wasn’t much available that the western schools wanted.

(11-27-2021 01:35 PM)HerdZoned Wrote:  

(11-27-2021 01:28 PM)Unknownghost Wrote:  -Or hell on the flipside, The Pac 12 should’ve grabbed Boise/Fresno state which could boost their viewership and overall quality, which would force the MWC to try to backfill with FCS/American teams weakening them

The PAC12 will never take Boise. Bosie could go 13-0 for the next 10 years and they would still not look at them. They care about their academics to much and Bosie just became an R2 in March of 2019.

I agree that the PAC 12 will never take Boise because of academics, but I don't think the R2 classification is really the issue. I know the rest of the PAC 12 are R1, but R1 isn't "better" than R2 -- it's just a matter of institutional focus. R2 schools like Wake Forest, BYU, and Villanova are academically superior to many of the PAC 12 R1s.

Boise's issue isn't institutional focus. It's academic quality. They're ranked in the #299 - 391 (effectively bottom quartile of R1/R2 schools) in the US News national university rakings and outside of the top 600 in the Forbes rankings, which combines all university types into one list. The ACC caught some crap when they added Louisville (#187 US News, #286 Forbes), but Louisville looks great next to Boise. From an academic standpoint, Boise's only path to the P5 is the Big 12.

Why kill off a conference? That doesn’t help you improve.

(11-27-2021 02:12 PM)TxSt1992 Wrote:  I believe CUSA would've survived with or without MTSU or WKU in the fold. Definitely much more unstable without them, but otherwise would still be here.

Also I think worked out well for SBC, MTSU and WKU.

I think MTSU especially, but also WKU now that their hands are being forced, will just sit back and enjoy the free money coming their way from all the other schools jumping ship. Once that money is gone in a few years, they'll be happy to explore other options.
Likewise SBC only has two spots left to get to 16 (no way we go over that number) and has to be very picky. Unless we (TXST) ourselves bail to AAC or MWC, I just don't see any other school leaving the SBC anytime soon. In short there's no hurry to take either school and both schools I doubt are in a hurry to join.

We should differ to ESPN for that info. If the Sun Belt continues to tap on the ceiling I can see a shake up between the AAC and Sun Belt within 5 years. If the B12 struggles particularly UCF add them to the mix and look for UCF to enter the conversation.

(11-27-2021 01:35 PM)HerdZoned Wrote:  

(11-27-2021 01:28 PM)Unknownghost Wrote:  -Or hell on the flipside, The Pac 12 should’ve grabbed Boise/Fresno state which could boost their viewership and overall quality, which would force the MWC to try to backfill with FCS/American teams weakening them

The PAC12 will never take Boise. Bosie could go 13-0 for the next 10 years and they would still not look at them. They care about their academics to much and Bosie just became an R2 in March of 2019.

I've grown to hate this explanation. R1, R2, R4 (because it was discovered at an R0 that the number 3 doesn't technically exist, papers are in peer review now). Who cares? Really. It all boils down to money, not research status. Let's not pretend that they care about academics or student-athletes. They are there to make money.

(11-29-2021 11:18 PM)ericsaid Wrote:  

(11-27-2021 01:35 PM)HerdZoned Wrote:  

(11-27-2021 01:28 PM)Unknownghost Wrote:  -Or hell on the flipside, The Pac 12 should’ve grabbed Boise/Fresno state which could boost their viewership and overall quality, which would force the MWC to try to backfill with FCS/American teams weakening them

The PAC12 will never take Boise. Bosie could go 13-0 for the next 10 years and they would still not look at them. They care about their academics to much and Bosie just became an R2 in March of 2019.

I've grown to hate this explanation. R1, R2, R4 (because it was discovered at an R0 that the number 3 doesn't technically exist, papers are in peer review now). Who cares? Really. It all boils down to money, not research status. Let's not pretend that they care about academics or student-athletes. They are there to make money.

When it comes to the B10 and PAC12 they are just like the Ivies. Im still surprised the B10 added Nebraska knowing they were losing their AAU status. Most of the BIG and PAC presidents care more about their academic standing more than were they set athletically. And in a way that is how all presidents should look at it.

Its not only Boise for the PAC. No one like Louisville, Cincy or WVU would ever sniff an invite to the B10. They would look at someone like Vandy or Duke long before they would even think about Louisville.

Rutgers and Maryland weren't taken for their football or basketball (Maryland basketball championship 2002). They were taken for their top 25 academic rankings and their AAU membership.

Doing things to harm your competition instead of improve yourself very rarely ever works out well. The AAC’s gonna learn that lesson in a few years after scooping up more schools than it sensibly needed in an effort to keep the MWC out of Texas.

(11-30-2021 12:46 AM)HarborPointe Wrote:  Doing things to harm your competition instead of improve yourself very rarely ever works out well. The AAC’s gonna learn that lesson in a few years after scooping up more schools than it sensibly needed in an effort to keep the MWC out of Texas.

And no one has a clue what UAB will look like without Bill Clark. I mean the Alabama board may just hire them another Watson Brown or Neil Calloway before they hire someone successful. And well the same could be said about UTSA and Jeff Traylor.

We are all one hire from being in the dumpster but there are some programs that seem to know how to sustain their programs. And some that have just never understood how to start. The AAC took a lot of programs that have never put it together, just never tried or both. Just to get the media market. That worked soooo well for cusa3.1.

It'll be interesting to see how CUSA sustains its current geographical footprint. Longrun I don't think it's feasible with it stretched out to the four ends of the earth like it currently is. If anyone kills off CUSA I think it would be the WAC coming back into the FBS and convincing Sam Houston, New Mexico State and maybe UTEP to defect back over to a more regionally-focused conference. They could prove me wrong but going from El Paso to Lynchburg will get old pretty fast.

(11-30-2021 07:26 AM)hotrod2001 Wrote:  It'll be interesting to see how CUSA sustains its current geographical footprint. Longrun I don't think it's feasible with it stretched out to the four ends of the earth like it currently is. If anyone kills off CUSA I think it would be the WAC coming back into the FBS and convincing Sam Houston, New Mexico State and maybe UTEP to defect back over to a more regionally-focused conference. They could prove me wrong but going from El Paso to Lynchburg will get old pretty fast.

CUSA is the 1st conference to really be spread out and not make since geographically. From CUSA1.0 to CUSA Zombie. The 1st incarnation of CUSA stretched from Houston TX (Houston) to Milwaukee, WI (Marquette). The 2nd incarnation from El Paso TX (UTEP) to Greenville NC (ECU) and the 3rd El Paso TX (UTEP) to Norfolk VA (ODU). The next one will survive also from El Paso TX (UTEP) to Lynchburg VA (Liberty). It does get old after a while though. Especially if you have conference leaders that cater to a certain group.