dawgonit
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RE: What could C-USA have done better?
(05-10-2022 12:59 PM)UTEPDallas Wrote: (05-10-2022 12:30 PM)dawgonit Wrote: (05-09-2022 11:28 PM)TroyFootball05 Wrote: (05-09-2022 11:08 PM)TroyTBoy Wrote: (05-09-2022 10:57 PM)TroyFootball05 Wrote: Come on now.
That world record holder just stole your #1 football program.
Actually the AAC got the most desirable expansion properties. Marshall was on their cut list.
There's no actually about it. Marshall was the #1 football program in CUSA, by a wide margin. The SBC actually cares about winning football games.
Conference Records, Football
Marshall 68-34 (66.67%)
Louisiana Tech 61-41 (59.8%)
Western Kentucky 54-37 (59.34%)
UAB 42-32 (56.76%)
MTSU (51-48 (51.52%)
FAU 47-50 (48.45%)
North Texas 45-54 (45.45%)
Southern Miss 44-54 (44.9%)
ODU 31-42 (42.47%)
UTSA 40-56 (41.67%)
FIU 37-55 (40.22%)
Rice 34-59 (36.56%)
Charlotte 21-46 (31.34%)
UTEP 23-70 (24.73%)
https://www.tigerdroppings.com/rant/more.../99119936/
My favorite quotes from that Tigerdroppings thread concerning Tech being in the top 3 for Football, Basketball and Baseball:
"LaTech gets more bang for the buck than almost any other athletic program in the country."
"So LA Tech proved winning games actually doesn’t matter"
Both show the truth.
As for the topic in this thread in general. I'll reiterate that Tech should have gotten in instead of UTEP in 2005. It wouldn't have saved CUSA but I do think that UTEP being deadweight starting when they entered really started the cracks in the foundation with the "distance" and "Texas-centric" complaints. If UTEP kept their 40,000 plus attendance and elite MBB, things would have been different.
Now when the 2012/13 realignment saga happened, I think things would have ended up similarly. Thinking the Big East/AAC stills adds the same teams, I still think we would have ended up with this:
EAST
ODU
Charlotte
FAU
FIU
WKU
MTSU
Marshall
WEST
UAB
USM
LaTech
Rice
UNT
UTSA
TXST. / stAte
Chasing markets and excluding FCS adds, the East is still the same. In the west, TXST or stAte taking UTEP's spot is the only difference. I think Tech and the Texas schools would have favored TXST, but Arkansas State would get support from some eastern schools and possibly (arguably) bring the Memphis market, which was all the rage at the time.
The conference would still have the distance problem, though considerably less as the F_U twins would be the only outliers. There would still be at least 3 Texas schools so that would still be a complaint, though the schools would be closer to each other and lend to travel pairs so there would be less of an inconvenience.
It's all moot though. The conference's big Achille's heel was the conference's media deal. Having scorned ESPN and then having games relegated to various streaming platforms was always going to cause discontent. A tighter geographical footprint wasn't going to overcome that when other conferences were getting better deals.
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A big question though would be, what would have happened to the Sun Belt in this UTEP/LaTech 2005 swap scenario. They had to survive in 2012 by calling up FCS teams and saving the teams out west from football independence. By CUSA taking TXST or stAte, the Sun Belt would have had to have found another full conference member. EKU or Chattanooga? It would have made their geography tighter but also have limited JMU coming up later most likely. JMU would have to accept a CUSA callup in 2021 as their only option to get into FBS.
UTEP could’ve won 10 games a season and averaged 45k in attendance and the outcome would’ve been the same. Louisiana Tech instead of UTEP wouldn’t have prevented anything either. You don’t turn down an invitation to a BCS conference that still had Louisville, Cincinnati, Rutgers and UConn and the chance to play Georgetown, Villanova and Marquette in basketball in a league that plays its basketball tournament in Madison Square Garden. You just don’t.
The “UTEP is too far” complaints were an easy way for fans to hide their school mediocrity in both revenue sports. Somebody had to be blamed and UTEP was an easy target.
We agree. I mentioned that things would have ended up basically the same for CUSA.
(05-10-2022 01:42 PM)UTEPDallas Wrote: (05-10-2022 01:24 PM)Fighting Muskie Wrote: It’s interesting that UTEP getting invited to C-USA over LA Tech for the 2005 season came up. That was definitely a move that had some serious repercussions:
Let’s say that the WAC still adds NMSU, Idaho, and Utah St to complete their 9-team league for 2005.
The WAC is still going to reach a point where they are down to just 5 schools after Boise, Nevada, Fresno, and Hawaii leave (San Jose St, Idaho, Utah St, UTEP, NMSU).
Would UTSA, Texas St, and UTA still been interested in the WAC if they weren’t the bridge to LA Tech? Yeah, probably.
If LA Tech is already in C-USA then my guess is MTSU gets added in their place in the first wave of C-USA expansion in 2012 and then it’s WKU and FAU that come in to replace Tulane and ECU. Which then begs the question, who does C-USA bring in to replace Tulsa?
East: Marshall, ODU, Charlotte, FAU, FIU, WKU, MTSU
West: UNT, UTSA, Rice, LA Tech, USM, UAB, ?
If I had to guess, I’d say Ark St.
I have to wonder if then the Sunbelt adds NMSU and UTEP as full members circa 2013-2014 for a line up of:
West: NMSU, UTEP, Texas St, ULL, ULM (+ UTA & UALR)
East: USA, Troy, GA St, GA So, App St
Coastal Carolina doesn’t get an opportunity to move up during that expansion round.
This could mean things shake out a little differently and USM, ODU, and Marshall wouldn’t be so excited to jump ship for a league that already had to resort to taking NMSU and UTEP for survival and the SBC and C-USA just decide to shuffle members to establish some clearer geographic footprints circa 2021.
From what I remember back then the reason why UTEP was considered over Louisiana Tech was because Marshall, East Carolina, Southern Miss, Tulane and Memphis did not LT especially Memphis. Houston and UAB were indifferent and SMU, Rice and Tulsa favored Tech over UTEP since the latter was seen as too WACish and they were desperately trying to get away from anything that reminded them of the WAC. Take it for what it’s worth though.
P.S. I remember the final vote was not even UTEP vs Louisiana Tech exactly 18 years ago. It was more like who votes to invite UTEP. Basically at that point Louisiana Tech was eliminated and North Texas was told no days before.
From what I know, you are partially correct. Tulane actually supported Tech. The ADs at USM and Memphis wanted UTEP and fought hard for UTEP over LaTech. This is through some credible sources over at Latechbbb, so take that for what it's worth.
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