Arkstfan

Hearing any talk of early departure? At USM and ODU announcements and in stories on Marshall, we keep hearing the same phrase “will enter no later than July 1, 2023” and there have been comments that indicate USM, Marshall, and ODU think they might start as early as July, 2022. Obviously we aren’t working around the timeline of schools leaving the Sun Belt, the way AAC is doing with UCF, Cincy, and Houston. The nearest I’ve seen to this was when Sun Belt took in Georgia State a year early in sports that don’t play a season schedule (cross country, track, golf) when CAA booted them from those tournaments and then when FIU joined Sun Belt helped pay their departure fee to A-Sun to get them in immediately. Then MTSU and FAU left early for CUSA. Probably some others I’m forgetting. Still interesting that there seems to be a chance of some or all leaving early.

If I were lord and master of college football, I’d make the following OT changes. Team going second cannot attempt a FG unless the team going first attempted one. That would reward the team going first to pass up a FG on fourth and short. Second OT starts at the 30 if both teams score. If neither scores we advance the ball 5 yards to the 20. (Might have helped your 7 OT game). That’s not going to happen so… If we are going to insist on doing this player saving try down thing then let’s expedite it. The trudging off and on is slow. Team going first does three attempts. So OT #3 would consist of team A trying three straight two point tries followed by team B trying three. If Team A scores all three, then OT ends as soon as Team B fails. If Team A fails to score then first try that works for B ends the game. Doing three at a time saves the on and off and moves things quicker and would up the drama doing several at a time.

MAC is sniffing around about taking the kill shot Five you can work your way back from. Three would be really hard.

Yeah I think you can argue the defender actually gave the QB forward progress in trying to tackle him

NCAA disagrees

Once QB is outside of the tackle box only requirement to avoid grounding is for the ball to cross the line of scrimmage. The rule for forward pass doesn’t require facing the target. A few schools have run a trick play where the QB fakes a handoff and turns his back to the line of scrimmage then flips the ball over his head. The kicker on this is the defender trying to get the QB under control ends up pushing him toward the line of scrimmage so there is forward progress. By fluke I happened to tune in just before it happened and initially thought wow, and then it dawned on me, out of pocket, legal forward pass, forward progress, it’s an incomplete pass. I immediately dashed off an email to Steve Shaw so it might show up in this week’s rules review video.

The TLDR Six. Number for auto bids all sports except basketball and football Seven. Number needed for auto bid in mens basketball Eight. Number of full FBS members needed to be a FBS conference. Two years. Grace period to comply with basketball and football requirements. So if CUSA departees enter their new league for the 2023-24 academic year, CUSA has until the 2025-26 academic year to get back up to the numbers. Any FCS will likely do first year transition in 2022-23 and be ineligible for playoffs but won’t have to play FBS schedule yet. 2023-24 they do second year and have to play a complying schedule and full FBS In 2024-25

The reports are AAC is getting cut and that cut amount will support $7 million for current members $2 million for the six newcomers or roughly $54 million. Sun Belt will get $2 million per member or $28 million. Question is how much if any of the AAC figure for the existing members is exit fees spread out over time. CUSA was a reported $1 million per in the last realignment that became around $200,000 after the exit fees ran out and was at $400,000 in the last deal per paper in Norfolk.

As I said in a post a week or so ago, this was a great realignment. The folks drawing maps aren’t going to like it but the AAC and Sun Belt it produced are now much more alliances for like-minded schools, similar schools. Except for ECU, AAC football is large metro based colleges. But for Georgia State, Sun Belt football is college towns and smaller cities. The reality is realignment has been triggered by radical shifts in the marketplace. The TV business started changing in the 80’s with the rise of cable, then the creation of the conference networks and now streaming. Inefficiencies came into existence and the market adjusted. It finally became foolish for OU and UT to stay in the Big XII because the financial cost of not acting was too great. There is a higher probability of stability coming to alignment than any time the past two decades. Absent some pilfering of Pac12 or ACC there’s not a lot of value left for B1G and SEC to plunder and it generate enough revenue to justify the additional splits. I would be surprised if UNT’s administration looked around and said man this western division doesn’t suit us with UNT UTSA, Rice, SMU, Tulsa, Tulane, Memphis just as I’d be surprised if AState’s administration is looking around in five years saying Troy, USA, USM, UL, ULM, TXST, man these aren’t our people. Sucks for UTEP and FIU because geography isn’t their friend. WKU and MTSU maybe can slide over to MAC.

Seriously? Join a league that has received a bigger CFP payout based on performance four the last five years, had two ranked teams last year and Coastal was top 15 until Wednesday night. Depressing is NOT that they are joining Sun Belt but that schools they once looked down on just joined Big XII. They are getting a raise, they are getting a bunch of close opponents who are mostly playing good football.

$2 million is what we are hearing. Don’t think it bounces from the $1.4 million range until the schools enter.

The new TV signed over the summer bumped Sun Belt TV to $1.2 to $1.4 million. When the league expressed reservations about going to 14, which created risk Marshall would back out and WKU would become #12, ESPN juiced the pot to $2 million per to get the matter resolved. That should help the ULM budget as will finally winning some games.

They’ve never played well with others. Their fan base is in general a reflection of their administration

Sun Belt has finished ahead of CUSA in four of five seasons in the CFP performance distribution. That looks rather trend like. New Sun Belt TV deal pays $1.2 million and if you have the ESPN app on your streaming device you always know where the game is. ESPN starting in 2019 has been picking up games for Saturday linear tv. Two days ago exercised right to move TXST at UL to ESPNU on October 30. With USM the closest CUSA to FIU is 830 miles. Closest to UTEP is Tech at 890 miles. USM if they do join will be in a division that has South Al 100 miles, ULM 206 miles, UL 223 miles, AState 365 miles, TXST 600 miles

Right now 12 seems to be the number. ULM finally has decent leadership. Last president wanted to offset university support dollar for dollar when athletics raised money. That crap is over. There is no love for Tech but if ESPN ties a pork chop to their neck then hey maybe.

Mayor of next town over was barking at an Arkansas cheerleader and caught her. It was quite the scandal

FIU is a long way away and there are good looking women on the internet who are more age appropriate to ogle. Just today saw that there are hot women in my neighborhood wanting to meet.

As I mentioned to Harry, getting in with Wichita, Temple, Memphis, just reduced the pool of schools that can snag Mac though from my interaction with he and his family I’m not sure he can get permission to leave Texas.

Y’all talking about the Skip Holtz who won at UConn and ECU and then when to the big city of Tampa with a nice Big East budget sitting in the middle of one of the best recruiting areas in America and got fired after three years because each was worse than the one before? Not sure bigger community and bigger budget quite fits him.

Having like minded schools makes life easier. Reaching a consensus is easier when everyone has a similar outlook. It creates a stable environment.

While your soon to be former commissioner and numerous realignment junkies and bored sports writers have played with maps the last decade plus for what they considered sensible realignment based solely around maps, looks like the presidents and chancellors are solving this themselves. Look at the new AAC. Outside of ECU and Wichita State, it’s a collection of publics and privates in large metro areas. For the most part, institutions with similar missions. Meanwhile, Sun Belt has been in discussion with USM and Marshall for at least three months, maybe more like four from what I hear and if they end up joining as expected, it makes Sun Belt a collection of football centric public universities located in college towns and small cities except for Georgia State. The presidents have sorted themselves out into similar minded schools. That leaves CUSA. You’ve got UTEP roughly 890 miles from their nearest conference opponent in La. Tech. If USM joins Sun Belt as expected that leaves FIU roughly 890 miles away from their nearest CUSA opponent in MTSU. It seems it has worked out well for everyone but the CUSA outliers and schools that have some blemish that keeps them from drawing interest from the Belt or AAC. It’s a great outcome in my book

In men’s and women’s hoops and volleyball you typically play twice a week. Getting two games in on that flight to El Paso alleviates a bit of the hassle.

Harry and I talked about this. There is speculation that the AAC plan was four leaving out UNT and Rice and Thompson was talking and letting it be known in the right circles but left out that he didn’t have the 8 votes to add but it panicked AAC into acting. Fun story even if it doesn’t pan out.

Everything I hear, 12 is our number.

CONGRATULATIONS GUYS! So much for the SMU block theory. It’s been zero secret that Sun Belt and USM and Marshall have been talking for months. They’ve got their landing spot. Question is does anyone else in CUSA have a landing spot.