Arkstfan

That was so stupid

Liberty will still be available unless the departure of Falwell matters to Sun Belt. Flew private jet to each school to lobby. Offered to pay double the admission fee and was rumored to have offered to secure donations in the mid six figure range to president/chancellor’s choice of athletics or academics. Sure presidents weren’t wild about faculty and student backlash over Liberty faculty having to sign oath that they believe the earth is a few thousand years old, no tenure for faculty, and being gay is grounds for expulsion. If they were willing to move past that, the Arab oil sheik act would have been enough to kill their bid.

The P5 was 65 teams. With Texas and OU ditching Big XII for all intents and purposes we are down to 58 power teams.

Buying out their equity and dealing with litigation probably not going to be worth it.

UTPA left Sun Belt to avoid being booted. UNO left ahead of being booted for not meeting membership standards.

As we age we start processing less new information and rely on what we already know. It’s why you have people sneering at Millenials and Gen Z over college costs telling them to work part-time like they did, unaware that won’t produce enough income. Back when the WAC tried to get UNT a high official pushed hard to join. When a Sun Belt affiliated person called to find out why UNT was leaving the person talked of better recognized teams, the man asked the UNT official to tell him who was in WAC and he recited members of MWC. The University of Missouri Kansas City actually moved to WAC citing recognition and quickly crawled back to Summit. As constituted today with UAB probably leaving with a player to be named later, TXST, UTA, ULM would all be likely be glad to join. After that it would take massive changes. During the dark days at AState people would declare some past event as something to promote and I’d have to explain, that was 20 years ago, it means nothing to a 17 year old prospect. 10 years ago is a long time in recruiting. Sun Belt is risking running afoul of that natural recency bias chasing USM. An industry built on the whims of people 16-18 years old for performance has a lot of recency bias while attendance, donations and viewership revenue tend to be built over decades, makes it hard to sustain quality because it takes time for revenue to catch up to strong performance

AAC has a complicated path. The schools that most look like their self-image are in MWC and but for the front range schools, too far away to be practical full members. I don’t know that MWC has to push the panic button yet. Big XII going to XIV is speculative. They lose AFA and CSU they have NMSU and UTEP ready to say yes whenever. But NCAA permits a title game at 10 teams and they can’t replace the TV value of AFA, but losing AFA and CSU at least short-term raises MWC’s power ratings and drags AAC’s down. Doing nothing might well may be the strongest play MWC has.

If your members don’t have consensus, nothing gained from doing anything other making a says nothing type comment. Remember a few years ago B1G’s Delaney poppped off about raising bowl eligibility and in short order walked it back after hearing from schools win B1G who don’t often make bowls.

The conference leadership that MATTERS is on the campuses. Commissioner in college athletics is a weak position and most leagues require super majority votes of presidents and chancellors for significant issues. I believe CUSA’s situation was messed up by mistakes made prior to the appointment of the current commissioner. Mistake one. Expansion that was supposedly a debate between taking UNT or UNT and FIU became a six team expansion rumored to have been because ECU Marshall and UAB blocked demanding more eastern schools so three slots go to schools with no downs of FBS ball played and no established track record of football success. Then Tulane and ECU bolt and instead of oh we planned for that by going to 14, instead MTSU and FAU were added. Tulsa leaves and WKU pans out fine. Then Bankowsky recognizes UAB is being squeezed and looks to add the Cajuns and Red Wolves to shift UAB East and facilitate a future East/west fracture but the eastern schools balk demanding JMU have one of the spots defeating the purposes of adding two in the west. The stage was set for discontent while Bankowsky was on board and he soon sought out more rewarding work.

If UAB is leaving, I could understand USM looking around and saying not one of these schools is what we signed up for when we founded the league. We’ve been an incubator for large market schools and we are fed up and want to align with similar institutions who value football. Or maybe they remember when CUSA was first fighting weeknight games and Louisville was saying we will play any day or time we can get a national telecast. The same strategy they employed in Big East and parlayed that national recognition and on-field success into ACC membership and simply want leverage to get the deal rethought.

It clearly isn’t happening? You base this on some inside knowledge? I will admit I don’t know what’s about to happen but a person who I trust says WKU has provided Sun Belt members with information supporting their admission which is interesting in and of itself given they aren’t the focus of the rumors. One can scowl and say it clearly isn’t happening or one can make contingency plans just in case.

Used to be. Got a better paying gig some years back. Most of my connections are retired and retiring but hear some gossip still.

So Sun Belt suffocated you? What exactly did North Texas do to try to capitalize on consecutive championships? Build an indoor practice facility? Build new locker rooms, meeting rooms, weight room, clubhouse? Do a campaign to endow scholarships or coaching positions? Replace or upgrade an old not especially well maintained stadium? Sun Belt football started in 2001, not one champion from 2001 to 2010 used a championship and bowl appearance to fuel upgrades and fund-raising. That’s NOT the fault of the conference that blame rests squarely on chancellors and presidents who deemed football a distraction and annoyance and in the back of their mind every time some fan said we need to put more in they were thinking, “you’ve got a team, what else do you want?” Leadership and achievement starts in the CEO’s office, not the commissioners office.

The Boise/SDSU talk was flat ridiculous. They were there before, albeit not even a year but at the time Boise’s president said they had to increase revenue by $4 million per year to make it work and after the hoop schools left, AAC couldn’t deliver that. They idea that an AAC lacking Houston, UCF, and Cincinnati could out-earn MWC by $4 million is laughable, especially considering that Boise gets enhanced revenue sharing with an eat what you kill system. AFA being disgruntled since Utah and BYU left was no secret but now the rumor mill says AFA is no longer interested. MWC is positioned to be stronger than AAC in football, they don’t have a pressing need to expand unless Big 12 turns around and adds Boise and if that happens they probably lose 20% of their revenue.

FWIW Washington did a who are the top 10 recruits at Arkansas State piece this week. 7 are backups. 😄

USC and UCLA are two of the most recognized brands in college athletics with strong reputations in multiple sports. Both draw viewers not just locally but nationally. From what I saw visiting LA, the fan dynamic is very different. USC is a top private school but it’s the “common man’s” team. UCLA is highly selective and in a more upscale area and since abandoning the Coliseum plays in a more upscale area. The upper middle class guy who went to Cal State Fullerton is probably a UCLA fan.

As I said on another board, the money is less a driver than people think. OU and Texas can read the handwriting. The national press spends most of its time talking SEC and B1G. The ACC stays relevant because of Clemson and the playoffs. The Big XII might actually have gotten less ink due to the constant “How can PAC-12 fix itself” articles. Being ignored was a big factor in OU and UT feeling a need to move. The only weakness I see that AAC can exploit with MWC is Air Force. The Falcons have made it no secret they dislike the MWC revenue plan believing that if it is an equity partnership, the partners share mostly equal shares rather than feed notably more to Boise State. They were livid over proposals to expand the MWC schedule to 9 that would have left them with one available non-conference date. They don’t like being distant third fiddle in attention paid to them compared to Army and Navy and making Navy a conference game would increase the focus on AFA-Navy. If AFA is in a big enough snit that they would leave then odds are Colorado State, Wyoming and New Mexico would all be glad to follow. If AFA doesn’t bolt then AAC’s options narrow. They could probably grab a MAC if they felt a MAC helped. No one in Sun Belt fits the past expansion model because Georgia State isn’t good enough at least right now. So they can take two CUSA or four. I wouldn’t rule out them making a run at St Louis and Dayton to bolster hoops and settle for 10 in football, I think St Louis would jump, I’m not so sure Dayton would.

Well MWC does have all the surviving western Big West schools sans NMSU BUT it has the surviving epic era WAC teams other than Arizona, Arizona State, BYU, and Utah and that means the Front Range. New Mexico, AFA, Colorado State, and Wyoming ain’t close but it’s an hour difference not horrible travel. it’s not ideal but sure ain’t bad either as long as AFA and CSU stick

Dodd also says AAC is looking at UAB, Colorado State, Air Force, Boise, and SDSU. I am skeptical money works for Boise but AFA has publicly complained about MWC and it’s most favored status for Boise. Wouldn’t be shocked if AFA makes the leap because it makes Navy a conference game raising the profile of the game and it give AFA another non-conference game by no longer using a non-conference slot. If AFA bails Colorado State probably follows.

The worst thing to happen to MWC was Boise and SDSU leaving then un-leaving. They added SJSU and USU as a patch then Boise and SDSU were back and it’s Big West part 12 or so. Half the current league is former Big West. All they lost from the Big West that’s in the region and still playing was NMSU and Big West final round of expansion Idaho. The once elite WAC teams Arizona, Arizona State, Utah, and BYU are gone. Best thing they have is six teams are in states with no P5 teams.

Memphis got in AAC because they were invited to Big East before the hoop schools broke away. They had to get 3/4ths vote when half the league didn’t play football. Tulane got in because it got popped on the presidents with no warning and they were like yeah elite southern academic we like that and the ADs flipped out that they weren’t consulted.

Actually ECU was the first expansion team.

Hiring coaches doesn’t seem that hard to me. AState has hired 5 since December of 2010 and four left for raises.

Regionalization is far harder than people imagine. Say AAC gets involved and the west becomes the core of the oft dreamt new SWC. Sun Belt becomes the dreamt of “Eastern League” and CUSA a “mid-south league”. You don’t get ECU and Temple signing on to the new eastern league unless they get as much money and exposure as if they had cobbled up an AAC 2.0. Arkansas State isn’t going to sign on to move off ESPN family for CBSSN and NFL Network. Until you can make people no worse off than if they held what they have regional cannot work.

This isn’t correct. Sun Belt is locked to two and guaranteed at least two more via the ESPN bowl pool.