Arkstfan

Conference membership is like getting married, most folks go in thinking this is till death do us part, and Lord help those hitchin' up till something better comes along. Do you really want to marry Army because they have a really good 56 year old coach who will either eventually retire or catch the attention of an AD with a much fatter budget? 10 of the 13 schools who got together in 1933 to form the SEC are still there. Six of the eight who kicked off the MWC 25 years ago are still there. Army makes a lot of sense because there's just no one who might be willing to join in the eastern and central time zones who brings more TV value or helps home gate more. Land Army and who knows, maybe AFA becomes willing to defect if the whole Oregon State / Washington State thing doesn't go well and someone like Colorado State is willing to come along. Just never know which stop is going to be the last stop.

1997-2015 had one winning season. In that stretch had a winless season and two seasons with one win.

Army isn’t about raising power ratings, they are about TV ratings. With the US not engaged in any major conflicts, recruiting may get easier for them.

🙂 In the last six years their worst loss to a P5 was 7 points to Penn State in OT and went 7-0 vs the schools currently in AAC. Get about 5 games a year picked up for linear TV. Really curious what about that makes them a NO 🙂

Now if we are just insistent on keeping amateur(ish) football the idea situation is kill the NCAA and have different governing bodies for the various sports. Men’s college soccer is less relevant to MLS than it once was because of the NCAA practice and development rules and NCAA has some rules differences though nothing dramatic. Simpler rules for playing in summer leagues like NPSL and USL2 would help as well as making things easier to be in academy play without fretting over losing eligibility. Rules that work for soccer might not work as well for golf where USGA can provide a good framework. Basketball? Can work under USA Basketball or take hoops to the AAU where the colleges with their billion dollar tournament become the beast of AAU hoops and can use that influence to get AAU club basketball under control.

I’ve said before that dropping football and licensing the operation of football to private operators is probably the best way forward for FBS football. Say you have some millions you can afford to lose on a speculative investment. You don’t have NFL money, not even MLS money. Would you rather buy into XFL or USFL or North Texas football? Brand is established. Facilities are in place. Have an established ticket buying base and sponsorship agreements. You are seeking profit and your licensing deal to use the school facilities and intellectual property involves some upfront cash and a percentage of gross so you are looking to slash expenses. You want a union, College Football Players Association to get a salary cap and smaller rosters. It’s professional player development, maybe you cut deals so players can attend college, but that’s not going to be a requirement. Maybe you work out housing and meals as part of the player contract and licensing requirement. Million dollar coaches? Not hardly, think more like the half million of XFL. You can end up with a nice little business. College is rid of its biggest Title IX headache and gets out from under a monster that has a tendency to suck up every available dollar that could fund other sports

Think network wanted some assurances before bumping their money.

CUSA did. Sun Belt has not.

If TV folks believe they can gain audience in DFW, Austin, San Antonio, and Houston not just for the local team's games but get that audience to watch Oregon State at Nevada because it's a conference game then there are deals to be made. The question is are the deals large enough to convince the members to put up with the hassles.

It is usually the only college game available to watch. Move it to say Thanksgiving and let's see how it does.

Army is the ONLY football brand of significance east of the Great Plains left in play. If it ain't Army the pool is a bunch of programs that are median AAC quality or worse. Sun Belt has Georgia State and ODU and hold your head right you can put Texas State in the pool. CUSA has FIU and can good faith argue MTSU/Nashville. Liberty is the biggest brand though not an urban(ish) state school like most of the league. MAC has Buffalo (who is in the AAU), Toledo and well sure NIU is technically in the Chicago TV market. Can sort of claim Indianapolis with Ball State or Ann Arbor/Detroit with Eastern Michigan but yeah it's Buffalo and Toledo that actually fit the model. No one in the is anything more than a spot filler and question is the spot in the middle or somewhere down at the bottom.

It's gut check time for Washington State and Oregon State fans. Pullman is so freaking remote, I'm not sure it has a huge impact. They are 4 1/2 hours from any major pro team, yeah 8 miles to Idaho who is now FCS and 90 minutes to Gonzaga the nearest highly successful athletic program. Not sure that fans don't just go ahead and show up because there's nothing else to do.

Well yeah UTEP would love to be back with New Mexico but the money so far doesn't work. Texas State? Yeah you can squint and look at the San Antonio and Austin sprawl starting to move into San Marcos take the fact that they are in the Austin market per the TV folks but they gotta have more Saturdays like last Saturday.

Realignment has two streams. Make us better. There is cold calculation done and no one is in a hurry. The numbers get crunched and everyone looks at what the added team(s) do to their expenses and compare that to what it does to the revenue stream. ACC has been toying with going after Pac-12 schools since the USC and UCLA announcement and even then struggled to get to a 3/4ths vote because the headache and expense vs revenue differential didn't make it a no-brainer. Survival. Weird stuff happens when a conference goes into survival mode. CUSA presidents get together to debate UNT vs UNT+FIU and come out with six new members. Sun Belt authorizes a committee to issue binding invites thinking they will be talking to WAC schools who are in crisis and instead the committee invites Georgia State. Big East presidents get together and invite Tulane without consulting the AD's who find out and throw fits and show the presidents photos of the facilities the school they just admitted helping fuel the Catholic schism that broke the league.

I don't buy this. The money just isn't there to make it work, besides if the money DID work, who would MWC poach? Charlotte? FAU? Give me a break. If they could make the money to work coming east, first place they are coming is Texas.

It's fun to watch when it doesn't impact you 🙂

Rules give them a two year grace period. They can play 2024-25 and 2025-26 as an FBS league then they have to comply in 2026-27.

1998 Sun Belt. UTPA (at the time) had gotten off probation and was hit again. They were death eligible. The administration in responding to the NCAA admitted the violations. The coach was believed to be wrapped all up in it but they couldn't prove the head coach was guilty so had a weak "for cause" case. For suggested penalty UTPA told the NCAA death. The NCAA was like, no you aren't getting off that easy. No death penalty. Presidents around the conference hit the roof. First was because they had broken the rules very clearly twice in five years and second was because UTPA asked for death. Sun Belt rules at the time allowed expulsion by unanimous vote with of course the school subject to the vote not getting a vote. UTPA was told the votes were in place and given the opportunity to withdraw membership before the vote and they opted to withdraw. UALR and UTA withdrew but the votes were there. Well technically speaking, UALR expulsion needed only need a 50-50 vote. They were below the Sun Belt required minimum sports sponsored and to keep their waiver needed a majority vote (50% plus one). UTA required 3/4ths vote. The league had adopted guidelines for membership long before that said no non-football would be added but Benson boo hoo'd to convince the members to ignore that and UTA. Marshall was once kicked out of MAC. AState, Northern Illinois, Louisiana and Louisiana Tech were kicked out of Big West football when they laughed at full membership to make room for some twerps in Texas. UMass was expelled by rule (think UALR situation) from MAC football when UMass rejected full membership triggering automatic expulsion. Temple out of Big East was super crazy. Big East had gotten tired of Temple and adopted minimum membership standards. Each year Temple had to meet with the commissioner, show what they had done (which was not meet the standard) and what they were doing to address it (most fun was if you had a group of 30 or something like that within some distance of the stadium, they'd send a bus to pick you up, take you to the game and the tickets were free). Temple had a president who wanted to drop football and had dropped football at his previous stop at a Division II school. Rolls into the meeting says we didn't meet the standards, nothing we do will ever meet the standards, we can't possibly meet them. Commissioner is stunned, then pissed that they won't even play along and pretend to try. Per the league rules they get booted. He heads home thinking OK now I can dump this money pit football program. Trustees find out, flip out, go to the conference and get a deal to have four years to phase out. Join the MAC and then get called back up when Big East is collapsing

If I remember the numbers right they currently spend $17 million on debt service with the school paying like $9.5 million and athletics $8.5 million with that doubling in about a decade. They will survive

Go look up how much Cal borrowed for their stadium.

USF is unreliable. Leavitt nearly ended up at AState when we hired Steve Roberts. His old AD was our AD and he was ready to go because USF hadn't kept any of their promises about training facilities, upgrading practice fields, and addressing the stadium. They gave him new agreement that set a deadline for the field house construction.

I think you are spot on. Those two schools mean something to SJSU, SDSU, Fresno, Nevada, etc. Get past the Great Plains.... Washington State is where Mike Leach was and the flag is at Game Day. Oregon State is uh that other Oregon school.

Sort of defeats the purpose if you never play.

Of course. But when NC State, Duke, Pitt, Boston College rebuild the ACC, SMU is at the table. They get to speak for and against candidates. They get to vote for or against candidates. They aren't standing there hat in hand hoping to get on the lifeboat.

Of course. Thing is it will likely be a decade until what they'd owe under the GOR will permit them to leave. Means when Florida State and Clemson and maybe 2-4 others leave, SMU is at the table determining who gets invited. You think ECU or Charlotte laughs off an invite to join Wake Forest, NC State and maybe Duke in a rebuilt ACC? South Florida isn't going to say no to joining Georgia Tech in a rebuilt ACC. They bought a seat at the table to get a vote on who joins the next revamp.