Underdog Dynasty - Should CUSA Expand?

HoustonEagle · January 26, 2016

1 hour ago, untjim1995 said:

If CUSA and the SBC want to be forward thinking, they would combine into east and west divisions, so as to keep their TV coverage, but make divisions line up geographically for travel costs and easier fan attendance. The AAC school and the MWC school are a different breed, a cut above the rest of the G5s. Now, it could easily see UTEP and Rice leave to go west to the MWC, which I expect to happen. But even so you would have this setup:

SBCUSA West

NMSU, UTSA, Texas State, UNT, Arkansas State, La Tech, ULL, ULM, USM, UAB and South Alabama

SBCUSA East

MUTS, WKU, FIU, FAU, Ga State, Ga Southern, Troy , Marshall, Appy State, ODU, and Charlotte

Since scheduling is so hard for these schools, they will play 10 inter-division games, plus two OOC games--which will really help this when the P5s split away and we cannot play them anymore for a bodybag game to pay for our non-revenue sports. The winners of each division play for the SBCUSA Championship. If anyone leaves to go to the AAC or MWC, you just realign the divisions to continue to be geographic.

1-AA

Got5onIt · January 26, 2016

Don't want to see these conferences merge and form a FCS#2.

If anything happens it should be the Texas schools, Arkansas schools, LA schools, & OK schools band together and form a conference. I'm betting they could land decent TV contracts and their own network.

untjim1995 · January 26, 2016

49 minutes ago, HoustonEagle said:

1-AA

And?? You think we are getting called up to the AAC or MWC anytime soon? Surely you don't think that these conferences want anything to do with us right now, correct?

GreenTexan13 · January 26, 2016

21 hours ago, Arkstfan said:

If you are asking if CUSA should expand you don't understand the question.

People do not watch Ole Miss play Alabama because they are in the SEC. They watch because:

1. They are a fan of one of the two teams.

2. They hate one or both and want to watch the SOB's lose

3. The game is interesting because it impacts the conference race

4. The game is interesting because it impacts the CFP

5. It is more regionally relevant to them than the other games available to watch.

I watched few CUSA regular season games last season. UNT vs. Tennessee for a bit and was tuning in and out of USM-Tech, I saw that WKU-Marshall was on but flipped past it and did the same with an ODU game. I watched enough of an FIU game to take a pic of the stands and send it to a friend.

I don't give a rip if I ever see Charlotte or ODU play and have little interest in any game involving CUSA East or UTSA. When Marshall looked like an Access contender in 14 I watched a couple of their games.

CUSA (like Sun Belt) fails the primary test of a conference. Take the money away, take the bowl deals away, take the conference patch away and call it Conference X and how many stick together. LSU and Alabama want to play each other whether there is money involved or not, they did it back when there was no money. FIU vs. FAU on TV in the Sun Belt didn't get me to watch unless it had some impact on AState and I sure don't care now that they are in CUSA. Before Nebraska was even rumored to join B1G I was on the Nebraska board before an AState game and quickly learned they hated Iowa and Iowa hated them because Iowa fans were trolling the board.

The fundamental flaw of it all is my interest in Georgia State is limited to when AState plays them and when their game has an impact on the league race and I doubt anyone here has any different view of FIU or ODU.

If you go back and ask "why" about old conference alignments historically conferences reflect economic zones and the transportation of the era. The Big Ten was not just organized around the economic unit of the Great Lakes, but transportation-wise around the railroads. Ohio State was located at railroad hub while the older more established University of Ohio was not. Taking a train from the University of Arkansas to cities in the SEC was very difficult, even much of the Big 8 was hard to reach from there, but it was easy to get to.... Dallas, thus Arkansas was in the SWC not the SEC and not the Big 8. When Arkansas State moved out of the Arkansas Intercollegiate Conference (which we were barely in because Jonesboro was nearly impossible to reach from much of Arkansas and rarely played a full schedule) we went indy and played mostly schools in the Midwest that were more accessible by train.

The interstate system and larger more reliable buses started changing things. In 1963 the Southland formed with five Texas schools and AState, what changed the dynamic? Bus travel. US 67 was a busy Texas to Illinois route and I-30 was under construction (basically done by 1965) making that the natural direction to travel.

Economically, Texas, Arkansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma are entertwined, Arkansas used to be more oriented economically around St. Louis, Memphis, and New Orleans, now Dallas, Houston are the major players though Memphis and NOLA still matter to the agri industry and Memphis matters to some degree in shipping. What happens in Dallas is rarely news in Nashville or Birmingham but matters a great deal in Little Rock, OKC, and Tulsa.

That's the fundamental problem of CUSA and Sun Belt has they stand today, they don't reflect the reality of travel or economics.

I highlighted my favorite part of your post. I think UNT is fortunate to be in in CUSA West that consists of 4/6 teams being in Texas. But I'm not sure I would be comfortable in saying that any of the teams in CUSA West would not bolt if they were given the chance to go to the MWC or the AAC. LSU and Alabama (kind of hard to say they can bolt somewhere else because the SEC is the supreme conference in CFB) would stick with each other do to the passion in that rivalry. Oklahoma and Texas are always going to play each other no matter what alignment happens

Sticking to games in our conferences that have a travel time of 3-5 hours max would be a better for our fans in the conference. You aren't going to see a lot of UNT fans at a Charlotte or Marshall game or a lot of ArkState fans at a Georgia State/U South Alabama game. We aren't p5's and we need the closer proximity for the fan's sake. If/when the mass P5 and G5 alignment takes place, I seriously hope we can all develop a better way of keeping the games closer and the opposing fans closer. Makes way for a better rivalry and to give more people options at attending road games.

Arkstfan · January 27, 2016

3 hours ago, GreenTexan13 said:

I highlighted my favorite part of your post. I think UNT is fortunate to be in in CUSA West that consists of 4/6 teams being in Texas. But I'm not sure I would be comfortable in saying that any of the teams in CUSA West would not bolt if they were given the chance to go to the MWC or the AAC. LSU and Alabama (kind of hard to say they can bolt somewhere else because the SEC is the supreme conference in CFB) would stick with each other do to the passion in that rivalry. Oklahoma and Texas are always going to play each other no matter what alignment happens

Sticking to games in our conferences that have a travel time of 3-5 hours max would be a better for our fans in the conference. You aren't going to see a lot of UNT fans at a Charlotte or Marshall game or a lot of ArkState fans at a Georgia State/U South Alabama game. We aren't p5's and we need the closer proximity for the fan's sake. If/when the mass P5 and G5 alignment takes place, I seriously hope we can all develop a better way of keeping the games closer and the opposing fans closer. Makes way for a better rivalry and to give more people options at attending road games.

SEC, Big 10, and Pac-12 are the only leagues to not be raided. But most of the raids in P5 beyond money made some sense. Nebraska and OU had given up their regular series, Nebraska and Iowa had a heated though infrequently played rivalry. Rutgers as the first football school always felt it belonged in B1G, Maryland has oriented away from the south culturally. TAMU wanted to join SEC back when Arkansas left and had infrequent but interesting rivalry with LSU. Mizzou was sort of the oddity though the fans from south of St Louis to around Springfield and south felt they belonged SEC (just as NW Arkansas felt the call of the Big 8 while eastern Arkansas has always been SEC oriented, in Jonesboro for example go to the country club and you'll see more Ole Miss than Arkansas). If you've ever been to Boulder you totally understand Pac-12 for them. The ACC/quasi-absorption of Big East linked like-minded schools.

Really few odd ducks, though WVU to Big XII is a glaring example.

The G5 was a series of reactions and compromises and absent MAC booting UMass and the rumored booting of NMSU and Idaho, no one has tried to fix those reaction moves.

When CUSA formed, my Dad said, "They sure went through a lot of trouble to re-form the Missouri Valley".

Mike Jackson · January 27, 2016

On January 26, 2016 at 8:45 PM, physics90 said:

Economically, Texas, Arkansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma are entertwined, Arkansas used to be more oriented economically around St. Louis, Memphis, and New Orleans, now Dallas, Houston are the major players though Memphis and NOLA still matter to the agri industry and Memphis matters to some degree in shipping. What happens in Dallas is rarely news in Nashville or Birmingham but matters a great deal in Little Rock, OKC, and Tulsa.

That's the fundamental problem of CUSA and Sun Belt has they stand today, they don't reflect the reality of travel or economics.

Great post, expansion of C-USA is worse idea I have ever heard. Expanding by adding teams and splitting into 2 independent conferences who package their media offering together to market I could see.

North Texas

Tulsa

SMU

UTEP

New Mexico State

Arkansas State

Rice

Tulane

ULL

Louisiana Tech

Southern Miss*

UTSA or Texas State

(on a side note the new Independent CUSA West* could take Sun Belt refugees in other sports Texas State, UT Arlington, U Ark Little Rock)

And the Eastern Division has several schools they could target to build a 12 conference also

South Alabama

Georgia State

Georgia Southern

App State

ECU

UCF

USF

Troy

Basically all the G5 conference schools east of Mississippi and/or north of Arkansas need reorganize themselves in to conferences more geographically reasonable. Traditionally those were always the better basketball school anyway. The hard part is find away to divide up the Mid Atlantic region schools into conference that make sense. I think FIU, FAU, UCF, and UCF would be surprised if they agreed to work together for the great good that all four of them would be better off. They could maybe get more of the Florida recruits that waste their talents sitting on the bench at the SEC schools and Florida State. Also schools not in their conference will be lined up to sign home and home game contracts with them.

oldguystudent · January 27, 2016

At this point in time, we pretty much play CUSA, SBC, FCS, and a couple SEC body bag games every year. Put whoever you want in a group, call the conference whatever the hell you want to call it. We're still playing MUTS, F_U, Lamar Sisters of the Incarnate Bethunes, and LSU/Texas/Alabama/Florida/Wisconsin/blahblahblah.

I, for one, welcome our new rivalry overlords with Georgia St. and Abilene Christian.

I don't put this on RV's scheduling. That's the easy answer. I put it on the reality of where we stand in the FBS pecking order (hint: pretty much nowhere to go but up). Nobody wants to come to Apogee, nobody wants to be associated with us, and at present, I can't say as though I blame them. I expect SMU to find a reason to terminate the series early, and I expect us to fill that gap with road games at the Sam Houston Institute of Technology. But I won't be attending that game. For you see, it'll take an act of God to acquire tickets to it.

Website still doesn't work, BTW.

untjim1995 · January 27, 2016

3 hours ago, oldguystudent said:

3 hours ago, oldguystudent said:

At this point in time, we pretty much play CUSA, SBC, FCS, and a couple SEC body bag games every year. Put whoever you want in a group, call the conference whatever the hell you want to call it. We're still playing MUTS, F_U, Lamar Sisters of the Incarnate Bethunes, and LSU/Texas/Alabama/Florida/Wisconsin/blahblahblah.

I, for one, welcome our new rivalry overlords with Georgia St. and Abilene Christian.

I don't put this on RV's scheduling. That's the easy answer. I put it on the reality of where we stand in the FBS pecking order (hint: pretty much nowhere to go but up). Nobody wants to come to Apogee, nobody wants to be associated with us, and at present, I can't say as though I blame them. I expect SMU to find a reason to terminate the series early, and I expect us to fill that gap with road games at the Sam Houston Institute of Technology. But I won't be attending that game. For you see, it'll take an act of God to acquire tickets to it.

Website still doesn't work, BTW.

SMU will terminate the series when they don't need the game against us--if they are winning big, they will drop us. If they are losing games to us, they will bolt, too. The only way they keep this series going for that long is if they stay mediocre or worse, but still beat us more times than not. They know our fans will fill up Ford Stadium when we play down there, giving them a nice attendance bump, as well as a win over us to keep us from gaining any recruiting traction.

If you doubt this, look at basketball. We played them periodically for years until Larry Brown got there. Now, that they are great, they have zero interest in playing us. When we were good under Johnny Jones, they stopped playing us. It was only when we sucked or were mediocre that we played them. That's how they work--always have, always will.