Bell Helicopter Armed Forces Bowl is on

[Arkstfan]

Remember, it was 149 days between UCF, Houston, and SMU leaving and C-USA finally announcing teams and 86 days between Memphis leaving and the expansion decision.

That was one of if not the slowest reactions to a raid ever.

According to people close to the situation there was a serious divide over what to do.

You had some who favored simply adding UNT and stopping at 10. You had people who wanted to go forward with the Alliance as an 18 team circuit who favored moving UTEP west and were split between FIU and UNT. You had ECU pushing to go back to 12 by adding three eastern teams.

Then Memphis left and the dynamic changed again.

The sad part of it all is that Boise and SDSU made that Big East commitment, no one I ever talked believed the Big East would get the numbers Big East was touting. A contact I have with ESPN Regional said they would be doing well to get $38 million with Louisville and the hoop schools, about 1/3rd of what Boise was promised. When those teams left it fell significantly. If Boise and SDSU had never bought into the smoke and mirrors one of two things would have happened. The league would have collapsed or it would have moved on Tulane and ECU before CUSA's expansion was announced and would have been down to six members without the primary advocate for ODU, UNCC and FIU.

Timing is everything.

[SquidSticks]

You can respect the Armed Forces and be thankful for their service, but most young enlisted sailors I've met (my cousin and all his friends ive met over the years) are mostly a bunch of loud cocky disrespectful assholes haha

Great assumption bro. Every walk of life has douche bags, please steer me to an area congested with a flock of 18-20yr males and not find a decent amount who need to grow up.

I served 04-08 and I certainly was a typical 18yr old going in. Service to our country doesn't "save" everyone but it populates this place with more respectable individuals than another establishment does.

[Arkstfan]

No one has ever treated a military academy worse than Rutgers where the students chanted the full version of "You got effed up" at an injured Navy player several years ago.

That said, the academies can be a bit tiresome as they have a group of fans that pander for respect and get offended at every perceived slight.

Army fans had a full-blown message board melt-down calling AState classless and disrespectful after they played us because after games our band plays the fight song and the team splits up and sings it for the fans. This apparently drowned out their players singing the alma mater to the 1000 of their fans who were at the game. We apparently weren't respectful by yielding our tradition to their's.