AAC expansion
- Thread starter herdfan429
- Start date
Wrong. Read the 2nd tweet. Did you pay attention to how OU and Texas joined the SEC or how those AAC teams joined the Big XII? "Submitting your application" is basically formally accepting an invite.
We're going to the SBC. We've been lobbying to get them to bring in WKU too.
The AAC was never an option for us. I don't know why so many of you can't just understand they have never wanted us.
Yes it does. Do you think the teams listed would be the only teams that would submit applications and the AAC would just accept them because they were submitted? These are the teams that the AAC decided to invite. "Submitting your application" is just a formality.
Outside of solid football we don't have a bigger market, we aren't a destination city, we don't have a large multipurpose area or stadium, and we are not located in a fertile recruiting ground.
The Big East had had 3 times to invite us and have passed on us.
We're going to be in the Sun Belt unless the rumor about us trying to leverage them to take WKU blows up in our face.
You know what? We are much better off in the Belt. The geography, the teams + the rivalry with App fits our ethos, if that makes sense. Besides, if the teams mentioned do bolt, there’s no good argument for staying on a sinking ship.
+ - with what is leaving, AAC 2.0 looks pretty shitty….
+#2 - when we were in the Southern, lots of good rivalries, both in football & basketball. When we rejoined the MAC “conference” (!), not many rivalries & the geography was horrid. MU fan base loves to travel south!!!
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The SBC has WAY more debt than C-USA and their tv revenue is worse than ours.
We boot UTEP and then waive entrance fees when we invite Coastal, Appy, Louisiana and then one of the Georgia schools, Troy or JMU and we have one hell of a fun conference with plenty of great rivalries.
We boot UTEP and then waive entrance fees when we invite Coastal, Appy, Louisiana and then one of the Georgia schools, Troy or JMU and we have one hell of a fun conference with plenty of great rivalries.
I think an alternate ending like what you’re proposing is and has been known for a while, Charlotte I believe was to be a part of it but they’re bailing for the next conference doa
Yea. Judy's "let's blow things up" memo last week sure bodes well for confidence that anyone is going to willingly join CUSA. A conference where every school wants out.
If for some crazy reason we don’t go to AAC rather go independent! Sunbelt sux!
Not to mention that staying in C-USA makes us a power player in the conference. We also have major exit fee dollars coming our way.
If we can somehow pull the best of the SBC, we are in a prime position to negotiate a new TV deal next year.
With ESPN owning the AAC and the SBC, we would be positioned for a great deal from other networks who want a foothold.
If we can somehow pull the best of the SBC, we are in a prime position to negotiate a new TV deal next year.
With ESPN owning the AAC and the SBC, we would be positioned for a great deal from other networks who want a foothold.
East
-FIU
-Marshall
-MTSU
-ODU
West
-La Tech
-Southern Miss
-UTEP
-WKU
Two more to SBC? Us and SM or other in place of us….
Then who’s coming with us if we stay?
UConn?
UMass?
NMSU?
Liberty?
JMU?
-FIU
-Marshall
-MTSU
-ODU
West
-La Tech
-Southern Miss
-UTEP
-WKU
Two more to SBC? Us and SM or other in place of us….
Then who’s coming with us if we stay?
UConn?
UMass?
NMSU?
Liberty?
JMU?
A depleted CUSA does nothing for us. You think our media package is bad now, no one will want to bid on CDOA games in the future, except maybe Cabell Co. Schools - so they can get their middle schoolers experience in media broadcasting.
Our best hope now is the SB and we go with USM, WKU and JMU/ODU. That would give us a some good regional rivalries and a solid league.
The AAC never wanted us, that's pretty clear. And I am fine with that. They'll find out soon enough that Charlotte, FAU and Rice won't move the needle for them. UAB - maybe?
Our best hope now is the SB and we go with USM, WKU and JMU/ODU. That would give us a some good regional rivalries and a solid league.
The AAC never wanted us, that's pretty clear. And I am fine with that. They'll find out soon enough that Charlotte, FAU and Rice won't move the needle for them. UAB - maybe?
Some of you guys aren't seeing the forest through the trees here... Judy was scrambling last week because she is about to be out of a job. CUSA is not going to exist in a couple years.
Now that the AAC has made its announcement the dominoes can fall...
To the AAC --
Charlotte, FAU, UAB, Rice, North Texas, UTSA
To the Mountain West --
UTEP, La. Tech
To the Sun Belt --
Marshall, ODU, FIU, Southern Miss
To the MAC --
Western Kentucky, MTSU
The G5 thus becomes the G4... So we have the P4 (SEC, ACC, Big10, Pac12)... The Middle 1 (Big12) and the G4 (AAC, Mountain West, Sun Belt, MAC)
Now that the AAC has made its announcement the dominoes can fall...
To the AAC --
Charlotte, FAU, UAB, Rice, North Texas, UTSA
To the Mountain West --
UTEP, La. Tech
To the Sun Belt --
Marshall, ODU, FIU, Southern Miss
To the MAC --
Western Kentucky, MTSU
The G5 thus becomes the G4... So we have the P4 (SEC, ACC, Big10, Pac12)... The Middle 1 (Big12) and the G4 (AAC, Mountain West, Sun Belt, MAC)
MWC already said it's not expanding. And there is bad blood between La Tech and the SB. La Tech and UTEP are screwed worse than we are. We just can't get stuck in a watered down CUSA - IF it were to survive.
Can't see Marshall joining the MAC, although financially and logistically, it probably would serve them well.
Better path would probably be to join the Sun Belt, if given the opportunity to do so. Of course, would be nice to be able to take Southern Miss, Louisiana Tech, WKU, MTSU, and Liberty along for the ride.
Florida International should give up on the football program, or join a lower division. Plenty of Florida teams competing in lower divisions already.
Better path would probably be to join the Sun Belt, if given the opportunity to do so. Of course, would be nice to be able to take Southern Miss, Louisiana Tech, WKU, MTSU, and Liberty along for the ride.
Florida International should give up on the football program, or join a lower division. Plenty of Florida teams competing in lower divisions already.
Its all semantics... The Mountain West may not be "actively looking" to expand, but if they could pick up UTEP and La. Tech for no cost and deliver a death blow to CUSA they would be dumb not to do it.
La. Tech will not go to the Sun Belt because there is some bad blood there and because La. Tech sees itself as "better" than La. Lafayette and La. Monroe.
If Judy is smart, and we can debate that, she is on the phone this morning begging the Sun Belt execs to "negotiate a merger" so she can save a little face and maybe end up with some sort of advisory position for herself and maybe a few of her top cronies.
I thought about that too... But I am not sure the MAC would want us back after how we left and the same with the Sun Belt and MTSU.
Plus adding WKU and MTSU to the MAC would keep them together (they are each others biggest rival) and add two contiguous states to the MAC footprint... Adding Marshall, ODU and So. Miss to the Sun Belt adds three contiguous states to their footprint and ties that league together.
I don't usually go to other league boards but did just to check out the thoughts. A majority of posters on the SB and MAC boards would like to have us in their league. Sorta shocking on the MAC side.
the AAC just cleaned up a big part of the mess. just need utep to move along.
That's what I'm thinking. Looking at this as an early Christmas present to the Herd.
there is not a program that i see on that list that i think is really enough to cry over them leaving. UAB might be the current best of the lot, but they almost cancelled their program a few years ago. Have a newer stadium, but in the long run nobody in Alabama is going to care about them after they go 3-9 a few years in a row and that will happen. Charlotte a good school, modern school, nobody in NC cares about their football program. RIce? ok. UTSA ? Flash in the pan in big city. FAU? nobody in Florida cares about them. North Texas? Worst D1 team I have seen in some years.
What “our leaders” want or don’t want is irrelevant. This is that AAC’s MO. Be IN, but not SIGNIFICANT IN big cities and scream that being in the city = people in said city giving a damn about you. Save for ECU, which made a terrible mistake and has not been heard from again, that is what the AAC is, and what it shall always be. So after several MWC teams turned it down, it found the CUSA teams in the largest cities. It will now scream “power 6” and “UNCC = Charlotte” and “UNT = Dallas” and other such nonsense.
If you follow G5 football, and not the AAC teams, the AAC is YOUR ENEMY. That simple.
Future?
First, the day JMU grows a pair and applies to I-A, lets talk about JMU. JMU, and probably 30 other colleges around the country, COULD support I-A football. They have not applied. End of discussion.
So, “save” CUSA? Remember that the SBC gets SIGNIFICANTLY less TV $$ than CUSA does. And those ESPN+ games are produced at the college’s expense and yield no actual payment to the college at all. Several SBCers would love to be in CUSA.
Then you have Liberty. Get them in here yesterday. No downside. Other than that I don’t see who.
Or, “merge and rejigger”. My choice. Eastern time league, Central time league (more or less).
If you follow G5 football, and not the AAC teams, the AAC is YOUR ENEMY. That simple.
Future?
First, the day JMU grows a pair and applies to I-A, lets talk about JMU. JMU, and probably 30 other colleges around the country, COULD support I-A football. They have not applied. End of discussion.
So, “save” CUSA? Remember that the SBC gets SIGNIFICANTLY less TV $$ than CUSA does. And those ESPN+ games are produced at the college’s expense and yield no actual payment to the college at all. Several SBCers would love to be in CUSA.
Then you have Liberty. Get them in here yesterday. No downside. Other than that I don’t see who.
Or, “merge and rejigger”. My choice. Eastern time league, Central time league (more or less).
If for some "crazy reason we don't go to the AAC"???? Are you paying attention? That ship has sailed and it never came by our port. Also going independent is flat out stupid. Scheduling 4 OoC games is hard enough as it is for us and guess what happens when you're not in a conference. You have no conference championship to win and if you have no conference championship then you do not have a path to the G5 Access Bowl game. Talk about killing your season. So by going independent we have nothing to play for during the season. Nothing. It's just one big 3.5 month exhibition season with no goal.
There's also no TV money and conference revenue share. If going independent were so great there would be more teams. Notre Dame is the only one left that can justify it because of their NBC deal and well, they're Notre Dame and they get in the playoff by virtue of being Notre Dame. What about BYU? Well BYU has the mormon money, the BYU Network or whatever they call that channel, and oh yea they just joined a conference.
The SBC might not be great, but they've had more top25 teams than CUSA does and it will be a much better deal than remaining in CUSA.
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IF there is no movement and the SBC doesn't end up taking more teams. USM is trying like heck to get out. But I guess we could just sit here and add more FCS schools that have "potential". That out to help our SoS.
Sometimes the most caring thing you can do is put an old dog down... CUSA is hobbling into the veterinarians office right now.
The key to this whole shooting match for Marshall is ending up with the same teams we have been talking about for weeks (App, Coastal, etc) no matter what the league is called. A possible CUSA/Sun Belt "merger" that includes 16 teams could look something like --
Marshall, App State, ODU, Coastal Carolina, Georgia Southern, Georgia State, FIU, Troy
Southern Miss, South Alabama, MTSU, WKU, Arkansas State, Lafayette, Monroe, Texas State
HA! No they wouldn't. Go read their message boards. None of them want to come here. They want Marshall and USM to come to the SBC.
As I have already said. There has not been one single rumor of any team leaving the SBC, MAC, AAC, or MWC to join CUSA. Not one. However we've heard rumors that teams were leaving the AAC for the Big XII and that was true. We heard that the AAC was getting ready to take teams from the MWC and if not there then CUSA and that turned out to be true. The other rumors we have heard is Marshall and USM being in talks with the SBC and Marshall trying to leverage to get WKU added too. Part of that may come true because USM is gone the second the SBC makes their mind up.
No the only discussions that have involved CUSA are schools getting poached and our leadership sending out a letter in desperation to see if the AAC would merge with us instead of taking out teams.
Some of you live in fantasy land sometimes. IF the SBC decides to add teams and they take CUSA teams we better be one of them because what's left will just be some glorified FCS conference.
Joining the SunBelt seems like our best option at this point. We are as much southern as we are mid-american as far as our location on the map. And we have a past with some of the SunBelt teams. Travel would be easier and the weather better for games. App State would certainly become a rival in that conference, and Coastal Carolina has been rising in stature lately. Playing Texas schools has been a good experience, but it is time to end it.
Agree. Blunt fact about the MAC, as much as nobody wants to hear it, is times are changing, and the old MAC formula just is not working in funding programs anymore, and, when the ESPN over-bid contract runs out, there WILL be schools in the MAC that drop out.
Texas State says hi.
I was unaware that people on message boards ran college programs. The SBC, by a fair margin, is the bottom league in TV revenue. Many programs would love to have more $$.
If that is true, then that is sad. WTF cares about WKU? We have no pre-CUSA history with them. Kentucky and West Virginia border on each other, So what? Why would we tie ourselves down to some school in the central time zone Kentucky wildness? I smell the stench of the basketball office here.
Sun Belt Conference, is all teams that were I-AA last Thursday. Don’t get me wrong, its probably a better fit for us right now, but don’t pretend its a lot different from CUSA, and expect to see some of these schools, all of which are significantly smaller than CUSA schools, decide they have made a mistake and return to lower levels.
Here is the how it has gone down so far and how it will continue to go down... ESPN runs shit, and CUSA signed its own death note when it went with CBS/Stadium years ago in the last TV deal.
"It appears the AAC had no choice but to poach CUSA. ESPN loves its discount Sun Belt property that saw viewership grow 135% last year and thus nixed Coastal to the AAC. CUSA's TV rights are with CBS-Stadium-ESPN+ only, so ESPN just took the CUSA teams it wanted."
"It appears the AAC had no choice but to poach CUSA. ESPN loves its discount Sun Belt property that saw viewership grow 135% last year and thus nixed Coastal to the AAC. CUSA's TV rights are with CBS-Stadium-ESPN+ only, so ESPN just took the CUSA teams it wanted."
The SBC is a solidly established FBS conference with an ESPN media deal that has had three teams in the top25. It is a whole lot better than CUSA 3.0 and worlds better than ESPN 4.0.
ESPN pumps their product. That's why the AAC is in the position they are in and it's why the top of the SBC gets more attention than any school in CUSA.
Marshall getting in the SBC would be a homerun because if Huff can get us going again we'll have the ESPN promotion that we don't have now. Scoff if you want, but they have a large influence over that selection committee.
I just think the competition with Sun Belt teams is more attractive as a fan.
Just need to determine if Herdmeister likes Cajun food or not.
Just need to determine if Herdmeister likes Cajun food or not.
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