Looks like that’s a done deal. I wonder why they didn’t make an announcement about all teams joining?the powers that be better not screw this up
Southern Miss to SBC
- Thread starter herdfan429
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Marshall deserves to go as well, more so than USM....but will they stop at 2?
The new SBC would be neck and neck with the AAC for the 2nd best G5 conference on a consistent basis. Then if the AAC loses Memphis & SMU then they drop back to 3rd every year probably.
The new SBC would be neck and neck with the AAC for the 2nd best G5 conference on a consistent basis. Then if the AAC loses Memphis & SMU then they drop back to 3rd every year probably.
Reading the SBC message board is that they have been trying to get us to commit and we're kind of dragging our feet. I keep seeing posts on the SBC and CUSA boards that we joined at the hip with JMU and ODU. So so who knows. Allegedly Judy and CUSA are dangling a carrot of adding JMU and Liberty and getting a new media deal. Meanwhile the commentators during the CC/Appy game tonight were talking about how an expanded SBC could be the new top G5 conference.
Our alleged interest in creating this "bus league" with ODU and JMU is a complete joke and I hope isn't true. If it is then it's completely pathetic.
It’d be just another mistake by the school in regards to athletics over the last 18 years
That's the thing, the "new media deal" for CUSA will be garbage, far worse than the current deal. That isn't a carrot, its a huge stick telling anyone with any level of sense to GTFO now... The question is, does anyone in our athletic dept have any level of sense.
So far, doesn't look like it, or else today's announcement would have been "Southern Miss and Marshall join Sun Belt"
If we have picked ODU and JMU to be joined at the hip with, then we have picked the wrong dance partners from the get go. We should be joined at the hip with App and Coastal (who played a great game last night, on ESPN, in front of a sold out stadium).
The way the administration is talking, if you read through the lines, Marshall isn't going anywhere. C-SUCK will add Liberty and James Madison, and Marshall will stay put. We will be in a horrible football conference, with very little money. Mark it down.
Aside from the obvious, what is happening with Marshall question we all want answered, I would really like to know what the heck UTEP is doing?... Why in the world would you even consider staying in CUSA when your closest road game will be 882 miles away (yes that is really the distance between El Paso and Ruston)?
If UTEP and La. Tech both got on the ball and left CUSA it would make our "decision" even more crystal clear than it already is.
If UTEP and La. Tech both got on the ball and left CUSA it would make our "decision" even more crystal clear than it already is.
I think you might be right, but the money is the reason we stay. CUSA is about to get $20+ million in exit fees and Liberty offered to pay $24 million to join a conference a few years ago. The conference and other members are probably desperate enough that they’re offering us more than our “fair share” of those funds to stay. Marshall is poor and that might be enough to convince our “leadership” to stay even if it means we’re in a bad unstable conference. Only redeeming thing would be if that money and the desire to be in a regional league with us is enough to convince App and Coastal to come over too.
This is not a short term decision and we can't be assured we will get all or any of the exit fee money. Don't go for the fast nickel over the slow dime. This may be the last opportunity we have to move and we better get all the facts straight. I don't see Liberty coming on board, don't they already have a deal with ESPN?
If we don't go to the Belt, you can bet WKU will, or some other CUSA team. The watered down CUSA will be a putrid league all the way around.
If we don't go to the Belt, you can bet WKU will, or some other CUSA team. The watered down CUSA will be a putrid league all the way around.
It is a major assumption that CUSA will see all or a substantial portion of the exit fees. We cannot bank on receiving millions in exit fees as our only reason for staying in CUSA.
It is also extremely shortsighted by the administration to stay in CUSA after the departure of 7 teams and then add James Madison and Liberty. This would, unquestionably, be among the weakest conferences. The only realistic option is to join the Sun Belt, let this shake out, and then reevaluate years down the road.
If this administration chooses a CUSA with maybe JMU and Liberty (and the Sun Belt might pick off other CUSA teams if we say no), I think the damage to athletics is irreparable.
As someone who holds degrees from both Marshall and Cincinnati, it is amazing to see the difference in direction of these two schools. I know Marshall doesn't have the financial resources like Cincinnati, but it can do better than a horrible CUSA.
It is also extremely shortsighted by the administration to stay in CUSA after the departure of 7 teams and then add James Madison and Liberty. This would, unquestionably, be among the weakest conferences. The only realistic option is to join the Sun Belt, let this shake out, and then reevaluate years down the road.
If this administration chooses a CUSA with maybe JMU and Liberty (and the Sun Belt might pick off other CUSA teams if we say no), I think the damage to athletics is irreparable.
As someone who holds degrees from both Marshall and Cincinnati, it is amazing to see the difference in direction of these two schools. I know Marshall doesn't have the financial resources like Cincinnati, but it can do better than a horrible CUSA.
A “new media deal” comes down to two choices:
- Bend over for Mr. Mouse and get below value $$, but get a few games on actual ESPN, and produce the rest at your own expense for ESPN+, play on whatever weeknight you are told to.
- Get full value (which is still not very much) get a few games on a more obscure channel and the rest on internet, but get to play (mostly) on Saturdays.
That’s it. Anybody who thinks there is a third choice is kidding themselves.
Bus league? Anybody else smell the stench of the basketball office. As putrid as CUSA basketball is now, it really becomes a candidate for the play-in game in the future. And if WKU and MTSU go to the MAC, this is one of the worst basketball leagues going. And the basketball team really does travel by bus.
One needs look no more than 46 miles west on I-10 for that answer. New Mexico State is stuck, kidding itself, as a I-A independent, playing whoever it can find, usually broadcast on local cable if at all. With more or less NO TV $$ coming in at all.
El Paso, which is closer to Los Angeles than it is to the Texas - Louisiana border, knows that any port in a storm is better than sinking. UTEP belongs in the Mountain West. It was in the old WAC, the MWC’s ancestor, and was left out of the new system because it had a decade long losing streak and simply could not compete.
CUSA should just kick UTEP out. They are an outlier, and, other than NMSU, there is no logical team to pick up to make it not so.
If UTEP and La. Tech both got on the ball and left CUSA it would make our "decision" even more crystal clear than it already is.
I am hearing that LTU has already made our path a lot easier. Remember that Louisiana has more I-A and I-AA teams than about any state, and all of them are competing for the 1% of the sports attention that LSU doesn’t get, and LTU has spent the better part of a decade trolling its Sun Belt teams as being in an inferior conference and all this “little brother” and all that stuff. Which means, AFAIK, the two Louisiana schools have vetoed LTU.
Brett McMurphy says its down to 2 scenarios...
1. Marshall, ODU, JMU join the Sun Belt along with Southern Miss.
1. Marshall, ODU, JMU remain in CUSA and Western Kentucky goes back to the Sun Belt.
https://www.actionnetwork.com/ncaaf...realignment-scenarios-sun-belt-conference-usa
1. Marshall, ODU, JMU join the Sun Belt along with Southern Miss.
1. Marshall, ODU, JMU remain in CUSA and Western Kentucky goes back to the Sun Belt.
https://www.actionnetwork.com/ncaaf...realignment-scenarios-sun-belt-conference-usa
I would puke if we remained in CUSA in that scenario.
Somebody explain the appeal of either ODU or JMU to me.
ODU is CLAIMING to draw half a crowd to a too small stadium in a city where no one really cares about the team or the school. It is currently 1-6, and was 1-11 in 2019 having cowered out of 2020, It has had one winning I-A season and one bowl win, over Eastern Michigan in the Bahamas Bowl. Its basketball team is just OK, and equally fanless. It brings zero people to the TV.
JMU is, and stop me if you have heard this before, NOT IN THE DIVISION. It has a nice I-AA program and a nice enough for I-A stadium. It is in a nice enough part of the country. Same can be said of maybe 30 or 40 I-AA programs. It has had 100 chances to move up. It hasn’t. In TV terms, what does it bring? Certainly not Washington DC. A couple of mountain counties in rural Virginia. So what?
ODU is CLAIMING to draw half a crowd to a too small stadium in a city where no one really cares about the team or the school. It is currently 1-6, and was 1-11 in 2019 having cowered out of 2020, It has had one winning I-A season and one bowl win, over Eastern Michigan in the Bahamas Bowl. Its basketball team is just OK, and equally fanless. It brings zero people to the TV.
JMU is, and stop me if you have heard this before, NOT IN THE DIVISION. It has a nice I-AA program and a nice enough for I-A stadium. It is in a nice enough part of the country. Same can be said of maybe 30 or 40 I-AA programs. It has had 100 chances to move up. It hasn’t. In TV terms, what does it bring? Certainly not Washington DC. A couple of mountain counties in rural Virginia. So what?
If we remain in CUSA everyone needs fired.
Everyone.
Might as well just join the Missouri Valley Football Conference at that point. Be a better basketball league.
Everyone.
Might as well just join the Missouri Valley Football Conference at that point. Be a better basketball league.
Those really aren't choices in my mind. It's off to the SBC. For the life of me I will never understand why the administration has hitched itself to ODU and JMU, two schools nobody cares, or should care, about. Athletics is a business and we are not here to prop up other failing institutions. We have our own problems to deal with.
If the administration chooses to remain in CUSA without WKU and with JMU, we might as well turn off the lights for athletics.
I can just hear someone in Old Main saying "but we've been in CUSA forever! We can't leave Judy behind!"
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Come on Sam... Haven't you heard? -- POTENTIAL!.. Our league has been selling it for years with the aforementioned ODU, Charlotte, etc. Now we are apparently selling it for JMU.
As for Old Dominion, they have a cool name/logo, geographically they would fit nice in the Sun Belt. That's about it that I can think of.
Quite frankly, that's stupid.
Does anybody at Marshall understand that any and everything related to the state of Virginia hates the state of WV? Remember there was a war back in the 1860s? Virginia was split to become two separate states, and Virginians have been telling hillbilly jokes ever since.
Surely Marshall will leave behind the Virginians and join Southern Miss in what would be one hell of a nice G5 conference, one that arguably could be the top G5 in the next couple of years. Southern football is King.
By the sounds of it, no matter what we decide, we are taking the Virginia teams with us... For some reason we are suddenly a 3-team voting block in terms of conference realignment.
Herd-In’s, we’ll all be transitioning
Yes. We have a baseball field that hasn’t left the drawing board, a football stadium needing cleaning and an update, and a basketball arena with no air conditioning.
With like half the conference already leaving, any lawyer worth their weight could get us out of paying exit fees. It’s like getting a divorce, but they say you are still married and just slide in some new skank.
That’s preposterous. Like WVU not caring at all about MU, Virginia basically doesn’t care about West Virginia.
Watered down CUSA = increased chance of an MU men’s basketball championship.
I smell the stench of the basketball office. With those six gone, plus USM to the SBC, if WKU takes our spot in the SBC or goes to the MAC, this is one of the bottom basketball conferences. Pure garbage.
Man, where to start...
Small school... City/county that is losing population... Awful olympic sports (outside of mens soccer)... No real airport close by... etc
......maybe jealous they never had a movie made about their school? And they should be so lucky. We all would have preferred that movie never had to be made!
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