ADVERTISEMENT

Travel: MAC vs CUSA vs SBC

BleedsGreen33

BleedsGreen33

Platinum Buffalo
Gold Member
Jan 25, 2010
40,284
26,725
113
Since Travel has been a hot button topic I thought I'd just look up travel distances over the years compared to what the future holds in the SBC. Below is the mileage between stadiums.

MAC
Marshall to OHIO - 79.5 Miles (1 hr, 35 mins)
Marshall to Little Miami - 192.5 miles (3 hrs, 25 mins)
Marshall to Akron - 283.3 miles (4 hrs)
Marshall to Bowling Green - 248.2 miles (4hrs, 24 mins)
Marshall to Kent State - 249.6 miles (4 hrs, 13 mins)
Marshall to Buffalo - 457.8 miles (7 hrs, 22 mins)
Marshall to Toledo - 270 miles (4 hrs, 51 mins)
Marshall to Ball State - 260.3 miles (4 hrs, 26 mins)
Marshall to Central Michigan - 445.4 miles (7 hrs, 19 mins)
Marshall to Eastern Michigan - 314.6 miles (5 hrs, 24 mins)
Marshall to Northern Illinois - 504.3 miles (8 hrs, 13 mins)
Marshall to Western Michigan - 407.3 miles (6 hrs, 51 mins)

CUSA
Marshall to WKU - 279.2 miles (4hrs, 20 mins)
Marshall to ODU - 455.6 miles (7 hrs, 19 mins)
Marshall to MTSU - 373.1 miles (5hrs, 44 mins)
Marshall to Charlotte - 313.5 miles (5 hrs, 9 mins)
Marshall to FAU - 1,000.8 miles (14 hrs, 58 mins)
Marshall to FIU - 1,048.7 miles (15 hrs, 44 mins)
Marshall to UAB - 530.5 miles (8 hrs, 1 min)
Marshall to Southern Miss - 761.3 miles (11 hrs, 24 mins)
Marshall to LaTech - 853.7 miles (13 hrs, 15 mins)
Marshall to North Texas - 1,038.3 miles (15 hrs, 25 mins)
Marshall to Rice - 1,120.5 miles (17 hrs, 20 mins)
Marshall to UTSA - 1,274.7 miles (18 hrs, 59 mins)
Marshall to UTEP - 1,636.9 miles (23 hrs, 52 mins)

SBC
Marshall to Appy State - 270.2 miles (4 hrs, 50 mins)
Marshall to JMU - 288 miles (4 hrs, 22 mins)
Marshall to ODU - 455.6 miles (7 hrs, 19 mins)
Marshall to Coastal Carolina - 467.0 miles (7 hrs, 49 mins)
Marshall to Georgia State - 484.7 miles (7 hrs, 29 mins)
Marshall to Georgia Southern - 558.2 miles (9 hrs)
Marshall to Arkansas State - 552.0 miles (8hrs, 37 mins)
Marshall to Troy - 674.8 miles (10 hrs, 17 mins)
Marshall to Southern Miss - 761.3 miles (11 hrs, 24 mins)
Marshall to South Alabama - 790.2 miles (11 hrs, 51 mins)
Marshall to Louisiana-Monroe - 797.4 miles (12 hrs, 51 mins)
Marshall to Louisiana-Lafayette - 948.0 miles (14 hrs, 46 mins)
Marshall to Texas State - 1,225.2 miles (18 hrs, 15 mins)


While it's not the MAC and no one is as close as OHIO, the Eastern Division of the SBC is a lot more drivable than CUSA East is. In CUSA we have five trips that are over 1,000 miles with two of those in the East Division. In the SBC we'll only have Texas State and if you want to round ULL is on the cusp of 1,000. If we play an 8 game schedule with only one cross over road game there are seasons when every game is potentially 9 hrs or less to drive.

I think everyone will get to loving this new conference.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Herd Insider, wvkeeper(HN), Catfanatic1979v1 and 5 others
A big thing to remember, a high percentage of our alumni no longer live in the the Huntington Tri-state area. A lot of folks, especially our young, upwardly-mobile professionals have moved to Southern cities (Raleigh, Greensboro, Charlotte, Atlanta, Knoxville, Nashville, Etc) so driving to southern away games is even closer.

I live south of Asheville NC... For me personally, App State, Georgia State, Georgia Southern, Troy State and Coastal are all either closer or roughly the same as driving to Huntington.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Herd Insider, MUAlum2004, HerdGrad1999 and 4 others
- Away fans traveling to games is the most over-rated thing there is.

- Once you get on an airplane, you are on an airplane. Football is fine. The issue is everything else.

- As pointed out above, the MU alumni footprint shews to places the eastern SBC is located.

- Remember to add in future CUSAers like Sam Houston State, UMass. UConn, and Tarelton State in the mix.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Herd Insider
The Real SamC said:
- Away fans traveling to games is the most over-rated thing there is.

- Once you get on an airplane, you are on an airplane. Football is fine. The issue is everything else.

- As pointed out above, the MU alumni footprint shews to places the eastern SBC is located.

- Remember to add in future CUSAers like Sam Houston State, UMass. UConn, and Tarelton State in the mix.
Click to expand...
Why would I add in future CUSA opponents. That doesn't affect us at all. Who cares what that conference looks like in 2023 and after.
 
  • Like
Reactions: GoHerdMarshallYes and wvkeeper(HN)
The Real SamC said:
We should. The basketball office wants us in that league. It is very close to getting its way.
Click to expand...
I can tell you the basketball offices does NOT want us in the future CUSA. They have wanted to be with ODU and JMU all along, no matter the conference. Yes, they got their way. The only thing they didn't get was Liberty as well
 
  • Like
Reactions: goherd73, HerdGrad1999, alphasig1053 and 3 others
herdfan06 said:
Define "fine".
Click to expand...
“Fine”. Adj. Good or satisfactory.

This is a travel thread. In football, you get on a charter plane and go somewhere and play football, with only obvious exceptions. Very standard across the entire division. Same should be true of basketball.

Issue is everything else. It is pretty much impossible to ply the HTS or CRW - CLT flight in season without being joined by the Marshall something or another team on its way to some far off land. And we own a fleet of “sleeper buses”. Flying commercial, especially considering the inadequacy of the local airports, sucks. Bussing across multiple states sucks more.
 
Marshall has fans and alumni all in the Southeast(Carolinas, GA, Virginia, even down in Florida) . Now there will be a host of games they can go to and destinations the folks from WV like to go to. They need to keep that Allegiant flight out of Huntington and Spirit out of Charleston down to Myrtle Beach long enough in the fall. That will be a great trip for Herd Fans every other year to see the game at Coastal. Boone was always a good trip. Old Dominion is not far from Herd fans in the Carolinas. Georgia State is in Atlanta. I know have the whole division I can get to in less that 6 hours or so. GA Southern and GA State being the furthest. Great weekend trips.

Good fans and Southern football. Looking forward to it.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Herd Insider, wvkeeper(HN), BleedsGreen33 and 1 other person
It will be interesting to see, assuming C-USA attempts to survive, whether or not they'll be interested in taking in Liberty. Sun Belt won't have anything to do with them, due to their past, and these most recent allegations of rape coverup pretty much sealed the deal.
 
MichiganHerd said:
It will be interesting to see, assuming C-USA attempts to survive, whether or not they'll be interested in taking in Liberty. Sun Belt won't have anything to do with them, due to their past, and these most recent allegations of rape coverup pretty much sealed the deal.
Click to expand...
From what I have read Liberty is 100% out of the equation now. There was a conversation and it fell through. Liberty is going to remain independent.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Herdmeister
As someone that lives in the lowcountry I could not be more excited about Herd athletics under two hours down the road. I think when you look at the big picture this could not have worked out better for Marshall. Congrats and thank you to everyone involved that made it happen.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Herd Insider, wvkeeper(HN) and BleedsGreen33
People get excited when I tell them that Coastal Carolina is more or less in Myrtle Beach. I think it's like 9 miles from the water. A WV school literally gets in a conference where a yearly trip to Myrtle Beach is a thing. It's like hillbilly heaven. We will enjoy these towns much more than the old CUSA cities. We just need an AD to schedule close out of conference games for us against quality opponents!
 
  • Like
Reactions: Herd Insider and wvkeeper(HN)
Catfanatic1979v1 said:
People get excited when I tell them that Coastal Carolina is more or less in Myrtle Beach. I think it's like 9 miles from the water. A WV school literally gets in a conference where a yearly trip to Myrtle Beach is a thing. It's like hillbilly heaven. We will enjoy these towns much more than the old CUSA cities. We just need an AD to schedule close out of conference games for us against quality opponents!
Click to expand...
It's in Conway and Conway is just 34 miles from Myrtle.
 
The Real SamC said:
- Away fans traveling to games is the most over-rated thing there is.

- Once you get on an airplane, you are on an airplane. Football is fine. The issue is everything else.

- As pointed out above, the MU alumni footprint shews to places the eastern SBC is located.

- Remember to add in future CUSAers like Sam Houston State, UMass. UConn, and Tarelton State in the mix.
Click to expand...
What do you mean “away fans traveling to games is the most over-rated thing there is.”
 
bbneutralfan said:
What do you mean “away fans traveling to games is the most over-rated thing there is.”
Click to expand...
Every discussion I see, not just here but across the sport and I am old enough to remember nearly a half-dozen realignments, I see these posters or even newspaper columnists talking about how it would be great to be in this or that conference, because we can all just load up in the Chevy and head on over to the away games.

We have trouble getting 25K to a game IN HUNTINGTON WEST VIRGINIA.

Travel to away games is, IMHO, pretty much:

- One-percenters, in both level of fandom and level of income.

- Parents, siblings, girlfriends, etc.

Now, I am making a distinction between those people, and what I will call “displaced fans”. Obviously, the local economy being what it is, means that MU has an alumni footprint that is way different from most schools. Lots of people in Piedmont NC, various parts of Florida, Atlanta, and the DC swamp. And, IMHO, this is what makes MU attractive to schools with some seats to sell, be it basketball or football and be it conference membership or just a series, in places that have that. But that is not away people TRAVELING to a game, its people who GTFO of WV going to a game.
 
BleedsGreen33 said:
It's in Conway and Conway is just 34 miles from Myrtle.
Click to expand...
No way that's true. We always golf up there at The Witch course, and we stay in North Myrtle, and that's just a little over a half hour drive, with little traffic early in the morning, and that's always hitting 74 stop lights. It's always a challenge to finish three beers between the condo and Conway, so that's definitely like 30-35 minute drive.
 
  • Wow
Reactions: ru4_mu2
MichiganHerd said:
No way that's true. We always golf up there at The Witch course, and we stay in North Myrtle, and that's just a little over a half hour drive, with little traffic early in the morning, and that's always hitting 74 stop lights. It's always a challenge to finish three beers between the condo and Conway, so that's definitely like 30-35 minute drive.
Click to expand...
It's not. I posted the time instead of the mileage. 15.4 miles from Conway to Myrtle and google says it's 34 minutes.
 
papagrande304 said:
That is incorrect, just watch, I am TELLING you that we are joining the Sunbelt

Safe to say that you made a WHOOPSY!
Click to expand...
Hope you are right. Syracuse to the AAC was a “lock” back in 2004. Then things changed. People that don’t get it in writing are the ones that make a “whoopsy”. No way to run a railroad.
 
The Real SamC said:
Hope you are right. Syracuse to the AAC was a “lock” back in 2004. Then things changed. People that don’t get it in writing are the ones that make a “whoopsy”. No way to run a railroad.
Click to expand...
Just trust me on this one, I guarantee you that we are joining the SunBelt
 
papagrande304 said:
UH OH ,that would be incorrect. Nice try, but we are going to the SunBelt and will be playing at Coastal Carolina whether you like it or not (which I think is a good thing, USA is in free fall)
Click to expand...
What are you even talking about.

1) read the rest of the thread. Twice I acknowledged I made the mistake of quoting the time as the miles.

2) Nice try????? Where did you get that I didn't like the idea of playing Coastal???

Some of you need to work on your reading comprehension instead of playing message board gotcha. I believe I ended my original post with saying that everyone is going to love playing in the SBC.
 
  • Like
Reactions: ru4_mu2
BleedsGreen33 said:
I believe I ended my original post with saying that everyone is going to love playing in the SBC.
Click to expand...
My take:

Appy State. History. Similar sort of people. Lots of alumni in Charlotte.
Arkansas State. Meh. Arkansas is WV without any coal.
Coastal Carolina. WV has a relationship with Myrtle Beach. I think that this will grow as Horry County is adding in a lot of retirees, many from this area, to the typical vacation stuff. Despite the huge shadow of the SEC and ACC, they have a shot at finding a niche due to their location.
Georgia Southern. Small history with us. Nice enough school in a kind of dumpy part of the south. Savannah not that far away.
Georgia State. Reminds me of UNCC. Commuter school in a big city. No fans.
Louisiana Monroe. Nice enough replacement for Louisiana Tech.
Louisiana. Probably the largest fan base in the league. Should be a nice trip.
South Alabama. After Alabama and Auburn suck 99.9% of the attention out of the state, what is left? Still Mobile is way nicer to visit than Birmingham.
Texas State. It sounds made up. Tired of Texas.
Troy. See South Alabama, above, except put it 2 1/2 hours north of Panama City.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Herd Insider
The Real SamC said:
My take:

Appy State. History. Similar sort of people. Lots of alumni in Charlotte.
Arkansas State. Meh. Arkansas is WV without any coal.
Coastal Carolina. WV has a relationship with Myrtle Beach. I think that this will grow as Horry County is adding in a lot of retirees, many from this area, to the typical vacation stuff. Despite the huge shadow of the SEC and ACC, they have a shot at finding a niche due to their location.
Georgia Southern. Small history with us. Nice enough school in a kind of dumpy part of the south. Savannah not that far away.
Georgia State. Reminds me of UNCC. Commuter school in a big city. No fans.
Louisiana Monroe. Nice enough replacement for Louisiana Tech.
Louisiana. Probably the largest fan base in the league. Should be a nice trip.
South Alabama. After Alabama and Auburn suck 99.9% of the attention out of the state, what is left? Still Mobile is way nicer to visit than Birmingham.
Texas State. It sounds made up. Tired of Texas.
Troy. See South Alabama, above, except put it 2 1/2 hours north of Panama City.
Click to expand...
I don't really care where the teams are located. There's a few 'Kansas' schools in every conference, but to me, top to bottom, Sun Belt is better, and much closer to the southern WV lifestyle than C-USA city folks. Most of these places view football as the #1 past time. San Antonio people are waiting for the Spurs to return to glory, or fire the mouthy head coach. In other words, their fans prefer a good soccer game to that of a college football game.

I'm excited about the new league, assuming they actually join. If for nothing else, new faces, and I'm guessing some of these small stadiums actually attract more than 5,600 fans to the games.

On the other hand, I'll see this Saturday's Herd score whenever it passes across the TV ticker, as opposed to trying to locate it on Facebook and giving them a dollar.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Catfanatic1979v1
MichiganHerd said:
I don't really care where the teams are located. There's a few 'Kansas' schools in every conference, but to me, top to bottom, Sun Belt is better, and much closer to the southern WV lifestyle than C-USA city folks. Most of these places view football as the #1 past time. San Antonio people are waiting for the Spurs to return to glory, or fire the mouthy head coach. In other words, their fans prefer a good soccer game to that of a college football game.

I'm excited about the new league, assuming they actually join. If for nothing else, new faces, and I'm guessing some of these small stadiums actually attract more than 5,600 fans to the games.

On the other hand, I'll see this Saturday's Herd score whenever it passes across the TV ticker, as opposed to trying to locate it on Facebook and giving them a dollar.
Click to expand...


THIS. So much this. They are definitely places much more like WV than CUSA ever was. This may be a league of former 1-AA schools but it is a much better place for us than any we have ever had.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

T

Football Schedule

Replies
22
Views
2K
Herd Nation
oldeherd
O
Chris McLaughlin

MU PRESS RELEASE Marshall Announces 36 Signees In Class of 2024

Replies
4
Views
777
Herd Nation
Jartard
J
Chris McLaughlin

MU PRESS RELEASE Marshall Announces 36 Signees In Class of 2024

Replies
5
Views
1K
Old Fairfield - Premium Forum
Herdat
Herdat
R
  • Locked

SHR: Moving to two super-conferences...

Replies
37
Views
2K
Herd Nation
WV_Celt
WV_Celt
R

Potential Bowl games... Sun Belt math

Replies
1
Views
526
Herd Nation
GeauxHerd
GeauxHerd
ADVERTISEMENT

Latest posts

ADVERTISEMENT
Top Bottom
Back