(01-29-2013 05:15 PM)DeacKillsaDevil Wrote:  If a separation does occur, it will be interesting to see schools who are currently not bottom dwellers become bottom dwellers. How will their fans react?

I've been wondering the same thing. There are downsides to splitting off that I'm not sure they're considering.

(01-30-2013 08:54 AM)PaulDel2 Wrote:  

(01-29-2013 09:29 AM)oliveandblue Wrote:  Depending on how big of a "field" the power schools want, you will likely see about 35-60? teams being cut out of the title race for all intents and purposes. What happens to these schools from there? How can you recruit decent talent if you cannot even promise that a 12-0 season will have national relevance? How can you keep your program running if you're going to make 3-5m less per year in TV arrangements when compared to schools in the top four conferences?

What's the point of even playing in the big boy pool if you're not given a chance to try to touch the pool raft? What's the point of humoring the major schools and traveling for a body bag game when there is no benefit if you pull the upset (which has happened before)? Yes, you'd get money from the game - but in truth isn't that money only offsetting the operating loss of the school (and this loss is caused by uneven TV revenue distribution and attendance disparity)? Also, let's try convincing people (read: non-alumni) to attend your school's football games AFTER you've been publicly iced out of any relevance.

Maybe it's a good thing. Maybe only the power schools should have an FBS-sized program (as they can fund it). Maybe I'm only worried about it as Tulane (along with many of it's C-USA mates - new and old) will be a long-time FBS school that could effectively get DESTROYED by these new changes. I can only imagine what's happening at Southern Miss right now considering how **** the operating budget is there...

Interesting post from a fan of a school whose own university's newspaper recently reported that the average turnstile count of attendance at their home football games since 2008 was less than 5500, and as low as below 2500 for some games. They haven't been relevant for years. Less than 10 years ago they voted to drop to DIII.

That's exactly why I'm so concerned.

Tulane needed Yulman stadium - and now they're finally getting it. If they do this right (schedule some home wins to build up atmosphere), the attendance issues will improve. There still are MASSIVE moves to be made, but the program is FINALLY starting to wake up after a long malaise.

USM were winning on a tight budget in CUSA 2.0. I'm not sure if CUSA 3.0 will provide the financial resources they need in order to stay as successful as they were. Furthermore, they're also going to have to recover from a shock 0-12 season themselves (I don't think USM will stay down nearly as long as Tulane have).

Southern Miss has always smashed Tulane in terms of football attendance - but that doesn't make their future peaches and cream right now.