Tim MacMahon @espn_macmahon
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Preseason Lone Star top 10:
1. Baylor
2. A&M
3. Texas
4. Tech
5. Rice
6. Houston
7. North Texas
8. TCU
9. UTSA
10. SMU..

(UTEP & Texas State not listed)

(08-28-2014 11:52 AM)MG61 Wrote:  Tim MacMahon @espn_macmahon
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Preseason Lone Star top 10:
1. Baylor
2. A&M
3. Texas
4. Tech
5. Rice
6. Houston
7. North Texas
8. TCU
9. UTSA
10. SMU..

(UTEP & Texas State not listed)

MacMahon is pretty good when it comes to the Dallas Mavericks and okay on the Cowboys, and that's about it. He doesn't know anything about the non-big 12 schools other than UNT.

(08-28-2014 12:02 PM)07owl Wrote:  

(08-28-2014 11:52 AM)MG61 Wrote:  Tim MacMahon @espn_macmahon
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Preseason Lone Star top 10:
1. Baylor
2. A&M
3. Texas
4. Tech
5. Rice
6. Houston
7. North Texas
8. TCU
9. UTSA
10. SMU..

(UTEP & Texas State not listed)

MacMahon is pretty good when it comes to the Dallas Mavericks and okay on the Cowboys, and that's about it. He doesn't know anything about the non-big 12 schools other than UNT.

+1

Stuff like this makes me wish that all Texas teams were in a "Texas Conference". It would be great to see all the Texas teams play on a weekly basis.

(08-28-2014 12:17 PM)Fitbud Wrote:  Stuff like this makes me wish that all Texas teams were in a "Texas Conference". It would be great to see all the Texas teams play on a weekly basis.

We used to call that the Southwest Conference.

I hope to see UTSA move up a few spots after they beat Houston tomorrow.

(08-28-2014 12:17 PM)Fitbud Wrote:  Stuff like this makes me wish that all Texas teams were in a "Texas Conference". It would be great to see all the Texas teams play on a weekly basis.

I once proposed that sort of structure here but was run off by an angry mob armed with torches and pitchforks. Something about wanting to promote their teams outside of the state of Texas.

I'd name it something like the Trans-Texas Conference.

When the SWC broke up, I heard one of the reason was that the conference as whole did not cover enough TV sets.

(08-28-2014 02:25 PM)OptimisticOwl Wrote:  

(08-28-2014 12:17 PM)Fitbud Wrote:  Stuff like this makes me wish that all Texas teams were in a "Texas Conference". It would be great to see all the Texas teams play on a weekly basis.

We used to call that the Southwest Conference.

+ Arkansas

(08-28-2014 02:47 PM)OptimisticOwl Wrote:  When the SWC broke up, I heard one of the reason was that the conference as whole did not cover enough TV sets.

Was Houston as huge of a market as it is now when the SWC was around? A conference with DFW, SA, Austin, and Houston, in 2015, would be something.

(08-28-2014 12:17 PM)Fitbud Wrote:  Stuff like this makes me wish that all Texas teams were in a "Texas Conference". It would be great to see all the Texas teams play on a weekly basis.

I feel the same way about a Florida confrence. If any two states could pull of a state only confrence it would be Texas and Florida.

(08-28-2014 03:05 PM)mistabinks Wrote:  

(08-28-2014 02:47 PM)OptimisticOwl Wrote:  When the SWC broke up, I heard one of the reason was that the conference as whole did not cover enough TV sets.

Was Houston as huge of a market as it is now when the SWC was around? A conference with DFW, SA, Austin, and Houston, in 2015, would be something.

No, but it was still a large market. If most of the Texas G5 teams from San Antonio east got together along with some surrounding schools like UL-L, Tulsa, Tulane, La Tech, Memphis, Arky State, S Miss---that might be enough to provide plenty of TVs and still provide a pretty compact foot print for economical travel budgets. I would think UTEP might be better served going west with the MW. Something like what I have below is what I could see happening if the P5 ever split from the G5. The G5 would reorganize regionally in an attempt to reduce travel costs.

West

UH
SMU
N Texas
Rice
Tx State
UTSA

East

Memphis
Tulsa
Ark St
Tulane
UL-L, LaTech, or S Miss (choose 2)

Not the SEC, but it would offer a lot of potential rivalries and lots of drivable games. Sign a scheduling agreement with BYU for some nice games and add Wichita St as a basketball only.

That puts you in 5 or 6 states for football (depending on who you select). Gives you a major presence in 2 major recruiting territories (TX and LA). Probably pretty attractive to Fox Sports SW. Maybe a nice weekly ESPN Friday night slot. The area bowls would probably love this conference---Armed Forces, Heart of Dallas, NOLA, and Indy. Maybe create a couple of new bowls in San Antonio and the new stadium in Houston.

Ive always thought the leftover SWC members blew it by not staying together and rebuilding the SWC. There were plenty of interesting teams around at the time that could have reloaded the conference.

the all Texas conference has been tried before and rehashed multiple times

it is a stupid idea the results would be 4 teams that are good to really good, two teams that are OK and 6 teams that suck every year forever as long as the conference is together

no viewers, declining fan support for half the conference or more, declining recruiting for half the conference or more and eventually it falls apart

you are recruiting from too small of an area with too many teams that would offer nothing to differentiate themselves from the others and eventually most of those teams would sift to the bottom of the conference and stay there

the results of that are that the top teams continue to recruit and play well and instead of the bottom teams "having a lot of talent left from Texas to recruit from" teams from out of state come in and feast on Texas talent that goes out of state

that was one of the main issues with the SWC once it was clear that UH, SMU, TCU, Rice and Baylor were in decline and were not going to play at the top of the conference or support quality facilities or draw fan support the Texas HS recruits were flooding out of the state in droves......eventually it was even hitting Texas and A&M because out of state programs were developing relationships in the state with ease and recruits were following friends and former teammates year after year to out of state schools

as far as casual viewers and even fans it is also a disaster.......there is no reason for anyone outside of Texas to care what goes on with that conference because it has no meaning for their program unless one of the 3-4 top teams in that conference might need to lose a game so a team in another conference can slip into a playoff spot and then the fans are just tuning in hoping your top teams lose

the two teams in your conference that are 7-3 so far in the season or even worse the two that are 4-5 playing a late season "conference battle" is not relevant to anyone even in the conference much less nationally

those games get dumped off to terrible hours of the day and night if they get on TV at all and that again drives viewer, recruits and casual fans away in droves

even worse with the disparities in facilities and resources it would pretty much be a disaster from the start.....the idea that some team or teams that "finally get their seat at the big boys table" (we know who will make that stupid argument on this forum) will step up and start competing and drawing fans and support and improve their facilities is laughable

no one is going to show up to watch their team get throttled weak in and weak out and to lose bowl eligibility in game 7 or 8 and recruits will filter to the programs that do manage to be at the top of the conference or at least well above the average.....the rest will have nothing different to offer other than a different place to lose in new and interesting ways

no one enjoys water cooler smack talk at work when it involves another year of your team going 1-7 in conference or 2-6 and that includes the fans of the 1-7 and 2-6 team hiding behind the dumpster to talk "smack" about their big win over the other while everyone else is inside at the water cooler

there is a reason the SEC does not get every good program in their states (Miami, FSU, GaTech, Clemson) to try and join and that is because they realize the idea of offering something different

there is a reason that every conference that has more than 3 teams in the same state (PAC 12, Big 12, MAC, CUSA) has programs in that conference that stay at the bottom long term and even if the teams occasionally rotate that position usually the ones that come up from the bottom do not get to the very top and they do not stay above the bottom very long while those that are at the very top only briefly fall from that position and usually not for long and then it is back to normal

Cal sucked forever and had a few good years and they suck again now and probably will for the long term

Stanford sucked forever with small spurts of being good and their current spurt is an anomaly for length and pretty soon they will be back down

UCLA has always been overrated, but they are generally better than Cal and Stanford.....USC is the only one that consistently is at the very top and comes back pretty quick from being down

same with the Big 12 and the SWC before it

the MAC is not even worth breaking down

most of the Texas CUSA teams faltered as soon as they got 4 teams in the conference or they were bad and stayed bad until they did something to differentiate themselves

UH and TCU were not that good when it was just the two of them

TCU improved by leaving and Rice, SMU and UTEP did not do much until near the end UH and SMU were moving to the top and UTEP declined coming out of the WAC to CUSA......SMU only improved by spending a ton for a coach

once things moved apart again Rice has been able to move up and UTEP has stayed the same.....UTSA started what they have in the WAC and north Texas state has only done something in CUSA because CUSA is so bad and there is nothing to suggest that for the long term they will not drop back to their usual place (especially recruiting wise)

Rice and UTSA are the ones out of the 4 that have a chance to make it work long term

SMU shouldn't be in the top 10. We are the worst team in Texas this year

(08-28-2014 03:48 PM)Attackcoog Wrote:  

(08-28-2014 03:05 PM)mistabinks Wrote:  

(08-28-2014 02:47 PM)OptimisticOwl Wrote:  When the SWC broke up, I heard one of the reason was that the conference as whole did not cover enough TV sets.

Was Houston as huge of a market as it is now when the SWC was around? A conference with DFW, SA, Austin, and Houston, in 2015, would be something.

No, but it was still a large market. If most of the Texas G5 teams from San Antonio east got together along with some surrounding schools like UL-L, Tulsa, Tulane, La Tech, Memphis, Arky State, S Miss---that might be enough to provide plenty of TVs and still provide a pretty compact foot print for economical travel budgets. I would think UTEP might be better served going west with the MW. Something like what I have below is what I could see happening if the P5 ever split from the G5. The G5 would reorganize regionally in an attempt to reduce travel costs.

West

UH
SMU
N Texas
Rice
Tx State
UTSA

East

Memphis
Tulsa
Ark St
Tulane
UL-L, LaTech, or S Miss (choose 2)

Not the SEC, but it would offer a lot of potential rivalries and lots of drivable games. Sign a scheduling agreement with BYU for some nice games and add Wichita St as a basketball only.

That puts you in 5 or 6 states for football (depending on who you select). Gives you a major presence in 2 major recruiting territories (TX and LA). Probably pretty attractive to Fox Sports SW. Maybe a nice weekly ESPN Friday night slot. The area bowls would probably love this conference---Armed Forces, Heart of Dallas, NOLA, and Indy. Maybe create a couple of new bowls in San Antonio and the new stadium in Houston.

Ive always thought the leftover SWC members blew it by not staying together and rebuilding the SWC. There were plenty of interesting teams around at the time that could have reloaded the conference.

If the landscape of college football changed and C-USA was no more, I could go for something similar. I'd keep it a traditional 9 team conference, where everyone played everyone. I believe these teams would provide the best media markets and still be a really good regional conference.

West

UH
SMU
N Texas
Rice
UTEP
UTSA
Memphis
Tulsa
Tulane

(08-28-2014 07:21 PM)Side Show Joe Wrote:  

(08-28-2014 03:48 PM)Attackcoog Wrote:  

(08-28-2014 03:05 PM)mistabinks Wrote:  

(08-28-2014 02:47 PM)OptimisticOwl Wrote:  When the SWC broke up, I heard one of the reason was that the conference as whole did not cover enough TV sets.

Was Houston as huge of a market as it is now when the SWC was around? A conference with DFW, SA, Austin, and Houston, in 2015, would be something.

No, but it was still a large market. If most of the Texas G5 teams from San Antonio east got together along with some surrounding schools like UL-L, Tulsa, Tulane, La Tech, Memphis, Arky State, S Miss---that might be enough to provide plenty of TVs and still provide a pretty compact foot print for economical travel budgets. I would think UTEP might be better served going west with the MW. Something like what I have below is what I could see happening if the P5 ever split from the G5. The G5 would reorganize regionally in an attempt to reduce travel costs.

West

UH
SMU
N Texas
Rice
Tx State
UTSA

East

Memphis
Tulsa
Ark St
Tulane
UL-L, LaTech, or S Miss (choose 2)

Not the SEC, but it would offer a lot of potential rivalries and lots of drivable games. Sign a scheduling agreement with BYU for some nice games and add Wichita St as a basketball only.

That puts you in 5 or 6 states for football (depending on who you select). Gives you a major presence in 2 major recruiting territories (TX and LA). Probably pretty attractive to Fox Sports SW. Maybe a nice weekly ESPN Friday night slot. The area bowls would probably love this conference---Armed Forces, Heart of Dallas, NOLA, and Indy. Maybe create a couple of new bowls in San Antonio and the new stadium in Houston.

Ive always thought the leftover SWC members blew it by not staying together and rebuilding the SWC. There were plenty of interesting teams around at the time that could have reloaded the conference.

If the landscape of college football changed and C-USA was no more, I could go for something similar. I'd keep it a traditional 9 team conference, where everyone played everyone. I believe these teams would provide the best media markets and still be a really good regional conference.

West

UH
SMU
N Texas
Rice
UTEP
UTSA
Memphis
Tulsa
Tulane

Even though football drives the bus in pretty much all things FBS realignment, I can't imagine Memphis would be happy to put their basketball in that conference.

(08-28-2014 07:24 PM)Cyniclone Wrote:  

(08-28-2014 07:21 PM)Side Show Joe Wrote:  

(08-28-2014 03:48 PM)Attackcoog Wrote:  

(08-28-2014 03:05 PM)mistabinks Wrote:  

(08-28-2014 02:47 PM)OptimisticOwl Wrote:  When the SWC broke up, I heard one of the reason was that the conference as whole did not cover enough TV sets.

Was Houston as huge of a market as it is now when the SWC was around? A conference with DFW, SA, Austin, and Houston, in 2015, would be something.

No, but it was still a large market. If most of the Texas G5 teams from San Antonio east got together along with some surrounding schools like UL-L, Tulsa, Tulane, La Tech, Memphis, Arky State, S Miss---that might be enough to provide plenty of TVs and still provide a pretty compact foot print for economical travel budgets. I would think UTEP might be better served going west with the MW. Something like what I have below is what I could see happening if the P5 ever split from the G5. The G5 would reorganize regionally in an attempt to reduce travel costs.

West

UH
SMU
N Texas
Rice
Tx State
UTSA

East

Memphis
Tulsa
Ark St
Tulane
UL-L, LaTech, or S Miss (choose 2)

Not the SEC, but it would offer a lot of potential rivalries and lots of drivable games. Sign a scheduling agreement with BYU for some nice games and add Wichita St as a basketball only.

That puts you in 5 or 6 states for football (depending on who you select). Gives you a major presence in 2 major recruiting territories (TX and LA). Probably pretty attractive to Fox Sports SW. Maybe a nice weekly ESPN Friday night slot. The area bowls would probably love this conference---Armed Forces, Heart of Dallas, NOLA, and Indy. Maybe create a couple of new bowls in San Antonio and the new stadium in Houston.

Ive always thought the leftover SWC members blew it by not staying together and rebuilding the SWC. There were plenty of interesting teams around at the time that could have reloaded the conference.

If the landscape of college football changed and C-USA was no more, I could go for something similar. I'd keep it a traditional 9 team conference, where everyone played everyone. I believe these teams would provide the best media markets and still be a really good regional conference.

West

UH
SMU
N Texas
Rice
UTEP
UTSA
Memphis
Tulsa
Tulane

Even though football drives the bus in pretty much all things FBS realignment, I can't imagine Memphis would be happy to put their basketball in that conference.

UTEP, Houston, SMU, and Tulane have had basketball success too.

(08-28-2014 04:12 PM)TodgeRodge Wrote:  the all Texas conference has been tried before and rehashed multiple times

it is a stupid idea the results would be 4 teams that are good to really good, two teams that are OK and 6 teams that suck every year forever as long as the conference is together

no viewers, declining fan support for half the conference or more, declining recruiting for half the conference or more and eventually it falls apart

you are recruiting from too small of an area with too many teams that would offer nothing to differentiate themselves from the others and eventually most of those teams would sift to the bottom of the conference and stay there

the results of that are that the top teams continue to recruit and play well and instead of the bottom teams "having a lot of talent left from Texas to recruit from" teams from out of state come in and feast on Texas talent that goes out of state

that was one of the main issues with the SWC once it was clear that UH, SMU, TCU, Rice and Baylor were in decline and were not going to play at the top of the conference or support quality facilities or draw fan support the Texas HS recruits were flooding out of the state in droves......eventually it was even hitting Texas and A&M because out of state programs were developing relationships in the state with ease and recruits were following friends and former teammates year after year to out of state schools

as far as casual viewers and even fans it is also a disaster.......there is no reason for anyone outside of Texas to care what goes on with that conference because it has no meaning for their program unless one of the 3-4 top teams in that conference might need to lose a game so a team in another conference can slip into a playoff spot and then the fans are just tuning in hoping your top teams lose

the two teams in your conference that are 7-3 so far in the season or even worse the two that are 4-5 playing a late season "conference battle" is not relevant to anyone even in the conference much less nationally

those games get dumped off to terrible hours of the day and night if they get on TV at all and that again drives viewer, recruits and casual fans away in droves

even worse with the disparities in facilities and resources it would pretty much be a disaster from the start.....the idea that some team or teams that "finally get their seat at the big boys table" (we know who will make that stupid argument on this forum) will step up and start competing and drawing fans and support and improve their facilities is laughable

no one is going to show up to watch their team get throttled weak in and weak out and to lose bowl eligibility in game 7 or 8 and recruits will filter to the programs that do manage to be at the top of the conference or at least well above the average.....the rest will have nothing different to offer other than a different place to lose in new and interesting ways

no one enjoys water cooler smack talk at work when it involves another year of your team going 1-7 in conference or 2-6 and that includes the fans of the 1-7 and 2-6 team hiding behind the dumpster to talk "smack" about their big win over the other while everyone else is inside at the water cooler

there is a reason the SEC does not get every good program in their states (Miami, FSU, GaTech, Clemson) to try and join and that is because they realize the idea of offering something different

there is a reason that every conference that has more than 3 teams in the same state (PAC 12, Big 12, MAC, CUSA) has programs in that conference that stay at the bottom long term and even if the teams occasionally rotate that position usually the ones that come up from the bottom do not get to the very top and they do not stay above the bottom very long while those that are at the very top only briefly fall from that position and usually not for long and then it is back to normal

Cal sucked forever and had a few good years and they suck again now and probably will for the long term

Stanford sucked forever with small spurts of being good and their current spurt is an anomaly for length and pretty soon they will be back down

UCLA has always been overrated, but they are generally better than Cal and Stanford.....USC is the only one that consistently is at the very top and comes back pretty quick from being down

same with the Big 12 and the SWC before it

the MAC is not even worth breaking down

most of the Texas CUSA teams faltered as soon as they got 4 teams in the conference or they were bad and stayed bad until they did something to differentiate themselves

UH and TCU were not that good when it was just the two of them

TCU improved by leaving and Rice, SMU and UTEP did not do much until near the end UH and SMU were moving to the top and UTEP declined coming out of the WAC to CUSA......SMU only improved by spending a ton for a coach

once things moved apart again Rice has been able to move up and UTEP has stayed the same.....UTSA started what they have in the WAC and north Texas state has only done something in CUSA because CUSA is so bad and there is nothing to suggest that for the long term they will not drop back to their usual place (especially recruiting wise)

Rice and UTSA are the ones out of the 4 that have a chance to make it work long term

Made the mistake of starting to read this without seeing that it was posted by TodgeRodge

(08-28-2014 07:48 PM)Side Show Joe Wrote:  

(08-28-2014 07:24 PM)Cyniclone Wrote:  

(08-28-2014 07:21 PM)Side Show Joe Wrote:  

(08-28-2014 03:48 PM)Attackcoog Wrote:  

(08-28-2014 03:05 PM)mistabinks Wrote:  Was Houston as huge of a market as it is now when the SWC was around? A conference with DFW, SA, Austin, and Houston, in 2015, would be something.

No, but it was still a large market. If most of the Texas G5 teams from San Antonio east got together along with some surrounding schools like UL-L, Tulsa, Tulane, La Tech, Memphis, Arky State, S Miss---that might be enough to provide plenty of TVs and still provide a pretty compact foot print for economical travel budgets. I would think UTEP might be better served going west with the MW. Something like what I have below is what I could see happening if the P5 ever split from the G5. The G5 would reorganize regionally in an attempt to reduce travel costs.

West

UH
SMU
N Texas
Rice
Tx State
UTSA

East

Memphis
Tulsa
Ark St
Tulane
UL-L, LaTech, or S Miss (choose 2)

Not the SEC, but it would offer a lot of potential rivalries and lots of drivable games. Sign a scheduling agreement with BYU for some nice games and add Wichita St as a basketball only.

That puts you in 5 or 6 states for football (depending on who you select). Gives you a major presence in 2 major recruiting territories (TX and LA). Probably pretty attractive to Fox Sports SW. Maybe a nice weekly ESPN Friday night slot. The area bowls would probably love this conference---Armed Forces, Heart of Dallas, NOLA, and Indy. Maybe create a couple of new bowls in San Antonio and the new stadium in Houston.

Ive always thought the leftover SWC members blew it by not staying together and rebuilding the SWC. There were plenty of interesting teams around at the time that could have reloaded the conference.

If the landscape of college football changed and C-USA was no more, I could go for something similar. I'd keep it a traditional 9 team conference, where everyone played everyone. I believe these teams would provide the best media markets and still be a really good regional conference.

West

UH
SMU
N Texas
Rice
UTEP
UTSA
Memphis
Tulsa
Tulane

Even though football drives the bus in pretty much all things FBS realignment, I can't imagine Memphis would be happy to put their basketball in that conference.

UTEP, Houston, SMU, and Tulane have had basketball success too.

It would still be a considerable step down from UConn, Cincy, Temple along with Houston and SMU. Tulane hasn't been good in basketball in some time.

The only way this even becomes remotely possible is if G5 completely imploded for whatever reason and everyone had to pick up the pieces. Can't imagine any circumstance in which the AAC schools would leave to join this conference.

(08-28-2014 06:36 PM)CalallenStang Wrote:  SMU shouldn't be in the top 10. We are the worst team in Texas this year

No, you're not.