Appy State would be the only FCS school worth adding. They are a solid program with a respected name. It's not as hard to get to as you think - Asheville, Johnson City, Charlotte, Knoxville are all in an easy drive, and it's a great area with plenty to do - would be a better road trip than ULM, Troy, etc.

But i'm not in favor of adding anyone FCS - we need to ditch the reputation as a league full of homeless teams who are either starting up or have no other place to go.

If the WAC loses Fresno, the 'Belt should get crazy - lets cannibalize the WAC, be the first to go to 16, with an east/west split.

Sunbelt East:

MT, FIU, FAU, Troy, ULL, ULM, ASU, WKU

Sunbelt West:

NT, La Tech, Idaho, NMSU, Utah St, Nevada, Hawaii, San Jose State.

We pick up thier 4 bowls. Have a championship. Get creative in scheduling so that we can minimize travel - heck, a trip to Hawaii every 4 years would be worth it - a recruiting tool by itself. With 16 teams - that's a whole lot of people to tick off if the major conferences try to exclude us from any potential playoff.

I'll let someone else worry about the details - such as what to do with South Alabama or our BBall only schools.

(06-17-2010 07:02 AM)RaiderDoug Wrote:  heck, a trip to Hawaii every 4 years would be worth it - a recruiting tool by itself.

You play Hawaii every 4 years. You play IN Hawaii every 8 years.

And I still believe there is no one attainable out there (FB-wise) who would add $ to the conference. To echo probably the only (and by default, most) intelligent thing I've seen Wright Waters say: We're not in survival mode. We don't need to add schools who won't add money to the conference. We need to look at teams who could enhance the conference.

Enhance = bring more $ than they take.

(06-17-2010 07:02 AM)RaiderDoug Wrote:  Appy State would be the only FCS school worth adding. They are a solid program with a respected name. It's not as hard to get to as you think - Asheville, Johnson City, Charlotte, Knoxville are all in an easy drive, and it's a great area with plenty to do - would be a better road trip than ULM, Troy, etc.

But i'm not in favor of adding anyone FCS - we need to ditch the reputation as a league full of homeless teams who are either starting up or have no other place to go.

If the WAC loses Fresno, the 'Belt should get crazy - lets cannibalize the WAC, be the first to go to 16, with an east/west split.

Sunbelt East:

MT, FIU, FAU, Troy, ULL, ULM, ASU, WKU

Sunbelt West:

NT, La Tech, Idaho, NMSU, Utah St, Nevada, Hawaii, San Jose State.

We pick up thier 4 bowls. Have a championship. Get creative in scheduling so that we can minimize travel - heck, a trip to Hawaii every 4 years would be worth it - a recruiting tool by itself. With 16 teams - that's a whole lot of people to tick off if the major conferences try to exclude us from any potential playoff.

I'll let someone else worry about the details - such as what to do with South Alabama or our BBall only schools.

(06-17-2010 07:02 AM)RaiderDoug Wrote:  I'll let someone else worry about the details - such as what to do with South Alabama or our BBall only schools.

Easy.

UALR goes to the East with ASU. Denver stays in the West. One non football in each division.

As for USA... you don't invite Idaho. Problem solved.

I would think that we would be a natural.

(06-15-2010 09:32 AM)bluephi1914 Wrote:  Should the SBC decide or have to expand they will look to add:

1. UTSA
2. GA State
3. TX State
4. La Tech

(06-15-2010 10:49 AM)VideoGreenEagle Wrote:  Why not just add La Tech and hold at 11? Is there a 12th school that actually adds anything that we could get? UTSA has yet to play a down of football. TSSM is certainly better than UTSA, but 1. how many winning football seasons have they had in last 20 years and 2. have they shown they can meet the attendance requirements for FBS? I think they need to grow a little more before we consider them.

To answer your questions about Texas State, no doubt that we had struggled for several years in football, but if you look at our most recent history, it has been much better. We have had winning seasons each of the last two years and return most of our offense and defense from last year.

As for #2. This year we averaged just short of 12,500 people per game, which was an upgrade of more than 1,000 people from the season before. And so far this year we have almost doubled the number of season tickets sold compared to the number of season tickets sold last year, we should have an ever better average attendance this year. And this is without the help of having any schools that we would play that people know anything about. We will have no issues getting the 15,000 people average with a few FBS opponents coming to town. We have shown that when we play FBS schools people show up, we have surprised both SMU and TCU with the number of fans that have shown up for the away games supposedly close to 4,000 people for each of those games.

(06-15-2010 10:28 AM)Side Show Joe Wrote:  

(06-15-2010 08:40 AM)MG61 Wrote:  

(06-15-2010 07:44 AM)FIUFan Wrote:  If we add La Tech. That puts us at 11 football schools; what is the next step? You guessed it....an invite for a 12th school and a championship game.

What are the pro's and con's of adding the 12th football memeber? How would the divisions look? Where would we play the champ. game? Would we rotate? Highest bidder?

A lot of interesting questions there.

If the conference were to go to 12, we need to have a true east/west divisional split. Remember ULL, ULM and Arkansas State recruit in primarily in TEXAS not Florida.

EAST

FIU
FAU
Troy
Middle Tennessee
USA
WKU

WEST

ULL
ULM
Arkansas State
North Texas
New Mexico State **
Louisiana Tech ***or Texas State ****

** Get proactive & take NMSU from the WAC. Good basketball and they are on an island between the WAC and Sun Belt. With divisional play, east/west travel is less of an issue.

*** Hold our noses and take Tech. They have delusions of grandure, but everyone knows they would be a middle of the pack team.

****Texas State wants to move up and is making a committment with facility improvement and budget. Will have a budget of around $20,000,000 with their new student fee.

I'd be ok with this if you replaced Texas State with UTSA. I'd rather add San Antonio's T.V. market and the Alamodome. That could turn into a 3rd bowl game for the conference. UTSA will be the only football game on town, and they have a proven head coach with a national title. If the Sun Belt chose to expand in this manor I think UTSA has a greater up side then Texas State.

Texas State would add as much of the San Antonio TV market as UTSA does, and Texas State would also add a part of the Austin TV market.

No, Texas State will never own the Austin TV market, but we would get a portion of it, as we already get coverage in Austin see (Inside Bobcat Football)

(06-21-2010 02:44 PM)SM_Bobcat Wrote:  

(06-15-2010 10:49 AM)VideoGreenEagle Wrote:  Why not just add La Tech and hold at 11? Is there a 12th school that actually adds anything that we could get? UTSA has yet to play a down of football. TSSM is certainly better than UTSA, but 1. how many winning football seasons have they had in last 20 years and 2. have they shown they can meet the attendance requirements for FBS? I think they need to grow a little more before we consider them.

To answer your questions about Texas State, no doubt that we had struggled for several years in football, but if you look at our most recent history, it has been much better. We have had winning seasons each of the last two years and return most of our offense and defense from last year.

As for #2. This year we averaged just short of 12,500 people per game, which was an upgrade of more than 1,000 people from the season before. And so far this year we have almost doubled the number of season tickets sold compared to the number of season tickets sold last year, we should have an ever better average attendance this year. And this is without the help of having any schools that we would play that people know anything about. We will have no issues getting the 15,000 people average with a few FBS opponents coming to town. We have shown that when we play FBS schools people show up, we have surprised both SMU and TCU with the number of fans that have shown up for the away games supposedly close to 4,000 people for each of those games.

Being that the bolded statment is teams basically in state, (Im not sure of the distance between Texas cities) I think youll find that number decreaseing especially when you have to travel to places like FAU/FIU, Troy, MTSU etc...

Its one of the reasons why FAU/FIU travels so poorly, it takes 8 hours just to get out for the freaking state. Life living in the tip of americas phallus.

(06-21-2010 02:53 PM)OwlFamily Wrote:  

(06-21-2010 02:44 PM)SM_Bobcat Wrote:  

(06-15-2010 10:49 AM)VideoGreenEagle Wrote:  Why not just add La Tech and hold at 11? Is there a 12th school that actually adds anything that we could get? UTSA has yet to play a down of football. TSSM is certainly better than UTSA, but 1. how many winning football seasons have they had in last 20 years and 2. have they shown they can meet the attendance requirements for FBS? I think they need to grow a little more before we consider them.

To answer your questions about Texas State, no doubt that we had struggled for several years in football, but if you look at our most recent history, it has been much better. We have had winning seasons each of the last two years and return most of our offense and defense from last year.

As for #2. This year we averaged just short of 12,500 people per game, which was an upgrade of more than 1,000 people from the season before. And so far this year we have almost doubled the number of season tickets sold compared to the number of season tickets sold last year, we should have an ever better average attendance this year. And this is without the help of having any schools that we would play that people know anything about. We will have no issues getting the 15,000 people average with a few FBS opponents coming to town. We have shown that when we play FBS schools people show up, we have surprised both SMU and TCU with the number of fans that have shown up for the away games supposedly close to 4,000 people for each of those games.

Being that the bolded statment is teams basically in state, (Im not sure of the distance between Texas cities) I think youll find that number decreaseing especially when you have to travel to places like FAU/FIU, Troy, MTSU etc...

Its one of the reasons why FAU/FIU travels so poorly, it takes 8 hours just to get out for the freaking state. Life living in the tip of americas phallus.

I didn't in any way mean to imply that we would bring 4,000 people to FAU/FIU, or any place that we would play in the SunBelt except for North Texas. What I was using it for was to support my arguement that the fans will show up at home if we have the SunBelt teams come into town. And that we still be even if we didn't get any real support from SunBelt teams bringing any fans in. As we already are usually LUCKY to get MAYBE 100 fans from the opponent anyways....

(06-21-2010 02:52 PM)SM_Bobcat Wrote:  

(06-15-2010 10:28 AM)Side Show Joe Wrote:  

(06-15-2010 08:40 AM)MG61 Wrote:  

(06-15-2010 07:44 AM)FIUFan Wrote:  If we add La Tech. That puts us at 11 football schools; what is the next step? You guessed it....an invite for a 12th school and a championship game.

What are the pro's and con's of adding the 12th football memeber? How would the divisions look? Where would we play the champ. game? Would we rotate? Highest bidder?

A lot of interesting questions there.

If the conference were to go to 12, we need to have a true east/west divisional split. Remember ULL, ULM and Arkansas State recruit in primarily in TEXAS not Florida.

EAST

FIU
FAU
Troy
Middle Tennessee
USA
WKU

WEST

ULL
ULM
Arkansas State
North Texas
New Mexico State **
Louisiana Tech ***or Texas State ****

** Get proactive & take NMSU from the WAC. Good basketball and they are on an island between the WAC and Sun Belt. With divisional play, east/west travel is less of an issue.

*** Hold our noses and take Tech. They have delusions of grandure, but everyone knows they would be a middle of the pack team.

****Texas State wants to move up and is making a committment with facility improvement and budget. Will have a budget of around $20,000,000 with their new student fee.

I'd be ok with this if you replaced Texas State with UTSA. I'd rather add San Antonio's T.V. market and the Alamodome. That could turn into a 3rd bowl game for the conference. UTSA will be the only football game on town, and they have a proven head coach with a national title. If the Sun Belt chose to expand in this manor I think UTSA has a greater up side then Texas State.

Texas State would add as much of the San Antonio TV market as UTSA does, and Texas State would also add a part of the Austin TV market.

No, Texas State will never own the Austin TV market, but we would get a portion of it, as we already get coverage in Austin see (Inside Bobcat Football)

I do believe that TSU delivers a chunk of the Austin market, but as a San Antonio resident and follower of the SLC I just don't see how you guys figure ANY of the SA market is delivered. I do think you guys will be a solid FBS addition, but not for the reason many of your fans believe.

As for the SBC, I think it will be a win if you can drop Denver and UALR. They dont even have to be replaced, I think it would just be better for the image of the league. Eventually you guys will start winning some high profile out of conference games.

(06-21-2010 05:43 PM)Peligro! Wrote:  As for the SBC, I think it will be a win if you can drop Denver and UALR. They dont even have to be replaced, I think it would just be better for the image of the league. Eventually you guys will start winning some high profile out of conference games.

Denver is up against the clock as far as adding enough sports to meet conference membership standards. UALR, however, meets all membership requirements and has been a part of the Sunbelt for going on 30 years. UALR was a part of the Sunbelt long before the Sunbelt decided to become a "football conference". Furthermore, UALR does more for Sunbelt basketball than most of the programs.

If the Sunbelt tries to screw over UALR and kick them out... I for one would be pissed.

(06-21-2010 06:07 PM)Hilltopper2K Wrote:  

(06-21-2010 05:43 PM)Peligro! Wrote:  As for the SBC, I think it will be a win if you can drop Denver and UALR. They dont even have to be replaced, I think it would just be better for the image of the league. Eventually you guys will start winning some high profile out of conference games.

Denver is up against the clock as far as adding enough sports to meet conference membership standards. UALR, however, meets all membership requirements and has been a part of the Sunbelt for going on 30 years. UALR was a part of the Sunbelt long before the Sunbelt decided to become a "football conference". Furthermore, UALR does more for Sunbelt basketball than most of the programs.

If the Sunbelt tries to screw over UALR and kick them out... I for one would be pissed.

Agree. UALR has been a long term member and should not be pushed aside. If they chose to leave, it would be their decision. Interesting how some folks come over and try to tell us how to run the conference. We may have our internal squabbles and/or disagreements, but outsiders beware !

I'll take App State over NMSU any day...

whoa whoa whoa :) I was just giving my opinion. I think that an all sports conference is the way to go. We had a series with UALR a couple years back and they were certainly an exciting team to watch. But as an outsider it seems like all sports playing football is a good thing for perception. hell it hurts the big east and they are an AQ conference.

The sun belt should be a MAJOR up and coming conference if you keep playing the right cards. The WAC is in big time trouble and this is your shot to move up into their slot. You guys play a ton of SEC BigXII OOC games each year, you just need to win a couple to become an elite mid major conference.

This is a thread debating about the league coming out on top, right? I happen to think you will, even if it is just by maintaining the status quo (or add "obligatory why UTSA is so awesome" comment here :) ).

(06-21-2010 06:30 PM)CardinalBlackTrojan Wrote:  I'll take App State over NMSU any day...

I agree with that and I'd take Missouri State in a heartbeat as long as we're talking 1aa/fcs potential candidates...but we don't need to add anybody now. I'd rather see the Sun Belt stand pat and let the wac be the entry level conference for fcs programs moving up for awhile.

(06-21-2010 05:43 PM)Peligro! Wrote:  

(06-21-2010 02:52 PM)SM_Bobcat Wrote:  Texas State would add as much of the San Antonio TV market as UTSA does, and Texas State would also add a part of the Austin TV market.

No, Texas State will never own the Austin TV market, but we would get a portion of it, as we already get coverage in Austin see (Inside Bobcat Football)

I do believe that TSU delivers a chunk of the Austin market, but as a San Antonio resident and follower of the SLC I just don't see how you guys figure ANY of the SA market is delivered. I do think you guys will be a solid FBS addition, but not for the reason many of your fans believe.

As for the SBC, I think it will be a win if you can drop Denver and UALR. They dont even have to be replaced, I think it would just be better for the image of the league. Eventually you guys will start winning some high profile out of conference games.

Well for one, we would deliver part of the San Antonio Market, because New Braunfels is part of the San Antonio market., and they are all of 5 minutes from San Antonio. And another reason we would deliver part of the San Antonio Market is because we have a large number of Alumni who live in San Antonio, and they would definitely be interested in watching us. And for proof that we would bring some of the San Antonio TV market look at the Southland TV network football schedule. You notice that San Antonio is listed as one of the cities that will broadcast the football games. I don't think San Antonio is broadcasting the football games because of UTSA considering UTSA is not even playing football yet.

I have nothing against UTSA, I fully expect ya'll to get a conference invite to an FBS conference. And I have family that attends UTSA. And I myself lived in San Antonio just a few years ago. And unless UTSA has completely turned around San Antonio in just a few years (highly unlikely), San Antonio is Spurs country first and for most EVERYTHING else is second fiddle at best. And UTSA is not viewed by most people in San Antonio as being its college. Don't get me wrong, Lynn Hickey has done an excellent job from what I have seen in starting to make inroads and starting to get San Antonio to buy into UTSA. But, it is a process, and no college will ever own the San Antonio market, the cities heart is and will always belong to the Spurs....