Not only is the Sun Belt having a hard time finding 1 member now, what are they going to do when CUSA expands to 16 and takes Arkansas State and ULL? Hello Lamar, Charleston Southern, Savannah State. I really wish SBC would not add crap teams and would hold steady at 8 or 9 and abandon the conference championship idea. When AAC takes USM and UTEP, then CUSA can take 4 from SBC and then lets call it a day. No more call ups, App State and JMU are the last worthy FCS teams and the rest like Lamar aren't ready so don't get desperate and start calling up teams that don't belong. All that is doing is giving the top teams more reason to add another division or split away when FBS has 350 teams.

C-USA getting bigger is not a good idea. Too many mouths, not enough dough.

(05-11-2013 08:29 AM)esayem Wrote:  C-USA getting bigger is not a good idea. Too many mouths, not enough dough.

Well it sounds like they are planning on adding teams as their commish just said by expanding to 16 that the reduced travel costs will out-weigh the reduced revenue.

Ah I see. I would think they'd be looking at Georgia State as one of the possibilities then.

(05-11-2013 08:31 AM)Miami (Oh) Yeah ! Wrote:  

(05-11-2013 08:29 AM)esayem Wrote:  C-USA getting bigger is not a good idea. Too many mouths, not enough dough.

Well it sounds like they are planning on adding teams as their commish just said by expanding to 16 that the reduced travel costs will out-weigh the reduced revenue.

Yeah, no. There is no convincing reason to expand. They have been "modeling" for quite some time now. If it keeps them from losing a bowl tie-in or two possibly (and I think that's the issue here as the SBC is poised to add a 3rd bowl tie-in). I can't see CUSA presidents wanting to be the first 16 team league when every team except 2 are brand-new. Adding more SBC schools really tips the balance of power as well, and adds nothing to potential TV dollars.

A 16-team C-USA still gets $12 million from the first pool of playoff money, or $750,000 per school. Right now at 14 teams each school gets $857,142. A school currently getting $1,000,000 per year from the Sun Belt would need to make up at least $250,000 by joining C-USA. Any new additions would need to save each C-USA member at least $107,142 annually, or bring in that much in new revenue.

Personally if I were adding schools to C-USA, I would add Arkansas State and New Mexico. C-USA already has Louisiana covered with Southern Miss and Louisiana Tech. UNM can make the tournament in basketball consistently, is already FBS, and is already an affiliate member in Men's Soccer.

West - UNM, UTEP, UTSA, Rice
South - UNT, stAte, LTU, USM
North - ODU, Marshall, MTSU, WKU
East - UAB, UNCC, FAU, FIU

(05-11-2013 08:25 AM)Miami (Oh) Yeah ! Wrote:  Not only is the Sun Belt having a hard time finding 1 member now, what are they going to do when CUSA expands to 16 and takes Arkansas State and ULL? Hello Lamar, Charleston Southern, Savannah State. I really wish SBC would not add crap teams and would hold steady at 8 or 9 and abandon the conference championship idea. When AAC takes USM and UTEP, then CUSA can take 4 from SBC and then lets call it a day. No more call ups, App State and JMU are the last worthy FCS teams and the rest like Lamar aren't ready so don't get desperate and start calling up teams that don't belong. All that is doing is giving the top teams more reason to add another division or split away when FBS has 350 teams.

The SBC has a right to exist despite what you think. It would be CUSA diluting the pool not the SBC anyway if they go to 16. I think the big conferences are realizing that and that is why they are stopping. So, if CUSA starts this all up again by going to 16, the SBC will replace them to stay at 12 and hold a championship game just like everyone else.

(05-11-2013 09:00 AM)chargeradio Wrote:  Personally if I were adding schools to C-USA, I would add Arkansas State and New Mexico.

New Mexico is not about to leave the Mountain West for CUSA. Do you mean, instead, NMSU?

(05-11-2013 09:17 AM)GoAppsGo92 Wrote:  

(05-11-2013 08:25 AM)Miami (Oh) Yeah ! Wrote:  Not only is the Sun Belt having a hard time finding 1 member now, what are they going to do when CUSA expands to 16 and takes Arkansas State and ULL? Hello Lamar, Charleston Southern, Savannah State. I really wish SBC would not add crap teams and would hold steady at 8 or 9 and abandon the conference championship idea. When AAC takes USM and UTEP, then CUSA can take 4 from SBC and then lets call it a day. No more call ups, App State and JMU are the last worthy FCS teams and the rest like Lamar aren't ready so don't get desperate and start calling up teams that don't belong. All that is doing is giving the top teams more reason to add another division or split away when FBS has 350 teams.

The SBC has a right to exist despite what you think. It would be CUSA diluting the pool not the SBC anyway if they go to 16. I think the big conferences are realizing that and that is why they are stopping. So, if CUSA starts this all up again by going to 16, the SBC will replace them to stay at 12 and hold a championship game just like everyone else.

The best solution is to have CUSA and the Sunbelt merge and Idaho move back to the Big Sky. Going to 16 doesnt really change the CUSA travel dynamic that much. But if the Sunblet and CUSA merge (except for Idaho)---thats where true travel efficiencies can be formed. Its also way better for FBS if the flow of FCS to FBS stops for 10-20 years. We really dont need anymore FBS schools. What we really need is a little better organization in FBS, we dont need more schools.

FBS and the non-G5 conferences can help by making the best solution work best for the Sunbelt and CUSA. I'd do a few things for the Sunbelt/CUSA merger to make it work best for them.

#1--I'd allow the merged conference to have 1 million a team (up to 24 schools) in BCS money. For the rest of the gang of 5, this doesnt cost them a dollar (in fact, that actually could be less than the G-5 fund would have paid with two 12-team conferences). All this does is prevent the conferences from being penalized for merging (it actually helps CUSA more than the Sunbelt).

#2--I'd allow them 2-options. They could select one or the other--

Option One--They can have a waiver so they only have to play 7 teams within thier division (rather than force them to follow the rule that forces schools to play EVERY team within thier division). The waiver WOULD require that they play everyone in their division at least once every two years. Without this rule waiver, they would have to play 11 conference games just to play everyone in their division. The proposed waiver would allow the new merged confernece to play a 9 game conference schedule with 2 crossover games while still preserving 3 OOC game slots.

Option Two--I'd allow the merged conference to have a 4 team playoff. But they would have to have 10 conference games to do it. They would be the only conference allowed to do this for 5 years. After that period, the NCAA would vote on weather to allow everyone to do it. Regardless of the vote, CUSA/Sunbelt merger would be allowed to continue the format as long as 17 of the original merger schools are in the conference. Once the number drops below 17, the playoff rule would be void unless renewed by the NCAA.

#3--Allow the new group to form a new conference without losing thier NCAA credits or having to wait for auto-bids. This allows the group as a whole to create a new conference, without losing anything of value. That voids the old TV contract and allows the merged confernece to negotiate totally new contracts with the TV networks.

#4--Once the league is merged--end FCS call ups until 2033.

Please B12 don 't expand, please AAC don't expand, please C-USA please, please, don't expand. If B12 takes 2 FL teams C-USA loses USM & FIU to AAU, then C-USA has to take teams from a conference that Illinois St, Missouri St, & JMU have rejected.

Don't forget Indiana St and UTC said no also.

(05-11-2013 02:27 PM)Rabonchild Wrote:  Please B12 don 't expand, please AAC don't expand, please C-USA please, please, don't expand. If B12 takes 2 FL teams C-USA loses USM & FIU to AAU, then C-USA has to take teams from a conference that Illinois St, Missouri St, & JMU have rejected.

You guys are hilarious.

Even if the Big 12 adds two at the expense of the AAC, it may not mean that C-USA reloads to 14. If the two Florida schools go, UAB can move back to the East-if UNCC and ODU have completed their transition no replacements are necessary.

Likewise, if the Big 12 adds Cincinnati and BYU, the AAC can plug in UMass-perhaps for football only-without touching C-USA and in turn the Sun Belt.

If the Big 12 goes to 14 at the expense of the AAC, then that might be a problem for the Sun Belt.

(05-09-2013 08:21 PM)GoAppsGo92 Wrote:  Just a point of order here: James Madison has not said "no" to the Sunbelt. They haven't even said "yes" to FBS yet officially. They are in the middle of third party consensus building study that will make a recommendation to their decision makers.

What they have said is they will not make a decision regarding FBS until after the study is complete... which would be after the June 1st deadline.

If the SBC was desperate, they would take Jacksonville State, Lamar or Liberty which would all take an invite if offered, but the league presidents obviously have no consensus on those schools. In fact, the situation is the opposite: The last slot is more valuable than ever. Clearly Benson is doing what the presidents have asked him to do: evaluate potential candidates that complement the footprint to determine if they have an interest or can afford a move to FBS football. UTC, IL State and ISU did not say "no" to the Sunbelt... they said they are not ready/cannot afford/have no intentions to make the transition to FBS... point being that FBS is the issue, not the Sunbelt.

The question before the presidents at this months meeting will be: are we willing to wait for some of the candidates we are interested in, or do we go ahead and fill the slot for a championship game next year?

My guess is that the presidents will agree that we can afford to wait. We clearly have 2-3 candidates that we have particular interest in... both said they need a year to get their campuses to decide if FBS makes sense. I say we can wait and check with some other schools in the meantime that make sense to determine if their long term plans include FBS football.

I'm pretty sure we said no to the SBC.

I wouldn't doubt if the MVFC teams that want to move up have talked to each other to try and work something out.

While going from the FCS to the FBS, the MVFC is currently the strongest FCS conference and the core of the MVFC is in the MVC and those schools are basketball schools and moving from the MVC to the SBC would not being going in the right direction for those programs.

(05-09-2013 09:40 PM)uakronkid Wrote:  The MAC is a Great Lakes conference. I don't think a conference without a single team between the Mississippi River and the Rocky Mountains qualifies as being in the Midwest.

I don't know where you think the Midwest is located, but it is a Midwestern conference.

(05-11-2013 08:11 AM)Miami (Oh) Yeah ! Wrote:  If they don't fit, why did UMass admin think it was a good idea to join in the first place?

Because it was the best fit that they could get out of an FBS conference.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midwestern_United_States

Map of Midwestern states

(05-09-2013 06:59 PM)cleburneslim Wrote:  Already a no from utc, Indiana St, and Illinois St. Probably jmu and mo St. Is the real reason for delay a lack of willing candidates. Was nmsu and Idaho "in particular" added out of necessity or desperation. Who else have said no?

Why do they need to expand more? To get a 12th football team? They have plenty of members to be a FBS conference.

(05-12-2013 12:43 AM)BirdstheWord Wrote:  

(05-11-2013 08:11 AM)Miami (Oh) Yeah ! Wrote:  If they don't fit, why did UMass admin think it was a good idea to join in the first place?

Because it was the best fit that they could get out of an FBS conference.

The deal wasn't for us to help them transition from FCS so that they could pretend to "fit" in our conference until they signed the paperwork and then complain from day 1 that they don't fit.

(05-12-2013 07:55 AM)Miami (Oh) Yeah ! Wrote:  

(05-12-2013 12:43 AM)BirdstheWord Wrote:  

(05-11-2013 08:11 AM)Miami (Oh) Yeah ! Wrote:  If they don't fit, why did UMass admin think it was a good idea to join in the first place?

Because it was the best fit that they could get out of an FBS conference.

The deal wasn't for us to help them transition from FCS so that they could pretend to "fit" in our conference until they signed the paperwork and then complain from day 1 that they don't fit.

That is fiction. As I already pointed out, no FBS conference has more than 2 members near UMass. Especially in a football-only arrangement, there is therefore a negligible difference in travel between the MAC and playing anywhere else. We can nevertheless bemoan this needless state of affairs in northeast college sports without insulting the MAC. They had no role in creating this situation.

(05-12-2013 01:27 PM)LastMinuteman Wrote:  

(05-12-2013 07:55 AM)Miami (Oh) Yeah ! Wrote:  

(05-12-2013 12:43 AM)BirdstheWord Wrote:  

(05-11-2013 08:11 AM)Miami (Oh) Yeah ! Wrote:  If they don't fit, why did UMass admin think it was a good idea to join in the first place?

Because it was the best fit that they could get out of an FBS conference.

The deal wasn't for us to help them transition from FCS so that they could pretend to "fit" in our conference until they signed the paperwork and then complain from day 1 that they don't fit.

That is fiction. As I already pointed out, no FBS conference has more than 2 members near UMass. Especially in a football-only arrangement, there is therefore a negligible difference in travel between the MAC and playing anywhere else. We can nevertheless bemoan this needless state of affairs in northeast college sports without insulting the MAC. They had no role in creating this situation.

True....




The AAC would be the best fit for UMASS:

(05-12-2013 01:34 PM)Underdog Wrote:  

(05-12-2013 01:27 PM)LastMinuteman Wrote:  

(05-12-2013 07:55 AM)Miami (Oh) Yeah ! Wrote:  

(05-12-2013 12:43 AM)BirdstheWord Wrote:  

(05-11-2013 08:11 AM)Miami (Oh) Yeah ! Wrote:  If they don't fit, why did UMass admin think it was a good idea to join in the first place?

Because it was the best fit that they could get out of an FBS conference.

The deal wasn't for us to help them transition from FCS so that they could pretend to "fit" in our conference until they signed the paperwork and then complain from day 1 that they don't fit.

That is fiction. As I already pointed out, no FBS conference has more than 2 members near UMass. Especially in a football-only arrangement, there is therefore a negligible difference in travel between the MAC and playing anywhere else. We can nevertheless bemoan this needless state of affairs in northeast college sports without insulting the MAC. They had no role in creating this situation.

True....




The AAC would be the best fit for UMASS:

When you see the AAC on the map, it really makes more sense in a north/south divisional structure. Tulsa, SMU, Houston, Tulane, USF,UCF,amd Memphis in the south. Everyone else would be the north. Recruiting realities would prevent such a arrangement--but it does make sense.