(04-17-2018 11:53 PM)IWokeUpLikeThis Wrote:  The MAC would be on Cloud 9 if Marshall ever wanted back in, imo.

The question to ask is how close Northern Michigan came to be in the mAC following their brothers of Central, Western and Eastern Michigan?

The MAC could actually close up their footprint as well by looking at Illinois State, Southern Illinois, Western Illinois, Indiana State, Milwaukee, Youngstown State, Niagara and looking at Stony Brook, Albany, New Hampshire and UMass.?

MAC could still have Wayne State Michigan and case Western Reserve if they stayed in D1.

(04-18-2018 10:03 AM)DavidSt Wrote:  

(04-17-2018 11:53 PM)IWokeUpLikeThis Wrote:  The MAC would be on Cloud 9 if Marshall ever wanted back in, imo.

The question to ask is how close Northern Michigan came to be in the mAC following their brothers of Central, Western and Eastern Michigan?

The MWC could actually close up their footprint as well by looking at Illinois State, Southern Illinois, Western Illinois, Indiana State, Milwaukee, Youngstown State, Niagara and looking at Stony Brook, Albany, New Hampshire and UMass.?

MAC could still have Wayne State Michigan and case Western Reserve if they stayed in D1.

If Western Reserve (now Case Western) would have stayed D1 and continued to fund athletics at a high level, they likely would have eventually partnered up as independents with schools like Pitt and Syracuse before ultimately joining the Big East.

(04-17-2018 11:53 PM)IWokeUpLikeThis Wrote:  The MAC would be on Cloud 9 if Marshall ever wanted back in, imo.

They are one of four schools I'd like to see in the MAC. Drop 2-4 weak programs and add 2-4 of the following: Marshall, Umass, WKU, & MTSU.

(04-18-2018 02:35 PM)WesternSkillet Wrote:  

(04-17-2018 11:53 PM)IWokeUpLikeThis Wrote:  The MAC would be on Cloud 9 if Marshall ever wanted back in, imo.

They are one of four schools I'd like to see in the MAC. Drop 2-4 weak programs and add 2-4 of the following: Marshall, Umass, WKU, & MTSU.

UMass. would be on an island. You need to add a school closer to them as a travel partner. I think Mid. Tenn. State would be too far down. New Hampshire is a strong team to go with UMass. James Madison with VCU and maybe a Milwaukee as basketball onlys. Illinois State and Indiana State are stronger on the west side. Illinois State seems better than Ball State in both football and basketball.

(04-17-2018 09:20 PM)bullet Wrote:  It would be interesting to think about what would have happened had the Missouri Valley superconference of the early 70s stuck together and schools didn't drop football.
Louisville
Memphis
North Texas
West Texas
Tulsa
Wichita St.
New Mexico St.
Drake
basketball-St. Louis, Bradley

There was talk of Cincinnati coming back and becoming a 12 team conference (don't remember who 12 was). And schools like Tulane, Virginia Tech and West Virginia might have joined. It was already a power conference in basketball. It could have become what the Big East became in the early 90s, using basketball to promote their level in football.

I don't know if that really qualifies as a superconference....

(04-17-2018 11:30 PM)Kittonhead Wrote:  

(01-24-2018 12:50 PM)indianasniff Wrote:  Fascinated the number of posts about the MAC that don't account for all of the members

Currently
East Bowling Green, Buffalo, Miami, Ohio, Kent St., Akron
West Toledo, Eastern Michigan, Western Michigan, Central Michigan, Ball State, Northern Illinois

I cannot envision a scenario where Marshall would be let back in. Any expansion of the MAC would likely go east and west with another Illinois school and maybe another NY school

If the MAC had never cut a deal with Buffalo to move up, Marshall might have stayed in the MAC.

How did the addition of Buffalo in 1998 affect Marshall's decision to leave in 2005?

Here is a wild thought: what if in the 2003-2004 alignment circus by the ACC that was originally targeting Miami, Syracuse, and BC that in turn became Miami, VT, and Syracuse, then just Miami and VT in hopes of luring Notre Dame until finally settling on BC if someone in that room said "let's be really forward thinking and add Syracuse and Pitt and then see if that's enough to lure Notre Dame and if it does we go to 16 but if not we've got a pretty solid group"

The Big East is then in a funny place. they've got the Catholic 5, Notre Dame, UConn, Rutgers, WVU, and Temple football. Would the first 6 be willing to rebuild a football league for their 3 football schools and a Temple program that was getting booted? Could those 4 find a home in C-USA? If they do that means UCF and Marshall stay in the MAC and Tulsa/Rice/SMU/UTEP stick with the WAC.

The end result is a much different landscape going into and beyond the 2010-2013 realignment.

(04-18-2018 07:39 PM)Fighting Muskie Wrote:  Here is a wild thought: what if in the 2003-2004 alignment circus by the ACC that was originally targeting Miami, Syracuse, and BC that in turn became Miami, VT, and Syracuse, then just Miami and VT in hopes of luring Notre Dame until finally settling on BC if someone in that room said "let's be really forward thinking and add Syracuse and Pitt and then see if that's enough to lure Notre Dame and if it does we go to 16 but if not we've got a pretty solid group"

The Big East is then in a funny place. they've got the Catholic 5, Notre Dame, UConn, Rutgers, WVU, and Temple football. Would the first 6 be willing to rebuild a football league for their 3 football schools and a Temple program that was getting booted? Could those 4 find a home in C-USA? If they do that means UCF and Marshall stay in the MAC and Tulsa/Rice/SMU/UTEP stick with the WAC.

The end result is a much different landscape going into and beyond the 2010-2013 realignment.

Leaving the Big East for CUSA would have been too much of a step down, I think. More likely that CUSA gets even more gutted than in our timeline.

Big East
FB: Cincinnati, Connecticut, East Carolina*, Louisville, Memphis, Rutgers, South Florida, West Virginia
NFB: DePaul, Georgetown, Marquette, Notre Dame, Providence, Seton Hall, St. John's, Villanova

CUSA
East: Central Florida, Louisiana Tech, Marshall, Middle Tennessee, Southern Miss, UAB
West: Houston, Rice, SMU, Tulane, Tulsa, UTEP

Perhaps there might have been an earlier split between the football and non-football Big East schools. Even then CUSA would have gotten the shaft.

Big East
DePaul, Georgetown, Marquette, Notre Dame, Providence, Seton Hall, St. John's, St. Louis, Villanova, Xavier

"AAC"
East: Central Florida, Connecticut, East Carolina, Rutgers, South Florida, West Virginia
West: Cincinnati, Houston, Louisville, Memphis, TCU, Tulane

CUSA
East: FAU, FIU, Marshall, Middle Tennessee, Southern Miss, UAB
West: Louisiana Tech, North Texas, Rice, SMU, Tulsa, UTEP

(04-18-2018 08:38 PM)Nerdlinger Wrote:  

(04-18-2018 07:39 PM)Fighting Muskie Wrote:  Here is a wild thought: what if in the 2003-2004 alignment circus by the ACC that was originally targeting Miami, Syracuse, and BC that in turn became Miami, VT, and Syracuse, then just Miami and VT in hopes of luring Notre Dame until finally settling on BC if someone in that room said "let's be really forward thinking and add Syracuse and Pitt and then see if that's enough to lure Notre Dame and if it does we go to 16 but if not we've got a pretty solid group"

The Big East is then in a funny place. they've got the Catholic 5, Notre Dame, UConn, Rutgers, WVU, and Temple football. Would the first 6 be willing to rebuild a football league for their 3 football schools and a Temple program that was getting booted? Could those 4 find a home in C-USA? If they do that means UCF and Marshall stay in the MAC and Tulsa/Rice/SMU/UTEP stick with the WAC.

The end result is a much different landscape going into and beyond the 2010-2013 realignment.

Leaving the Big East for CUSA would have been too much of a step down, I think. More likely that CUSA gets even more gutted than in our timeline.

Big East
FB: Cincinnati, Connecticut, East Carolina*, Louisville, Memphis, Rutgers, South Florida, West Virginia
NFB: DePaul, Georgetown, Marquette, Notre Dame, Providence, Seton Hall, St. John's, Villanova

CUSA
East: Central Florida, Louisiana Tech, Marshall, Middle Tennessee, Southern Miss, UAB
West: Houston, Rice, SMU, Tulane, Tulsa, UTEP

Perhaps there might have been an earlier split between the football and non-football Big East schools. Even then CUSA would have gotten the shaft.

Big East
Creighton, DePaul, Georgetown, Marquette, Notre Dame, Providence, Seton Hall, St. John's, Villanova, Xavier

"AAC"
East: Central Florida, Connecticut, East Carolina, Rutgers, South Florida, West Virginia
West: Cincinnati, Houston, Louisville, Memphis, TCU, Tulane

CUSA
East: FAU, FIU, Marshall, Middle Tennessee, Southern Miss, UAB
West: Louisiana Tech, North Texas, Rice, SMU, Tulsa, UTEP

You have to remember the relationship between the football minority (3) and the nonfootball majority (6). WVU and Rutgers were not particularly well received by the old guard schools, the former due to academics and the later due to poor basketball. Neither school got a full invite until 1995 when an offer for a combined Big East football and basketball media deal necessitated it. While they were willing to rebuild for Pitt and Syracuse I'm not sure they do so for WVU etc.

If we consider for a moment that they would and that in order to keep growth as small as possible they keep Temple football they need 4 more so we are looking at probably USF, Cincy, Louisville, and Memphis. Big East football stays strong even if it is with strange bedfellows.

Truthfully I don't think they lift a finger and force the football schools to either play independent schedules or leave and then they restock with Catholic basketball schools from C-USA.

(04-18-2018 09:11 PM)Fighting Muskie Wrote:  

(04-18-2018 08:38 PM)Nerdlinger Wrote:  

(04-18-2018 07:39 PM)Fighting Muskie Wrote:  Here is a wild thought: what if in the 2003-2004 alignment circus by the ACC that was originally targeting Miami, Syracuse, and BC that in turn became Miami, VT, and Syracuse, then just Miami and VT in hopes of luring Notre Dame until finally settling on BC if someone in that room said "let's be really forward thinking and add Syracuse and Pitt and then see if that's enough to lure Notre Dame and if it does we go to 16 but if not we've got a pretty solid group"

The Big East is then in a funny place. they've got the Catholic 5, Notre Dame, UConn, Rutgers, WVU, and Temple football. Would the first 6 be willing to rebuild a football league for their 3 football schools and a Temple program that was getting booted? Could those 4 find a home in C-USA? If they do that means UCF and Marshall stay in the MAC and Tulsa/Rice/SMU/UTEP stick with the WAC.

The end result is a much different landscape going into and beyond the 2010-2013 realignment.

Leaving the Big East for CUSA would have been too much of a step down, I think. More likely that CUSA gets even more gutted than in our timeline.

Big East
FB: Cincinnati, Connecticut, East Carolina*, Louisville, Memphis, Rutgers, South Florida, West Virginia
NFB: DePaul, Georgetown, Marquette, Notre Dame, Providence, Seton Hall, St. John's, Villanova

CUSA
East: Central Florida, Louisiana Tech, Marshall, Middle Tennessee, Southern Miss, UAB
West: Houston, Rice, SMU, Tulane, Tulsa, UTEP

Perhaps there might have been an earlier split between the football and non-football Big East schools. Even then CUSA would have gotten the shaft.

Big East
Creighton, DePaul, Georgetown, Marquette, Notre Dame, Providence, Seton Hall, St. John's, Villanova, Xavier

"AAC"
East: Central Florida, Connecticut, East Carolina, Rutgers, South Florida, West Virginia
West: Cincinnati, Houston, Louisville, Memphis, TCU, Tulane

CUSA
East: FAU, FIU, Marshall, Middle Tennessee, Southern Miss, UAB
West: Louisiana Tech, North Texas, Rice, SMU, Tulsa, UTEP

You have to remember the relationship between the football minority (3) and the nonfootball majority (6). WVU and Rutgers were not particularly well received by the old guard schools, the former due to academics and the later due to poor basketball. Neither school got a full invite until 1995 when an offer for a combined Big East football and basketball media deal necessitated it. While they were willing to rebuild for Pitt and Syracuse I'm not sure they do so for WVU etc.

If we consider for a moment that they would and that in order to keep growth as small as possible they keep Temple football they need 4 more so we are looking at probably USF, Cincy, Louisville, and Memphis. Big East football stays strong even if it is with strange bedfellows.

Truthfully I don't think they lift a finger and force the football schools to either play independent schedules or leave and then they restock with Catholic basketball schools from C-USA.

Fair enough, but what you describe in the second paragraph is almost the same as what I did. The only difference is that you're keeping Temple as a football-only, while I replaced them with football-only ECU. Temple was scheduled in 2001 to be booted out by 2004. I don't think the Owls could have been saved.

(04-18-2018 07:39 PM)Fighting Muskie Wrote:  Here is a wild thought: what if in the 2003-2004 alignment circus by the ACC that was originally targeting Miami, Syracuse, and BC that in turn became Miami, VT, and Syracuse, then just Miami and VT in hopes of luring Notre Dame until finally settling on BC if someone in that room said "let's be really forward thinking and add Syracuse and Pitt and then see if that's enough to lure Notre Dame and if it does we go to 16 but if not we've got a pretty solid group"

The Big East is then in a funny place. they've got the Catholic 5, Notre Dame, UConn, Rutgers, WVU, and Temple football. Would the first 6 be willing to rebuild a football league for their 3 football schools and a Temple program that was getting booted? Could those 4 find a home in C-USA? If they do that means UCF and Marshall stay in the MAC and Tulsa/Rice/SMU/UTEP stick with the WAC.

The end result is a much different landscape going into and beyond the 2010-2013 realignment.

This is a very interesting scenario because in my opinion, Syracuse was always the lynchpin. Without Syracuse, I'm not sure the Big East Catholic schools would have cared enough to stay. On the other hand, being enticed with adding basketball powers Louisville and Cincinnati may have convinced them to hang around at least for a while.

My gut is that they may have stuck together for a while and added Louisville, Cincinnati, Memphis, Marquette, DePaul, USF, and Houston and still dumped Temple. The problem is Notre Dame probably would have been looking around and if and when they decided to leave, I'm not sure the marriage would have stayed together.

(04-18-2018 10:03 AM)DavidSt Wrote:  

(04-17-2018 11:53 PM)IWokeUpLikeThis Wrote:  The MAC would be on Cloud 9 if Marshall ever wanted back in, imo.

The question to ask is how close Northern Michigan came to be in the mAC following their brothers of Central, Western and Eastern Michigan?

The MAC could actually close up their footprint as well by looking at Illinois State, Southern Illinois, Western Illinois, Indiana State, Milwaukee, Youngstown State, Niagara and looking at Stony Brook, Albany, New Hampshire and UMass.?

MAC could still have Wayne State Michigan and case Western Reserve if they stayed in D1.

I’m going to assume David has never been to the Upper Peninsula........

One hypothetical I've thought about a few times is if Oklahoma and Oklahoma A&M (State) never left the Southwest Conference to join the Missouri Valley (Big 6/7/8).

Without OU, does the split in the Missouri Valley Conference ever happen? I still think the larger schools would want to split, but I'm not sure if there'd be enough to form a new conference. Colorado could potentially have joined up with the PCC (Pac) or remained with the other front range schools in forming the WAC. Nebraska, Iowa State, Kansas, and Missouri could all have potentially joined what eventually became the Big 10.

Rice and Baylor were original members, and SMU and TCU joined the SWC pretty early, but I'm not sure Houston and Texas Tech ever get invited. Could the Southwest Conference have added LSU? Would the SWC have been able to survive the 90's if they still had the Oklahoma schools? It's still a Texas heavy conference with 6 teams, so I'm still not sure it survives. I think for the SWC to survive they'd have had to only have a max of 2 of the private schools, and then hope to snag LSU and maybe another state flagship or two like Kansas or even New Mexico.

(04-18-2018 02:35 PM)WesternSkillet Wrote:  

(04-17-2018 11:53 PM)IWokeUpLikeThis Wrote:  The MAC would be on Cloud 9 if Marshall ever wanted back in, imo.

They are one of four schools I'd like to see in the MAC. Drop 2-4 weak programs and add 2-4 of the following: Marshall, Umass, WKU, & MTSU.

I agree upon Marshall and WKU, disagree about UMASS and MTSU. I feel culturally UMASS and MTSU would be outliers. Otherwise if I can only have one in the MAC it would be Marshall hands down.

(04-19-2018 01:35 PM)The Grassy Nole Wrote:  

(04-18-2018 02:35 PM)WesternSkillet Wrote:  

(04-17-2018 11:53 PM)IWokeUpLikeThis Wrote:  The MAC would be on Cloud 9 if Marshall ever wanted back in, imo.

They are one of four schools I'd like to see in the MAC. Drop 2-4 weak programs and add 2-4 of the following: Marshall, Umass, WKU, & MTSU.

I agree upon Marshall and WKU, disagree about UMASS and MTSU. I feel culturally UMASS and MTSU would be outliers. Otherwise if I can only have one in the MAC it would be Marshall hands down.

I like the idea of Middle Tennessee St in the MAC with Western Kentucky because it adds a rivalry and solid athletic program. If the MAC could, I would drop Eastern Michigan and Akron then make a play for Marshall, Western Kentucky, Middle Tennessee St, and Old Dominion for 14.

North: Northern Illinois, Ball St, Western Michigan, Central Michigan, Toledo, Bowling Green St, Buffalo
South: Ohio, Miami OH, Kent St, Marshall, Old Dominion, Western Kentucky, Middle Tennessee St

(04-18-2018 10:09 PM)MKPitt Wrote:  

(04-18-2018 07:39 PM)Fighting Muskie Wrote:  Here is a wild thought: what if in the 2003-2004 alignment circus by the ACC that was originally targeting Miami, Syracuse, and BC that in turn became Miami, VT, and Syracuse, then just Miami and VT in hopes of luring Notre Dame until finally settling on BC if someone in that room said "let's be really forward thinking and add Syracuse and Pitt and then see if that's enough to lure Notre Dame and if it does we go to 16 but if not we've got a pretty solid group"

The Big East is then in a funny place. they've got the Catholic 5, Notre Dame, UConn, Rutgers, WVU, and Temple football. Would the first 6 be willing to rebuild a football league for their 3 football schools and a Temple program that was getting booted? Could those 4 find a home in C-USA? If they do that means UCF and Marshall stay in the MAC and Tulsa/Rice/SMU/UTEP stick with the WAC.

The end result is a much different landscape going into and beyond the 2010-2013 realignment.

This is a very interesting scenario because in my opinion, Syracuse was always the lynchpin. Without Syracuse, I'm not sure the Big East Catholic schools would have cared enough to stay. On the other hand, being enticed with adding basketball powers Louisville and Cincinnati may have convinced them to hang around at least for a while.

My gut is that they may have stuck together for a while and added Louisville, Cincinnati, Memphis, Marquette, DePaul, USF, and Houston and still dumped Temple. The problem is Notre Dame probably would have been looking around and if and when they decided to leave, I'm not sure the marriage would have stayed together.

I agree about Syracuse. They were definitely the school most firmly with a foot in both the basketball and football camps and I think that without them the Catholic 5 would have jettisoned football as keeping Rutgers, WVU, and UConn in the fold wasn't a life or death matter and some would welcome their departure. Recall the WVU and Rutgers were much more closely aligned with Penn St traditionally rather than the BE core. Sure adding basketball schools like Louisville, Cincy, and Memphis would help the basketball product but so would Marquette, DePaul, and St Louis and they are much better institutional fit. The football schools have the option to stay or go but I think they have no choice but to go as football independence was an increasingly unviable option.

If we look at the history of conferences? We could see in the early years of college sports? We have a lot of Independent schools for all sports who were not in a conference. Plus, we did have some lower level conferences now were power conferences in the old days.

Top of my head, these are the oldest conferences before the first split in 1937 when the NAIA formed. This is up to 1937.


Southern Conference
MVC
Southwest Conference
RMAC D2
Big 10
Lone Star Conference D2
KCAC now NAIA
PAC 12
SEC
Conference Carolinas D2
CIAA D2
MIAA D2
NSIC D2
SIAC D2
IAIC D3
Middle Atlantic Conference D3
MC D3
MIAC D3
Northwest Conference D3
OAC D3
SCIAC D3
WIAC D3
Big 6 went to Big 8
Border Conference
Dixie Conference number 1
IIC
IIAC
IAA of the Northwest Precursor to the Big 10.
Metro New York Conference
North Central Conference
NCAC
PCC forerunner of the PAC 12
WVIAC West Virginia and Marshall were members.
River States Conference NAIA
Arkansas Intercollegiate Conference defunct NAIA


What you see here was the conferences at the time. Most of the others have formed after the split. The ACC happened after this time since most of the ACC members were still part of the Southern Conference. Some of them are now defunct. The oldest conference would be the KCAC of the NAIA while it was named something else, Kansas and Kansas State played games against schools like Baker. The very first game in the conference was Baker defeating the Kansas Jayhawks in football. Imagine what it would be like today if FBS schools play NAIA schools and have Baker defeating Kansas in football today? Kansas would be even more of a laughing stock.

(04-19-2018 02:17 PM)BePcr07 Wrote:  

(04-19-2018 01:35 PM)The Grassy Nole Wrote:  

(04-18-2018 02:35 PM)WesternSkillet Wrote:  

(04-17-2018 11:53 PM)IWokeUpLikeThis Wrote:  The MAC would be on Cloud 9 if Marshall ever wanted back in, imo.

They are one of four schools I'd like to see in the MAC. Drop 2-4 weak programs and add 2-4 of the following: Marshall, Umass, WKU, & MTSU.

I agree upon Marshall and WKU, disagree about UMASS and MTSU. I feel culturally UMASS and MTSU would be outliers. Otherwise if I can only have one in the MAC it would be Marshall hands down.

I like the idea of Middle Tennessee St in the MAC with Western Kentucky because it adds a rivalry and solid athletic program. If the MAC could, I would drop Eastern Michigan and Akron then make a play for Marshall, Western Kentucky, Middle Tennessee St, and Old Dominion for 14.

North: Northern Illinois, Ball St, Western Michigan, Central Michigan, Toledo, Bowling Green St, Buffalo
South: Ohio, Miami OH, Kent St, Marshall, Old Dominion, Western Kentucky, Middle Tennessee St

Ditch Kent State instead of Akron. Then add JMU and YSU for 16.

East: Buffalo, JMU, Marshall, ODU
North: BGSU, CMU, Toledo, WMU
South: Akron, Miami, Ohio, YSU
West: Ball St, MTSU, NIU, WKU

(04-19-2018 11:12 AM)Phlipper33 Wrote:  One hypothetical I've thought about a few times is if Oklahoma and Oklahoma A&M (State) never left the Southwest Conference to join the Missouri Valley (Big 6/7/8).

Without OU, does the split in the Missouri Valley Conference ever happen? I still think the larger schools would want to split, but I'm not sure if there'd be enough to form a new conference. Colorado could potentially have joined up with the PCC (Pac) or remained with the other front range schools in forming the WAC. Nebraska, Iowa State, Kansas, and Missouri could all have potentially joined what eventually became the Big 10.

Rice and Baylor were original members, and SMU and TCU joined the SWC pretty early, but I'm not sure Houston and Texas Tech ever get invited. Could the Southwest Conference have added LSU? Would the SWC have been able to survive the 90's if they still had the Oklahoma schools? It's still a Texas heavy conference with 6 teams, so I'm still not sure it survives. I think for the SWC to survive they'd have had to only have a max of 2 of the private schools, and then hope to snag LSU and maybe another state flagship or two like Kansas or even New Mexico.

I think we contemplated this once before. Let's assume that 1928 is still a watershed year where the "big" schools can no longer stomach the "little" ones: Washington (StL), Grinnell, and Drake. The Big faction only would have 5 members and still be 19 years away from adding Colorado. I think that group might be too small to build a league from. I see members of that group lobbying the Big Ten and SWC for seats at the table. If they are unsuccessful in that endeavor they either look west 19 years sooner and go deeper then just adding the Buffaloes. The other option is looking East. I'm not sure what state the Cincy, Louisville, and Memphis programs were in in 1928 but they could round out a revised Big 8.

Regarding Houston and Texas Tech I'm guessing they get locked out of the SWC and have to make due in a tweener league--Tech likely becomes a WAC founder and maybe if Houston is in the mix the WAC gets a Lonestar component.

(04-19-2018 04:56 PM)Nerdlinger Wrote:  

(04-19-2018 02:17 PM)BePcr07 Wrote:  

(04-19-2018 01:35 PM)The Grassy Nole Wrote:  

(04-18-2018 02:35 PM)WesternSkillet Wrote:  

(04-17-2018 11:53 PM)IWokeUpLikeThis Wrote:  The MAC would be on Cloud 9 if Marshall ever wanted back in, imo.

They are one of four schools I'd like to see in the MAC. Drop 2-4 weak programs and add 2-4 of the following: Marshall, Umass, WKU, & MTSU.

I agree upon Marshall and WKU, disagree about UMASS and MTSU. I feel culturally UMASS and MTSU would be outliers. Otherwise if I can only have one in the MAC it would be Marshall hands down.

I like the idea of Middle Tennessee St in the MAC with Western Kentucky because it adds a rivalry and solid athletic program. If the MAC could, I would drop Eastern Michigan and Akron then make a play for Marshall, Western Kentucky, Middle Tennessee St, and Old Dominion for 14.

North: Northern Illinois, Ball St, Western Michigan, Central Michigan, Toledo, Bowling Green St, Buffalo
South: Ohio, Miami OH, Kent St, Marshall, Old Dominion, Western Kentucky, Middle Tennessee St

Ditch Kent State instead of Akron. Then add JMU and YSU for 16.

East: Buffalo, JMU, Marshall, ODU
North: BGSU, CMU, Toledo, WMU
South: Akron, Miami, Ohio, YSU
West: Ball St, MTSU, NIU, WKU

I wouldn't mind keeping all the current members and doing Marshall, ODU, WKU, and MTSU for 16.

(04-19-2018 05:12 PM)Fighting Muskie Wrote:  

(04-19-2018 04:56 PM)Nerdlinger Wrote:  

(04-19-2018 02:17 PM)BePcr07 Wrote:  

(04-19-2018 01:35 PM)The Grassy Nole Wrote:  

(04-18-2018 02:35 PM)WesternSkillet Wrote:  They are one of four schools I'd like to see in the MAC. Drop 2-4 weak programs and add 2-4 of the following: Marshall, Umass, WKU, & MTSU.

I agree upon Marshall and WKU, disagree about UMASS and MTSU. I feel culturally UMASS and MTSU would be outliers. Otherwise if I can only have one in the MAC it would be Marshall hands down.

I like the idea of Middle Tennessee St in the MAC with Western Kentucky because it adds a rivalry and solid athletic program. If the MAC could, I would drop Eastern Michigan and Akron then make a play for Marshall, Western Kentucky, Middle Tennessee St, and Old Dominion for 14.

North: Northern Illinois, Ball St, Western Michigan, Central Michigan, Toledo, Bowling Green St, Buffalo
South: Ohio, Miami OH, Kent St, Marshall, Old Dominion, Western Kentucky, Middle Tennessee St

Ditch Kent State instead of Akron. Then add JMU and YSU for 16.

East: Buffalo, JMU, Marshall, ODU
North: BGSU, CMU, Toledo, WMU
South: Akron, Miami, Ohio, YSU
West: Ball St, MTSU, NIU, WKU

I wouldn't mind keeping all the current members and doing Marshall, ODU, WKU, and MTSU for 16.

OK:

East: Akron, BGSU, Kent St, Toledo
North: Buffalo, CMU, EMU, WMU
South: Marshall, Miami, Ohio, ODU
West: Ball St, MTSU, NIU, WKU