(10-17-2019 01:58 PM)Attackcoog Wrote: (10-17-2019 11:58 AM)DustMyBroom Wrote: (10-16-2019 12:07 PM)Attackcoog Wrote: (10-16-2019 09:35 AM)Frank the Tank Wrote: (10-15-2019 03:03 PM)Attackcoog Wrote: Draggin his feet? He's made his request. He nor the conference has any business doing anything else until the NCAA makes a decision.
Yeah, I don't think Aresco is dragging his feet since it's the ball is in the NCAA's court at this point. My main issue with Aresco is his frequent habit of over-promising and under-delivering. His public comments about a waiver make it seem like a simple formality that is essentially guaranteed to get approved, whereas the stark reality is that the ACC was shot down just a couple of years ago for essentially what Aresco is asking for. I don't think he's being transparent with the fans. If anything, the public confidence that he's displaying by stating the AAC is stronger with just 11 football members could work against him. A hardship waiver is less likely to be granted if you're doing everything possible to claim that you don't actually have a hardship and are positioning what is supposed to be temporary waiver to actually be a permanent one in reality. IMHO, Aresco would have been better off stating, "UConn screwed us. We're scrambling for next year, so we need help from the NCAA to make us whole on such short notice."
Agree. I think getting a waiver is almost a sure thing for the AAC---just not the waiver Aresco really wants. I guess that confidence he is exuding is just bravado gone haywire.
As to his other talking points strategy---I think you have to consider that Aresco is fighting a PR battle on several fronts at the same time. The P6 narrative means he has to maintain the AAC remains strong without UConn. Running around saying the conference is in shambles without UConn might help with the NCAA, but it would hurt his P6 narrative--at a time when the on the field play is giving the P6 thing some traction in the computer conference rankings.
I’m quoting this quote train for one very important reason: it’s the one that finally discusses what is really going on here.
I can promise you the powers that be in the AAC are not overly concerned with the pet theories and pie-in-the-sky desires of message board warriors.
As it has been since the conference settled on the “P6” campaign as the best way forward, the AAC is concerned with how this looks. They aren’t concerned with geography or identity or this team or that team. When the time comes to add someone, they will simply pick from a shortlist that probably only saw minor changes with UConn leaving.
And that time will come, if for no other reason than because the pressure, both internal and external, to add a replacement will be immense. That replacement will be someone willing to accept the conditions of AAC membership. That tends to rule out programs looking for a stable, long term home or programs looking for something they can get in their current situation.
The discussion here about Air Force being unhappy suggests y’all know this already. But it’s that very situation which reveals the outer limit of the AAC’s reach: the MWC, despite its known issues, is stable because of its geography, and the AAC doesn’t have enough advantages to easily overcome that advantage.
Thus, the AAC has one real path forward, and that is tobuy as much time as possible in order to spin the events as favorably as possible. The add, when it comes, won’t look like a marriage of convenience or a conference rushing to add for the sake of easing pressure.
For this very same reason, Aresco must remain outwardly confident at all times. He can’t come across as panicking or even as laid back. He must appear calm and in control if his conference is going to gain positive PR from this.
Almost any school could possibly be on the AAC presidents’ shortlist. Rutgers to the B1G, Missouri to the SEC, Louisville to the ACC, and TCU to the Big 12 all tell us that nearly any add can be justified...provided the add comes at a time and place chosen by the conference.
Finally, don’t be fooled by the “we don’t want to upset other conferences” talking point. It’s a justification, and no more. The AAC clearly didn’t have the future of the MVC in mind when it poached Witchita State.
And I think that is the key. When the AAC see's someone who actually adds value to the conference--they will have no problem pulling the trigger. Its also the biggest reason there is no rush to add anyone right now---there simply is no compelling "value adding" choice available at the buffet of current options.
...I’m not sure you even bothered to read what I posted apart from the last paragraph. Your belief about the add shows just how effective positive PR spin can be.
Given that the Witchita State addition:
1. Did nothing at all to reinforce your conference’s football profile despite that being by far the most important sport in terms of income generation.
2. Effectively lowered your conference’s academics and research profile.
3. Expanded the footprint in a relatively non-productive manner, with little hope of further expansion in this direction likely to be fruitful.
What stands out about the add is that Witchita State was winning a lot of basketball games, other programs interested in moving to the AAC without football weren’t, and the conference wanted to strengthen its basketball profile. Even at the expense of the negatives listed above.
What else stands out about the add? The AAC powers that be knew about Witchita State right from the beginning of the conference’s existence. They still waited to add them. Why? Because, while the PR wouldn’t have been negative if they’d been invited earlier, the positive PR gained from the AAC being seen to strengthen basketball was clearly valuable, to the extent that few seem aware of any negatives to the add.
A quick word about “adding value”. This phrase has a different, mostly subjective meaning to most AAC posters than it does to just about everyone else on these forums. In those hands, it’s used as a bullying tool to declare yourselves better than others...despite the obvious fact that at least 65 teams in FBS clearly have it better than you do. I have no doubt in my mind that the learned men who are actually making these decisions for the AAC have a more objective meaning to the phrase in mind.
Speaking objectively, UConn football didn’t offer the AAC much. You could make a decent argument for many programs that they would be an improvement over UConn, clear down to the likes of Wisconsin-Whitewater, Mount Union, and Mary Hardin-Baylor. On the other hand, unless you plan to invite Gonzaga, no one is going to give you anything remotely like the brand value you had in UConn. That reality shapes what the AAC is going to do, truly, but it’s not as if the conference was ever likely to do otherwise in the first place. Basketball is, at best, one third the value of football. For most conferences, it’s substantially less valuable in relative terms than that. Therefore, the AAC really just needs someone with one third or better the football brand value of UConn’s basketball brand value. Long streaks of bowl eligibility, recent ten win seasons, wins over cartel opponents who finished with winning records...those candidates are available. It’s just a matter of the AAC picking one.
That just leaves the final and, from a PR perspective, most important dynamic: time. If you want to maintain that hard won separation that the league so clearly values, then poaching one of their best simply isn’t good enough. Instead, you have to poach after a seemingly long process of deliberation. Make it look like you are adding to better the conference, not like you are adding because you need a member, and that will truly help create the idea that separation (rather than merely continuation) exists in the minds of the masses.
In a very real way, time is, in its way, even more important to this addition than on field performance is, or even who the add is. In the short term it is, that is.