https://krod.com/conference-usa-and-sun-...-recovery/

Quote: He discussed different models that would turn C-USA and the Sun Belt into a super league. One of them featured an east division that would consist of Liberty, Appalachian State, Marshall, Middle Tennessee, Old Dominion, Western Kentucky, Charlotte, Coastal Carolina, Florida Atlantic, Florida International, Georgia State and Georgia Southern. Foote's western division would consist of UL, UL-Monroe, Louisiana Tech, South Alabama, USM, Troy, UAB, Arkansas State, New Mexico State, North Texas, Rice, Texas State, UTSA and UTEP. The interesting thing about the west schools is that it includes NMSU, currently an independent in football and member of the Western Athletic Conference in all other sports.

A longtime poster on Marshall’s board said something along these lines was being discussed too before the Louisiana AD, specifically that Liberty was involved.

I do not foresee a merger. Between the two leagues, including non football SB members Little Rock and UTA, there are 26 schools. I just don't buy 26 schools agreeing to have just one automatic bid to basketball and other sports' NCAA tournaments.

A scheduling alliance? Yes, that's probably what will happen quickly in the non revenue sports and perhaps in basketball. Football would take several years because non conference schedules are filled out so many years in advance. But I'll totally buy the idea of scheduling alliances as a precursor to a reshuffle.

(05-25-2020 11:46 PM)IWokeUpLikeThis Wrote:  

Quote: He discussed different models that would turn C-USA and the Sun Belt into a super league. One of them featured an east division that would consist of Liberty, Appalachian State, Marshall, Middle Tennessee, Old Dominion, Western Kentucky, Charlotte, Coastal Carolina, Florida Atlantic, Florida International, Georgia State and Georgia Southern. Foote's western division would consist of UL, UL-Monroe, Louisiana Tech, South Alabama, USM, Troy, UAB, Arkansas State, New Mexico State, North Texas, Rice, Texas State, UTSA and UTEP. The interesting thing about the west schools is that it includes NMSU, currently an independent in football and member of the Western Athletic Conference in all other sports.

A longtime poster on Marshall’s board said something along these lines was being discussed too before the Louisiana AD, specifically that Liberty was involved.

None of those schools nor any combination of them would turn CUSA and SB into a "super conference". If you mean a large and unmanageable conference that might be the result of such a merger.

(05-25-2020 11:56 PM)Michael in Raleigh Wrote:  I do not foresee a merger. Between the two leagues, including non football SB members Little Rock and UTA, there are 26 schools. I just don't buy 26 schools agreeing to have just one automatic bid to basketball and other sports' NCAA tournaments.

A scheduling alliance? Yes, that's probably what will happen quickly in the non revenue sports and perhaps in basketball. Football would take several years because non conference schedules are filled out so many years in advance. But I'll totally buy the idea of scheduling alliances as a precursor to a reshuffle.

It could start as a scheduling alliance, but the East and West Divisions could be designed to evolve into separate conferences with their own automatic bids.

The NCAA wouldn't stand in the way of that, if it is designed to cut travel expenses significantly. Not only that, but it would cut travel time for the student athletes, giving them more time to devote to their studies.

Seems we now have official smoke from multiple sources. Regardless, I certainly don’t see a merger. If anything were to happen--I would expect it to be more like a reorganization or reshuffling of the league. I suspect there could be some cooperation between the leagues on some things for cost cutting. For instance—officiating and perhaps even tv deals in the future.

The text here is just reporting on the existence of the speculation which has already been widely reported here. Is there anything in the audio which expands on the text?

You do still have schools that are still outliers. That article mentioned AAC schools as well and FCS conferences. I would point out some D2 schools like West Texas A&M and Central Oklahoma out as well.
West Texas A&M/UTEP as a pair to MWC

(05-25-2020 11:56 PM)Michael in Raleigh Wrote:  I do not foresee a merger. Between the two leagues, including non football SB members Little Rock and UTA, there are 26 schools. I just don't buy 26 schools agreeing to have just one automatic bid to basketball and other sports' NCAA tournaments.

That's right, it's a total of 26 schools for sports other than football. Throwing away an autobid would be nuts; they won't do that.

But if schools really wanted to, these two conferences could divide up into four regional groups and play "conference regular seasons" almost entirely within those groups, and then each conference could hold its separate conference tournament to preserve the two autobids and avoid officially moving schools between conferences. That would almost eliminate airplane trips for "conference regular season" games.

I still think they won't do anything like this. There are too many different agendas among 26 schools to make everyone happy. But it would be feasible.

I actually really hope that this pans out and they can make a permanent reorganization. The current footprints just don’t make any sense and there is a ton of unnecessary travel. Crap, with 26 FBS schools involved, find 4 FCS schools who want to move up (JMU ring a bell?) and split into 3 conferences of 10 to keeps things even more regional.

(05-26-2020 06:54 AM)Fighting Muskie Wrote:  I actually really hope that this pans out and they can make a permanent reorganization. The current footprints just don’t make any sense and there is a ton of unnecessary travel. Crap, with 26 FBS schools involved, find 4 FCS schools who want to move up (JMU ring a bell?) and split into 3 conferences of 10 to keeps things even more regional.

I like the 3 leagues of 10 idea but it's slim pickings after JMU/Delaware.

#1
Marshall, Delaware, Liberty, JMU, ODU, Charlotte, App St, NCA&T, CCU, Georgia So

#2
WKU, MTSU, USM, USA, UAB, Troy, Jax St, Georgia St, FAU, FIU

#3
ArkSt, UL, LT, ULM, UNT, TexSt, Rice, UTSA, UTEP, NMSU (+UALR/UTA = 12)


I think moving the 26+UALR/UTA into 2 leagues of 14 with 2 divisions of 7 is more likely.

Conference USA American
Marshall, JMU/Liberty, ODU, Charlotte, App St, CCU, GA Southern

Conference USA National
WKU, MTSU, UAB, Troy, Georgia St, FAU, FIU

Sun Belt East
USA, USM, Louisiana, LT, ULM, ArkSt (+UALR)

Sun Belt West
UNT, Texas St, Rice, UTSA, UTEP, NMSU (+UTA)

Temporary realignment outside football makes sense

https://247sports.com/college/arkansas-s...146066749/


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(05-25-2020 11:56 PM)Michael in Raleigh Wrote:  I do not foresee a merger. Between the two leagues, including non football SB members Little Rock and UTA, there are 26 schools. I just don't buy 26 schools agreeing to have just one automatic bid to basketball and other sports' NCAA tournaments.

A scheduling alliance? Yes, that's probably what will happen quickly in the non revenue sports and perhaps in basketball. Football would take several years because non conference schedules are filled out so many years in advance. But I'll totally buy the idea of scheduling alliances as a precursor to a reshuffle.

I just want to have more regional opponents, specifically USM.

What about this:

1. Reduce conference schedule to seven games.
2. Lock in two games a year in football versus the other conference and make it a geographic fit. That allows for one money game, one FCS and one non-conference G5 a year.
3. Realign the rest of the sports. Stop sending the volleyball, baseball and basketball teams halfway across the country on a weeknight.

For Arkansas State it would look something like this.

Football- Troy, ULL, ULM, Texas State, USA, Ga So, Coastal, USM, LT, Memphis, Auburn and UCA in a typical year.

Other Sports- Swap SBC East for CUSA West. Save money, help the athletes academically and create more opportunities for fans to attend games.

(05-26-2020 03:05 AM)Wedge Wrote:  

(05-25-2020 11:56 PM)Michael in Raleigh Wrote:  I do not foresee a merger. Between the two leagues, including non football SB members Little Rock and UTA, there are 26 schools. I just don't buy 26 schools agreeing to have just one automatic bid to basketball and other sports' NCAA tournaments.

That's right, it's a total of 26 schools for sports other than football. Throwing away an autobid would be nuts; they won't do that.

But if schools really wanted to, these two conferences could divide up into four regional groups and play "conference regular seasons" almost entirely within those groups, and then each conference could hold its separate conference tournament to preserve the two autobids and avoid officially moving schools between conferences. That would almost eliminate airplane trips for "conference regular season" games.

I still think they won't do anything like this. There are too many different agendas among 26 schools to make everyone happy. But it would be feasible.

Or they could keep two leagues with one league office. That would save money.

(05-26-2020 01:43 AM)Attackcoog Wrote:  Seems we now have official smoke from multiple sources. Regardless, I certainly don’t see a merger. If anything were to happen--I would expect it to be more like a reorganization or reshuffling of the league. I suspect there could be some cooperation between the leagues on some things for cost cutting. For instance—officiating and perhaps even tv deals in the future.

I think you are right. I can see a reshuffling of the leagues, future scheduling/bowl alliances, and working as one for a better TV agreement.

Merging and reorganizing would take every member school to be on board to make that happen. Instead, it would make more sense to just form two different scheduling alliances, an eastern-based one and a central-based one, and let individual schools decide whether to join them or not. Basically, if a school joins an alliance, they would still play their current conference schedule, but would be required to fill at least 75% of their non-conference schedule across all sports with other members of their alliance. The alliances would be open to all members of Division 1 from the FCS to the Power 5, but obviously would only include schools within a specific area. The Eastern Alliance would start with the footprint of CUSA East + Sun Belt East and the Central Alliance would start with the footprint of CUSA West + Sun Belt West. After each alliance hammers out their specific region, they can then open their membership up to any other D1 schools in their region who would be interested in a guaranteed short-distance OOC slate.

Outliers:
Marshall
FIU
FAU
UTEP
Arkansas State

You have outliers:
Missouri State
Youngstown State
UCA
Jacksonville State
North Alabama
Northern Iowa
Kennesaw State

(05-26-2020 02:45 AM)DavidSt Wrote:  You do still have schools that are still outliers. That article mentioned AAC schools as well and FCS conferences. I would point out some D2 schools like West Texas A&M and Central Oklahoma out as well.
West Texas A&M/UTEP as a pair to MWC

Are you willing to bet $100 that WTA&M isn't in the MWC by 2021? 2022? No conference is interested in them.

I would think adding new conferences that would require a new auto bid to the tournament would be a non-starter. You can do so but you have to wait years before you get one which makes it unfeasible for these groups of universities or you have to beg for an exception but I do not see any of the multi bid conferences/universities agreeing to that.

(05-26-2020 11:25 AM)DavidSt Wrote:  Outliers:
Marshall
FIU
FAU
UTEP
Arkansas State

You have outliers:
Missouri State
Youngstown State
UCA
Jacksonville State
North Alabama
Northern Iowa
Kennesaw State

Outliers? No. Also, UCA is not going to move to FBS.