(07-02-2020 12:33 PM)Fighting Muskie Wrote:  What was Louisville’s beef with ECU football? It’s not like they were horrible in the early 90s.

Question of the ages, but I think you could expand that and ask what the Big East's problem with ECU football was as well, since ECU was really playing a Big East-lite schedule back in the day. If the answer for the BEF question was academics, politics, and recruiting advantages, I'd wager those were the same reasons as UL's when it came to CUSA?

And mind you, I may understand ECU not getting favorable looks for full membership to CUSA when its basketball was so bad. ECU football alone anywhere back then...yeah, that wasn't right. Probably one of the best programs along the Atlantic for a brief time there...and maybe that was the problem...a lot of jealousy.

(07-02-2020 12:40 PM)Attackcoog Wrote:  

(07-02-2020 12:02 PM)bullet Wrote:  

(07-01-2020 09:35 PM)Attackcoog Wrote:  

(07-01-2020 09:23 PM)bullet Wrote:  The merger was an afterthought. They formed the football conference first. Tulane, Houston, Louisville, Cincinnati, Memphis, Southern Miss. Then they added the basketball schools.

The goal was to take the best of both and create a better basketball conference they hoped could rival the Big East. They also wanted the new conference to offer a place for the schools to park their FBS teams since the Metro didnt offer football. Pretty sure that basketball actually started first, beginning play in 1995. Football didnt begin until 1996 when Houston arrived. While Houston was a founding member, it was committed to the SWC until the end of the 1995-1996 season, so the conference only had 5 football playing members in 1995, which was one short of the 6 they needed for an FBS conference. They had several non-football members in addition to the 5 football playing schools---so the olympic sports side of CUSA was able to crank up in 1995.

Basketball "play" started first since Houston was still in the SWC until 1996. But football was organized first in 1994. As they moved further along in the planning, they added the basketball schools to the plan.

Non-football schools were part of the original plan. The way I understand it, the merger plan actually began in 1992---well before anyone knew the SWC collapse was imminent. Houston wasnt even part of the plan---they basically just fell in their laps when the SWC went down in early 1994.

There may have been plans of that, but that was not what was first agreed.

Houston Chronicle Feb. 26, 1994 "The University of Houston is not interested in becoming a part of a revised Southwest Conference as it is being conceived, UH Athletic Director Bill Carr said Friday..."

Houston Chronicle September 23, 1994 "UH president James Pickering said Thursday the school has agreed "in principle" to form an all-sports conference with Louisville, Memphis, Tulane, Southern Mississippi and Cincinnati.

Presidents of the six schools who attended a four-hour meeting at an Atlanta airport hotel, <the first airport meeting!> said the universities could form a conference just among themselves or add several schools from the remnants of the Metro and Great Midwest Conferences...."

"According to Louisville president Donald Smith, Houston was the last piece of the puzzle. The other five schools had agreed they wanted to form a conference but needed to persuade UH to join so they could meet the NCAA conference requirement of six members.

"The driving force was Houston coming in together with us," Swain said....

Dick Schultz...began to pitch a plan on behalf of the Metro Conference calling for a merger of the Metro and Great Midwest conferences and UH. Schultz was hired as a consultant by the Metro to study the feasibility of a 15 or 16 team conference.

But Neinas all but shot it down.

"It's a possibility, but I don't know that it would be a priority," Neinas said. "Sometimes more is less."

"Nothing was eliminated. We really haven't plotted any course beyond today...."

<I have a box with the newspapers documenting the demise of the SWC>

Which confirms that the planning had already started, and had stalled for the lack of a suitable sixth football school (as required back then and still required for FCS), until the collapse of the SWC and the Texas state politics that took Houston's Big12 spot and gave it to Baylor instead dropped Houston in their laps.

(07-02-2020 03:25 PM)bullet Wrote:  

(07-02-2020 12:40 PM)Attackcoog Wrote:  

(07-02-2020 12:02 PM)bullet Wrote:  

(07-01-2020 09:35 PM)Attackcoog Wrote:  

(07-01-2020 09:23 PM)bullet Wrote:  The merger was an afterthought. They formed the football conference first. Tulane, Houston, Louisville, Cincinnati, Memphis, Southern Miss. Then they added the basketball schools.

The goal was to take the best of both and create a better basketball conference they hoped could rival the Big East. They also wanted the new conference to offer a place for the schools to park their FBS teams since the Metro didnt offer football. Pretty sure that basketball actually started first, beginning play in 1995. Football didnt begin until 1996 when Houston arrived. While Houston was a founding member, it was committed to the SWC until the end of the 1995-1996 season, so the conference only had 5 football playing members in 1995, which was one short of the 6 they needed for an FBS conference. They had several non-football members in addition to the 5 football playing schools---so the olympic sports side of CUSA was able to crank up in 1995.

Basketball "play" started first since Houston was still in the SWC until 1996. But football was organized first in 1994. As they moved further along in the planning, they added the basketball schools to the plan.

Non-football schools were part of the original plan. The way I understand it, the merger plan actually began in 1992---well before anyone knew the SWC collapse was imminent. Houston wasnt even part of the plan---they basically just fell in their laps when the SWC went down in early 1994.

There may have been plans of that, but that was not what was first agreed.

Houston Chronicle Feb. 26, 1994 "The University of Houston is not interested in becoming a part of a revised Southwest Conference as it is being conceived, UH Athletic Director Bill Carr said Friday..."

Houston Chronicle September 23, 1994 "UH president James Pickering said Thursday the school has agreed "in principle" to form an all-sports conference with Louisville, Memphis, Tulane, Southern Mississippi and Cincinnati.

Presidents of the six schools who attended a four-hour meeting at an Atlanta airport hotel, <the first airport meeting!> said the universities could form a conference just among themselves or add several schools from the remnants of the Metro and Great Midwest Conferences...."

"According to Louisville president Donald Smith, Houston was the last piece of the puzzle. The other five schools had agreed they wanted to form a conference but needed to persuade UH to join so they could meet the NCAA conference requirement of six members.

"The driving force was Houston coming in together with us," Swain said....

Dick Schultz...began to pitch a plan on behalf of the Metro Conference calling for a merger of the Metro and Great Midwest conferences and UH. Schultz was hired as a consultant by the Metro to study the feasibility of a 15 or 16 team conference.

But Neinas all but shot it down.

"It's a possibility, but I don't know that it would be a priority," Neinas said. "Sometimes more is less."

"Nothing was eliminated. We really haven't plotted any course beyond today...."

<I have a box with the newspapers documenting the demise of the SWC>

To be fair, on Febuary 26th of 1994, the news that Texas and Texas A&M were leaving for the Big-8 wasnt even official yet. In fact, up until a few weeks prior to that, UH, Rice, SMU, and TCU all were under the impression that they were still negotiating the terms under which the entire SWC and the entire Big-8 would merge. There was meeting of all the schools in late December of 1993 where they discussed what the requirements and athletic budget requirements that would be met for inclusion. In Fed in 1994---I assure you----there was no "revised SWC" that had been "conceived" at that time. It didnt even become official until March of 1994---and even then it wouldnt actually occur until 1996. The stunned SWC orphans had barely sorted through the rumors in late Feb---so there certainly was no "conceived" plan for a new SWC. I suspect that was more posturing to hopefully whip up political help for inclusion than anything else.

(07-02-2020 04:13 PM)Attackcoog Wrote:  

(07-02-2020 03:25 PM)bullet Wrote:  

(07-02-2020 12:40 PM)Attackcoog Wrote:  

(07-02-2020 12:02 PM)bullet Wrote:  

(07-01-2020 09:35 PM)Attackcoog Wrote:  The goal was to take the best of both and create a better basketball conference they hoped could rival the Big East. They also wanted the new conference to offer a place for the schools to park their FBS teams since the Metro didnt offer football. Pretty sure that basketball actually started first, beginning play in 1995. Football didnt begin until 1996 when Houston arrived. While Houston was a founding member, it was committed to the SWC until the end of the 1995-1996 season, so the conference only had 5 football playing members in 1995, which was one short of the 6 they needed for an FBS conference. They had several non-football members in addition to the 5 football playing schools---so the olympic sports side of CUSA was able to crank up in 1995.

Basketball "play" started first since Houston was still in the SWC until 1996. But football was organized first in 1994. As they moved further along in the planning, they added the basketball schools to the plan.

Non-football schools were part of the original plan. The way I understand it, the merger plan actually began in 1992---well before anyone knew the SWC collapse was imminent. Houston wasnt even part of the plan---they basically just fell in their laps when the SWC went down in early 1994.

There may have been plans of that, but that was not what was first agreed.

Houston Chronicle Feb. 26, 1994 "The University of Houston is not interested in becoming a part of a revised Southwest Conference as it is being conceived, UH Athletic Director Bill Carr said Friday..."

Houston Chronicle September 23, 1994 "UH president James Pickering said Thursday the school has agreed "in principle" to form an all-sports conference with Louisville, Memphis, Tulane, Southern Mississippi and Cincinnati.

Presidents of the six schools who attended a four-hour meeting at an Atlanta airport hotel, <the first airport meeting!> said the universities could form a conference just among themselves or add several schools from the remnants of the Metro and Great Midwest Conferences...."

"According to Louisville president Donald Smith, Houston was the last piece of the puzzle. The other five schools had agreed they wanted to form a conference but needed to persuade UH to join so they could meet the NCAA conference requirement of six members.

"The driving force was Houston coming in together with us," Swain said....

Dick Schultz...began to pitch a plan on behalf of the Metro Conference calling for a merger of the Metro and Great Midwest conferences and UH. Schultz was hired as a consultant by the Metro to study the feasibility of a 15 or 16 team conference.

But Neinas all but shot it down.

"It's a possibility, but I don't know that it would be a priority," Neinas said. "Sometimes more is less."

"Nothing was eliminated. We really haven't plotted any course beyond today...."

<I have a box with the newspapers documenting the demise of the SWC>

To be fair, on Febuary 26th of 1994, the news that Texas and Texas A&M were leaving for the Big-8 wasnt even official yet. In fact, up until a few weeks prior to that, UH, Rice, SMU, and TCU all were under the impression that they were still negotiating the terms under which the entire SWC and the entire Big-8 would merge. There was meeting of all the schools in late December of 1993 where they discussed what the requirements and athletic budget requirements that would be met for inclusion. In Fed in 1994---I assure you----there was no "revised SWC" that had been "conceived" at that time. It didnt even become official until March of 1994---and even then it wouldnt actually occur until 1996. The stunned SWC orphans had barely sorted through the rumors in late Feb---so there certainly was no "conceived" plan for a new SWC. I suspect that was more posturing to hopefully whip up political help for inclusion than anything else.

I guess you can't admit when you are wrong. The creation of the Big 12 was announced on Monday, February 21, 1994. Frontpage headline in the Chronicle the next day was "Four SWC schools invited to join Big Eight"

The revised SWC they were talking about in the article was one with SMU, TCU, Rice, Houston and additional schools. Houston didn't even go to the meeting.

(07-02-2020 03:36 PM)BruceMcF Wrote:  Which confirms that the planning had already started, and had stalled for the lack of a suitable sixth football school (as required back then and still required for FCS), until the collapse of the SWC and the Texas state politics that took Houston's Big12 spot and gave it to Baylor instead dropped Houston in their laps.

You kind of have it backwards. There were discussions. There were also discussions before the Big East formed about a 16 team Metro Conference with football. There were also discussions of some combination of Tulane, Louisville, Memphis and Tulsa joining the SWC before the 4 left for the Big 12.

But when they had UH, they started from there (a six team conference) and then figured out the rest. They eventually added 6 extra schools, not the full 10 that had been discussed.

And Baylor didn't take any spot from Houston. It was Texas joining Big 8 schools and A&M joining SEC. Tech's and Baylor's influence made it a Big 12. Houston was never #12. In fact, the UT president said in UT's evaluation, the next best choice was TCU.

(07-02-2020 10:43 AM)The Cutter of Bish Wrote:  

(07-02-2020 09:54 AM)esayem Wrote:  Can anybody really say Louisville was wrong to oppose Army? Looking back on the results, I think they knew it was not a good idea at the time.

SMU should have been admitted with TCU, like originally planned.

The lore goes it wasn't Army they were truly against, but expansion with ECU, and that Army got stuck in the middle. And UL would have to recognize that in their eventual home, the Big East, that Navy and Army were chasers for the conference, because they were schools that the old guard had wanted and worked with in the past.

From the lens of Memphis and ECU fans, UL played politics as well as anyone could. You could resist ECU in either CUSA or the Big East because they were and are so god awful in basketball in a state where it flourishes, and then use the academics to keep their football down as well. When you get to the Big East, you could kick Memphis down with their inconsistent and sometimes lousy football, and, again, use academics to withstand their basketball. Only in CUSA did UL not have the pull. It got much easier to find willing ears when they moved on and up to the Big East.

This is true, notwithstanding the fact that ECU's academics are in the same ball park as UL's per USNWR. It should be noted however that what really got ECU in C-USA 1.0 was the fact that ECU won the Liberty Bowl coalition (the precursor to C-USA: ECU, Tulane, USM, Memphis, Cincy, & Louisville) during both years of its existence ('94 & '95) & thus represented that group in consecutive Liberty bowls including a victory over Stanford & a No. 23 national ranking to end the '95 season. Couple that with the fact that Liberty Bowl officials stated in 1996 that they would possibly take ECU over the inaugural C-USA champion really sealed the deal for the Pirates inclusion in '97. ECU actually went 8-3 in '96 including wins over South Carolina, UCF, #12 Miami, Memphis, & NCSU. Nevertheless the Liberty Bowl ultimately decided to go with Houston (7-4) to honor the C-USA champion but it was obviously a concern to the league that the Liberty Bowl took that position and arguably the true catalyst for ECU's inclusion in '97. The 1991-92 season & the No. 9 national ranking for ECU a few years earlier didn't hurt either.

As an ECU fan it has always bothered me that C-USA didn't just go ahead and form in '94 as opposed to a quasi-conference coalition. If C-USA had gone forward with the original 6 teams that were in the coalition in '94 then ECU would have left C-USA with 5 total football championships instead of just 2 (ECU also finished 2nd more than a handful of times). A lot of ECU fans blame UL for the conference not coming together sooner and for ECU having to wait until year 2 to join but we really need to be thankful to the Liberty Bowl for bolstering our position at that time. Otherwise we might not even be in the AAC at this time in all honesty.

(07-02-2020 03:25 PM)bullet Wrote:  There may have been plans of that, but that was not what was first agreed.

Houston Chronicle Feb. 26, 1994 "The University of Houston is not interested in becoming a part of a revised Southwest Conference as it is being conceived, UH Athletic Director Bill Carr said Friday..."

Houston Chronicle September 23, 1994 "UH president James Pickering said Thursday the school has agreed "in principle" to form an all-sports conference with Louisville, Memphis, Tulane, Southern Mississippi and Cincinnati.

Presidents of the six schools who attended a four-hour meeting at an Atlanta airport hotel, <the first airport meeting!> said the universities could form a conference just among themselves or add several schools from the remnants of the Metro and Great Midwest Conferences...."

"According to Louisville president Donald Smith, Houston was the last piece of the puzzle. The other five schools had agreed they wanted to form a conference but needed to persuade UH to join so they could meet the NCAA conference requirement of six members.

"The driving force was Houston coming in together with us," Swain said....

Dick Schultz...began to pitch a plan on behalf of the Metro Conference calling for a merger of the Metro and Great Midwest conferences and UH. Schultz was hired as a consultant by the Metro to study the feasibility of a 15 or 16 team conference.

But Neinas all but shot it down.

"It's a possibility, but I don't know that it would be a priority," Neinas said. "Sometimes more is less."

"Nothing was eliminated. We really haven't plotted any course beyond today...."

<I have a box with the newspapers documenting the demise of the SWC>

The MWC airport meeting is basically the Christopher Columbus of airport meetings. Credit for being the mythical first.

(07-02-2020 05:33 PM)B easy Wrote:  As an ECU fan it has always bothered me that C-USA didn't just go ahead and form in '94 as opposed to a quasi-conference coalition. If C-USA had gone forward with the original 6 teams that were in the coalition in '94 then ECU would have left C-USA with 5 total football championships instead of just 2 (ECU also finished 2nd more than a handful of times). A lot of ECU fans blame UL for the conference not coming together sooner and for ECU having to wait until year 2 to join but we really need to be thankful to the Liberty Bowl for bolstering our position at that time. Otherwise we might not even be in the AAC at this time in all honesty.

The Metro should have just added football in 1991 after FSU and S Carolina left. They might have been able to get VA Tech on board since they Big East was in its infancy and wasn't going to offer VA Tech an all sports slot. WVU might have even been an option since the Metro could have offered an all sports home. A shot could even have been taken at Miami. Also the Bowl Coalition hadn't been formed yet so the gap wasnt as wide. Not getting VA Tech wouldnt have been a deal breaker either ECU could have been a football only. The Midwestern basketball schools could have been added to increase the hoops prestige.

1991 Metro - Champion to Liberty Bowl
Cincinnati
Louisville
Memphis
USM
Tulane
ECU - Football Only
UAB* - Football developing
Marquette*
DePaul*
St. Louis*

That would have been a solid 9 team basketball league with room for Va Tech and WVU if they would like. At the very least it would have given VA VA Tech and WVU leverage to get their all sports membership to the Big East much sooner.

(07-02-2020 06:58 PM)IWokeUpLikeThis Wrote:  

(07-02-2020 03:25 PM)bullet Wrote:  There may have been plans of that, but that was not what was first agreed.

Houston Chronicle Feb. 26, 1994 "The University of Houston is not interested in becoming a part of a revised Southwest Conference as it is being conceived, UH Athletic Director Bill Carr said Friday..."

Houston Chronicle September 23, 1994 "UH president James Pickering said Thursday the school has agreed "in principle" to form an all-sports conference with Louisville, Memphis, Tulane, Southern Mississippi and Cincinnati.

Presidents of the six schools who attended a four-hour meeting at an Atlanta airport hotel, <the first airport meeting!> said the universities could form a conference just among themselves or add several schools from the remnants of the Metro and Great Midwest Conferences...."

"According to Louisville president Donald Smith, Houston was the last piece of the puzzle. The other five schools had agreed they wanted to form a conference but needed to persuade UH to join so they could meet the NCAA conference requirement of six members.

"The driving force was Houston coming in together with us," Swain said....

Dick Schultz...began to pitch a plan on behalf of the Metro Conference calling for a merger of the Metro and Great Midwest conferences and UH. Schultz was hired as a consultant by the Metro to study the feasibility of a 15 or 16 team conference.

But Neinas all but shot it down.

"It's a possibility, but I don't know that it would be a priority," Neinas said. "Sometimes more is less."

"Nothing was eliminated. We really haven't plotted any course beyond today...."

<I have a box with the newspapers documenting the demise of the SWC>

The MWC airport meeting is basically the Christopher Columbus of airport meetings. Credit for being the mythical first.

So the CUSA airport meeting is... the Lief Erikson?

(07-02-2020 04:37 PM)bullet Wrote:  

(07-02-2020 04:13 PM)Attackcoog Wrote:  

(07-02-2020 03:25 PM)bullet Wrote:  

(07-02-2020 12:40 PM)Attackcoog Wrote:  

(07-02-2020 12:02 PM)bullet Wrote:  Basketball "play" started first since Houston was still in the SWC until 1996. But football was organized first in 1994. As they moved further along in the planning, they added the basketball schools to the plan.

Non-football schools were part of the original plan. The way I understand it, the merger plan actually began in 1992---well before anyone knew the SWC collapse was imminent. Houston wasnt even part of the plan---they basically just fell in their laps when the SWC went down in early 1994.

There may have been plans of that, but that was not what was first agreed.

Houston Chronicle Feb. 26, 1994 "The University of Houston is not interested in becoming a part of a revised Southwest Conference as it is being conceived, UH Athletic Director Bill Carr said Friday..."

Houston Chronicle September 23, 1994 "UH president James Pickering said Thursday the school has agreed "in principle" to form an all-sports conference with Louisville, Memphis, Tulane, Southern Mississippi and Cincinnati.

Presidents of the six schools who attended a four-hour meeting at an Atlanta airport hotel, <the first airport meeting!> said the universities could form a conference just among themselves or add several schools from the remnants of the Metro and Great Midwest Conferences...."

"According to Louisville president Donald Smith, Houston was the last piece of the puzzle. The other five schools had agreed they wanted to form a conference but needed to persuade UH to join so they could meet the NCAA conference requirement of six members.

"The driving force was Houston coming in together with us," Swain said....

Dick Schultz...began to pitch a plan on behalf of the Metro Conference calling for a merger of the Metro and Great Midwest conferences and UH. Schultz was hired as a consultant by the Metro to study the feasibility of a 15 or 16 team conference.

But Neinas all but shot it down.

"It's a possibility, but I don't know that it would be a priority," Neinas said. "Sometimes more is less."

"Nothing was eliminated. We really haven't plotted any course beyond today...."

<I have a box with the newspapers documenting the demise of the SWC>

To be fair, on Febuary 26th of 1994, the news that Texas and Texas A&M were leaving for the Big-8 wasnt even official yet. In fact, up until a few weeks prior to that, UH, Rice, SMU, and TCU all were under the impression that they were still negotiating the terms under which the entire SWC and the entire Big-8 would merge. There was meeting of all the schools in late December of 1993 where they discussed what the requirements and athletic budget requirements that would be met for inclusion. In Fed in 1994---I assure you----there was no "revised SWC" that had been "conceived" at that time. It didnt even become official until March of 1994---and even then it wouldnt actually occur until 1996. The stunned SWC orphans had barely sorted through the rumors in late Feb---so there certainly was no "conceived" plan for a new SWC. I suspect that was more posturing to hopefully whip up political help for inclusion than anything else.

I guess you can't admit when you are wrong. The creation of the Big 12 was announced on Monday, February 21, 1994. Frontpage headline in the Chronicle the next day was "Four SWC schools invited to join Big Eight"

The revised SWC they were talking about in the article was one with SMU, TCU, Rice, Houston and additional schools. Houston didn't even go to the meeting.

OK---I went off an article that said they accepted the invites in March 1994.
http://interactives.dallasnews.com/2015/...niversary/

That said, my point remains the same---they didnt have some big "revised SWC plan" less than a week later. Steve Hatchell basically said he could never get the remaining teams to agree on who to invite, so the talks just kind fizzled out---which means there was never a plan. Ive always maintained that UH didnt have a lot of love for the 3 privates (the administration suspected they were behind the initiation of most of the NCAA investigations directed against SWC teams) and they felt that the school would be better served teaming up with other large public schools.

That said---I would say your real point is that Houston, who was still in the SWC and had some broad recognition for both football and basketball at that time, was the key catalyst that actually allowed those merger discussions to cross from talk to action in 1994. I have to admit, that's news to me as I was always been under the impression that we just kinda desperately globbed on to a train that was already well down the track. I mean---I knew we were welcomed, but I thought the merger that would create CUSA was a done deal long before we arrived on the scene. So, to that point, I think you've proven that my view of how that unfolded is incorrect.

When I was looking up this stuff I stumbled across this Oklahoman article that indicates the SWC looked at Tulane, Louisville, Memphis St, Tulsa, and Cincinnati when considering expansion after Arkansas left. lol...The SWC wasnt excited about any of those in 1993----but I thought it was interesting that four of those 5 were part of the group UH joined up with in 1996.

https://oklahoman.com/article/2449982/so...r-overhaul

When Jacoby became convinced in the past year that expansion was a must, SWC presidents told him to target only independents. He had 10 choices, which he narrowed to Tulane, Louisville, Memphis State, Tulsa and Cincinnati.

The SWC response: a yawn.

The athletic directors and presidents split over the viability of athletic programs and academic standing. They must come to some kind of agreement, Jacoby said.

Had Metro football become a thing in 1991 it would have looked a lot different. VT is still going to take fb only in the Big East over full membership in the Metro.

ECU probably ends up in the mix from the start.

The role of DePaul, Marquette, St Louis, Dayton, VCU, and UNCC ends up in question. USF and UAB were working on FBS football programs so they probably still get included.

(07-02-2020 09:49 PM)Fighting Muskie Wrote:  Had Metro football become a thing in 1991 it would have looked a lot different. VT is still going to take fb only in the Big East over full membership in the Metro.

ECU probably ends up in the mix from the start.

The role of DePaul, Marquette, St Louis, Dayton, VCU, and UNCC ends up in question. USF and UAB were working on FBS football programs so they probably still get included.

I think a hybrid Metro would have been a necessity as the core trio of Louisville, Memphis, and Cincinnati would have wanted to surround themselves with quality basketball schools to go with USM and Tulane. That's why the schools that ended up joining the Great Midwest make sense. UAB especially since football was going in 1991 beginning their 5 year process to 1A transition. This move creates a core geographic area for basketball while laying the foundation for a football conference.

I don't think VCU, Charlotte and USF would have been included as they didn't have football, USF didnt start any football until 1997 and wasnt 1A until 2001 and really didnt fit the footprint this new Metro would have established. These schools only got added because Cincy and Memphis left to form the Great Midwest. That should have never happened and thus VCU, Charlotte, and USF would not be included had Louisville been a team player with a bit of foresight. ECU may have been added if that 6th all sports member was necessary since Houston would not be available until 1995. If they could get by with them football only though they would have.

Either way 1991 should have been the birth of a hybrid Metro to be the Central/Southern counterpart to the hybrid Big East. If they had done before the Bowl Coalition they might have had a seat at the table and created a more stable future. Remember the SWC had a seat at the table initially and there were initially 7 Bowl games split between 5 conferences and Notre Dame. A 7th partner would have made sense with 7 bowl games.

Louisville realized this too late and when 1995 rolled around and the evolution to the Bowl Alliance was occurring there was no interest in giving the SWC slot to CUSA. Had they been up and running prior to SWC demise they may have had a better shot.