(01-21-2022 10:11 PM)Fighting Muskie Wrote: The 16 team WAC could have worked out had they made one small change: Nevada instead of Tulsa
Here’s why:
You’ve got the Airport 5 who want to play together
You’ve got the 3 SWC teams who want to play together
You’ve got 3 CA teams that want to play together and a Hawaii school who only makes since with the CA schools
That leaves a pair of NV schools, UNM, and UTEP
By grouping the Airport 5 with the SWC 3 you’ve got an 8 team East Division that makes pretty much everyone happy.
The West Division gets you Hawaii, the legacy Big West schools, and the UTEP-UNM rivalry, and as I recall, in the desperate throws of trying to hold the league together I believe it was UNM who offered to go West.
you’ve got a history with no split and Big West football lives on for a few more years.
It does seem weird separating UTEP from the other Texas schools though. But if you don't, you probably have to separate Utah and BYU from Colorado State, Air Force, and Wyoming.
Tulsa still seems like an oddball add to the conference, maybe just as an "evener". Maybe they thought they were getting Houston before they chose Conference USA? Tulsa really never had top football. They are probably more well known for men's basketball, both former Kentucky coach Tubby Smith and Kansas coach Bill Self coached at Tulsa. I don't know if Nevada would have been a better add, they started 1-A football in 1992. Maybe they should have just made a 14 team conference and done two seven team conferences (East: TCU, SMU, Rice, UTEP, New Mexico, Colorado State, Air Force; West: Wyoming, BYU, Utah, UNLV, Fresno State, San Diego State, Hawaii).
Maybe the WAC-Texas experiment was the big failure after all. Houston had the right idea going East instead of West and eventually TCU, SMU, and Rice all joined Conference USA. Eventually TCU and Houston have/will be in the Big 12 while SMU and Rice have/will be in the AAC (which is essentially the new C-USA). What if instead of the WAC being the superconference Conference USA was with them adding the four Texas schools and a 16th school (Tulsa)? Then the WAC would be a more manageable 12 with Hawaii, San Diego State, Fresno State, San Jose State, New Mexico State, and UTEP in a South Division and Utah, BYU, Colorado State, Air Force, Wyoming, and UNLV in a North Division. Maybe instead of the Metro and Great Midwest merging its the Metro and Southwest Conferences with the Great Midwest separate and then the Great Midwest and Southwest/Metro merge after the Big East raids the Great Midwest (eventually all four original Big 12 teams left out were in Conference USA at some point).
Between the Metro, Great Midwest, and Southwest, we could have had:
Southwest: TCU, SMU, Houston, Rice, Tulane, Southern Miss, UAB, South Florida
Great Midwest: Cincinnati, Dayton, DePaul, Marquette, St. Louis, Louisville, Memphis, Virginia Tech, Virginia Commonwealth, Charlotte
Memphis could have joined the Southwest but that would separate Louisville and Memphis (although they were separated after Memphis left the Metro for the Great Midwest and Louisville stayed). Tulsa is also a possible add. Back then Central Florida was in the Trans America Athletic Conference (now Atlantic Sun).