BTW, no one is mentioning Tarleton State. They do nothing but talk about moving to FBS. They are probably the most likely to join, as an all sports member, if CUSA goes to 10.

Why is there talk of a FB only member? Seems people are using the NMSU AD interview as the source, but I didn't hear him talk about a FB only addition.

Directly from the podcast verbatim:

NMSU AD Wrote:Hey, this is the question we are grappling with: Nine or ten? Here are the institutions that could be a tenth full member or football-only member and how do you see that affecting these negotiations?

This thread was intended to be for non-full members. I applaud the original poster for trying to practically look at potential candidates. Do I expect a 10th member that is either Football-Only or Non-Football any time soon? No. But it is worthy of discussion.

As for Tarleton, have you been to Stephenville? If you had, you wouldn't be bringing them up in spite of their clamor.

(02-07-2022 09:48 AM)SlyFox Wrote:  Directly from the podcast verbatim:

NMSU AD Wrote:Hey, this is the question we are grappling with: Nine or ten? Here are the institutions that could be a tenth full member or football-only member and how do you see that affecting these negotiations?

This thread was intended to be for non-full members. I applaud the original poster for trying to practically look at potential candidates. Do I expect a 10th member that is either Football-Only or Non-Football any time soon? No. But it is worthy of discussion.

As for Tarleton, have you been to Stephenville? If you had, you wouldn't be bringing them up in spite of their clamor.

SHSU, the reigning FCS champs, with an undefeated record, had about 5k attend their FCS tourney game. Their FCS natty was their first and only. And they were invited to CUSA. Tarleton is definitely in play. NDSU is definitely not in play.

Sam is located in what the federal government has designated as one of the highest growth corridors in the country. Stephenville, maybe someday. Stephenville HS often outdraws the college. TSU was D2 what seems like yesterday and never distinguished itself. They have little upside beyond spunk.

I get why an NMSU fan would want another West Texan team within driving distance to be #10. But come on, man.

(02-07-2022 09:48 AM)SlyFox Wrote:  Directly from the podcast verbatim:

NMSU AD Wrote:Hey, this is the question we are grappling with: Nine or ten? Here are the institutions that could be a tenth full member or football-only member and how do you see that affecting these negotiations?

This thread was intended to be for non-full members. I applaud the original poster for trying to practically look at potential candidates. Do I expect a 10th member that is either Football-Only or Non-Football any time soon? No. But it is worthy of discussion.

Exactly. Do I expect a 10th, football-only school to happen? No. As I said earlier, 9 is a terrific number for football. Ten would be a step down, even if that 10th team were an amazing addition competitively. You'd either skip a team each season (less than ideal, but workable with a CCG pairing the best two teams in the conference) or you'd lose an OOC slot each season, which would hurt revenues and (potentially) schedule strength.

A non-football addition would be far more likely, but even then, I don't think it would happen unless we were at an odd number (>10) and needed to round out the divisions for OLY sports.

A non-football addition merely to get to 10 would only make sense if it were a high-end basketball school (say, consistently top 75 in NET/KenPom rankings).

As Kickin' pointed out above, even FGCU doesn't currently move the needle under that metric. None of the other (realistic) non-football candidates come close.

What I *believe* will happen is that CUSA will hold fast at 9 teams for the time being. At some point, expansion will come. I have no idea how many teams they'll seek to add -- that will mostly come down to media/broadcast requirements and NCAA/CFP payouts -- but I believe the first couple of additions will be all-sports members.

This thread is just to discuss which non-all-sports candidates might be considered, if that were to happen. There are multiple threads already discussing the merits (or lack thereof) of the all-sports candidates.

(02-07-2022 10:18 AM)SlyFox Wrote:  Sam is located in what the federal government has designated as one of the highest growth corridors in the country. Stephenville, maybe someday. Stephenville HS often outdraws the college. TSU was D2 what seems like yesterday and never distinguished itself. They have little upside beyond spunk.

I get why an NMSU fan would want another West Texan team within driving distance to be #10. But come on, man.

Where did I say I "want" them? People live in fairly tale land and make things up and ignore credible sources such as Matt Brown.

Fair enough. Forgive my misinterpretation of you bringing them up.

For the record, you have no idea just how credible my sources are. Matt seems like a good guy and does a nice job. But he is not the only one in the loop.

(02-07-2022 12:49 PM)SlyFox Wrote:  Fair enough. Forgive my misinterpretation of you bringing them up.

For the record, you have no idea just how credible my sources are. Matt seems like a good guy and does a nice job. But he is not the only one in the loop.

I don't know you from Adam. You could have great sources. But Matt has been the one to break a lot of info. He has a newsletter. He is out in the open on social media. He jumps on the WAC board from time to time. From what I can tell, he has always been correct in his predictions. I trust him implicitly.

Matt makes a living breaking news. I make a living helping people stay out of the news where I spent over two decades working. Nothing wrong with trusting Matt.