(08-27-2023 01:33 PM)MUther Wrote:  

(08-26-2023 08:33 PM)APPdiesel Wrote:  

(08-26-2023 10:04 AM)Oldyeller Wrote:  

(08-26-2023 09:57 AM)APPdiesel Wrote:  I’m in Curaçao on my honeymoon and met two Ohio State grads both in their late 40s/early 50s and both of them hate the new pacific additions.

Congrats on the getting hitched! I hope she's still in bed! Ya'll just let my congrats suffice. He may respond.

we got married back in October, just now taking our honeymoon. Yesterday when I posted that was our last day. I’m on the runway in Miami trying to get back to Atlanta where our car is parked.

Ah geez..I was proud of you for getting married in the offseason. Now we find out you pulled the trigger right in the middle of football season and October is homecoming month most of the time. There will be conflict at some point with anniversaries and football. Good luck.

I did get married one a bye week AND we talked about it before we got married and I told her App doesn’t have a game on 10/14 for a few years (we’ll play ECU) and she said “let’s make a weekend out of it…Saturday for me and Sunday road trip out to the beach. She loves that idea.

My BB anniversary is in January thankfully, a good excuse to go somewhere warm.

However... I had to book out a surgical CE course that was only offered in September. And now I'm flying to Mexico on the day of the Marshall-VT game. dumb***.

(08-26-2023 07:52 AM)Michael in Raleigh Wrote:  I feel so lucky that App State is part of the Sun Belt as it is constructed today.

I am certain that, even as their universities rake in 9 digits in dollars that do NOT end up fans' personal bank accounts, there are plenty of B1G fans who don't love their massive expansions. More games against Maryland, Rutgers, and west coast schools means fewer games against schools which have helped fill their stadiums decade after decade. No one, obviously, envies the loss WSU and OrSt are dealing with. I for one think it is unfortunate what is becoming if the ACC. And the AAC seems filled with people who look down on the Sun Belt yet are clearly miserable where they are, desperate to get out.

Then there is the Sun Belt. Attendance is skyrocketing. Football performance is getting better every year. College GameDay is coming to our campuses when it had never done before. Attention is the highest it has ever been. We are playing teams we actually want to play. We love playing each other because, in a good way, we don't like each other. And the away games are easy to get to.

The rest of FBS is destroying itself, while we are just enjoying ourselves.

We also are able to be honest with who we are and be confident in it. We all know we are never getting into the SEC or B1G. And if any of us ever joined the ACC, Big 12, or even a reconstructed Pac, we would be joining an absolute shell of their former selves. Almost all of us have no interest in the AAC. Who would have honestly felt that way five years ago? We have done nothing but improve while that league has been knocked down and down and down. That league technically has the legal charter of a former true power league. Teams won national championships in basketball and football (Miami) under that charter. Now, the Sun Belt has risen to the point, as the AAC has fallen, to where many feel like we are better off here.

We have constructed a league that we want to be in. The Sun Belt got punched in the gut losing five teams 10 years ago. And now we are shining.

To be transparent, I felt lukewarm at best about the Sun Belt for the first several years. Sure, we were FBS, and we had Georgia Southern with us, but, I thought, what are we doing playing teams in Louisiana, much less New Mexico and Idaho? We were in the bottom of the barrel FBS league. My gosh, how has that changed.

Let's count our blessings as we have a league we really like while almost everyone else laments what they've lost or would rather have.

EDIT: I want to add that I do not at all feel the same way I once did about App being in the same league with the schools in Lousiana, Texas, etc. Time has allowed huge respect to build.

We are in the best region for football in both available talent and passion for the sport by people that live here. Not to mention the mass population growth and shift to the SE. Since the BCS era began college football is by far a SE U.S. sport with a few outliers. The MAC was founded in 1946 and they should have grown into a P5 but just over two decades and a joke conference said lets start playing football in 2001 (when Georgia Southern should have joined) and we passed them standing still. Barring realignment issues the MAC will be the same in 20 the next 20 after seeing it first hand if GS sees the changes it has in the last 20 years in the next we will be rolling with other schools in the Belt in the same position. The Belt is in a good position but we can still F it up if we don't take a proactive approach to realignment.

Life is better when you can accept your situation and make the best of it versus always looking up at what others have and living in fantasy that's where you belong.

(08-28-2023 09:53 AM)JCGSU Wrote:  

(08-26-2023 07:52 AM)Michael in Raleigh Wrote:  I feel so lucky that App State is part of the Sun Belt as it is constructed today.

I am certain that, even as their universities rake in 9 digits in dollars that do NOT end up fans' personal bank accounts, there are plenty of B1G fans who don't love their massive expansions. More games against Maryland, Rutgers, and west coast schools means fewer games against schools which have helped fill their stadiums decade after decade. No one, obviously, envies the loss WSU and OrSt are dealing with. I for one think it is unfortunate what is becoming if the ACC. And the AAC seems filled with people who look down on the Sun Belt yet are clearly miserable where they are, desperate to get out.

Then there is the Sun Belt. Attendance is skyrocketing. Football performance is getting better every year. College GameDay is coming to our campuses when it had never done before. Attention is the highest it has ever been. We are playing teams we actually want to play. We love playing each other because, in a good way, we don't like each other. And the away games are easy to get to.

The rest of FBS is destroying itself, while we are just enjoying ourselves.

We also are able to be honest with who we are and be confident in it. We all know we are never getting into the SEC or B1G. And if any of us ever joined the ACC, Big 12, or even a reconstructed Pac, we would be joining an absolute shell of their former selves. Almost all of us have no interest in the AAC. Who would have honestly felt that way five years ago? We have done nothing but improve while that league has been knocked down and down and down. That league technically has the legal charter of a former true power league. Teams won national championships in basketball and football (Miami) under that charter. Now, the Sun Belt has risen to the point, as the AAC has fallen, to where many feel like we are better off here.

We have constructed a league that we want to be in. The Sun Belt got punched in the gut losing five teams 10 years ago. And now we are shining.

To be transparent, I felt lukewarm at best about the Sun Belt for the first several years. Sure, we were FBS, and we had Georgia Southern with us, but, I thought, what are we doing playing teams in Louisiana, much less New Mexico and Idaho? We were in the bottom of the barrel FBS league. My gosh, how has that changed.

Let's count our blessings as we have a league we really like while almost everyone else laments what they've lost or would rather have.

EDIT: I want to add that I do not at all feel the same way I once did about App being in the same league with the schools in Lousiana, Texas, etc. Time has allowed huge respect to build.

We are in the best region for football in both available talent and passion for the sport by people that live here. Not to mention the mass population growth and shift to the SE. Since the BCS era began college football is by far a SE U.S. sport with a few outliers. The MAC was founded in 1946 and they should have grown into a P5 but just over two decades and a joke conference said lets start playing football in 2001 (when Georgia Southern should have joined) and we passed them standing still. Barring realignment issues the MAC will be the same in 20 the next 20 after seeing it first hand if GS sees the changes it has in the last 20 years in the next we will be rolling with other schools in the Belt in the same position. The Belt is in a good position but we can still F it up if we don't take a proactive approach to realignment.

Status quo IS being proactive. We have 14 teams in ten contiguous states. We do not NEED to add anyone. And, I would venture to say no one in this league is leaving (although you all just assume Texas State is going away.)

The SBC football conference is stacked with hard core life sentence prisoners carrying shanks, razors, and fists registered as deadly weapons. Think about it, most of us came up the hard way with over 100 years of football history. We have national titles earned on the field through playoffs. We have P5 wins over ranked opponents. Every opponent in this conference is dangerous!
Data from Winsipedia:
EAST
App - 654-352-28, .646
Coastal - 158-84-0, .653
GATA - 413-247-10, .624
GASU - 54-100, .351 (They're still newbs)
JMU - 358-223-4, .615 (data from wiki as not in winispedia)
Marshall - 623-563-47, .524
ODU - 128-108-4, .542

WEST
stAte - 490-518-37, .487
ULL - 559-570-34, .495
ULM - 323-454-8, .417
USA - 76-86-0, .469 (newbies)
USM - 614-453-27, .574
TSU - 526-494-26, .515
Troy - 566-426-28, .569

Only 5 teams do not have winning records and two of those are newbies. So what? You have to remember that for many years, we were scheduling up a division and scheduling tough road games to scratch our way in to FBS. Our path has been difficult.
The SBC has grit and that's why it's my favorite conference.