OMG. I didn’t know it was a “Judy” conference.
Conference Under Suicide Alert.
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Honestly, I would watch the La Tech/ULaLa/UL-Monroe matchups like it was Christmas Day…if they were all in the same conference. Can you imagine how awesome those battles would be? Waaaaaaay better than a Rice-UAB matchup.
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I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. Rice may be LOCATED in a large market, but it does not even come close to delivering that market.
I’ve never personally met a Rice grad that cared about Rice sports.
I only know of one that did, and I never personally met him.
The president of Western Kentucky says they’re in the midst of negotiating. Could this C-USA school be negotiating with the MAC?
“I know individuals in our community would like all the information that we have at hand, but that’s not really a helpful position to take when we’re in the midst of negotiations and conversations,” Caboni said.
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Tarleton ? This is their 1st season in FCS.(WAC)
Located in Stephensville, TX.-The Cowboy Capital Of The World.
(and Kevin Kolb and 4 state championships under Art Briles, etc)
https://twitter.com/petethamel/status/1451685076769587202?s=21
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Tarleton is not one I would have guessed. Sam Houston sorta is (but man that attendance…)
They should consider the existence of states that are not Texas. (They’re reportedly getting calls from all over.)
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Personally would rather see SHSU stay FCS. They have a good thing going. FBS is going to screw that up for them (see Southwest Texas State).
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SHSU is one of those schools that if they go FBS I start wondering what FCS is even for anymore because to me they are exemplars of FCS. (I don’t mean that in a bad way.) So yeah, I want them and SFA to stay put if at all possible.
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SHSU is going to need to add some seats to their stadium. I believe it only seats about 12K.
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Liberty is out. That’s gotta sting. (I’m not too surprised. Of all the not-entirely-voluntary indies, they’ve had the least difficulty with scheduling. Mostly I think because they’re willing and able to shell out a lot of money to get people to go to Lynchburg.)
https://twitter.com/Brett_McMurphy/status/1451668085572788231
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From the article
“Without Liberty, Conference USA could be hard-pressed to find enough new members to reach the required eight-school minimum needed to remain an FBS conference.”
I had it wrong as six in this post. That is going to be tough.
Waivers are automatic if you temporarily fall below 8. I think you get two years? The WAC had one when they fell to seven right before it completely fell apart. The Big East also had one during transition after Miami et al left.
If MT and WKU go, however, the NCAA might start looking for ways to pull the plug. I don’t know what that would look like, though.
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One thing I just realized… if Conference USA really does go under this could be the second time that Louisiana Tech has been there at the fall.
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Yes it’s two years, plus that clock starts in the 2023 season, so they have at least 4 years to regroup. Very doable. CUSA will stick around.
One more thing , the worst the NCAA would do is relegate the conference to a division they qualify for, such as a multi sport conference or a hybrid of FBS and FCS or something like that.
A multi sport conference only need six members sponsoring six men and six women sports.
As long as the conference has a member, the NCAA cannot kill it.
I really hope they take a step back and think bigger. Think about schools that people are less likely to object to making the elevation. Get some some interest from schools and use those to try to convince other schools with whom they have a working relationship. Maybe Missouri State can sell Northern Iowa. Maybe Jacksonville State has some ideas for other ASUN (or OVC) programs that have untapped potential (and interest). What about off-the-wall choices like VMI and Citadel?
I’m not advocating for any of these in particular (other than Missouri State seems like someone they should really be talking to), but think of building a conference rather than filling in holes.
Tarleton and McNeese are the opposite of that.
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Only reason to go FBS from FCS is your game guarantees jump up overnight
All that’s doing is giving more kids FBS dreams who are FCS players.
If all these folks jump surely the Power leagues will have the next chess piece or you wipe out fcs altogether and treat it like basketball
There was an interesting report from the University of Montana a while back that investigated moving up. Among the conclusions was that financially moving up more than paid for itself because;
- Guarantee games (like you say, the cost goes up overnight.
- FCS playoffs are a money-sink. You lose money and the further you get into the playoffs the more money you lose. Bowl games also mostly lose but there are only one.
- BCS payouts (This was marginal in their report, but with CFP is a much bigger deal).
- TV contracts and exposure: This was pretty marginal but it was not nothing (it defrays production costs). The exposure gap is less now than it was then, though.
It sounded like the financials supported the move. As did some other considerations. They ultimately chose not to, I assume due to (justified, it turned out) concerns about the WAC’s viability and they didn’t want to leave the Montana State rivalry behind (which, at that point, MSU was not invited).
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One other thing that I looked up last night… for all the schools making the jump from FCS to FBS, the two are about the same size (about 130 teams each). I believe that was the case 20 years ago, too. For every team that moves up, another FCS team starts or moves up from Division II. My impression was that at some point the FBS may just collapse… but it looks like it’s pretty strong.
Division II, on the other hand, is comparatively small at 85 teams. There are a whopping 250 teams in Division III. 95 NAIA teams. At some point the viability of D2 could become a concern, but 85 teams is plenty. I live in a D2 town, and there is a surprising amount of the same sort of conference intrigue you see at higher levels, so even down at the lower levels they take their relative positioning pretty seriously.
