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Conference Realignment


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1 hour ago, promotherobot said:

Who left out there? UCONN, UMASS, Temple, Army?, maybe a FCS school that wants to upgrade? URI or UNH?

Also have delaware, Fordham, Duquesne, rob morris, navy, Monmouth, Towson, old dominion. Even grab an Ohio or Akron as well 

The key would be getting a Pittsburgh, Rutgers, Syracuse, Boston college

Definitely a pipe dream but interesting to think about

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I copied this Atlantic article from a Rice board. Fyi

https://theathletic.com/news/conference-...pnDUSshSs/

One model is a CUSA-AAC merger and east-west split, which would actually be a great landing place for us. Don't see it happening, but interesting that people like Jim Delaney are proposing it instead of random bloggers and posters.


Full text below

On Tuesday, Conference USA sent a letter obtained by The Athletic to the American Athletic Conference requesting a dialogue on conference realignment and regionalization.

The idea would be to discuss potential reorganization between the two leagues, such as creating one conference in the east and one in the west. Various models have been discussed in C-USA, but there’s not one singular plan in place. An AAC league source said the conference has no interest in such a move, but C-USA is hoping simply to create more discussion among presidents. The source also indicated that AAC commissioner Mike Aresco is still focused on creating the top Group of 5 league and a push for Power 6 status.

The letter is from C-USA board chair and North Texas president Neal Smatresk and commissioner Judy MacLeod and is addressed to Tulane president Michael Fitts and Aresco.

“We believe that it would be beneficial to have a conversation about the future landscape of intercollegiate sports in this time of great national uncertainty,” the letter reads. “Our colleagues in Conference USA have spent a good deal of time over the past several weeks discussing the developments triggered by the latest wave of conference realignment. Rather than continuing to perpetuate the pattern of universities moving from conference to conference in pursuit of modest media revenues, we see an opportunity to develop a more sensible and sustainable conference model.”

Sports Illustrated first reported on the letter.

With the upcoming departure of Cincinnati, Houston and UCF from the AAC to the Big 12, conference realignment at the Group of 5 level has come to the forefront again. Two weeks ago, four Mountain West schools (Air Force, Boise State, Colorado State and San Diego State) turned down interest from the AAC, reaffirming commitment to the MW.

As a result, the AAC has turned its eyes back to schools in the league’s footprint, some of which are in C-USA. UAB is believed to have the most support among AAC stakeholders regarding potential additions, but a consensus on other schools hasn’t been reached, and a new timeline on future AAC expansion is not clear. The AAC and Conference USA both stretch from the Eastern Seabord to Texas, with overlapping members in many states.

At the conference level, the Sun Belt has no interest in such a move either, something many fans in the two leagues have desired. Both the AAC and Sun Belt believe they are better positioned than C-USA and don’t want to give up that advantage. Some athletic directors in those leagues see the appeal of such a move but believe factors such as conference exit fees, current television deals and local political clashing make such a move untenable.

“The first hope is people are at least willing to get together and talk,” MacLeod told The Athletic. “There’s so much uncertainty and so much we can’t control, but we believe there are better ways of doing things. I’ve heard some people that are very interested and others (aren’t). … I just feel like we’re perpetuating this model that doesn’t make a lot of sense. This isn’t a new idea, but I’m not sure there hasn’t been a better time to dive in and figure it out.”

Former Big Ten commissioner Jim Delany is working as a consultant for C-USA, but MacLeod said there was not a grand reorganization presentation Monday. Rather, it was a previously scheduled board meeting that continued regionalization talks that have been ongoing for a long time.

Several models have been drawn involving two conferences or three. One example of a two-conference model between AAC and C-USA members would include 12 teams in a western league and 10 in an eastern league with two potential additions. The west would include UTEP, North Texas, SMU, UTSA, Rice, Tulane, Tulsa, Louisiana Tech, Southern Miss, UAB, Memphis, and Wichita State, The eastern conference would feature Middle Tennessee, Western Kentucky, Marshall, East Carolina, Charlotte, Old Dominion, Temple, South Florida, FAU, FIU and the two potential open spots. But it’s just one example

(Photo of Tyler Johnston: Dale Zanine / USA Today)

What is the point of this?
Chris Vannini, national college football reporter: The idea of redrawing the maps in the Group of 5 has been around for years. The conversation always starts in C-USA because it’s the most geographically and financially disadvantaged conference, a result of poor decisions during the last round of realignment when it raided the Sun Belt and added schools like Old Dominion in hopes the media markets would lead to an increase in television rights. It did not, and travel increased.

At the conference level, the AAC and Sun Belt are not even considering this, because of the reasons mentioned above. But I don’t think this has been framed quite properly. After talking with people within C-USA, this isn’t C-USA begging the AAC for a swap for the sake of helping C-USA. The leaders in C-USA know the AAC won’t go for that. Instead, it’s trying to take these side discussions about regionalization to a higher level on the chain, and it’s appealing to the school presidents, the people who actually might understand the case C-USA is trying to make. And it’s not about making a move right now, but maybe five or 10 years down the road.

“I think presidents for a long time have been talking about, is our model sustainable?” MacLeod said.

Will this happen?
Vannini: Probably not, and certainly not anytime soon. Individual schools are always looking out for themselves, which is understandable, and trying to move up the food chain is always the goal. In this case, the AAC remains the most desirable landing spot for G5 schools east of the Rocky Mountains. Another key point specific to the AAC and C-USA: They’re both headquartered in Dallas. The AAC just recently moved from Providence. If one of them became an eastern conference, an HQ in Texas might not fit anyway.

But depending on what college sports look like coming out of the special constitutional convention, there may come a point down the road where the television revenue difference between the leagues is so indistinguishable that they consider reorganizing. That’s the conversation C-USA is trying to start. But whether or not anyone will listen is a different issue.

 

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This is completely hypothetical but with the talks for regionalization I was wondering if you guys thought this mock conference 1. made sense and 2. would be any better than the competition we currently play in the MAC. It would take backing from Independents and poaching from the AAC, SB, and CUSA for regionality but would consist of 

Buffalo      Old Dominion

Umass       Liberty

Army          East Carolina

Uconn        Charlotte

Temple       Appalachian St

Navy          Coastal Carolina     

Maybe call it the East Coast Conference? 

Thoughts?

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49 minutes ago, C1ubP1fanaticM7 said:

This is completely hypothetical but with the talks for regionalization I was wondering if you guys thought this mock conference 1. made sense and 2. would be any better than the competition we currently play in the MAC. It would take backing from Independents and poaching from the AAC, SB, and CUSA for regionality but would consist of 

Buffalo      Old Dominion

Umass       Liberty

Army          East Carolina

Uconn        Charlotte

Temple       Appalachian St

Navy          Coastal Carolina     

Maybe call it the East Coast Conference? 

Thoughts?

How do you do the Army - Navy game which is the week after all of the Conference Championship games?  They are not moving that game.

Army tried a conference and got out of it.

The East Coast Conference already exists.  Ask Daemen College about it.

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7 minutes ago, BrooklynBull said:

How do you do the Army - Navy game which is the week after all of the Conference Championship games?  They are not moving that game.

Army tried a conference and got out of it.

The East Coast Conference already exists.  Ask Daemen College about it.

Great points. Scratch Army and bring in Marshall? 

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8 hours ago, BrooklynBull said:

How do you do the Army - Navy game which is the week after all of the Conference Championship games?  They are not moving that game.

Army tried a conference and got out of it.

The East Coast Conference already exists.  Ask Daemen College about it.

Navy is in the AAC who plays their conference championship the same weekend as the MAC.

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9 hours ago, squire17 said:

Navy's basketball team is in the Patriot Conference according to its website.

I was basing it off of the map at the bottom of the link below. The map may have been done by football conference as football rules collegiate sports. 

The average net ranking in 2020 for this hypothetical league vs the MAC would be 138th vs 193rd. 
 

And the average football ranking in 2021 is 82nd vs 95th. 
 

So this league would absolutely be a step up in comparison to the MAC.

The issue would be that it’s a down grade for the schools moving from the AAC to this league. Regardless, I think it’s going to be very difficult for the AAC moving forward. They were the bridge between the mid majors and power 5 schools. With the NIL, the top schools will continue to get poached by the power 5. I could see the AAC disbanding in the intermediate future and this would provide a great opportunity for the lesser performing schools in the AAC, who weren’t given the opportunity to move up.  

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Group_of_Five_conferences

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After digging deeper, compiling the rankings of the last 5 completed seasons for both basketball and football, this conference wouldn’t give us the jump up that I was expecting. 
 

While the top end talent in this conference is superior, there is far too much disparity between the top half and the bottom half, causing the league to fair worse on average than that of the MAC

image.jpg

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2 hours ago, C1ubP1fanaticM7 said:

After digging deeper, compiling the rankings of the last 5 completed seasons for both basketball and football, this conference wouldn’t give us the jump up that I was expecting. 
 

While the top end talent in this conference is superior, there is far too much disparity between the top half and the bottom half, causing the league to fair worse on average than that of the MAC

image.jpg

Gotta print screen that or use the snipping tool, nobody can read that man.

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5 minutes ago, DaBulls99 said:

Those are horrible additions. An invitation for us does us no better, just farther travel. We good. 

If we don't want the American then what's the next step? We aren't getting a Big 10 invite directly from the MAC

Edited by Gxtrex
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9 hours ago, Gxtrex said:

If we don't want the American then what's the next step? We aren't getting a Big 10 invite directly from the MAC

Honestly don’t understand the obsession with the conference thing. Ideally would we love to compete for national championships with Ohio State and Alabama one day? Of course. But that isn’t the vision SUNY has for us. The MAC is by far the best fit. We’ve raised our stock tremendously over the last 7-10 years competitively in conference play. A lot of work still to do but let’s focus on what we need to do to improve ourselves where we are. Honestly nobody knows what college sports will look like in 50 years. We just need to put ourselves in a position to be considered if there are more massive changes. But unless you are one of 3-5 programs in the country your outlook really is the same. You’re gonna get out spent for coaches and everything else when one of the blue bloods wants something. Vanderbilt is in the SEC…kind of. But still widely considered one of the worst CFB programs in the country. 

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6 hours ago, DaBulls99 said:

Honestly don’t understand the obsession with the conference thing. Ideally would we love to compete for national championships with Ohio State and Alabama one day? Of course. But that isn’t the vision SUNY has for us. The MAC is by far the best fit. We’ve raised our stock tremendously over the last 7-10 years competitively in conference play. A lot of work still to do but let’s focus on what we need to do to improve ourselves where we are. Honestly nobody knows what college sports will look like in 50 years. We just need to put ourselves in a position to be considered if there are more massive changes. But unless you are one of 3-5 programs in the country your outlook really is the same. You’re gonna get out spent for coaches and everything else when one of the blue bloods wants something. Vanderbilt is in the SEC…kind of. But still widely considered one of the worst CFB programs in the country. 

I’m torn on this. Bc I agree from a football standpoint. But then look at what Cincy has done.  And we are knocking on the door of making deep runs when it comes to basketball. For example…had we beaten Kentucky a few years ago the way that bracket opened up we could’ve been in the Final 4.  We aren’t far off in basketball. So what I want is bigger and better facilities and consistent winners. Do that and the rest should follow. I don’t mind staying in the MAC and dominating but let’s upgrade UB.

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8 hours ago, DaBulls99 said:

Honestly don’t understand the obsession with the conference thing. Ideally would we love to compete for national championships with Ohio State and Alabama one day? Of course. But that isn’t the vision SUNY has for us. The MAC is by far the best fit. We’ve raised our stock tremendously over the last 7-10 years competitively in conference play. A lot of work still to do but let’s focus on what we need to do to improve ourselves where we are. Honestly nobody knows what college sports will look like in 50 years. We just need to put ourselves in a position to be considered if there are more massive changes. But unless you are one of 3-5 programs in the country your outlook really is the same. You’re gonna get out spent for coaches and everything else when one of the blue bloods wants something. Vanderbilt is in the SEC…kind of. But still widely considered one of the worst CFB programs in the country. 

The MAC is the MAC. A collection of secondary and tertiary schools, UB is the flagship public university for America's 4th most populous state. We should always be looking to move up and out. 

What really was a cold shot was how Buffalo was never even mentioned, not even as an outsider, to join the AAC. For cripes sake. Hillbilly schools like App State, Liberty and Georgia Southern get mentioned. Why is that? What do those schools have that we don't? Buffalo is in media market #57. We have an alumni base that stretches into metro NYC. Our teams have been ranked recently. Why are we ignored?

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Our goal should be to move up in conference.  We wont compete for a national championship, but we would have higher TV revenue, and playing big names on TV would help a lot with recruiting which would make us more relevant.  FBS is splitting between the "haves" and the have-nots." The MAC is clearly a have-not conference.  We are barely spoken about and our TV revenue/athletic expenditures show it.  You want bigger and better facilities?  A better conference would help pay for that.

As far as basketball, being in a multi bid conference would help us get quality conference opponents.  We are struggling to fill our OOC schedule because no one wants to play us.  We also would have a much easier time making the tournament than only by having to win the conference tournament. Recruiting would also be boosted just by being in a P5, as would basketball.  

I am surprised buffalo hasn't been mentioned at all either.  I hope we move up sooner rather then later or we will end up further behind.

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The reason I personally want to move to a different conference is it just raises the floor of the athletic department.

The number of G5 schools that have had sustained success in FBS football OR basketball is small.

The number of G5 schools that have had sustained success in FBS football AND basketball is smaller.

The number of G5 schools that have had sustained success in FBS football AND basketball on MAC exposure/budget/fan support is 0.

It's a nice theoretical to say let's just hang around the MAC and dominate until the end of time but UB isn't the first MAC school to have a string of successful seasons, and all of those other "dynasties" have since ended.  There are several things that lead to success, but recruiting is king.  Recruits are interested in fan support, facilities (budget), exposure, and success.  Obviously these things are all tied together, and moving to a better conference automatically raises the first three, and should in turn raise the fourth.  It takes one bad hire to torpedo UB's image of success in the mind of a 17 year old recruit and then we're left with really nothing exceptional in the fan support, facilities (budget), and exposure categories.

The issue for us is there's not really a strong group of regional G5 teams, with Temple and UMass pretty much being the only options without pushing further south.  I would have hoped we would have gotten in the AAC as there's really not much potential for UB to move up without P5 conferences completely blowing up, and us ending up in a completely new conference with the leftovers: Syracuse, Rutgers, Pittsburgh, BC, etc.

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2 hours ago, promotherobot said:

The MAC is the MAC. A collection of secondary and tertiary schools, UB is the flagship public university for America's 4th most populous state. We should always be looking to move up and out. 

What really was a cold shot was how Buffalo was never even mentioned, not even as an outsider, to join the AAC. For cripes sake. Hillbilly schools like App State, Liberty and Georgia Southern get mentioned. Why is that? What do those schools have that we don't? Buffalo is in media market #57. We have an alumni base that stretches into metro NYC. Our teams have been ranked recently. Why are we ignored?

It was not only Buffalo that was not mentioned.  Not one school in the conference was mentioned.  Out side of Navy I do not think there is one school in the conference that even comes close to UB Academically.  At least the MAC has Miami and Ohio.

As others have said we are better in a stable conference with a relatively small geographic footprint.  A move to the American, even with extra TV revenue would have cost UB money.

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2 hours ago, promotherobot said:

The MAC is the MAC. A collection of secondary and tertiary schools, UB is the flagship public university for America's 4th most populous state. We should always be looking to move up and out. 

What really was a cold shot was how Buffalo was never even mentioned, not even as an outsider, to join the AAC. For cripes sake. Hillbilly schools like App State, Liberty and Georgia Southern get mentioned. Why is that? What do those schools have that we don't? Buffalo is in media market #57. We have an alumni base that stretches into metro NYC. Our teams have been ranked recently. Why are we ignored?

 

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