http://www.spokesman.com/stories/2018/apr/02/gonzaga-athletic-director-mike-roth-says-zags-stay/
clt says the MWC looks foolish.
clt says utrgrv is the worst name ever.
To use their full name, itās University of Texas- Rio Grande Valley.
Starting a football program from scratch is a tough job. They should hire a Head Coach who has done it before. Recently. From a Southern state. One located between Virginia and South Carolina. So if you know of anyone like that please forward their resume to UTRGV.
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clt says they need to switch to u of rio
Liberty moving to the Atlantic Sun in 17 of 20 athletic programs. As already noted, football will compete as an independent as it transitions to FBS.
Eek. That seems pretty bad.
"I donāt think any of these things will happen immediately but I do think there will be a realignment of the major athletic conferences in six or seven years.ā Gordon Gee WVU president.
I think that is a perfect time frame for us if it plays out this way, time for the Goldstandard to be fully implemented.
Everyone associated with WVU says there will be realignment and they will emerge okay. The only way it can get worse is if WVU ends up in the Pac 12 or Mountain West.
The Big 12 considered expanding 2-3 years ago. There was a consensus to add BYU, but they could not agree whether to add Memphis, Houston, or Cincinnati. Adding Memphis or Cincinnati would make WVU less of an outlier.
He says there are issues with the ACC and Pac 12, but fails to say what they are.
I think the issue is that if you are not power 5, and no that does not include AAC, it is not economically feasible to play conference games 3/4 of the way across the United States.
I think the issue with the ACC and Pac 12 is that thereās a lot of teams used to kicking butt and taking names which are suddenly .500 (or worse) ball clubs, and the fan bases do not appreciate that.
I think realignment is about to go in the opposite direction and regionalize. If you got money, you got money, but at some point, WVU in the Big 12 is akin to lighting money on fire.
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I think a big reason that things will go more regional is that the money is draining from sports across multiple types of sports. If you are looking at positioning yourself for the future you have to look at a much smaller TV revenue stream. By traveling so far to play you are essentially counting on a single fan base/pool of money versus having two fan bases. Without TV revenue that doesnāt work so well.
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D.O.B.A.
Non-P5 conferences will have to go regional. You will still have stronger conferences and weaker conferencesā¦and there will be overlap in conferences. SO, you will still get conferences that will hoard the better programs at a regional level. Any school, including us, at a non-P5 level can position for inclusion into the best of the non-P5 confernecesā¦but they will be more regional in nature.
Assuming they have to play football, who would you even put in that conference that would make it decent?
Marshall
ODU
Charlotte
EZU
App State
Coastal
Navy
MTSU
Memphis
Western Kentucky
I mean, that doesnāt excite me a whole lot more than what we have now. Itās cheaper and there are better rivalries, but thatās not going to be more than a 2-bid NCAA league, and I enjoy playing Southern Miss and La Tech in the various sports.
I like Memphis, Marshall, ODU, App, EZU and Coastal much better than our current setupā¦but regardlessā¦nothing short of P5 is going to get anyone excited. The point isā¦in the short termā¦itās better than we are nowā¦with rivalriesā¦and cheaper travel costs.
Long term goals would be the same as they are nowā¦position ourselves as a dominant force in multiple sports within that conferenceā¦combined with our size and TV market for the best possible ānext stepā in realignment.
I think most of us who like the regional conference idea still want to move up to a higher level. In the meantime a regional conference develops more interest in our program. People complain all the time about our lack of local media coverage & how much coverage the ACC schools get. A lot of that comes from the fact that any given ACC game has fan interest in the area from both sides. The ACC, even with expansion, is more regional than our current conference. Those local rivalries are what made the ACC what it is today. When we play Rice or UTSA the only people that give a crap locally are our fans. A regional conference would provide more local exposure for our teams which helps recruit the local talent that we all want which in turn would make us more successful so one day we can actually move up to the AAC or maybe even a P5. Until that day I would at least like to be in a conference that makes sense geographically & financially.
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I donāt think anyone disputes the value of regional teams. College sports was built on it. I do think that we will see realignment go the other way at some point and if it happens we should find a good league for us that includes App and ECU. With that said unless itās a total realignment we canāt give up our place in conference line, that is all Iām saying.
Part of the reason we are positioned better than App is we are ahead of them in conferences and ECU is ahead of us. That is how alignment has worked thus far with feeder leagues, and we need make sure we donāt sacrifice our future for the sake of short term regional partners.
The only P5 conference we fit in is the SEC in my opinion. We have a long way to go before we get there. AAC is the next logical step, but is it that much better than CUSA in the grand scheme of things? I would prefer regional over a ceiling of AAC personally. If AAC could get us to P5, then sure.
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Bottom line is that we arenāt going anywhere until our basketball and football programs turn around. I would much prefer playing regional teams that bring fans to our place than playing the Texas or Florida teams. This makes for a much more exciting environment.