Army please! JMU is a slightly better located version of App, aka a Masters level regional university.
Yaāll might hate this but Liberty would be the $ add here. They have tons of money, good factilities, and people would hate to play them.
Also ODU, Boise, and Colorado State would make alot of sense. I personlly would love to see more east coast schools for selfish reasons.
If SMU leaves the AAC needs to backfill to maintain its position in the top six conferences to get a bid to the playoff. Expand or die. Air Force gives Navy a conference rival. Colorado State although has struggled recently has excellent facilities. ODU would get you into Virginia and also has decent facilities. Georgia state gets you into Georgia. WKU has historically solid athletics and gets you into Kentucky. I donāt know who you add there arenāt any perfect fits. Aresco needs to do something.
Thinking Georgia State too since it fits the airport criteria, TV market, etc.
Maybe just make a western play big and go after UNLV, CSU and Boise or AF. Take the MWC out of the equation. Makes that #6 playoff spot easier.
I donāt think Ga State has much of a prayer.
1 Like
Recent AAC expansion has shown that actual athletics prowess is not at the top of the list for consideration.
1 Like
The games at GA state are bad - really bad. I mean they have made bowl games and won and no one cares, their stadium is awful and with Athens basically next door and GT already atlantaās school - just dont see a path for them past where they are.
1 Like
AAC loses a couple more schools it will give some an excuse why we canāt win at hoops.
No exposure, hard to recruit to, blah, blah, blah
This would be the alpha dog play. I like it.
AAC West
Boise St
CSU / AF
UNLV
UNT
Rice
UTSA
Tulsa
Wichita St (BB) / Tulane (FB)
AAC East
Navy (FB)
Temple
Charlotte
ECU
FAU
UAB
Memphis
Tulane (BB)
USF
The split is tricky but I wonder if that western expansion would appeal to Wichita St?
4 Likes
Iād be okay with unlv.
Iād knee cap the mwc if I were the aac and go for Boise, csu, unlv.
I donāt care about Air Force. Theyāre the most irrelevant academy (other than coast guard). They donāt have the same history or fan base that army and navy have.
pretty sure aresco said that that its not just about markets. but the financial budgets you have to grow too. so my guess would of a short list based off that as well as academics would be
colorado state
airforce
unlv
boise state
army
umass
buffalo
jmu
odu
Louisiana
liberty
1 Like
Given Vegas growing sports profile and destination for fans - Iād be very happy with UNLV and their history
1 Like
ESPN may be more willing to pay for MWC teams due to the start times and them currently not being part of their contract.
Thatās a good point about budgets too, as much as markets budgets decided who got the tickets to the AAC the last time.
1 Like
clt says you cannot mention liberty and academics in the same post
2 Likes
I like the Boise, CSU and UNLV idea.
Make Vegas the permanent conference tournament home. Thatās fine.
1 Like
If the ACC was looking to add incremental markets/$ās, you would think they would jump on adding SMU as wellā¦. Texas/Dallas are about as good of markets as you could ever add!
SMU back from the dead in this no rules NCAA. Who wudda thunk it?