Pimping your school to other conferences, it’s the name of the game these days.
No surprise that the I-5 rivals are looking to better their respective conference affiliations. The WAC is on life support, having lost 27 fulltime members since Arizona and Arizona State were the first to jump ship in the late 1970s, followed by the mass exodus to the Mountain West in 1999.
As one of first two expansion members of the WAC in 1967, UTEP used to know that conference matchups included the likes of the aforementioned Arizona schools, Air Force, BYU, Boise State, Colorado State, New Mexico, San Diego State, TCU, UNLV, and Utah. A move to the Mountain West would revive a number of those.
UTEP leaving would be another blow to CUSA basketball but from their perspective why wouldn’t you want to play teams in your same time zone? Travel would be a little less expensive for them too.
UTEP leaving makes perfect sense if you look at it from UTEP’s point of view.
Does anyone have a link to the UTEP forums? While this would suck for us, it’s definitely best for UTEP. I really wish that conferences were aligned to where you played more regional teams. I work with someone who went to Marshall, and I have a distant cousin who’s at UAB. That’s about it for CUSA for me.
[quote=“Ben H, post:6, topic:29495”]Does anyone have a link to the UTEP forums? While this would suck for us, it’s definitely best for UTEP. I really wish that conferences were aligned to where you played more regional teams. I work with someone who went to Marshall, and I have a distant cousin who’s at UAB. That’s about it for CUSA for me.[/quote]http://bit.ly/19zkN71
This is why the conference needs to stay at 13 for next couple years to see how everything shakes out.
I feel like the MWC is going to make a move like this (they only have 11 members), the Big 12 is going to poach the top of the AAC & BYU, the AAC will backfill from CUSA, and whats left of CUSA may end up merging with the Sunbelt, possibly keeping the CUSA name. I hope we are ready/well positioned for this.
TL;DR - Another FBS conference is going to disappear. Will impact us.
[quote=“NA, post:9, topic:29495”]I feel like the MWC is going to make a move like this (they only have 11 members), the Big 12 is going to poach the top of the AAC & BYU, the AAC will backfill from CUSA, and whats left of CUSA may end up merging with the Sunbelt, possibly keeping the CUSA name. I hope we are ready/well positioned for this.
TL;DR - Another FBS conference is going to disappear. Will impact us.[/quote]
FWIW, MW already has 12 for football, with associate member Hawaii rounding out the conference on the gridiron. So they’ll have to sort that out by either cutting ties with the Warriors or bringing UHM in fulltime.
Agree that the Big 12 will get back to a dozen members.
Hawaii was considering dropping football weren’t they?
Anyway, there are 128 D1A football teams. I wish a higher authority would just divide them into sixteen 8 team leagues, and let the “power” programs align themselves via their 5 non-conference games. 7 regional games, 5 non-conference/rivalry games.
This conference stuff is getting too ridiculous.
The Sunbelt gets a cut of the playoff money, and there are a few schools that are interested in moving up (Liberty, EKU). I don’t think the SBC will go away, but it would be raided again if all the above happens.
Definitely having financial problems. BTW, their 2015 sked includes games at Ohio State and Wisconsin. With no bye week, they will be the “Road” Warriors for sure with at least six trips to the mainland.
If they jump I hope we push for an eastern team.
If we could build a core of eastern schools that will serve is well.
Now and when the eventual regionalizing of G5 and FCS occurs.
clt says cusa is falling apart. We are leaving for the sec and now this?
[quote=“Gassman, post:14, topic:29495”]If they jump I hope we push for an eastern team.
If we could build a core of eastern schools that will serve is well.
Now and when the eventual regionalizing of G5 and FCS occurs.[/quote]
If they jump I hope we stay at 12 football teams