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Charleston Pony wrote:CUSA and UNT leadership now pleading with AAC to talk. Obviously they know their conference is vulnerable to losing it's top programs (SunBelt could be in the same boat) if that's the way Aresco and the AAC Presidents want to go. We can certainly feel their pain. It stinks being the last one chosen when teams are being picked.

https://www.cbssports.com/college-footb ... e-leagues/

Turner, Hart, and Aresco really need to squash this publicly and immediately; this "re-arrangement" plan is nothing but a permanent relegation to the minor leagues. Nothing about this idiocy will benefit SMU.

100% agree with you. There's zero benefit other than slight travel cost reduction with a disynergy of losing 100% fan enthusiasm which to me would hurt more.

The interesting thing is why communicate it to the Tulane president? My understand is Turner is one of the top AAC presidents especially with the defectors out. My only hunch is that Tulane knows they have zero fan enthusiasm so they want the lower travel costs. I don't see how SMU, Memphis, USF, Navy and ECU in particular would sign on to this deal. I can only see Tulane, Tulsa and Temple as possible pro-relegation.

SMU_Alum11 wrote: I don't see how SMU, Memphis, USF, Navy and ECU in particular would sign on to this deal. I can only see Tulane, Tulsa and Temple as possible pro-relegation.

I know some ECU people who are as upset as SMU fans with recent developments (feeling shut out by ACC and now losing attractive conference mates) but some would not be disappointed playing more regionally with App State, Liberty, Coastal Carolina and schools in the ACC & SEC East footprint. I suspect Tulsa and Tulane as smaller private schools would like to remain associated with SMU. Temple as a northeastern outlier, who knows? Memphis is probably hoping to join Boise as Big XII (XIV) invites and USF, like SMU must be thinking our timing has been horrible. As a large public school, they have pulled a UNT and grossly underachieved compared to UCF.

The American conference and the Mountain West should merge to create a 20 team mega conference spanning 4 time zones. Sounds crazy, but it would demand some attention.

Sewanee Stang wrote:The American conference and the Mountain West should merge to create a 20 team mega conference spanning 4 time zones. Sounds crazy, but it would demand some attention.

WAC 96 was ahead of its time.

Sewanee Stang wrote:The American conference and the Mountain West should merge to create a 20 team mega conference spanning 4 time zones. Sounds crazy, but it would demand some attention.

MWC Commissioner, Craig Thompson, suggests the conference will expand.

https://www.coloradoan.com/story/sports ... 457594002/

I strongly disagree with Sewanee Stang. The likely targets for MWC expansion are North Texas and UTSA. I seriously doubt if those schools would be willing to send their volleyball teams to SDSU, UNLV, Fresno St, San Jose St, Boise St, Nevada, or Utah St. And I doubt if Temple or ECU or South Florida or Tulane would want to go there either. To say nothing about the watered down revenue for both conferences, or the diverse media contracts and terms each conference has.

I just want SMU to stay in the central and eastern time zones to remain as relevant as possible. Living on the east coast, I'm too aware of how easily those mountain and pacific time zone teams and games get lost in the shuffle

Charleston Pony wrote:I just want SMU to stay in the central and eastern time zones to remain as relevant as possible. Living on the east coast, I'm too aware of how easily those mountain and pacific time zone teams and games get lost in the shuffle

Second that. I do wish we could have AFA and CSU as that's not terrible for SMU, Tulsa, Tulane and kind of Memphis but SDSU and BSU do seem a bridge too far in a lot of aspects.

I don't see why MWC would water down their league even further. I would easily call AAC P6 again if MWC did something stupid like that and we added like Coastal Carolina, Army, and one other.

I'm still hoping that we are in the next round. I dont see why the Big12 would go to Boise and add even more travel costs especially when tv revenues drop significantly.

https://twitter.com/PeteThamel/status/1 ... 49665?s=20

“ Sources: The American Athletic Conference is expected examine expansion this week, with six schools expected to send applications. The AAC is expected to receive an application from – FAU, Charlotte, North Texas, UTSA, Rice and UAB this week. 1/2”

Yeah I hope SMU has some plans we don’t know about…

Comet wrote:https://twitter.com/PeteThamel/status/1450235477022449665?s=20

“ Sources: The American Athletic Conference is expected examine expansion this week, with six schools expected to send applications. The AAC is expected to receive an application from – FAU, Charlotte, North Texas, UTSA, Rice and UAB this week.

Do we really want to settle for garbage schools like denton community college? this is exactly what happens when no future planning was done. If they admit those schools then SMU should drop out and go independent. IMO Aresco has crapped his pants and needs to get out after getting shut down by AFA, BSU and others and then considering schools that could significantly lower the quality of our conference.

That is really, really poor.

I think UNT is a really valuable addition. They are about to hire a coach who will take them over the top. How long can we expect our success to sustain? Face it, UNT is about to own us. We might as well let them do it in our conference so we can run the score up on Abilene Christian and take wins where we can get them.

Ughhhhhh

https://www.cbssports.com/college-footb ... embership/

If true and all are accepted, divisions presumably look like this:

West - SMU, UNT, Tulsa, UTSA, Rice. Tulane, Navy/Wichita State
East - Temple, ECU, Charlotte, USF, FAU, UAB, Memphis

This would leave CUSA with only 8 schools and not nearly as strong as the 10 member SunBelt.