Article-Miami may trigger Sun Belt shift

[JayM]

OK tear it apart. Denton Record-Chronicle article.

Mike McClendon: Miami may trigger Sun Belt shift
SUN BELT FOOTBALL


06/01/2003

By Mike McClendon / Staff Writer


The future of North Texas athletics and the Sun Belt Conference might be hanging in the balance of a decision being made at the University of Miami.

Within the next two weeks, Miami is expected to announce its decision to leave the Big East Conference in favor of the Atlantic Coast Conference. The potential move could trigger a major conference realignment that would alter the landscape of college athletics.

"If the ACC expands, the Big 10 and the PAC-10 [conferences] will probably want to expand, too," said North Texas athletic director Rick Villarreal. "Those teams have to come from somewhere. Other conferences could be picked apart."

The big-time conferences would feed on the smaller ones in order to expand to 12 teams and be eligible to hold a lucrative conference championship game. And right now, North Texas' conference, the Sun Belt, is the smallest fish in a shrinking pond.

"The arms race among colleges has escalated," said Villarreal, "and some of it is being done with little or no regard for college athletics."

The future?
How a new regionalized conference might look:
Arkansas State
Houston
Louisiana Tech
New Mexico State
North Texas
Rice
SMU
TCU
Tulsa
UTEP

But Villarreal added that the recent full-time membership additions of Idaho, Utah State and Troy State solidifies the Sun Belt and will help protect it against an attempted raid. The Sun Belt will survive, but hopefully, it won't look anything like it does now. Currently, the Sun Belt's most northern school (Idaho) and its most southern school (Florida International) are separated by more than 3,000 miles. The conference doesn't make geographic sense.

But neither does Conference-USA (home of TCU) or the Western Athletic Conference (home of SMU). The great distances between the member schools in these lower-tier Division I-A conferences inflate travel costs and deflate potential rivalries.

"My hope in life is that [the non-Bowl Championship Series conferences] all quit spending money with the airlines and start spending money on improving our ability to compete," said Sun Belt commissioner Wright Waters. "Then we could really close the gap on the other conferences."

A major realignment provides an excellent opportunity to start closing that gap.

"Existing conferences need to look at what is the best situation for them competitively and do what's best to generate dollars and cut back on expenses," said Villarreal. "If there was a shakeup, I think people would look at regionalization."

The BCS isn't going to be admitting the Sun Belt, WAC or C-USA any time soon. The BCS schools want to maximize revenue and share it between as few schools as possible. That leaves the smaller conferences out in the cold; and the only way to stay warm is to keep close. Among the possibilities to regionalize the conferences are mergers or something that would amount to school-trading.

The formation of a new regional conference including North Texas, TCU, SMU, Houston and Rice is among the possibilities. This new conference would immediately increase fan interest and media coverage for all involved schools. Increased revenue and national respectability would certainly follow.

As much as diehard North Texas fans enjoy beating conference-foe Middle Tennessee, the average guy sitting on a couch in Denton watching college football could care less. SMU has the same problem when playing conference rivals like San Jose State.

The attendance numbers back up the idea of regionalization. TCU's highest home attendance last season was when it hosted North Texas. The Horned Frogs next-best attendance was when it hosted SMU.

Almost 10,000 more fans showed up in Fort Worth to watch the Mean Green play TCU in a non-conference game than came to see the Horned Frogs play Memphis in the regular-season finale with a chance to claim the C-USA championship.

Imagine the North Texas and SMU football teams meeting in the last week of the season with a conference title and prestigious bowl berth on the line. It would create a sellout and a Dallas-Fort Worth media bonanza.

But even though a regional conference seems to make sense for all parties involved, there are still some obstacles to overcome.

"We have to get to a point where finances are more important than egos," said Waters. "People need to recognize the advantages of playing teams where fans can drive to the games. Whether this [situation with Miami] is the impetus for that, we don't know yet."

[Nacho]

I wouldn't mind it but it's just one of many scenarios. Why 10 schools? 9 is a better number. Drop Ark St and it looks beter and works better.

At this point I am beyond being surprised. It is truly mind-boggling.

I just hope our fearless leaders lead us into something we can live with.

[Charleston Pony]

I agree that 10 is a bad number and the current WAC proves that. I like either 9 or 12-14 members, depending on how far flung the geography. The writer forgot La-Lafayette, too. If you really want to play with your neighbors and check egos at the door, the new SWC looks like this:

SMU, TCU, UNT, Rice, Houston, Tulsa, Ark St, La Tech & La-Lafayette

In a 12-14 school group, things get pretty interesting because there's a lot of options. I like the 12 team WAC that's being talked about with TCU & Houston in the east and UTEP joining the western group. I wouldn't mind seeing a 14 school group (like the MAC has done) and adding UNT in the east and either NMSU or Utah St in the west.

The writer has a point re: attendance and interest. Our schedule this year includes Fresno and Boise in Dallas. Those are top programs in the WAC, but will those games draw better than games against UNT or Houston would?

[Buddha]

For my money, I'd much rather see us somehow align ourselves with schools like TCU, Rice, Tulsa, LaTech and Houston. I'm not even clear in my own mind why I object so much to North Texas, but I just can't see myself calling them a "rival."





[This message has been edited by Buddha (edited 06-01-2003).]

[JayM]

This group had three bowl eligible teams from 2002 and two winning bowl teams. Here's last year's records & this year's Lindy's pre-season ratings.

#24 TCU (10-2)
#61 UNT (8-5)
#75 New Mexico State (7-5)
#96 SMU (3-9)
#97 Louisiana Tech (4-8)
#102 Arkansas State (6-7)
#104 Rice (4-7)
#106 Houston (5-7)
#110 UTEP (2-10)
#115 Tulsa (1-11)

[Nacho]

Those rankings couldn't be more meaningless. SMU is going to be a lot better than last year.

[JayM]

Time will tell won't it? That is , however, how teams are perceived now by others. There's another ranking out with SMU at #111.

[FloridaMustang]

Let's start talking big once we have a winning season under our belts. Let's just pray for a good season so we can rise above the bottom tier of schools. We can compete on TCU's level.. we are just going to have to stick this out and hope that this BE shakeup leaves us in a good position.

[This message has been edited by UNFMustang06 (edited 06-01-2003).]

[MeanGreenGem]

"I'm not even clear in my own mind why I object so much to North Texas, but I just can't see myself calling them a "rival."

Perhaps, because that is the same way your grandfather and your great grandfather felt about the "teacher's college" in Denton?

This has now become an over-used and trite statement but, "we are just not your great grandfather's NTSU anymore." In fact, your own fellow alum Governor William P. Clements signed the state bill that took the S out of NTU and turned those 3 letters around to make them UNT. It was your own late Robert Dedman who made the original suggestion to former UNT Chancellor Alfred F. Hurley that we change our name from NTSU to UNT. SO BLAME YOURSELVES FOR ALL THIS, MUSTANGERS! lol! {:> )

Beggin' a few pardons and no smart arsed (OK, I'm English) attitude intended, but most of us Mean Greeners cannot understand the Mustang affection for some of your WAC mates over UNT when during your latter SWC days you were playing us quite frequently and during that era, yall didn't even know there was a San Jose, LaTech, Reno, Fresno, etc, etc, etc, least of all would you have scheduled them back then.

Rivalry? It would be an easy bet to say UNT would bring more fans to Ford Stadium than all your WAC East school fans added together. You may still say that is not a rivalry (and maybe your right) but it would sure beat looking at empty seats SMU designates for its WAC visiting fans and their marching bands to sit in.

I do agree with all of you that this is a very confusing time for those of us in the non-BCS. Personally, I wish SMU would get a cache of you lawyers together and sue the hell out of the BCS in a class action suit with all of us in the non-BCS standing together on this one thing that we ALL do have in common.

Turn the darn thing around in 2003, SMU!

[MeanGreenGem]

JayM, LaTech did win the WAC 2 years ago when one magazine had them ranked "100 and something" among the 117 D1-A schools in one of those Summer polls. These polls don't take into consideration heart and good coaching (which SMU now has) in any of their criteria.

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR><font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by JayM:
<B>Time will tell won't it? That is , however, how teams are perceived now by others. There's another ranking out with SMU at #111.</B></font><HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

[untgrad88]

I say that if SMU tries to get in the way of such a regional conference because of ego and by-gone glory days, then you had better look out, because YOU may get left behind again. Common sense says that this has to happen. The BCS isn't going away and none of us are in a position to seriously lobby for entrance into a BCS league.

We have got to come together for our survival and soon. How many Tulanes will there be. Houston is even talking about major problems in the red and there is a contingent in Coogville that wants to drop IA ball because of finances.

We must stop the bleeding and shore up our programs or there eventually won't be anything other than the BCS.

A regional conference as mentioned in the article would be strong enough to survive and thrive. We could easily get a regional TV package--remember those old Southwest Conference games of the week. We could also get the NO bowl and a couple of other REGIONAL bowls that FANS WOULD ACTUALLY TRAVEL TO--unlike the bowl in glamorous Boise, Idaho!

The best part of the deal however, is actually having a good shot at REGIONAL rivalries which is good for everybody. If we wouldn't absolutely pack SMU's shiny, new stadium, then I will kiss your mother-in-law!!

With a regional package, we would also get a lot of regional media attention--which is now lost due to all of our far-flungness.

This makes sense and CENTS.

[Eddie P]

Gosh...more "this isn't your grandfather's UNT anymore." That's so annoying and always comes from the same person on both boards.

Hey, I agree with the UNT poster in this thread who said, "Let's wait and see." Let's just go ahead and do that. I'm pretty excited about this whole thing and my excitement does not stem from this fictional recreation of the old SWC. While there's a chance that could happen, I guess there's a chance Missouri could leave the Big 12 and then they would take SMU. Big chance, right?

Relax people. These things will start moving in about a couple of weeks (although nothing pertaining to SMU as of right now) and perhaps the endless speculation will have some direction. Just keep in mind that there is only one school right now who is "choosing" where they want to go and that is Miami. (Notre Dame could if they wanted) We are not in a position to "choose" anything or "form" any conference. We will be "selected" by a conference and it will hopefully be an upgrade to what we are in now. Or CUSA crumbles and we have some incarnation of the WAC with the CUSA leftovers. The smart money's on those two things, with regards to SMU.

[MeanGreenGem]

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Eddie P:
[B]Gosh...more "this isn't your grandfather's UNT anymore." That's so annoying and always comes from the same person on both boards.

Eddie P, I could probably come up with 100 more things that are more annoying than "this isn't your grandfather's UNT anymore", but I won't.

But you really must be so easily annoyed for that to annoy you but do please show me the last post on this board that had that quote and how long ago it was?

Surely you haven't been doing a little lurking on other boards where you may have seen that quote elsewhere, now have you?

Really just a simple discussion on this thread that really is not intended to make anyone get tense.




[This message has been edited by MeanGreenGem (edited 06-02-2003).]

[EastStang]

UNT has had more than one winning season since when? They won two bowl games. Good for them. Their stadium should be condemned. They left 1-AA for 1-A how long ago? They need to show some long term capability not some hot run. What is their position regarding partial and non-qualifiers? What is their position regarding JUCO transfers? I don't want another Fresno State to deal with. Any new conference acceptance should agree to not accept non-qualifiers. Geography is nice enough, but in any new relationship, I want our playing partners to be equals on and off the field.

[untgrad88]

EastStang, I do not mean to degrade SMU--it is a great school with a storied tradition. I do think that SMU is going to climb back into the world of college football. It is just that many former SWC programs like to act like UNT does not belong in the conversation concerning possible regional opponents. UNT is on course (because of geography and recent expansion) to being of the same size as UT and A&M by the year 2015. We are already bigger than Texas Tech and have been for years.

UNT is making an investment in athletics and wants to be a key player. With 100,000 alumni in the metroplex alone, we will be. UNT MUST be included in any future talks--we deserve that and would be a tremendous asset to any regional conference--if not dominant.

UNT and SMU are capable of having an enormous rivalry--even bigger than SMU has with TCU, if we just will give a chance to happen. I for one hope that it does.