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It seems that TCU and Tulane would probably not come to the WAC unless the WAC made an offer to So. Miss. and Houston as well. So what it the WAC went to 16 teams?

East: SMU, TCU, Rice, Houston, Tulsa, La Tech, So. Miss., Tulane

West: Fresno, SJSU, SDSU, Boise, Nevada, UNLV, Hawaii, UTEP

Seems logical to me. The advantages are obvious. This would be the strongest non-BCS conference anywhere.

That's really not a bad idea.
Send it to Karl Benson!

even if you could get all those schools to agree to join, scheduling then becomes more of a problem with 16 teams vs. either 12 or 14. While divisional play and the creation of more rivalries is what you are aiming for, the cross-over games are important to give the conference an identity. Assuming an 8 game conference football schedule and 16 bball...with 12 teams, you play everyone on the "other side" once every two years, and you play everybody in hoops. With 14, you play everyone on the other side every three years and really need to go to an 18 game hoops schedule to at least play everyone every other year. With 16 teams, you really have to play an expanded conference schedule for a guy to play everyone during his 4 years playing football in the league. Not that 16 can't be done...it just puts more separation between the divisions.

Listening to all these frogs, I don't get the impression they're too high on joining the WAC, So. Miss., et al, or not. It would be a perceived step back, and an absolute nightmare for them. It could technically happen, and part of me hopes it will, so I can watch them all cry. "WAAAH! WAAAHH!!! SMU doesn't deserve to be in the same conference with us! We've beaten them 10 out 14 since the death penalty! As I live and breathe I will never attend another TCU athletic event in my lifetime. WAAAAH! WAAAHH!!"

I think witnessing that could be both amusing and fun. Don't you?

YES!
I nominate KnuckleStang as an official spokesperson's gig - at either school!

What would hurt TCU the most would be to see SMU come into CUSA at a "reduced" fee. The conference won't have the same value it did when TCU agreed to pay what they did to join. That's what is going to determine how much movement we see...how much is it going to cost and what is the expected return?

CP, you are correct as usual, sir. I actually read a post on the frog board a month ago about that very subject, titled "Just Say NO to SMU" or something to that effect, and I think they wanted to see us pay 4 million? Is that what TCU paid back then? Don't remember the figure, but it sounded steep. They also said they wanted to see SMU "play their way in, like we did." What were they, 6-5 their last season in the WAC? oooooh.

I mentioned the 16-team CUSA as well, earlier. The key difference between what you are proposing and the old 16-team WAC was that they had the 'quadrants' whereas what you are saying is to be more 'regional'...8 vs 8 in each division. I agree that it is a workable schedule n FB.

I don't know about the 'identity' issue...it would truly be EAST vs WEST in the WAC at 16 teams, perhaps only playing 1 cross over game and the 7 in your division, allowing 3 non-conference games.

I agree that I would think TCU would be more amenable to this scenario if S. Miss was included.

Of course, if you were going to invite the 3 of the 4 best remaining CUSA FB teams (Tulane, TCU, S Miss, and then Hou), you might want to just make a 10 team conference of:

SMU/TCU
Rice/Hou
LaTech/Tulsa
Tulane/S.Miss
UTEP/UNT (or NM? to get the pairs?)

with NM, you'd have decent BBall with Tulane/NM/Tulsa anchoring, and maybe HOU would come around some day...

(maybe steal NM- NMState) for 12-team regional conference.

Besides the NM schools need Texas recruiting..they only have 20 Div-1A FB athletes in the entire state each year...

I like that, but what do you call it? TCU is dead set against the SWC-II or the Gulf Coast Conference on their message board. So you couldn't call it either of those. Plus you lose the automatic bid for the NCAA BB tournament.

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR><font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by WildHorse:
<B>That's really not a bad idea.
Send it to Karl Benson!</B></font><HR></BLOCKQUOTE>Actually, I sent it to him about three weeks ago. My rationale was a little different than your's however. People think of Benson as a conference commissioner but he's also an employer. And as an employer, he feels a great deal of responsibility for the well being and job security of his employees. If the WAC dies, then his employees (and he, himself) are all out of work.

So I suggested adding the 4 CUSA schools -- creating two unbalanced divisions. It might be the only way to get TCU to sign on and it allows the W-WAC to go after SDSU and UNLV. If the W-WAC is successful, then the conference survives.

If the W-WAC is not successful, however, then we could either play with unbalanced divisions or we could add Utah State and New Mexico State in the west. And the MWC responds by adding four W-WAC schools, then the WAC lives on as a mostly Texas based conference.

Either way, his employees still have jobs.

I don't recall his response exactly -- it was mostly a polite, "that's interesting" kind of thing that really reveals nothing of what he was thinking.

Yoda out...