PonyFans.com

There's an article on espn.com that says Army and Navy are discussing with CUSA the possibility of being partial members for football only. The way I read the article, Army and Navy would effectively split a football membership with each team playing 4 conference games per year - for a total of 8.

That would be great. Both schools put butts in seats. Getting a home game every three years from one of them would be great. Also, I might actually get to see an away game against Navy.

Personally, I would like to see all schools in CUSA have both sports (ie basketball and football) and none who don't. I hate these basketball/football only members in conferences. It takes away from potential rivalries and confuses the public as to who is in what. A split team would even be worse.

BTW- Does that mean that if they go undefeated that they would be co-champs?

I agree that it would be better if they played all sports, however I think that overall this would be a great idea. I think that attendence and media attention would be greatly increased for all C-USA. There are some others on this board who may have better information on this but I also think it would be a bonus for any potential TV contract. If TCU were to leave maybe we wouldn't even have to look for a replacement for them. Maybe just move S. Miss into the Western C-USA and add Army/Navy to the Eastern C-USA.

Originally posted by cowboypony:
There's an article on espn.com that says Army and Navy are discussing with CUSA the possibility of being partial members for football only. The way I read the article, Army and Navy would effectively split a football membership with each team playing 4 conference games per year - for a total of 8.

I've read a few things about this over the last several months...

My understanding (which may be way off) is that Army and Navy would have a partnership (not membership) with CUSA, that guarantees Army and Navy 4 games each against the private schools in the conference (SMU, TCU, Rice, Tulsa and Tulane) with those games not counting in the CUSA standings.

Basically, a set OOC schedule for the private schools that delivers on the partnership the schools discussed during the summer meeting in Baltimore.

Could be wrong... but it seems a little ridiculous from a logistics standpoint to have them play half a schedule and have the games count in the league standings.

http://sports.espn.go.com/ncf/news/story?id=1696292

I like concept a lot. Army and Navy will draw fans, national appeal and media coverage in the East. Both schools are members of the Patriot League for everything else, which is a better match for them, including BB where they simply can't recruit the same as others. A David Robinson at Navy was a once in a century thing. He grew tremendously while there.

As I understand, neither team could quality for Conference Championship but would be eligible for bowl tie-ins. Hasn't Navy and Coach Johnson done a great job this year? :thumbupcool:

Even then, I would rather try to schedule as much top competition as possible OOC. Especially the Big 12 schools and U of A. Besides- what if we had lost to Army this year? Man that would have been a bigger bummer than the season already was. I believe that SMU should play as good of competition as possible in both sports. Army and Navy don't qualify. If UT will play Rice, why can't we get them? A&M would be fun too. If the Ponies are on the rise, let's bring some teams that might help us qualify for a bowl if we win. My guess is that Bennett being a disciple of Snyder, that we will go the other way and try to beat up on William and Mary, Army, UTEP etc each year before going into conference.

I think UT plays Rice because Rice has a stadium that seats 70,000 people, is a patsy, and is not far from Austin. I think the size of our respective stadiums is a big reason why we can't get a home and home with either A&M or UT.

UT already comes to Dallas every year and doesn't need to play us for exposure in the area. A&M on the other hand might be willing to play us for the Dallas exposure, but we might have to play them in a bigger "neutral" stadium. Of course, they might be just a little gun shy considering the way we played them in the recent past.

Originally posted by OldPony:
Even then, I would rather try to schedule as much top competition as possible OOC. Especially the Big 12 schools and U of A. Besides- what if we had lost to Army this year? Man that would have been a bigger bummer than the season already was. I believe that SMU should play as good of competition as possible in both sports. Army and Navy don't qualify. If UT will play Rice, why can't we get them? A&M would be fun too. If the Ponies are on the rise, let's bring some teams that might help us qualify for a bowl if we win. My guess is that Bennett being a disciple of Snyder, that we will go the other way and try to beat up on William and Mary, Army, UTEP etc each year before going into conference.

I'd agree... if our mission is to recruit locally, and we play in a national conference, then we need those regional games for the OOC schedule.

However, we have Northwestern, Wake Forest coming up...

04: Texas Tech, Oklahoma State, TCU
05: Baylor, Oklahoma State, TCU
06: Texas Tech, Northwestern, Wake Forest
07: Northwestern, Wake Forest, TCU

Assuming TCU stays in C-USA, then in 05 and beyond, our OOC schedule would probably have Army or Navy instead of TCU. If TCU moves to MWC, then who knows how the OOC might have to change in order to keep TCU on the Schedule. We would not in any case have to play either Army or Navy every year would we?

We would play only one (Army or Navy) each year or four years for a complete cycle of both teams home and away. Never both in same year, as I understand it.

BTW, I would fly to Baltimore and New York to see us play in Annapolis or West Point. Two great great venues.

:thumbupcool:

Originally posted by PK:
UT already comes to Dallas every year and doesn't need to play us for exposure in the area. A&M on the other hand might be willing to play us for the Dallas exposure, but we might have to play them in a bigger "neutral" stadium. Of course, they might be just a little gun shy considering the way we played them in the recent past.

I disagree. UT and OU play each other in Dallas and are among the marquee teams in the nation (tonight's annual UT bowl beating notwithstanding.) After that, A&M might be the most prominent team in the Dallas area, especially with Franocchio coaching the aggies. I seriously doubt the aggies would play us, because I don't think we could convince them they have anything to gain. They already recruit pretty well in DFW. They wouldn't want to play in Ford Stadium because there aren't enough seats to accomodate all their NASCAR fans. If they played us and won, how would that help them in recruiting, since they're "supposed" to win? And if we should pull the upset (which we all know the Ponies would :showoff: ), think how crippling that would be to A&M's recruiting effort? I would think the only way we could get them to play here would be in the Cotton Bowl or at Texas Stadium, and we'd have to guarantee them a huge number of tickets. (But in exchange, we'd have to be guaranteed a cut of the profits.) I think there are just too many issues on which the schools would disagree. I don't see this matchup happening.

<small>[ 12-30-2003, 11:10 PM: Message edited by: PonyFan ]</small>

above post has SMU playing TT in '06 but boston college has SMU on their schedule in '06.
I'm going to this game since some of us smu alumni live up in the northeast.

http://www.nationalchamps.net/NCAA/future_schedules/bostoncollege_future.htm


I hope this game is still on.