RUMORS??? C-USA???

[SMUPonyFan]

This was on the other site..

SMU will accept a football only membership to CUSA. My knowledge comes from the CUSA end, but, being a SMU grad, I thought I'd give you fans the heads up. I'm not really a football fan, but I know that some of CUSA's schools wanted not to degrade the academic integrity of the conference.

As for the future, CUSA intends to offer SMU full membership, but there are other kinks to work out. (more on this later)

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Go Red, Go Blue, Go Mustangs, S M U

[ponytalk]

Can anyone else confirm anything about this. I said this before and will say it again, CUSA is a side step for us, but with the way things are going I think it would not be a bad move. I could really see SMU getting left out of a realignment and getting shut down to the same WAC level or even a lesser level. CUSA's bball conference is stronger than the WAC which is good, but football is about the same, just with better opponents.

[NavyCrimson]

just the travel COSTS must make a gigantic difference worth $100,000's if not a million!!!!!!!! i remember smu said several yrs ago that their future is in the 'east'- not with the western opponents along with the 'western' travel expenses.

it just doesn't make sense for us to go westward anyways - economically, the growth, general growth with the exception to the coastal cities in the west is quite slow compared to the east & southeast.

[This message has been edited by Navy&Crimson (edited 06-21-2001).]

[graypony]

The other problem with going west is that the scores of the games are not reported until after the majority of football fans quit watching television. The California teams always complain about that, however, they schedule their games at 8 PM Pacific Standard Time. I never quite figured that out.
It's not hot around Fresno or San Jose in the fall. It would seem that a 2 PM game would give them the exposure that they want.
Anyway, if this is true, and I hope it is, it will give us more national exposure. I see Cinninati, So. Miss, and East Carolina highlights every Saturday when I am not at a SMU game. I have to stay up late if I want to see how the Hawaii-Fresno St. game came out. It's all about more national exposure.

[kanucklehead]

CUSA would be a good move. You have to consider that the WAC appears to be less desirable and not moving in a positive direction. CUSA is on an uptrend and is really appealing for basketball. In football, it's clearly better than the WAC and could move up to just below the super conferences, maybe on a par with the Big East. This would help SMU rebuild sports prominence over time.

[SMUstang]

I'm not real thrilled with C*USA either. But I agree it is in a better time zone than the western schools, and they have a better TV contract.

Also, with SMU joining, they would have a championship game which would mean more revenue. (I don't know what would happen if Army qualified for the championship game though. That would conflict with their game with Navy)

Other than TCU, and perhaps Tulane (the other private school), I don't know who we would develop real rivalries with.

Will East Carolina draw any bigger crowd to Ford Stadium than Fresno State? I don't think so.

But I agree that the exposure would be better.

The one thing I wish is that if they are going to do it, that they would do it right away. And not leave everybody hanging for a long time.

[PK]

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR><font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by SMUstang:
<B>Will East Carolina draw any bigger crowd to Ford Stadium than Fresno State? I don't think so.</B></font><HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

If as you say they would be able to have a championship game, that would mean two divisions and as such we wouldn't see East Carolina too often. Also, I think we could develop a pretty good rivalry with U of H as well as the ones you mentioned.

I'm not sure I know enough about CUSA to say they are better or worse than the WAC, but we have all known for a long time that the East coast news media tends to dominate and they of course tend to dwell on their teams. Therefore, forming alliances to the east would certainly gather us more exposure.