Teams to Replace UH, Cincinnati, and UCF?

[Water Pony]

I don’t get the “give up” option nor do I blame Turner or Hart.

Remember how we felt as an also ran in CUSA? We got into the AAC despite our track record and low attendance numbers. We struggled with multiple coaches and made progress with Jones and Morris.

Now we have Sonny on the Hilltop, our recruiting has improved dramatically and our new marketing and brand, as Dallas’ College Team, is creating a more competitive team and drawing new fans.

Candidly, UH, Cincinnati, UCF and BYU have numbers (winning records and stronger fan support) that we need to replicate. Given our current situation, we are more attractive than ever. With continued success on the field and 25-30K in Ford, we will be the next call up by someone.

Texas’ market and recruiting pool will continue to be a magnet for other conferences, especially getting to play in the metropolitan areas of Dallas and Houston.

My personal view and wish is that a big conference, e.g. PAC12 or the ACC, will look at us as a diamond in the rough. If you value credible academics, big media markets and access to Texas recruits, why not seek two schools, Rice and SMU, as your Texas and Central Time Zone partners.

Rice has a big stadium and we can easily commit and quickly add 12+K seats to Ford. Rice and SMU would spend the money in a heart beat and give PAC12, for example, media visibility in the media friendly Time Zone, CT, to their PT and MT teams. Candidly, the Mustangs and Owls add prestige, market access and new value to either ACC or PAC12 now that the Big 12 is moving in another direction.

Call me crazy, but the bean counters can make this is case.

[Mustangs_Maroons]

We’ve only had about 35 years to get our [deleted] together in sports, what’s one more year…

[Charleston Pony]

Not sure the American will be in a position to poach anyone from any other conference if/when it loses 3 of it's top programs to the Big XII. What's left of the AAC will arguably be no better and probably a weaker football conference than the MWC, CUSA & SunBelt. As much as SMU fans are hurting from this news, I'm sure Memphis is wondering what they did to deserve this fate. I can't imagine this won't impact recruiting

[shadowman]

Not sure the American will be in a position to poach anyone from any other conference if/when it loses 3 of it's top programs to the Big XII. What's left of the AAC will arguably be no better and probably a weaker football conference than the MWC, CUSA & SunBelt. As much as SMU fans are hurting from this news, I'm sure Memphis is wondering what they did to deserve this fate. I can't imagine this won't impact recruiting

This ^^^^^^^^^

An AAC without Houston. UCF, and Cincy is a pretty crappy conference and definitely not capable of luring any of the teams from the MWC. We will hate it, but we will have to backfill from C-USA and the Sunbelt and our little buddies up in Denton will be at the top of the list. Probably UAB as well.

SMU and Memphis need to leave that sh*t show ASAP and join the MWC which is pretty solid from top to bottom. With the top two basketball teams leaving, I also bet Wichita St would move over as well to stay with Memphis and us to a lesser extent.

Houston Chronicle reports that the Big 12 vote could happen as soon as Next Week. The second it’s official SMU and Memphis should announce a move to the MWC within a month. With the addition of SMU and Memphis, the MWC would be much stronger from top to bottom than the AAC ever was and just about as strong at the top with Boise and SDSU year in and year out.

[redpony]

water pony- you don't blame turner or hart?? are you blind? Turner has been here well over 20+ years yet did nothing for the sports programs for many years. Face it, he greatly dislikes sports and is our Pye in disguise. As for Hart, ha, look at his 'wonderful' re-seat programs that drove away hundreds of fans.

Face it. those two have made SMU as second class sports school and now we are paying the price.
I suspect this drop in quality of our conference will cost us dearly in recruiting. After all, who wants to play for a second class school in a 'has been' conference?

Join the MWC, you have to be kidding. Hell, we couldn't get money to get rid of a totally incompetent bball coach for much less than the 10 mil it will take to leave AAC.

[PonyTime]

water pony- you don't blame turner or hart?? are you blind? Turner has been here well over 20+ years yet did nothing for the sports programs for many years. Face it, he greatly dislikes sports and is our Pye in disguise. As for Hart, ha, look at his 'wonderful' re-seat programs that drove away hundreds of fans.

Face it. those two have made SMU as second class sports school and now we are paying the price.
I suspect this drop in quality of our conference will cost us dearly in recruiting. After all, who wants to play for a second class school in a 'has been' conference?

Join the MWC, you have to be kidding. Hell, we couldn't get money to get rid of a totally incompetent bball coach for much less than the 10 mil it will take to leave AAC.

I absolutely blame Turner for killing the Larry Brown era of Basketball (which actually helped out SMU Football to a certain degree).

He did not have Larry's back when the NCAA started to sniff around Keith Frazier and SMU did not lawyer up and defend SMU like Louisville, UNC, and every other blue blood would do for their BBall programs. SMU once again put the trust in the NCAA and they laid penalties that were so out of touch with the violation and much more significant than most other schools.

It was a crime that the 15-16 team that went into the top 10 and had Semi, Shake, Sterling, Ben Moore, Nic Moore, Kennedy, Ben E, a healthy Foster, etc did not get to play in an NCAA tournament.

[Charleston Pony]

The real question is whether the AAC can survive as an 8 team league. With only 7 core members playing both football and basketball and being so spread out geographically, it will be a challenge because revenues will be less than they are today

With only 7 conference games, each team could play 5 non-conference games so in years you have 4 home conference games, you can play 3 non-conference road games and play some "paycheck" games with an opportunity to beat one of the big boys at their place. I think for SMU it would be important to continue our series with both TCU and UNT with one of them visiting Ford every year but it would be nice to get games against SEC, Big 10, PAC 12 & ACC schools

[Topper]

Our best scenario imo: East: USF. ECU. Navy, Temple, Marshall (history and decent fan base), Appalachia State (they deserve to move up. West: Everyone else plus Rice (we need to play in Houston) and either Louisiana or LA Tech. (Lafayette La: Good food and rabid fans).

[mtrout]

Honest question. Is it a huge negative that SMU is tiny (enrollment)?

[JasonB]

You can get away with tiny as long as you bring eyes. That hasn't happened yet. When it does, we will be an attractive team for any conference.

We need to be in a conference with teams who are dedicated to a minimum spend on their athletic department. That elevates to total level of play in the conference and will help elevate SMU.

[Charleston Pony]

Honest question. Is it a huge negative that SMU is tiny (enrollment)?

In today's world of college athletics, there is no question about it. Definitely a hurdle that any small private school has to overcome. Baylor and TCU are very fortunate to be where they are, but at least in TCU's case you have to give them credit for working very hard to escape the WAC and the "second class citizen" label we were handed after the break up of the SWC. In Baylor's case it was more luck than hard work, but they have put the advantage or riding UT and OU's coattails to work with new facilities, much improved football and a strong basketball program.

We'll see whether our wealthy alumni still have an appetite to compete at the highest level, because we don't have the numbers to compete with the much larger public schools that dominate college football these days. There is no reason the AAC can't be a strong basketball conference with Memphis, Wichita State, Temple, SMU & Tulsa all having respectable basketball programs and histories.

We'll never know what "might have been" if SMU had remained committed to competing at the highest level and fought hard to overcome the football death penalty...and the Larry Brown basketball penalty in more recent years. Perhaps SMU could have fallen in with the likes of Notre Dame and USC in football and Duke or at least Gonzaga in basketball. Small private schools CAN get it done, but it starts with a commitment to winning and we haven't really seen that since SMU pretty much accepted and rolled over following the death penalty. I would agree with those who think our administration has been short sighted in terms of how important a nationally recognized athletics program is to any school.

[SMU_Alum11]

I don’t get the “give up” option nor do I blame Turner or Hart.

Remember how we felt as an also ran in CUSA? We got into the AAC despite our track record and low attendance numbers. We struggle with multiple coaches and made progress with Jones and Morris.

Now we have Sonny on the Hilltop, our recruiting has improved dramatically and our new marketing and brand, as Dallas’ College Team, is creating a more competitive team and drawing new fans.

Candidly, UH, Cincinnati, UCF and BYU have numbers (winning records and stronger fan support) that we need to replicate. Given our current situation, we are more attractive than ever. With continued success on the field and 25-30K in Ford, we will be the next call up by someone.

Texas’ market and recruiting pool will continue to be a magnet for other conferences, especially playing in the metropolitan ares of Dallas and Houston.

My personal view and wish is that a big conference, e.g. PAC12 or the ACC, will look at us as a diamond in the rough. If you value credible academics, big media markets and access to Texas recruits, why not seek two schools, Rice and SMU, as your Texas and Central Time Zone partners.

Rice has a big stadium and we can easily commit and quickly add 12+K seats to Ford. Rice and SMU would spend the money in a heart beat and give PAC12, for example, media visibility in the media friendly Time Zone, CT, to their PT and MT teams. Candidly, the Mustangs and Owls add prestige, market access and new value to either ACC or PAC12 now that the Big 12 is moving in another direction.

Call me crazy, but the bean counters can make this is case.

You're crazy about the PAC12 since the engage in leftist politics, they will have nothing to do with schools in Texas. I bet the wouldn't have even added Arizona if it weren't for them being in there early. ACC is your only hope but they have enough schools. Big10 maybe but they're the 2nd most liberal conference and will have issue with the state affiliation. Our main hope is Big12 or AAC being boosted.

[Big Hoss]

I agree with those that say Mountain West is our best move. I don't think the AAC will be in a strong enough position to lure teams like Boise, San Diego St, etc. to join and have to fly all the way across the country on a regular basis to play schools like USF or ECU 2-3 times a year when they have to play an eastern division school. The AAC loses the majority of its luster if UCF, Cincinnati and Houston all leave.

[mustangxc]

The AAC can lure the MWC teams because we have the much better tv contract and much better partner in ESPN. If ESPN values the top of the MWC along with what is left of the AAC enough it will happen.

[redpony]

maybe, maybe not. we just saw how much influence ESPN had on the latest little8 changes. Of course we were hoping that AAC would merge and create a top level conference but no luck as ESPN did nothing to facilitate that move.