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The quote from that article that jumps out at me is: "Of those teams, only Tulane (8-5) finished with a winning record last year. The rest went a combined 11-48."

Bleah! Can you imagine trying to sell that league to TV execs or bowl representatives? And as much as I think they'd be good rivals, I'm not sure Baylor High or Vanderbilt would add much to the appeal.

I think I'm still in the camp of those who want to see SMU join some kind of modified C-USA.e

If Miami goes it alone to the ACC which looks more and more probable, can we get BC to join the PSC?

Army vs. Navy always pulls one of the biggest shares of any college football game. No matter how bad they are. These two schools can pull ratings, and they know it. In fact the Service Academies have discussed getting their own TV tie in. Also from a selfish point of view, because I live in the east, I would love them in a conference with SMU, just so I could see the Ponies every year or so.

What do you think of this:

<A HREF="http://www.owlzone.com/cgi-bin/webbbs/webbbs_config.pl?read=36011" TARGET=_blank>http://www.owlzone.com/cgi-bin/webbbs/webbbs_config.pl?read=36011</A>

Pipe dream

This isn't anything new. We actually explored this with TCU and Rice in 1998. That is why the 8 remaining WAC schools were unable to sue the MWC schools after the infamous fax came in.

The only way I would be happy with this is if it involved Duke, Vanderbilt and Wake Forest. Unfortunately, those schools will never leave their current "cash-cow" set-ups.

good questions leopold and here is one take:
these schools are not ivy league and not top 20 prgms vying for nat title every year. they are trying to compete in div 1 tho and this could be a way to do it w/ some academic standards. a while back utenn won a nat championslhip and two yrs later there were articles in nashville paper about how none of the seniors had graduated from that team.
2)traditional rivalries? sjsu, fresno, hawaii?
3)i'll travel to ny and annapolis a lot more often than hawaii,fresno, san jose and shreveprt, thank you.
3a)conf usa may be the answer, but how attractive will they be w/out their top schools. find me a couple more viable candidates, tv and bowl ties, and i'm will to go with navy, et al over conf usa.

Why not just keep CUSA (minus Louisville, Cincinnati, South Florida, Marquette and DePaul) as is... add SMU, Tulsa, Rice... and Navy as a football only.

It accomplishes the same grouping as this Post suggestion...

WEST:
Memphis-Tulsa, SMU-TCU, Rice-Houston
EAST:
Tulane-So Miss, UAB-ECU

basketball east: St. Louis-Charlotte
football east: Army-Navy

You probably ought to switch out Memphis and Tulane to make it more a true East/West alignment division wise.

I'd love to have Tulane in our division, but finances with regards to travel logistics would probably deliver Memphis.

Memphis-New Orleans are located on about the same longitude; New Orleans (Tulane) is the only viable travel destination to couple with rural south Mississippi (Southern Miss). Hattiesburg is a few hours bus trip from New Orleans.

Memphis-Tulsa are just on either sides of Arkansas, which is a quick, no connection plane trip. Easier trip than Memphis to Jackson and then bus to Hattiesburg.

Plus, then you would have Tulane and Tulsa as travel partners, which I'm sure would upset some of the budget planners across the conference considering Hattiesburg is relatively close to New Orleans.

The advantage of this approach is "right sizing" and alignment with universities, who will appeal to national and regional audiences. Leave aside other sports for the moment(e.g. BB goes to MVC and other sports pick appropriate options - swimming is in NIC.

We need Guiding Principles, not a arms ($)war with State schools.

Examples, Academic Reputation must be respected, enrollments are comparable, graduation rates high and few non-qualifiers

Army, Navy, Tulane, Tulsa, Rice, Air Force, Temple and SMU have similar profiles.

Even ND might agree to play four games a year in this group, while remaining independent. Former and current service men & women plus a Texas and SW FB foundation sounds pretty good to me. Alumni could be proud of athletic and academic membership. Big Ten and Pac Ten are conferences will do take pride in academics. The Big Ten really stresses that point. If BCS and NCAA reforms are pursued, these schools will benefit from that commitment with more scholarships, etc.

We might attract Baylor, Vandy, Northwestern, Miami, TCU, etc. in the future. This is a "take the high road" strategy.

Temple is a public school, therefore you lose the Private School schtick...

Air Force doesn't gain anything by leaving the MWC, therefore won't...

Being in a football-only conference certainly doesn't improve our situation either...

It's a nice thought, but with only 7 private schools: Army-Navy, SMU-TCU, Rice-Tulane, Tulsa... it really doesn't work.

If we could get Baylor and Vanderbilt, it would be a no-brainer, but they aren't going to give up all that money.

We could dream though...
Army-Navy
SMU-TCU
Baylor-Rice
Tulane-Vanderbilt
Tulsa

southland makes a lot of sense. who is that guy? anyway, if only miami moves to acc, doesn't this pre-empt some of thbese multischool migrations and new conf ideas?