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WE ARE BACK wrote:

Water Pony wrote:Chicken Little is alive and well on the Hilltop. Go East, Go West. No, the other way!



We are only accountable for what we can control. We have to earn it, not demonstrate we desparate. You can make a case for anything, based on antidotal information or opinions. One fact is either we are too eastern for MWC or too western for nBE.

Exactly... Both conferences are not ideal for us, so we need to prove ourselves first. So at that point, you have to look at which conference gives us the best chance to win in a competitive recognizable league that assures you are in the BCS most years if you win the conf ring. The east league no longer offers us money, exposure, good competition, recognizable brand name, Madison square garden or really much of anything. Before it was logical to stay East for 1-2 years but now that we aren't even going to get one year of good hoops/exposure, any upside left is gone. This is why MWC is where we need to be until we actually start winning. We need to get with MWC now, play one year of football under current rules and depart in 2014 for MWC.

While I agree that the Big East is no longer the league we signed up for, you fail to recognize that the MWC is not any of those things either so at this point it is still a push. If UCONN and Cincinnati leave then I do agree that the MWC is the better option. For now, we are still on solid footing.

Footballwise the MWC has solid programs in: Boise State, Fresno State, San Diego State, Nevada, and Air Force. The Big East has: Cincinnati, UCF, USF, UCONN, Houston, SMU, Temple, East Carolina, Navy.
Basketballwise the MWC has solid programs in: UNLV, New Mexico, San Diego State, Colorado State, Wyoming, Utah State, Fresno State and Nevada. The Big East has: UCONN, Memphis, Temple, Cincinnati, Houston, USF, UCF.

It looks to me like the Big East is clearly the better football conference and the MWC might be a better overall basketball conference, but the Big East still edges it out with the top 4 teams. For now we need to stand pat and invest in our facilities, teams, coaches, recruit well, build our fan base, increase attendance, and win big.

Won't be long until the next round of alignment. No sense whining until we know where we will play in 2014

You'll shut down 95% of the conversation if you make us follow that rule, couch 'em.

Hey, we have uniforms and coaching staff to whine about still!

And attendance

Maybe, just maybe Aresco and the remaining BE teams see the future and realize the remaining BE teams will likely merge with the remnants of the ACC and assume the ACC name.

Thus no harm in selling the BE name and getting some money for it while it still has value.

Pony81 wrote:Maybe, just maybe Aresco and the remaining BE teams see the future and realize the remaining BE teams will likely merge with the remnants of the ACC and assume the ACC name.

Thus no harm in selling the BE name and getting some money for it while it still has value.

that makes sense. would rather merge with the ACC left overs who are in the same footprint as our new conference.

Since the object of all of this restructuring is to make $$ I say we go NASCAR and sell-off the naming rights to the new post-Big East Conference,something like the "Verizon Mid-Major College Football Conference' or the "Cialis When the Moment is Right Conference".

How about:
Conference with GREAT exposure because some teams are in the East.

how about the NGAF conference?

Water Pony wrote:
"Chicken Little is alive and well on the Hilltop. Go East, Go West. No, the other way!"

Please help me here:

We have had five schools do a "touch and go" in this new conference:
TCU
Boise State
Air Force (?)
SDSU
BYU

We have had one partial member leave:
Notre Dame

We have had the following members leave:
Providence
Rutgers
Seaton Hall
St. Johns
Syracuse
Temple (?)
Villanova
Pittsburg
Marquette
Louisville
Georgetown
DePaul

I know I have made some errors, but I am having trouble remembering which teams other than UConn and Cincinnati are still in the conference. Regardless whichever school still remains they want out quick before they become the last Big East School to have to turn off the lights.


They have taken the bulk of our TV revenue, and obviously our Texas' market value of SMU and Houston mean nothing to the networks, Fox, NBC Sports or ESPN.

Now they are taking the only thing of remaining value--the brand name...

Just when do we determine that the sky has already fallen?

Why doesn't President Turner borrow one of Coach Brown's planes and go up to Boise to see if there is a 'deal'? After all, he claimed he was tight with their President and could rely on him for his support.

The short answer is that we are not in a position to dictate our terms now. Whether East, West or Plan C are legitmate options at this point, no one can state definitively which approach give us assurances of success. Simply stated, we have to earn our chops on our current course (yes, for better or worse) and whatever college conference model finally emerges from this media and revenue pursuing insanity, SMU will stay or be invited to the one we deserve and bring value. Today, it is a buyers (SEC, B1G, PAC12 and BigXII) market.

ACC is at risk and nBE needs to be stabilized or end up being the holding position for individual members awaiting bigger suitors. MWC is organized best for the regional nature of its members and it is hard to imagine any of their members being picked off due to their smaller media markets and being geographically and time zone undesireable.

You are absolutely right, we can hunker down and do nothing or be proactive and seek alternatives--for 25 years all we've done is hunker down and blame the NCAA for our lack of athletic success. Penn State and Ohio State put a couple of daggers into that balony! Leadership counts, you can pull your fans, alumns, professors, students together and become bowl eligilbe or undefeated after adversity or demonstrate weakness and hunker down and never unify the university and never really progress.

You do realize that in the end, we are essentially paying UConn, Cinn and USF to join us the old CUSA--the entire East Coast is laughing at their country cousins from Texas! They should be paying us for joing our old conference!

WP, I don't mean to get under your skin, but I would like to point out the following:

I am not suggesting that we dictate anything, just find out what alternatives exist. A good leader seeks alternatives and in fact helps develop them.

You maynot realize this, but we have the weakest leadership in the athletic departement in many years. He was hired to be Turner's Brad Cheves--"repeat after me"...We need a dog in this fight, not "yes man".

The tennis complex is now on hold, and our number one recruit has just left school, claiming it will not be built during his remaining years of eligibility. If tennis is taking a pause, where does that leave your sport? Right now without the projected millions promised by the Big East, it is more likely to be cut than build a new swimming complex--easy, no problems with the women, cut both the men's and women's programs simulataneously!

Oh, as an aside the IPF has been cancelled, it is no longer even part of the Athletic Department plan.

Mexmustang wrote:Oh, as an aside the IPF has been cancelled, it is no longer even part of the Athletic Department plan.

Hart told us this on day one, but it was so shocking everyone assumed it was just AD-speak.