BCS leagues expanding - yeah?

If you are going to be in an odds and sods conference, be in one with rational geography. In fact, the east of the Rockies leagues need to get together in a room with a Rand McNally and re-sort themselves.

 

The new PAC should stay semi-local.

WSU, OSU, Boise, Fresno, CSU, SDSU.

Add UNLV, San Jose, UTSA and Texas State. You get Vegas and Texas footprints, plus the other California school.

If you want you can add Saint Mary's and Gonzaga in basketball.

Mountain West backfills by adding UTEP, NMSU, and Sam Houston.

EDIT: Well, apparently nevermind on UTSA.

 

Pac-12 is interesting. Football-wise, they and the AAC should compete every year for that "other" conference slot in the CFP.

Whatever becomes of major college football should include the Pac-12 and AAC. Perhaps the AAC will get Air Force and one or two of the better Sun Belt teams?

The rest of FBS should be kicked down to whatever becomes the second level. The lesser Sun Belt schools, the MAC (sad to say as a MAC grad) and God awful C-USA should be playing at the same level as the current FCS leagues like the MVFC, Big Sky, CAA and SoCon.

Basketball-wise, the new-look Pac-12 is a good league, but the additions are going to be key to making it better.

UNLV is a no-brainer assuming they aren't attached to Nevada's hip. Basketball is why I'd think about New Mexico and Utah State as additions. Utah State is representative in both sports, but UNM just adds to the basketball brand. Plus, I know New Mexico isn't a huge state market-wise and that they have almost always sucked out loud at football, but it's not Wyoming-small either.

Of course, if you get Gonzaga too, so much the better.

 

The value of academics ended as soon as the players won the right to get paid. Everybody thinks they deserve to get paid handsomely on top of a cost-free education even if they play a sport that doesn't interest the marketplace.

 

And the "missed class time" reasoning went out the window when coaches funneled players to take online classes in their seasons, if not all the time.

That totally cheapens their college experience, but you know, can't miss a practice.

 

Pac-2 should have offered six MWC schools at first, instead of four. All would have taken it and the MWC would have been kneecapped from the start. Now they are fighting back and it might be harder to get teams to commit to leaving.

 

There are Sun Belt schools that deserve to jump ahead of some in the AAC based on what they draw and what they invest into football. App State absolutely belongs and I would say Louisiana as well. Even Liberty out of C-USA spends big and can draw eyeballs to hate watch. (If you are worried about them from a moral standpoint, I invite you to consider the sport in question.)

Conversely, would anything of real value be lost if we told Charlotte or Rice or Temple there isn’t a viable path for them to continue in major college football?

 

Not a single thing.
UNCC, like ODU, didn't pay its dues at lower levels. It just decreed, "We're a large school in a big metro area, and for those reasons alone, we deserve to have a big-boy football team." The arrogance and sense of entitlement are remarkable.
Rice doesn't need to worry about tuition dollars to balance the books, and there ain't many people who choose to go there because it has a football team.
Temple has graduated from perpetual clown to stepping-stone program. Good for them. In the end, nobody in that town really cares about them. If the football team detracts from the medical school and hospital, kill it off.

 

Gonzaga looks to be official. That's a huge get.

Of course have to figure out football.

 

The football element is where these things never work out. My guess is they had at least some assurances from the AAC schools and that's why they only added the four MW schools, turned down the scheduling agreement for next year, and opted to not go MW-plus.

Now they basically have no choice but to probably add at least two more MW schools. UNLV is a no brainer if it can get it away from Nevada. New Mexico has been trash in football (as has been mentioned CSU), but the potential and basketball element could keep them in it. Maybe they only go two more schools for now, and maybe Saint Mary's as well for basketball?