BCS leagues expanding - yeah?

I don't think the Big East needs UConn. Ten teams is the perfect number for a basketball conference.

Really looking forward to those 110-45 women's hoops scores at Hinkle Fieldhouse.

 

It could go away. Would anyone miss them? Of course, they just spent major bucks on a stadium not too long ago, right?

 

Is Umass still conference less? Maybe theyre more appealing to someone as a pair?

 

I was gonna click “like” on this post, but then you went one sentence too far. App State and Troy State (and honestly, the entire Sun Belt) should follow Idaho back to I-AA.

 

UAB to the AAC. Respected academics and research university for the Presidents and Chancellors. Long-standing history with the old C-USA schools. Solid to above average facilities generally, with ongoing upgrades. New basketball practice space under construction. Attendance near top of conference. Brand new $22m football facility. Top notch $175m stadium under construction. #1 NCAA football TV market. In the footprint, easily reached ground or air.

Maybe ODU. Georgia State. If it was purely football, App St. but other than football not a match. NOT Troy, not even close. I imagine that AAC will take a run at a couple of wishful thinking target schools before they do anything, unless they simply don't replace UConn or add a football only school.

 

May you impale yourself on a rusty fence post.

 

Anybody know how much they owe on that money pit? The decision to chase Lord God Football by UConn has to be one of the worst by any college in recent memory. Classic case of peer pressure. "Everybody else is doing it," etc.
Gonna be hard to abandon football altogether with the stadium lurking.

 

And that was as much about the old Big East begging them to move up to Division 1-A than anything. This was around the time that Miami and the other football members were asking for improvements to the football division and the old Italian hammerheads running the basketball schools weren't hearing any of it. So, rather than seek expansion at that time with a decent dual member, like Louisville or Cincinnati, they just asked UCONN to move up. When Miami, Tech and BC said, "fuck this. I'm out" the expedited the move by a year....then added Louisville and Cincinnati.

 

UAB makes a lot of sense. I think they'll take pie-in-the-sky football-only shots at Boise (which they've attempted before) and BYU first, and if one or both somehow says yes, the non-football member added for all other sports could be VCU. Like UAB, VCU has history going back to the Sun Belt days. As a large, urban state school, VCU doesn't fit well in the A-10 as currently configured.

However, if the AAC wanted to really live up to its "Power 6" chest-thumping, Boise, BYU and San Diego State would be in the conference tomorrow and Tulane and Tulsa would be sent packing. A conference divided into UCF, Cincinnati, ECU, Navy, USF and Temple (East Division) and Boise, BYU, Houston, Memphis, San Diego State and SMU (West Division) would produce a New Year's Six participant almost every year and would have a much better chance at boosting its teams' SOS numbers up just enough to get an unbeaten member into playoff consideration. If geography is just tossed aside, there is a very good conference to be made out of grabbing the most viable programs from the MWC, AAC and independent ranks (and maybe a C-USA member or two). And realistically, if the big-money Power 5 schools ever broke off and did their own thing, this group would comprise almost all of the Group of 5 schools who could hang and potentially tag along for the ride.

Failing this wild notion, ODU makes a lot of sense. From a market perspective, so does UNC-Charlotte, even though its football program has been a flop and its men's basketball program, a tourney regular in the Metro/C-USA days, has been on hard times for a dozen years now after its lack of a football program in the 2000s forced it into the A-10. (UNCC would probably be in the AAC already if it started football when USF did.)

Also, technically, ODU and SDSU are already AAC members -- associate members for rowing only.

 

No, UMass’ move was worse because they did it based on what UConn relatively quickly pulled off. There also was the small detail of playing home games two hours from campus.

For what it’s worth, UConn has played in what is now a New Year’s Six bowl game. The program hasn’t even been in FBS for 20 years. If not for BC they’d be in the ACC, which would be a good fit, instead of University 6. The move hasn’t been horrible.

 

Just read a story in The Athletic that left me with two questions:
1) They're forfeiting $7 million/year from the AAC deal; how much will they get from the Big East?
2) I'm assuming UConn is still on the hook for several years for stadium construction costs. Story says the state contributed $92 million, but it doesn't say what the school's commitment is. How much of the $40 million deficit in FY 18 is attributed to these costs?