Guess I shoulda checked for typos.

ACCNole2,
How about the ACC 'trading' FSU,Clemson, and GT to the BE in exchange for G'town,Seaton Hall, Villanova, ST Johns and Providence? ND can join the ACC with Army and Navy while MD fills the BE, or ND can add FB to BE and MD stays home(ACC).

If the ACC wants to keep FSU, Clemson and GT happy, they need add some FB schools. Marshall is in a contigous state. So. Miss would add a presence in Mississippi, but IMHO, UAB does not add enough in AL. Auburn and UA are not going anywhere. Neither is UT. Vandy would side with the NC4 and MTSU is too weak IMHO. Memphis is a geographic streach, and not real strong. ND is strong but probably too far away, and would likely side with the NC4. There are no easy answers. :-/ ???

FBfan

I honestly feel that the people who think there are going to be sweeping changes in both conferences and the BCS are going to be very dissapointed. The only changes I see happening are some shifts within the mid majors, possibly the trading of teams between the WAC & Sunbelt, and maybe CUSA adding the 12th member and going to a playoff. The last major shift was spurred on by the impending collapse of the old SWC. At this time none of the major conferences are anywhere near the level of chaos that the SWC was then. In fact, the major conferences have never been stronger.

The BCS isn't going to go away or make any great membership changes as long as it is making the BCS Conferences and Notre Dame money. They may set something up where it looks like it would be easier for the non-BCS teams to get a shot...but that would be about it.

catdaddy, I agree with you there will be no defections from any current 6 BCS conferences.

There will be some changes to the BCS. At least one more game will most likly be added after the current four BCS bowls. Even the Pac 10 favors this change.

The current 8 BCS bids will probably not change due to control by the 6 BCS conference. Although they could make mega bucks expaning to 16 bids.

By the way, Notre Dame brought no money into the BCS last year by playing in the Gator bowl.

Miami is actually representing the Big East in the BCS presidents panel and this includes Notre Dame. There is no better indication that Notre Dame eventually will be in the Big East. Notre's Dame's president is not on this panel. The Big East and Notre Dame both need each other for mutual benefits. This is not to state that the Big East will not look after Notre Dame's best interest as well as all the current 8 BE football members.

Don't be surprised to see a phased approach to Notre Dame joining the Big East conference.

Lash,

I agree.
Notre Dames days of calling its own shots are numbered. But this happens ONLY if the Big East performs its duty as a conference and makes them get in line with everybody else. Currently ND is allowed to have "their cake and eat it too."
They only change when the Big East stops this behavior. They screwed WVU out of a Gator Bowl bid last year. This will not (or should not) be allowed to continue by other BigEast member schools.
Change is coming...albeit slowly. Notre Dame doesn't offer enough in other sports for the member schools to allow this to continue. 8-)

daddywags, agreed. These type of things do take time and in the long run will work out.

I believe the Big East is going in the right direction. Eliminating the two divisions for basketball will help to unite the 14 member league.

I am convinced the Big East will add Notre Dame and probably Navy to have a 10 member football league.

The problem with your analysis is that you are comparing Tulane and/or their 1998 performance to a top BCS level team. Of course they don't stand up to that. Compare them to the middle or the bottom and they stand up nicely, as do most C-USA teams. C-USA's problem is lack of 2 marquee teams - Louisville spends a lot and talks a lot but they aren't marquee in football - if they performed like they say they do and if C-USA had another one like them, then the case would be stronger to bring the conference in en masse. Will C-USA ever develop a marquee team? Probably not - but it's a self fulfilling prophecy - give the competition an extra 3-5 million a year, require c-usa schools to play road warrior to get a decent SOS and it's a lot tougher than the requirements on a BCS team.

What a mid-major needs to offer a BCS conference is fan base. This directly translates to money. Some of the established BCS schools don't have that much of a fan base, while some mid-majors are growing. That said, the established (read BCS) schools usually have a much larger fan base.

Could anyone give a website with attendance figures for 2002? It would be interesting to see how many of the top 50 schools in attendance are also BCS.

OMHO, if a mid-major school could fill a 100k seat stadium, AND TRAVELED WELL, they could get in a major bowl regularly and a BCS bowl whenever their record is good enough. They would probably be offered membership in a BCS conference as well.

FBfan

Go to the NCAA site and 2002 football figures are listed.

http://forums.delphiforums.com/SBCsports/start

BYU is the biggest fish in the little pond of non-BCS.
They average about 62K per game.
Way more than most BCS schools.
There is a distinct falloff from there down to Louisville among others in the 30+K range.

BYU is just not that attractive for a number of other reasons, mostly politic. But they can compete with the big boys.!

I see your point, but, once again, requirements are put on "mid major's" that aren't put on 75% of the BCS teams. Surely you don't suggest anyone in the SEC besides Fla, Bama, S Car, Auburn, Tenn, Ga and LSU have a "fan base"? In the ACC? FSU and maybe Clemson. The Big 12 has Tex, A&M, Okl, Nebr and Colo. And I could go on and on and the fan bases in the other conferences would get fewer and fewer.
The BCS should be either the 25 teams that have the fans OR much more inclusive than it is today.

Daddywags,
I went to the website you gave, and even joined, but I could NOT find the attendance list. Where did I go wrong? ???

PaulDrake,
I freely admit that I am an SEC fan. Even Vandy and the Miss schools average over 30k (I think - see above). Vandy gets help on attendance from the fact that TN and AL travel well. KY recently expanded their stadium, and they already had over 30k. I know that the SEC is the best attended conference by far, but I assumed that most of the top 50 BCS teams averaged over 30k per year. That was why I asked if anyone could say for sure. Nothing ever worked when I tried Daddywags site suggestion.

One of my pet peeves is for a BCS conference to give FB membership to a 1AA upgrade the was already a BB member. BCS conferences should take proven nonBCS schools and if the BB schools want to upgrade, then they should play their way in (and show 30k attendance).

FBfan

Daddywags,
I made a mistake the post I misread was by CaliforniaCajun. Oops! Sorry. :-[

CaliforniaCajun,
Sorry I misread your post. :'( :-[ I went to NCAA.com and got some good info. Thanks! :)

Everyone,
When you go to ncaa.com and read the attendance figures, you get some interesting info. I only noticed 2 schools with attendance in the top 50 that were not BCS schools. BYU at #25 and Air Force at #49. I may have missed a school, or confused it with a BCS school, but the point is made. BYU deserves to be a BCS school. IMHO, the rest of the non BCS need to improve their attendance before they complain much.

I also noticed the attendance figure for the conferences. The AVERAGE attendance figures for the SBC was below the 15K requirement! IMHO, that conference is in trouble. The MAC's attendance is low enough that they could lose some teams. I have not found the list for the bottom 50 attendance teams yet.

FBfan

I agree to a degree. Those schools with low attendance figures have little ground to vie for BCS acceptance. They bring little money to the table. They have little room to complain why they are not in a BCS conference.

Any non-BCS school though, regardless of their attendance figure, can complain about the BCS as an entity.

FBfan,

My earlier post regarding BYU was based on NCAA figures. BYU is head and shoulders above any other non-BCS, and many BCS schools in football attendance.

There are a number of non-BCS schools just below AirForce in the @30K+ range in football. But none even close to BYU. The reason BYU is NOT BCS has more to do with their lack of attractiveness in general to most conferences. This is mostly political. Somebody on this site has consistently pointed out the Pac-10 being more liberal will not take them. This cannot be overlooked. I agree with this assessment.

BYU just sticks out like a sore thumb when you use attendance as a predominant criteria for BCS inclusion. You need to look at the bigger picture.

As for the number of institutions below 15K...I still don't think the NCAA will rigidly enforce this. It's a target. Progress towards the target will be the key. Conferences that wish to ignore the target will be allowed to in certain instances to maintain membership. Violaters who don't make progress, or who are a long way off...UL-Monroe, SanJoseSt. may be in some trouble.

Otherwise there are a whole group of non-BCS who have good attendance, but they are not going to ever be Michigan, Tennessee, or Penn State. Does this mean they shouldn't be considered for BCS? 8-)