Pulling from footballgod's thread about running the SEC, what would you do if you were given the keys to the conference. Do you keep the staus quo? Are teams evicted? Are teams brought in? What is the logic behind your decisions?

Feel free to question others' decisions, but don't be a wimp --- put your own ideas up first!

Encourage Ohio, Miami, and Toledo to look at Conference USA or Big East, and replace them with any three of Grand Valley State, Wayne State, Oakland (Football at the Pontiac Silverdome), Wright State, Youngstown State, IUPUI (Football at the RCA Dome), Southern Illinois, Illinois State, Northern Iowa, Missouri State, Indiana of Pennsylvania, Northern Kentucky, or Minnesota-Duluth.

If I were the MAC Commish, I would talk to the Big East about letting Temple back in after adopting a Middle Atlantic Corp.-type structure, and see if Buffalo wants to move sports other than Football to the America East. Either way, I would have Youngstown State and Southern Illinois move up to FBS and join the MAC.

I would encorage all universities in the MAC to get their parking and transportation paths to the games upgraded. I would also stongly encourage all members to get their football stadium seating to at least the 35K range. I would also encourage the universities to investigate ways to make the stadiums more fan friendly --- if that meant doming the stadiums or at least cover for the fan seats, then fundraising efforts should be be done.

I'd personally write David Letterman (Ball State Alumni) and ask him to take up the efforts to upgrade the MAC stadiums and arenas, or at least be our spokesperson to help generate revenue.

I would set goals of average football attendance and basketball attendance. The conference would refocus to address those benchmarks.

I would have a talk with the Buffalo, Miami, and Ohio U presidents about "graduating" from the MAC. Academically all 3 schools are legit FBS big conference schools if they can get their athletic attendance numbers up.

I would talk to the other MAC schools about doing what it takes to help other schools advance up the FBS ladder as helping them with the promise that if tides change they promise to help you. Brotherhood.

I would put it to Temple. "We will help you get back your status but we have to have full university cooperation, including basketball and Temple's help recruiting universities on the east coast." Otherwise you are an indy. I would also try to rope in Bill Cosby to raise money for an on campus 45K stadium for Temple. That would fix 90% of their trouble right there. Lincoln Financial Field is fine for playing against Penn State, but 20 minutes of inner city driving is too much against lesser followed opponents.

I would split the MAC in half and make the MAC and EAC conferences to create a "stepping stone" to FBS status and to open more berths to schools wanting to upgrade to BCS. The two conferences would have some ability for schools to move from the MAC to the EAC and vice versa, depending on athletic health. Both conferences would be football/basketball hybrids with twice as many football as basketball schools. Only Public schools would be allowed.

The MAC would be a regionally compact conference with minimal travel costs designed to allow schools to break in or "tread water" at the BCS level (if they desired). The EAC would have a larger footprint and higher academic and athletic standing. It would also have the better markets and generally the bigger schools/larger almni bases to generate TV revenue---that would help it recruit target universities. It would fill the role of a CUSA type conference --- a developmental stage for schools making the jump to the Big East/ a conference designed to raid the upper crust of the Big East if left unmolested long enough and would be headquartered in Buffalo to show our commitment to eastward movement. It would also have a tight relationship with the MAC spawning several bowls and having BB tourneys.

MAC
Bowling Green
Akron
Central Michigan
Ball State
Western Michigan
Eastern Michigan
Northern Illinois

Offered a full sports only home (AKA build/ upgrade to a 30-45K football stadium and jump to FBS if you want in)
Youngstown State
Illinois State
Missouri State
Southern Illinois
Wayne State

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EAC
Miami (OH)
Buffalo
Ohio
Temple
Toledo
Kent State

Stolen from CUSA where the travel costs are brutal
Marshall
ECU

Offerred a football or all-sports home
Army
Navy

Offered a full sports only home (AKA build/upgrade to a 30-45K football stadium ---weather and travel considerations have to be addressed as well in colder, snowy states) and jump to FBS if you want in)
Maine
Rhode Island
New Hampshire
SUNY Stonybrook
NYU
Delaware
Old Dominion


non-football only (for now)
Cleveland State
Wright State
VCU
UNCC
George Mason
Western Reserve

Temple will not move their other sports teams to the MAC. They are happy in the A-10. They are also waiting to see if the BE splits. If the BE splits Temple will be moving all of their sports to the New All Sports FB Conference replacing Villanova in the Philly market.

The MAC is a conference with a location problem: Too many schools packed into too small a space. It also has a mixed culture: Small-town, mid sized privates mixed with schools with urban schools with BCS level potential producing FCS-level results. My advice: Split the MAC in two separate conferences. One of these conferences would be a low FBS-level football league; this is direction which many of the MAC schools are eventually headed toward. The other league would be one of the most prestigious non-BCS conferences in the nation, with a northeastern base and also a strong basketball league.

Before I get to the split, I shall develop a base of two conferences. The FBS conference is the one which will keep the conference name, as such; I’ll move the conference headquarters to Philadelphia. Second, I’ll add three more schools to the MAC: The University of Massachusetts, The University of North Carolina-Charlotte and the University of Delaware. I think obtaining Delaware will be easy; the school looks promising as a FBS football member and could compete in the MAC immediately.

Here’s my plan for UMASS. First, I’ll offer Temple and ultimatum: Move all your sports to the MAC or get lost. Given the amount of funding they’ve been putting into their football program recently, I sincerely doubt they’d be in a position to turn me down. After Temple accepts my ultimatum, I’ll approach UNC-Charlotte with the possibility of moving their sports to the MAC. I would promise them a future home in an eastern football league. I have a hunch the UNC-Charlotte would prefer to start their program at FBS if they could find a solid conference to start with. This will severely weaken the Atlantic Ten. After receiving a commitment from UNC-Charlotte, I would approach UMASS about moving their sports from the weakened Atlantic Ten to the MAC. At first, I would not ask for FBS football (That can wait until the split). Since the MAC would now provide a better basketball home than the A10, I feel it likely that UMASS would accept.

I would work, and live with, the following assumptions. First, the Big East has not split, instead have added two more members: The university of Saint Louis and the University of Memphis. This leads to major instability in the Atlantic Ten and [especially] Conference USA. With Memphis gone, I can probably cherry-pick the geographically isolated C-USA members. Memphis’ basketball success has been the one thing holding C-USA together.

My next agenda would be to find a couple of struggling schools a new home. I would begin talks with the Missouri Valley about taking in Kent State and Eastern Michigan. The two schools are far ahead of the other Missouri Valley options, so my hunch is that they’d accept. This leaves me with:
Conference Division One:
SUNY-Buffalo
Delaware
UNC-Charlotte
Miami (Ohio)
Ohio University
*Massachusetts

Conference Division II:
Northern Illinois
Western Michigan
Central Michigan
Bowling Green
Ball State
Akron University
Toledo University

After five years of about 16 teams, I would figure its time to split. I would take group one and add three more all-sports schools to the equation: the Universities of Eastern Carolina, the University of Central Florida and Marshall. I would be able to pull this off because the distances between the two eastern C-USA schools and El Paso and the loss of Memphis makes C-USA a lot less attractive conference. This would bring me up to nine members. Secondly, I will add two more non-football schools: Boston University and the SUNY-Stony Brook. These two non-football schools help boost my conference’s academic reputation and strengthen my northern base.

The Mid American Conference now encompasses twelve members and looks like this:
UMASS
SUNY-Buffalo
Delaware
Temple
Boston University*
SUNY-Stony Brook*

Miami of Ohio
Ohio University
Marshall
Eastern Carolina
Central Florida
UNC-Charlotte

I have a feeling if I can convince Eastern Carolina and Marshall to come aboard, the University of Central Florida will also join hands.

I would complement this lineup with two new bowls: First, I’d leverage a bowl in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to be played at Lincoln Financial Field. I would label the bowl the ‘Bowl of Brotherly Love’. Philadelphia also acts as my conference headquarters. Despite the Northern location, I would try to leverage this bowl as either on New Year’s Eve or New Years Day. I would also try to use its location and permanent status to swipe the Big East #2 from the Gator/Sun Bowl. With the acquisition of Central Florida, I will also likely swipe the Saint Petersburg Bowl from C-USA. This would increase our fledgling bowl lineup to two, as I’m guessing we’ll end up with the International Bowl from the split. I would console the MAC by offering their #3 a spot in ‘the bowl for the cure” where we will send our number #3. So far, the MAC’s bowl lineup looks like this:
#1 Bowl of Brotherly Love vs. #2 Big East
#2 International Bowl vs. #4 Big East
#3 St Petersburg vs. #6 Big East/Sun Belt
#4 Bowl for the Cure vs. #3 MAC

Eventually, I will start talks with the Big East about co-hosting the Bowl of Brotherly Love. A large metro area, central to the conference base, and a 60,000+ state of the art stadium make this a hard deal to pass up. Meanwhile, the MAC will slowly be developing into one of the better non-BCS conferences in both Basketball and Football. By now, UMASS should have decided to pursue 1-A, and we should be at ten members. Given our schools raw attributes, we should pass C-USA, the Sun Belt, the remaining WAC schools, and the ex-MAC, placing us second behind the MWC in the non-BCS schools. It will also have one of the better academic reputations in FBS, sporting almost all D/RUs with over 20,000 student bodies. However, the MAC has something the MWC can’t claim: The conference contains a bowl that could become BCS eligible with a state-of-the art stadium in a major metropolis. The MAC and the Big East would then petition the ‘Bowl of Brotherly Love’ for BCS membership. Given the raw statistics, we should be able to achieve this.

I also have a plan for the seven ex-MAC schools. Under the new name Great Lakes Collegiate Leagues (GLCL), I will ambitiously add three more members: First, the university of Youngstown State, Second, the University of Southern Illinois. I would then open my doors to three non-football member: The University of Milwaukee at Wisconsin, The University of Nebraska at Omaha, and the University of Missouri at Saint Louis. University of Milwaukee-Wisconsin would eventually be expected to sponsor Division 1 Football. This gives me the following twelve members:
Western Michigan
Central Michigan
Akron
Toledo
Bowling Green
Youngstown State

Northern Illinois
Southern Illinois
Ball State
University of Missouri-Saint Louis*
University of Nebraska-Omaha*
Milwaukee Wisconsin*

I would then use the leverage from the stadium size and location to switch the teams between the GMAC bowl and the Motor City Bowl. So I’d be sending the #2 team to play the #7 Big Ten team in Mobile, and sending the #1 team to play the #2 C-USA team in Detroit. Many of the C-USA teams travel well, so the attendance should remain about the same. This would give me three bowls, which is about on par for a conference of my stature. The Bowl lineup would look like this:

#1 Motor City Bowl vs. #2 C-USA
#2 GMAC Bowl vs. #7 Big Ten
#3 Bowl for the Cure vs. #4 MAC
And that’s just about all she wrote on the MAC..