I'd take MTSU over WKU everyday...and UNT would get a good look if SMU leaves

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Why suppose when it is not something that would happen? Those schools would not generate enough money to justify being added. 14 or 16 works when you are adding a Texas A&m or Missouri...or a Syracuse and Pitt. Not when you are adding schools that will cost your conference money.

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Well, it looks like Big East football will live. It seems almost a formality that Boise State, Air Force, Houston, SMU, and Central Florida will be joining, perhaps by the end of the week. The C-USA/MWC football alliance will be down to 17 schools at that point. While in reality, I expect only 1-3 schools to be added, I thought of an interesting alignment of 24 teams for this alliance. Unlikely, but here are the moves:

* C-USA (9) adds FAU, FIU, North Texas to get back to 12
* Mountain West (7) adds Denver, Idaho, SJSU, New Mexico State, Utah State to get to 12
* Sun Belt adds UTSA, Texas State, Louisiana Tech, UT-Arlington to get to 10 FB/12 all-sports
* WCC adds Seattle to get to 10

Football Alliance West (8):
Fresno State
Hawaii
Idaho
Nevada
San Diego State
San Jose State
UNLV
Utah State

Football Alliance Central (8):
Colorado State
New Mexico
New Mexico State
North Texas
Rice
Tulsa
UTEP
Wyoming

Football Alliance East (8):
East Carolina
Florida Atlantic
Florida International
Marshall
Memphis
Southern Miss
Tulane
UAB

Everyone in the alliance would play the other 7 in their division as their first 7 conference games. At the end of the year, the three first-placed teams and the best 2nd placed teams would play a mini-tournament:
Semi-final: Best first-placed team vs. Best 2nd-placed team
Semi-final: Other two first-placed teams
This creates a benefit of still having semi-finals but without the need for a 14th regular-season game

For everyone else, end-of-year crossovers can determine the 8th conference game.

Advantages:
* If the dysfunctional Big East survives, then at least it gives a better situation to everyone in the next most dysfunctional conference
* Creates distinct regions for the football alliance
* Football Alliance West: guaranteed trips to California every year
* Football Alliance Central: guaranteed trips to Texas every year
* Football Alliance East: guaranteed trips to Florida every year
* MWC, C-USA, Sun Belt all at 12 for basketball

Disadvantages:
* Potential to water down football alliance with weaker programs
* Political realities of destroying a conference

Really, if things play out and the 3 CUSA schools leave for the Big East, along with the two from the MWC...I think the "football partnership" can be altered a bit.

Really, at that point, why not consider a FULL merger?

All you'd need would be for the MWC to add Utah St.

You'd then have:

Name: Conference USA

East:
East Carolina
Marshall
Memphis
Southern Miss
Tulane
UAB
Rice
Tulsa
UTEP

West:
Fresno State
Hawaii
Nevada
San Diego State
UNLV
Utah State
Colorado State
New Mexico
Wyoming


what's more "conference" and "USA" than "east" and "west" from Atlantic to Pacific?



Only hiccups are that I'm sure CUSA will want to replace SMU with a Dallas area school like North Texas. And I doubt UTEP would move to MWC side for a 9/9 split at 18. So might mean 10/10 with Utah St. and SJSU in west, North Texas in east.


But really...why limit it to football if you can be at 18...only 4 more than say SEC and ACC and get a better overall tV deal for hoops and football in the process. GOTTA think that the TV deal for hoops would be more per school if it covered all 18 areas rather than just the 9/9 via two seperate TV deals for basketball.

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Could work but it would be tough. How would scheduling work? Would schools only compete against schools in their division? Or would it still be round robin (18-20 conference games in basketball for example). I know I wouldn't really want my Spartans playing in East Carolina every couple years if we were included in a 20 team conference.

If you only play in your division then you are basically two conferences that have a playoff together at the end of the year. So there might be a little bonus for the football championship game and the conference playoffs at the end of the basketball season, but not much more than what they can expect with just a football alliance. The question is: Is the C-USA/MWC playoffs (probably just the semis and final would be televised) worth more than them having separate playoffs?

I think it's best if they both go to 12 and have conference championship games one week and the following week play each other. Simple and keeps the footprints the same in other sports. Especially since C-USA will probably want to replace SMU with UNT and UCF with another Florida school. The MWC has other schools they could add as well like USU, SJSU, Denver. They could also offer football only membership to schools like NMSU and/or Idaho if they had to.

I was thinking about this earlier today, UTEP liked playing with SMU and Houston if they leave Rice and UNT won't be the same. Regardless, I think a 20/20 split will work the best, full round robin and a CCG between the two. Move UTEP to the MW and take Utah St, then add UNT and LA Tech or Temple to CUSA.

For a full merger they would need to figure out what they'll do with Hawaii, there would be 7 full MW members and 9 CUSA ones, move UTEP over and its a perfect 16 team league with an 8/8 split, but Hawaii would need to go independent or wiggle into the new Big East.

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I think 10 per side would work best, too. But five leaving, they'd be down to 17. 8 MWC, 9 C-USA. They'd need three more.

I think you have to take FIU and FAU, because you need a Florida presence, which means UTEP would have to slide over, and only one slot would remain for the MWC.

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I had 3, UNT Utah St and LA Tech(or Temple)

I think Dallas (or North Dallas) would be better than South Florida for recruiting and establishing a footprint, UNT and Tulsa go well together, moving UTEP over is a no brainer and pair them with New Mexico. The only major players left on the table in the West are Utah St, SJSU, and BYU; BYU isn't coming back, so the SLC market is very attractive so I think it would be BYU. SJSU has a decent market but its programs don't stack up (although they are improving) so unless UTEP refuses to move West they have little to no shot pending any state legislation or possible defection by SDSU.

So the MWC has 10 but loses 2 (BSU/AFA) and adds UTEP and Utah St to get to 10, and SJSU if SDSU gets a BE invite.

CUSA loses 3 to the Big East (SMU/UH/UCF) and 1 to the MWC (UTEP) so they'd be down to 8, UNT makes the most sense to add but that leaves 1 open spot. While theoretically getting back into Florida would be nice, I just don't see FAU/FIU as slam dunk options. With UCF and UTEP out the door I think CUSA would be smart to sure up its footprint. Marshall and ECU will be outliers of the conference and if UConn/Rutgers/Lville/Cinncy get lifelines to the ACC/B12 then they may be next in line to join the BE (more likely just ECU but both are options). In my opinion longtime CUSA outcast LA Tech would tighten the footprint and bolster the football strength and is the best option despite its lack of markets. The only other option should be Temple, if they get passed over by the BE again Temple and Marshall would make travel easier for non-fb sports and Temple has great bball which will only help CUSA in the long term. Consolidating CUSA's footprint can only work in its favor, there are more options available to them in the short and longterm in Gulf South TX/LA/MS/AL (UTSA/TX St/Lamar/SHSU/SFA/UTA/ULL/ULM/Troy/USA) and bordering states OK/AR/TN/KY (ORU/Ark St/UALR/UCA/MTSU/WKU) than in the Midwest (MAC), Northeast (UMass/Temple/Buffalo), or Atlantic.

While you could easily throw FIU/FAU in there I think like you, that you'd need both to really have a foothold in the region, and while UAB/Marshall/ECU may like that idea; I'm pretty sure Tulsa/Tulane/Rice/Memphis/So Miss would rather keep DFW in the fold over South Florida.

If CUSA decides against LA Tech again and goes for Temple I still think this could work well, if the Big East comes back for Temple/ECU/Memphis in the future then FAU/FIU could help stabilize the conference with the best or the SBC or the East wing of the WAC. Marshall becomes the biggest geographic torn in CUSA and could possibly be convinced to return to the MAC thus making both conferences more stable in the end I hope to see both CUSA and the MWC have 12 members and a CCG with some sort of BCS play-in game...something like this

MWC-Hawaii, Fresno, SJSU, UNLV, Nevada, Idaho, UtahSt, Wyoming, CSU, NewMexico, NMSU, UTEP
CUSA-Tulsa, UNT, TX St, UTSA, Rice, Tulane, LA Tech, So Miss, UAB, Troy, FAU, FIU

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IF, and emphasize the "if", SMU & Houston go to the BE, RICE will be the only former Southwest Conference school not placed in a current BCS AQ conference.

UTEP, when they moved to C-USA, cited the desire to "play other Texas schools" as a prime reason for the move. With only Rice left, and they are way across state, UTEP may be willing to go elsewhere (MWC?).

Temple seems like a good C-USA addition, if it is for all-sports. LA Tech has tried for C-USA for several years. With Tulane already in C-USA, adding LA Tech was not a priority.

Utah St. to the MWC would make a lot of sense per geography and the MWC's tradition in the state. While USU is not BYU or Utah, it's better than a void.

It's all going to come down to whether a football alliance is worth an AQ if they lose Houston, SMU, UCF and the MWC loses BSU and AFA. If the answer is no (and I think it will be no) then they will probably scrap the alliance and go their separate ways. In which case I think you're right about UTEP to the MWC and C-USA will move east. Temple is a logical addition, I just wonder if that would be all sports or football only. I think they'll need a Florida replacement for recruiting purposes. You've also got schools like Charlotte (former C-USA school) looking to upgrade and UMass upgrading as well. WKU and MTSU would even be decent additions.

I don't really see much reason for an alliance w/o Houston, SMU, UCF, Boise, and maybe Air Force. I can't see any of the leftover 17 ever getting a BCS bid w/ the weaken version of the alliance. Best for the MWC to go to 12 w/ Hawaii(full member), UTEP, Utah St., SJSU, and if AFA leaves, UTSA or Tulsa. I only say UTSA over Tulsa because UTEP will probably insist that there is another Texas school.

CUSA adds FIU, FAU, UNT, Ohio

BE adds Navy, Temple fb to go w/ the other 5.

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Tulsa World article with comments from TU AD regarding C-USA realignment situation at http://www.tulsaworld.com/sportsextra/a ... LSAA228419

Article out of Memphis with comments from Memphis AD regarding fluidity of conference landscape and possible C-USA/MWC invites for schools "like" Temple and FIU.Link at http://www.commercialappeal.com/news/20 ... -be-closed

Trying to read between the lines there it sounds like the full merger may happen and the East is trying to match the West (9 full, 1 football only). The only issue I notice is that both additions would be on the East coast, about as far away as it gets for the West Coast teams. 18 schools would also be a lot of schools for a conference. I would have thought if 18 was the way to go, the additions would be the likes of North Texas and Utah State, schools somewhere in the middle of the country not so far in either direction. This once again leads me to speculate that Fresno State, UNLV, and Nevada will NOT be included in the full merger, rather as football only members. Logically, they fit in the Big West well and the WAC could always be a fall back option.

The Big East is still going to expand and my money is on Nevada getting an invite for football so they're probably headed to the Big West anyway which will only put UNLV and Fresno even more on an island. I know UNLV says they don't want to split their sports but I think they'll realize it's the best option to head to the Big West, especially if their longtime rivals in Reno leave.

So my guess is (and has been) the current C-USA (9 football/9 full) + FIU, Temple (2/1) + current MWC (8/4) + Either Utah State or North Texas full time (1/1) = 20 football/15 full. If they wanted to keep divisions in basketball, there would be plenty of options for 16. Denver seems like a good fit to me. Tulsa would probably be the "odd" team that played football in the East and basketball in the West.

Nevada doesn't have the facilities to be in the BE for football on their tiny erector set field. They'll either add a couple of east teams and move Cincinnati to the west or and 1 east team and 1 of Colorado St., Fresno St., UNLV(said they don't want to put sports in different conferences).

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