[JK37]

I don’t believe WCC is as close to same quality as MWC anymore, and Gonzaga seems ok with that. Gonzaga has always been happy to be the big fish in a small pond.

If Gonzaga ever moved to the MWC or even the Big XII as rumored not long ago, I think it would be a rude awakening.

[Ill flame]

At least according to NET the WCC was the better conference for 4 of the last 5 years with last year being the year MWC was better but both had a good year. Before BYU left they consistently had 5 (of 10) teams in the top 100 in NET. During that time the WCC only played a 16 game schedule where the top teams in the conference only had to play the bottom two teams in the conference once instead of twice. They also heavily skewed the conference tournament so gonzaga would only have to play one of the top 4 teams every year, all to help their SOS. Now that BYU is leaving the conference and they are going back to a balanced schedule that might be another factor that will make them reconsider.

Gonzaga has proven over the last couple of decades they are not just a big fish in a little pond. They can compete with anyone in the country and regularly do. Since 2018 when MWC tried to poach them they are 22-14 (.611) against top 25 and 9-6 (.600) against top 10 opponents. If anything it would be a rude awakening for the MWC.

[JK37]

I forgot BYU. You’re right on that front. Going forward, I do think the MWC is a significant step above.

Gonzaga competes. But they’ve never had to do it like anyone in the BigTen or BigXII does every single night. I believe it would be a rude awakening.

[Ill flame]

Apparently one of the ideas being tossed around by Pac2/MWC admins is to expand the conferences to a combined 16 teams (at least) and then implement promotion/relegation. 8 teams in the pac and 8 teams in MWC. The bottom 2 teams in pac 2 get relegated and top 2 teams in MWC get promoted, obviously with the pac 2 teams getting more tv money. The article says they would have 10 "conference" games. A 7 game round robin against every team in their respective conference and then 3 cross over games. Olympic sports would be split regionally.

It's a fun concept to think about and it makes a lot of sense but there is a lot of logistical things they would need to work through to make this reality. I'm not convinced the NCAA would allow it or that administrators would be willing to deal with tv revenue uncertainty. More details are in the article. A lot of it is speculation since it's so early in the process so take what you read with a grain of salt.

https://ca.sports.yahoo.com/news/colleg ... 10955.html

[ballcoach15]

NCAA should not allow it. Every conference should be separate from other conferences.
With conferences stretching from coast to coast, some sports/schools will get shafted. I read one proposal that had ACC teams playing at neutral sites in Dallas area, to cut down on travel. This would screw schools out of home games. Not good. I hope ACC adding California schools, backfires on the conference.

[Ill flame]

The pac 8 wouldn't be a power conference anymore but it would be another AAC situation where they would be in it's own category between P4 and G5 if it were implemented. Not having dead weight would be a big difference maker that would allow the winner to earn a CFP berth most years. I'm curious if a couple of the western AAC schools like UTSA would be willing to bet on themselves to be a part of the pac 8 or if the pac/mwc would have to settle for NMSU/UTEP to fill out the numbers in this scenario.

[ballcoach15]

What's to say the PAC 8 or PAC whatever, would not be a P5 conference ? Even though many schools left, there's still a conference out there.

[LUOrange]

The PAC# would remain a P/A conference for at least 2 more years through the current CFP agreement. As far as the PAC-MWC Yahoo story proposal, IMO the "lesser" MWC schools should be wary of this idea. IMO, it sounds like a way for the better brands to get out of the MWC without having to pay exit fees, lose TV money, etc. The PAC2 needs to pick the better brands of the MWC & AAC to be viable. All this is the long way to that goal. Schools like Wyoming, Nevada, Utah State, and NM should think really hard about this, cause they're the ones that'll get screwed by this. They're better off forcing SDSU, Boise, UNLV, etc. out now in order to the exit fees.

[LUOrange]

NCAA should not allow it. Every conference should be separate from other conferences.
With conferences stretching from coast to coast, some sports/schools will get shafted. I read one proposal that had ACC teams playing at neutral sites in Dallas area, to cut down on travel. This would screw schools out of home games. Not good. I hope ACC adding California schools, backfires on the conference.

IMO, it'd make more sense for the ACC to go ahead and take OSU & WSU as well since they brought in the Woke U's (Cal & Stanford). That way they could just divide up into pods to limit extensive travel for non-football & basketball sports, and they're ready for the impending exits of Clemson, UNC, FSU & who knows who else.

Of course, this would be bad for our promotion efforts in a couple of ways. But, I too, not only hope that the Left Coast schools joining the ACC backfires, but all of this national super power conferences nonsense does as well.

[Ill flame]

What's to say the PAC 8 or PAC whatever, would not be a P5 conference ? Even though many schools left, there's still a conference out there.

We'll see if the P4 votes them out or not. Regardless they still won't be close to the level of the P4 unless they were to convince Memphis, UTSA and Tulane to join and then kick out Hawaii.

Washington state
Oregon state
Boise state
Fresno state
San Diego state
Tulane
Memphis
UTSA

The above conference with Wyoming, San Jose state, air force and Utah state fighting to move up might be good enough top to bottom to convince people to consider them a power conference but it would still be weaker than the others. I'm sure they would be able to get a better tv deal than what any of the other G5s are getting.

[ATrain]

NCAA should not allow it. Every conference should be separate from other conferences.
With conferences stretching from coast to coast, some sports/schools will get shafted. I read one proposal that had ACC teams playing at neutral sites in Dallas area, to cut down on travel. This would screw schools out of home games. Not good. I hope ACC adding California schools, backfires on the conference.

IMO, it'd make more sense for the ACC to go ahead and take OSU & WSU as well since they brought in the Woke U's (Cal & Stanford). That way they could just divide up into pods to limit extensive travel for non-football & basketball sports, and they're ready for the impending exits of Clemson, UNC, FSU & who knows who else.

Of course, this would be bad for our promotion efforts in a couple of ways. But, I too, not only hope that the Left Coast schools joining the ACC backfires, but all of this national super power conferences nonsense does as well.

I'm in agreement. Add in Gonzaga and St. Mary's, and you get a 6 team western pod for the Olympic sports. SMU, Miami, Florida State, Georgia Tech, Clemson, and bring in Memphis for a Southeastern pod. The 4 Carolina schools plus VT and UVA for a Mid-Atlantic pod. Notre Dame, Louisville, Syracuse, Pitt, Boston College, and bring in UConn for a Northeastern pod. Top 4 teams from each pod gets to go to conference tournaments.

[ballcoach15]

I did not like anything about Stanford, until they made the softball World Series with a "home grown team", i.e. no transfers on the team.

[JK37]

Hate is too strong a word for the godly and upright.

[ATrain]

Oregon State wanting to study relegation, and OSU/Wazzu anticipate the fate of the PAC-2 being decided in the not-too-distant future:
https://www.espn.com/college-football/s ... rthy-study
https://www.espn.com/college-sports/sto ... next-month

[Ill flame]

https://www.cbssports.com/college-footb ... alignment/

This is huge news for us. Without the PAC 12, two G5 conference champs are likely to have a bid to the CFP for at least the 2024 season. They still need all 10 commissioners to agree on a new format if they wanted to change it again so it's likely it'll be 6 conference champions for the 2025 season as well.

[ballcoach15]

Why does the Notre Dame AD have basically as much power as conference commissioners ? This appears to be another case where ND receives favoritism not afforded to any other school.

[Ill flame]

Why does the Notre Dame AD have basically as much power as conference commissioners ? This appears to be another case where ND receives favoritism not afforded to any other school.

It's been this way a long time and it always makes me scratch my head. I'm not sure how it got to that point but there's a reason ND doesn't want to give up their independence. Why be one of 20 schools in the big ten if their one vote has as much weight as the entire big ten conference?

[LUOrange]

This is from a SC Talk Radio Show Host:

And we're still waiting on the PAC2/MWC/AAC decisions to be made. Realignment obviously is far from done. I'm glad we have Costin in place along with McCaw now.

[flameshaw]

Why does the Notre Dame AD have basically as much power as conference commissioners ? This appears to be another case where ND receives favoritism not afforded to any other school.

Because ND is the biggest name in college football. They also have a lot of well-healed alumni that spend lots of money to travel and support the team. I am not a fan, but it is what I see first hand.
What blows my mind even more is the way the Tarhole basketball team is always over-rated and has been for decades.

[cruzan_flame13]

Something to giggle about I suppose:

https://csnbbs.com/thread-979260.html

[Humble_Opinion]

I looked at Total Expenses from the 2022 Reporting Year on the EADA site and against all AAC members, LU would have had the 3rd largest Athletics budget at $57.4M. The highest was Temple at $67.1M, followed by the University of South Florida at $62.3M. The average (excluding SMU since they are leaving) was $44.3M, so from an investment standpoint we are more than ready for the AAC. For giggles, I looked at JMU's budget and they were sitting at $52.9M, which is also respectable by comparison. If it were a question on the ability of a potential member to provide additional investment, I think it's pretty clear that LU would easily outpace JMU. A $10M increase to put us at the top of the league is not a far-stretch.

[ballcoach15]

If JMU (and ODU) were as good as some pundits of the world maintain, JMU and ODU would have been invited to SEC instead of Texas and Oklahoma.

[ATrain]

Something to giggle about I suppose:

https://csnbbs.com/thread-979260.html

Definitely giggled, laughed out loud, chortled audibly, etc...

[ATrain]

In other developments, rumors are flying around the Twitterverse/X-Sphere that Oregon State and Washington State are using the lawsuit against the other PAC-12 members as leverage to try and get into the Big 12 or ACC.

[tyndal23]

I looked at Total Expenses from the 2022 Reporting Year on the EADA site and against all AAC members, LU would have had the 3rd largest Athletics budget at $57.4M. The highest was Temple at $67.1M, followed by the University of South Florida at $62.3M. The average (excluding SMU since they are leaving) was $44.3M, so from an investment standpoint we are more than ready for the AAC. For giggles, I looked at JMU's budget and they were sitting at $52.9M, which is also respectable by comparison. If it were a question on the ability of a potential member to provide additional investment, I think it's pretty clear that LU would easily outpace JMU. A $10M increase to put us at the top of the league is not a far-stretch.

Why would any conference focused on Football ( spare me the other sports Twitter Argument stats ) with a choice choose LU over JMU. They average more fans, aren’t a religious school and are more respected in Academics. Both have small / same tv markets. Again - LU will have to buy their way in ( SMU just set the standard ).