Division 1 College Conference Realignment

[gingerbreadmann]

I'd rather be able to remember who division foes are kthxbye. The problem with ACC and this alignment is that you could shuffle the lineup annually and nobody would know the difference.

EDIT-Also, the Big Ten plays more than football. Michigan State and (sometimes) Illinois aside, the Land Division is one craptacular basketball division.

Well the Big Ten doesn't have to use the division in the other sports. The ACC only uses theirs in football, basketball is just a single table. But you do have a point. I have no idea what the ACC's divisions are for football. That may have something to do though, with the fact that I slowly stopped watching the conference after expansion.

Most other conferences do use the divisions though. The fact that the ACC doesn't probably stands as further testament to the patent ridiculousness of their divisional setup.

Not really, though. Of all FBS conferences that use divisions, only the SEC and MAC use them for basketball. The ACC, Big XII, and Conference USA lose the divisions for basketball.

EDIT: The CAA and SWAC also lose them for basketball, while the Sun Belt, Southern, and Southland only use divisions for basketball.

[rams80]

I'd rather be able to remember who division foes are kthxbye. The problem with ACC and this alignment is that you could shuffle the lineup annually and nobody would know the difference.

EDIT-Also, the Big Ten plays more than football. Michigan State and (sometimes) Illinois aside, the Land Division is one craptacular basketball division.

Well the Big Ten doesn't have to use the division in the other sports. The ACC only uses theirs in football, basketball is just a single table. But you do have a point. I have no idea what the ACC's divisions are for football. That may have something to do though, with the fact that I slowly stopped watching the conference after expansion.

Most other conferences do use the divisions though. The fact that the ACC doesn't probably stands as further testament to the patent ridiculousness of their divisional setup.

Not really, though. Of all FBS conferences that use divisions, only the SEC and MAC use them for basketball. The ACC, Big XII, and Conference USA lose the divisions for basketball.

EDIT: The CAA and SWAC also lose them for basketball, while the Sun Belt, Southern, and Southland only use divisions for basketball.

I should have made myself clearer. The divisions are used for scheduling purposes.

[gingerbreadmann]

I'm a little confused -- I was just responding to "Most other conferences do use the divisions though" (since that's not totally true). I think I'm missing your point.

[Jamikel]

That, and the ridiculous amount of political power the North Carolina schools have in the ACC, which is the reason for the ridiculous set-up in the first place.

So the North Carolina schools wielded their ridiculous amounts of political power to make sure they were split up into separate divisions?

Wait... what?

<checks the alignments>

I could've SWORE they were in the same division. In large part because it's the only logical reason for having divisions that make no logical sense.

<adds my post to the "evidence that the ACC's alignment makes no damn sense" pile>

Yeaaaaaaah... I think you can blame Florida State and Miami for that one. Well, not so much Florida State and Miami as much as the Powers That Be in the ACC who wanted to make sure a FSU-Miami ACC title game was possible. Same reason for the failed attempts to hold the ACC title game in Florida. I'm sure you've all loved the great slugfests between FSU and Miami to decide the ACC title since expansion.

An alternative reason for not doing it geographically is that the traditional football powers in the ACC are in the southern half, geographically, and they didn't want the conference to end up like the Big 12, where one division is one of the toughest in college football, while the other is Nebraska. So naturally, we get the Coastal Division, with four pre-season top 25 teams, and the Atlantic, with Florida State.

[rams80]

I'm a little confused -- I was just responding to "Most other conferences do use the divisions though" (since that's not totally true). I think I'm missing your point.

For example, The Big XII basketball schedule calls for each team to have a home-and-home with its division mates, and play one game against each team in other division.

[oz615]

Sources: BYU mulling Notre Dame path

http://sports.espn.go.com/ncf/news/story?id=5472642

Rival Utah's move to the Pac-10 has given BYU the impetus to seriously explore the possibility of leaving the Mountain West, going independent in football and re-joining the WAC in all other sports, multiple sources told ESPN.com Tuesday.

BYU, according to sources, was stunned that an invitation didn't come its way as the Pac-10 first invited the Big 12's Colorado and then turned to Utah to become the Pac-12 earlier this summer. The Big 12, which lost Nebraska to the Big Ten as well, decided to stay with 10 members for 2012 and beyond after Texas decided to stay put instead of going to the Pac-10.

According to sources, BYU wants to differentiate itself from Utah, and by making itself the Notre Dame of the West, it could become a national power. Notre Dame is a football independent and in the Big East for all other sports.

BYU and Notre Dame do share some characteristics, as both are religiously affiliated universities (Notre Dame with the Catholic Church and BYU with The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints) and both schools have television affiliations (BYU owns its own network, while Notre Dame has a network deal with NBC). As a result, BYU is seeking an agreement similar to that of Notre Dame, which is granted a Bowl Championship Series bid if it is in the top eight of the final BCS standings.

According to multiple sources, BYU would have to get a gauge from the BCS if it could get access similar to that of Notre Dame -- should it meet certain criteria -- and further explore the financial feasibility of such a move.

In departing the Mountain West, BYU would be leaving a conference it helped found in 1998 along with seven other schools from the WAC. Despite having once turned its back on the WAC, multiple sources say the conference would welcome back the high-profile Cougars' non-football sports to join a league that is striving to remain relevant.

WAC commissioner Karl Benson said earlier this summer that the league "would give consideration to" taking back BYU in all other sports were the Cougars to go independent.

The current WAC membership includes Fresno State, Louisiana Tech, New Mexico State, San Jose State, Hawaii, Idaho, Nevada and BYU's in-state rival Utah State. If BYU were to leave the MWC, then Fresno State and/or Nevada would certainly be possible options for the MWC if it decided to replace the Cougars.

BYU has discussed going independent in all sports for years as evident by local columns in Utah in 2007. But at that time, the option of being a football independent included also being an independent in all other sports where scheduling is much more difficult. That's not the case in this instance where BYU's other sports would be protected, especially in men's basketball -- a program which would have a favorable path to an NCAA tournament berth through the WAC.

According to sources, having all other sports, notably men's basketball assured of a home in the WAC where it has been comfortable and is in its region, would soften any transitional period.

But if BYU can't be assured a seat at the BCS table, the Cougars won't make the move, leaving anxious schools in the WAC and the MWC still waiting to see what its fate may be in the coming months or year.

[dfwabel]

BYU is nationally known, but they are not Notre Dame. I do not think they are worthy of a BCS guarantee.

No BCS gaurantee = Bad Decision.

[rams80]

So...um....World War Three seems to have erupted between the WAC and MWC.

At the moment:

BYU football: Independent

BYU everything else: WAC

Fresno State: MWC

Colorado State: Invited to MWC

Nevada-Reno: MWC

Boise State: Pondering Options

TCU: Killed a man with a trident.

WAC: Getting hammered and frantically looking at the Sun Belt, Conference USA, and Division I-AA

Everyone Else: Wonder WTF precisely happened in the last 72 hours to send everything higgledy-piggledy and praying there's a home left when the ICBMs fall.

EDIT: Updated for Nevada move. Please note you need 8 programs to exist as a football conference and the WAC is currently below that.

[dfwabel]

So...um....World War Three seems to have erupted between the WAC and MWC.

At the moment:

BYU football: Independent

BYU everything else: WAC

Fresno State: MWC

Colorado State: Invited to MWC

Nevada-Reno: Invited to MWC

Boise State: Pondering Options

TCU: Killed a man with a trident.

Everyone Else: Wonder WTF precisely happened in the last 72 hours to send everything higgledy-piggledy and praying there's a home left when the ICBMs fall.

Colorado State was a MWC founding school.

Nevada and Fresno State can be happy in that they save travel dollars in not having to travel to either Honolulu or Reston, LA. However, I am not sure where Fresno State will come up with the $5MM exit fee if it is does exist. The budget crisis for the Cal State system is immense. Nevada says they never signed such an agreement and Fresno has no comment before their presser later tonight. These moves still mean little with no BCS bid, in fact it may still hurt the MWC as BYU was a better team than the new two added.

The current WAC/ESPN deal which was made with Boise, Nevada, and Fresno St. was for $4MM/year for all sports televised, it going to go down significantly now.

As for BYU-TV, I wonder how they are going to attempt to effectively use it for football.

[rams80]

I think the thought process (if they did sign) is that you can't pay $5 million to something that doesn't exist anymore.

And I'm just going off the official Mountain West Twitter feed on invites. (Unless that was a tongue in cheek reference to CSU's twitter feed getting hacked by a Utah fan yesterday.)

[rams80]

West Coast Conference (Of Gonzaga, LMU, and St. Mary's fame) also interested in BYU non-revenue sports.

[Lights Out]

As a Boise State fan, I couldn't be more thrilled having Fresno State come over to the MWC with us. After all, we love having an automatic win every year. Thanks, Fresno!

[dfwabel]

West Coast Conference (Of Gonzaga, LMU, and St. Mary's fame) also interested in BYU non-revenue sports.

A MWC without BYU and Utah is what? TCU and Boise St.? Losing those two schools is a drop in revenue as well.

I also wonder if Cal State Chancellor Charles Reed would prefer to have his three schools: Fresno St., SJSU, and SDSU all in the same conference?

[oddball]

One thing that you are missing about BYU going independent, is the fact that BYU will control it's fate and who it schedules. Instead of leaning on just beating one or two schools and the rest of your schedule is just a bunch of patsies. Now going independent, they can continue to schedule tough like they do, but if they run the schedule of tougher opponents then they put themselves in a better position to go to a BCS game than they do if they run the Mountain Least schedule. BYU has never been afraid to play the big boys in the big boys stadium and that is something that a lot of the big boys can't even say, I'm talking to you Florida and Nebraska. People sit there and talk about how BYU isn't Notre Dame, that's correct. At least BYU has done something over the past few years, what exactly has Notre Dame done? Oh yeah, that's right, they are still living off the legend of the Gipper.

[dfwabel]

One thing that you are missing about BYU going independent, is the fact that BYU will control it's fate and who it schedules. Instead of leaning on just beating one or two schools and the rest of your schedule is just a bunch of patsies. Now going independent, they can continue to schedule tough like they do, but if they run the schedule of tougher opponents then they put themselves in a better position to go to a BCS game than they do if they run the Mountain Least schedule. BYU has never been afraid to play the big boys in the big boys stadium and that is something that a lot of the big boys can't even say, I'm talking to you Florida and Nebraska. People sit there and talk about how BYU isn't Notre Dame, that's correct. At least BYU has done something over the past few years, what exactly has Notre Dame done? Oh yeah, that's right, they are still living off the legend of the Gipper.

As long as the BCS encourages these meaningless games and gives little credence to SoS then why should any team schedule anything OOC that isn't a directional school. BYU could get nice paydays and TV money, but it does not equate to a Notre Dame-like slot in the BCS. Voters look at the "loss column" more than the SOS. It is the computers which look at SOS with more weight. While Bob Stoops and Oklahoma benefited from SOS in 2004(#6 overall) and 2008 (#1), he does not believe that it still is the case today.

In addition, if BYU does not have a bowl tie-in like ND has with the Big East or a specific bowl, that revenue is lost unless they try to work with ESPN to develop another bowl game or move a poorly attended existing game.

Stoops Talks OOC schedule

"I don?t think in today?s world you?re rewarded for it. Look at the AP poll last year. We beat Oklahoma State at the end of the year, 27-0, and beat another ranked team in Stanford. Well, Oklahoma State?s ranked ahead of us. Why? Look at how it?s ranked every year. AP as well as the coaches all look at the loss column and if one team has one less loss than you they?re ranked ahead of you.?

[Burmy]

OK...here's my review for who's left in the WAC.

Hawaii: Big question mark.

Idaho: Staying put unless everybody else leaves.

Louisiana Tech: Conference USA should send an invite.

New Mexico State: MWC will likely try luring them too (UNM-NMSU rivalry in-conference)

San Jose State: Ditto here (now that FSU's in the MWC and the future of SDSU football is pretty murky)

Utah State: Will likely stay unless everybody else leaves.

Which brings us to the question: "Who will the WAC try luring?"

My gut feeling is they'll cherry-pick the FCS Big Sky, so the most logical options would be Montana (football AND basketball juggernaut), Portland State (major market, newly renovated stadium also home to an MLS team), and Sacramento State (to reestablish the Central Valley market). They might try for Eastern Washington (to continue a Portland State rivalry), Idaho State (to give Idaho an in-state in-conference rival again), and Montana State (if Montana wants to play hardball about joining).

Which leaves me wondering how NAU, NCU, and Weber State would do for themselves...

[Seadragon76]

Well, the WAC has already mentioned a few of the schools that MBurmy said as potential additions. Two more possible teams the WAC are looking at: Texas State-San Marcos and Texas-San Antonio (Both schools have ambitions to move into the FCS level).

This whole thing is really crazy, but I think it all started when Utah left for the Pac-12. With Utah gone, BYU went into 'Needy Little Brother' mode and decided to jump ship from the Mountain West. The WAC might still have sore feelings from the incident that lead to the creation of the Mountain West over 10 years ago, so having BYU join the WAC in everything but football might seem a little weird for a school that does have a football program (You see these moves more for schools that don't have football).

[dfwabel]

OK...here's my review for who's left in the WAC.

Hawaii: Big question mark.

Idaho: Staying put unless everybody else leaves.

Louisiana Tech: Conference USA should send an invite.

New Mexico State: MWC will likely try luring them too (UNM-NMSU rivalry in-conference)

San Jose State: Ditto here (now that FSU's in the MWC and the future of SDSU football is pretty murky)

Utah State: Will likely stay unless everybody else leaves.

Which brings us to the question: "Who will the WAC try luring?"

My gut feeling is they'll cherry-pick the FCS Big Sky, so the most logical options would be Montana (football AND basketball juggernaut), Portland State (major market, newly renovated stadium also home to an MLS team), and Sacramento State (to reestablish the Central Valley market). They might try for Eastern Washington (to continue a Portland State rivalry), Idaho State (to give Idaho an in-state in-conference rival again), and Montana State (if Montana wants to play hardball about joining).

Which leaves me wondering how NAU, NCU, and Weber State would do for themselves...

No FCS school can apply to reclassify themselves into a FBS school until August 2011. The additional cost of scholarships and related travel are factors which schools will have to weigh. The WAC may go after a Sun Belt school like North Texas.

[crashcarson15]

OK...here's my review for who's left in the WAC.

Hawaii: Big question mark.

Idaho: Staying put unless everybody else leaves.

Louisiana Tech: Conference USA should send an invite.

New Mexico State: MWC will likely try luring them too (UNM-NMSU rivalry in-conference)

San Jose State: Ditto here (now that FSU's in the MWC and the future of SDSU football is pretty murky)

Utah State: Will likely stay unless everybody else leaves.

Which brings us to the question: "Who will the WAC try luring?"

My gut feeling is they'll cherry-pick the FCS Big Sky, so the most logical options would be Montana (football AND basketball juggernaut), Portland State (major market, newly renovated stadium also home to an MLS team), and Sacramento State (to reestablish the Central Valley market). They might try for Eastern Washington (to continue a Portland State rivalry), Idaho State (to give Idaho an in-state in-conference rival again), and Montana State (if Montana wants to play hardball about joining).

Which leaves me wondering how NAU, NCU, and Weber State would do for themselves...

I can see Louisiana Tech returning to the Sun Belt myself. On the FCS level though, I can see Portland State, Sacramento State, and Montana wanting to jump to FBS, but there's no way Idaho can support 3 FBS teams. That said though, you do make a fair point with Montana State.

TS-San Marcos and UT-San Antonio do make a lot of sense though. Didn't know about Texas State's intentions to move up though.

[dfwabel]

OK...here's my review for who's left in the WAC.

Hawaii: Big question mark.

Idaho: Staying put unless everybody else leaves.

Louisiana Tech: Conference USA should send an invite.

New Mexico State: MWC will likely try luring them too (UNM-NMSU rivalry in-conference)

San Jose State: Ditto here (now that FSU's in the MWC and the future of SDSU football is pretty murky)

Utah State: Will likely stay unless everybody else leaves.

Which brings us to the question: "Who will the WAC try luring?"

My gut feeling is they'll cherry-pick the FCS Big Sky, so the most logical options would be Montana (football AND basketball juggernaut), Portland State (major market, newly renovated stadium also home to an MLS team), and Sacramento State (to reestablish the Central Valley market). They might try for Eastern Washington (to continue a Portland State rivalry), Idaho State (to give Idaho an in-state in-conference rival again), and Montana State (if Montana wants to play hardball about joining).

Which leaves me wondering how NAU, NCU, and Weber State would do for themselves...

I can see Louisiana Tech returning to the Sun Belt myself. On the FCS level though, I can see Portland State, Sacramento State, and Montana wanting to jump to FBS, but there's no way Idaho can support 3 FBS teams. That said though, you do make a fair point with Montana State.

TS-San Marcos and UT-San Antonio do make a lot of sense though. Didn't know about Texas State's intentions to move up though.

Texas State has had a Campaign to FBS since before the moratorium. Texas State needs to add two more sports as they only offer 14. It is the intention for UTSA to be FBS by 2014, the earliest they can be.

Solely by inviting "the better performing" FCS schools, the WAC does little to address their issues they currently have and the lack of TV revenue (and other issues) which caused three schools to leave.