Could happen as soon as 2013-2014. ESPN has the article here.
The newly named league would have a membership in 2013-14 of: UNLV, New Mexico, Wyoming, Colorado State and Air Force, Hawaii (in football only), Southern Miss, Tulsa, Marshall, Rice, UTEP, UAB, Tulane and East Carolina.
They do plan on having a divisional/regional setup for ease of travel and what-not, so at least there's that.
Enough is enough
Jesus that article is a hard
Jesus that article is a hard read.
The 3:4 sentence to paragraph ratio didn't help either.
This is home...
IMO, it all comes to a head
IMO, it all comes to a head in 2013 with the new BCS agreement. The smaller conferences will be out of the big-money bowls, and are going to fight among themselves for the biggest deals they can find. Once we have a year or two of that, everyone deals with the outcome and settles down.
Go Blue!
I can't wait for Marshall
I can't wait for Marshall versus New Mexico during rivalry week.
Class of '97: 4 Years -- 4 Four-loss seasons
Really? That matchup would
Really? That matchup would be totally overshadowed by the ECU - Hawai'i tussle. Looking forward to it.
ECU Pirates
At least ECU has a nautically-themed nickname that might play well in Oahu.
Wait... San Diego State to
Wait... San Diego State to the Big East? You have got to be kidding me. Where was I when this happened??
A wise man speaks because he has something to say; a fool because he has to say something. - Plato
In other words...
Last Thursday, around lunchtime.
BRCE is that you?
BRCE is that you?
Edit: Not responding to BiSB but a previous comment that no longer exists. So now my comment makes zero sense whatsover. In an effort to save this now terribly obtuse portion of my response I give you....cat juggling.
Thank you
We accept your gift of Juggling Cat. Go in peace.
MGrowOld
Nice Save.
From the Red Cedar Message Board: "God hates us." Yes He does Lil Bro, yes he does. Everyone hates you.
Good move for them. Collects
Good move for them. Collects all the top non-BCS schools in one place, probably helps with scheduling home games for TV purposes, and will help the cause of at least a decent conference championship game.
Why don't they just merge
Why don't they just merge with the Biggish Eastish too, and create a giant mecha-conference of thoroughly mediocre teams?
"We've beaten Michigan the last four years. So where's the threat?"
- Mark Dantonio
Blogging the Virginia Cavaliers at http://fromoldvirginia.blogspot.com/<
The 'un-conference'
The 'un-conference' Conference
"Gentelmen, this is football"
I think the only thing holding them back
is haggling over which teams become which body parts when it comes time to transform into a giant asian-space-warrior-animal-samuri-bot.
Who gets to be the head, & who gets relegated to "groin" status.
It's the classic Voltron conundrum®
Love & Hate are horns on the same goat.
Wow....so basically every
Wow....so basically every team NOT in a power conference has banded together to form their own mega-conference?
Why does this remind me of when I was in 8th grade. I was insanely fat and wore ridiculous glasses and even had somewhat of skin condition. Me and the other lady-killers got together to form a secret "club" that only we would be allowed into. Mind you that no other kid with even a shrad of cool in them would ever want to be in this club but we played it out with secret handshakes, codes and whatnot. Sort of like divisions, and playoffs and whatever the Hell the MWC and Conference USA are going to cobble together I suppose.
This is nothing like that.
You had a club, they have an association. Clearly they're completely different.
Go Blue!
they have the golden arches,
they have the golden arches, we have the golden arcs.
Haha
They've got the Big Mac, I got the Big Mick. We both got two all-beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles and onions, but their bun has sesame seeds. My buns have no seeds.
Go Blue!
they should just name the
they should just name the divisions "ESPN tuesday nights", "ESPN wednesday nights" and "ESPN thursday nights except if there is a better game in the Big East."
That will be a shitty
That will be a shitty conference.
This has nothing to do with Michigan football.
I still like it better than the Big East
the Big East just needs to die as a football conference
Two Become One
Pastor: We are here today to join two irrelevant leagues...(let's skip ahead).. Anyone who thinks that these two should not be wed, speak now or forever hold your peace.
***Silence***
Pastor: I forgot no one cares about either one of you
Aaron Craft has Rosacea, and I hate him.
Mel Brooks
Can we get Mel Brooks circa 1987 to play the pastor? Please say yes. Pretty please.
I'm hungry. Time to eat.
No. We're getting the
No. We're getting the Princess Bride guy. Mawwage of the Mowntan Weft and Confwence USA is wot bringth us togevvah, today.
"We've beaten Michigan the last four years. So where's the threat?"
- Mark Dantonio
Blogging the Virginia Cavaliers at http://fromoldvirginia.blogspot.com/<
Excellent
Conference Buttercup!
Excellent, you say?
Conference Buttercup has MGoMeme potential.
"The straightest line from A to B is straight: From A to B"
"When you have Denard Robinson, you can have everything"
~George Walden
AS YOU WIIIIISSSSSHHHHH!!!!
AS YOU WIIIIISSSSSHHHHH!!!!
Fuck Urban Meyer!
www.facebook.com/franklin.kaiser
"The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena...."
Can I
Can I say yes to you right now?
Aaron Craft has Rosacea, and I hate him.
The Divisions are going to be
The Divisions are going to be named "Who?" and "What?".
That's what the B1G gets for
That's what the B1G gets for jerking Tulsa around. Now they're gone forever. We'll have to settle for Notre Dame.
"There was a time I could have been mistaken for Burt Reynolds. I had a moustache and so did he. But he was the number one star in the world, so there wasn't really much confusion."
Dear B1G Fanbase:
This just
Dear B1G Fanbase:
This just goes to show that things can always be worse. Compared to this stewpot of bad football teams "Legends & Leaders" doesn't sound so bad now does it?
Sincerely,
Jim
Dear Jim,
Dear Jim,
The long-term geologic stability of the Big Ten conference notwithstanding, the naming of the divisions was a mind-numbingly trite decision and left much to be desired. As a Midwestern citizen of conscience I have no choice but to add renaming of the divisions to my agenda. I would characterize my position on this issue as intractable. Thank you for finally saying yes to a four-team playoff.
Sincerely,
BlueDragon
Abort, Retry, Fail?
Dear
Dear BlueDragon:
Notwithstanding your obviously misinformed and narrow-minded assessment of the brilliant naming of our divisions we are keeping things "as is". We conducted an exhuastive survey of B1G fans throughout my house and country club and the overwhelming majority of the five people we spoke to (I included myself in the poll) were that the names were an outstanding representation of the pride and tradition of this great conference and changing them would be a slap in the face to the long-standing tradition these names invoke.
Glad to hear you share our support of the four team playoff. Here a couple of items not yet out there for public consumption that I don't mind sharing with you:
1. We are lobbying hard for the permanent site to be in Minnesota. Works for hockey, why not football?
2. We are giving the semi-final game winners trophy's. The preliminary names we're batting around for the trophies would be "Winners" & "Awesome". The National Championship trophy would be the "Icon" award. Like it?
Thanks again for your feedback.
JD
Good Lord, make it stop.
Good Lord, make it stop.
Regional / Divisional Alignment?
Looking at the list, we can make the "Mostly West" and "Largely South" Regions, and the "Not All That Good" and the "Really? Seriously? That's On TV?" Divisions.
I sort of feel bad for these conferences, for some reason, particularly the MWC, because they had a fair number of teams move from a conference with no auto-bid to a conference that should be roundly shunned and lose its auto-bid.
"Funny isn't it, how naughty dentists always make that one fatal mistake."
Follow the random tweets of a Michigan alum - http://twitter.com/#!/LorneEC3
I'm not a BCS-hater, but in
I'm not a BCS-hater, but in my opinion the BCS cabal really screwed the pooch. If they had seen what fans everywhere had seen, half this conference insanity would never have happened. If they had simply informed the MWC that it would get a real, serious look at BCS eligibility and sent out waves that implied it could take the Biggish Eastish's spot at the table, the MWC could be a real conference with real pull: Utah, TCU, SDSU, Boise, Fresno, Hawaii, BYU, UNM (a decent football school if you pretend the Locksley era never happened.)
But my tinfoil hat theory is that the BCS commissioners needed the MWC schools to populate their own conferences, so out to dry went the Mountain West.
"We've beaten Michigan the last four years. So where's the threat?"
- Mark Dantonio
Blogging the Virginia Cavaliers at http://fromoldvirginia.blogspot.com/<
The MWC
Commissioner has to be dying a death of a thousand screams. He was *this* close to having a completely legitimate AQ conference that in just about every way, was better than the Big East (before it fell apart) and deserved an AQ with the production being put out by Utah, BSU, and TCU.
And it all fell apart when TCU decided to bail for the Big East/Twelve, kinda sad actually. I feel for the guy.
I'm going to need to keep a
I'm going to need to keep a cheat sheet of conference moves and mergers with me to watch college football next year.
"I'm the guy who does his job. You must be the other guy."
I like it
Anything that can remotely contribute to the demise of the BCS and a playoff to determine a true champion in football is fine with me. I am pretty sure I'm in a minority here, but I wouldn't mind seeing major colleges form a new division, and possibly even break away from the NCAA entirely with a simplified rule book about five percent as large as the current one.
They should challenge....
the Big East to an OOC cross over.
All right Lemmings. Bring the heat.
This will definitely go the
This will definitely go the way of the old WAC pretty quickly. No way this can be stable. It's just so bloated. Nobody is going to know who's in the conference for at least 5 years. And then add another 5 for everybody to figure out the divisions or whatever they are going to be called.
I try to track these moves with updated maps
but the gerrymandering is getting rediculous as I try to keep the territories contiguous. From a UTEP press conference that I found quoted here, it looks like there are rumors The Association may look into poaching the WAC (Utah State) and the Sun Belt (FIU) to get up to 18 teams (the posters are disappointed that North Texas is not mentioned in being one of the lucky ones rumored to be joining The Association).
If I recall, the NCAA bylaws only currently provide for a 1-game conference championship in football, so new legislation would need to be enacted to allow The Association to add in a semi-final game.
If the bowl-eligibility requirements go to 7 wins, there will likely be fewer bowls, so I could see it being easier to make the case for extra games for a couple of teams, except the winner would still be expecting to go onto a bowl game. And, with the Hawaii/Alaska exception, they could possibly be playing 13 regular season games. Might see the first 16-0 team that still wasn't worth watching...
Jesus that article is a hard read. Not that its hard to understand but so many conference shake ups is getting really old. It begs the question when will things stabilize? The NCAA is enough of a joke, unstable conferences fending for their survival is a shame.
Its called a royale with cheese