Need to double the endowment and quadruple the athletic budget in next 5 years.
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Need to double the endowment and quadruple the athletic budget in next 5 years.
The Houston Chronicle reports that UTEP and Rice are in talks to leave CUSA and go to the MWC. I just can't see why Rice would do this. Their travel costs would surely jump a bunch.
UTEP makes sense. Rice is puzzling definitely. Maybe they don't want to be in the same conference with Texas schools they think they are above (UNT, UTSA) and feel they can recruit better against Houston in MWC.
I don't blame them.
USM would have left this conference years & years ago had ANYBODY else wanted us.
There was talk at one time of a possible MTW/CUSA merger. Never materialized. We are stuck here with no other options.
From a Southern Miss message board:
We should plan to pull together a true southern based conference.
USM
La Tech
ULL
South Alabama
UAB
Troy
MTSU
Ga Southern
WKU
All play all in football. Round robin in hoops. Everyone plays all major sports. Leave TX and FL behind.
Make a deal with ESPN to pioneer an over-the-top app broadcast deal which will eventually be what every conference must do when the cable bundle bubble bursts. And it will burst because cable as it is offered now is doomed. Offer it for syndication like the American network does. We have to get outside the box here.
That my friends is depressing,and it comes from a looong time supporter of the program. If UTEP & Rice leave, I say ADD NO MORE TEAMS. Don't water-down the conference anymore than it already has been. May as well drop the F-U schools in Florida while were at it. Keep Marshall,LaTech,WKU & USM as the core of the football teams (although I still feel like WKU is a 2 year flash in the pan....with only 16k present for a Conference Championship game) We need to do something since the tv rights are to be renegotiated in 2016, and it's my understanding we will not be much better off $$ wise than the sunbelt.
USM and LaTech need to find a way into the MWC or AAC.
Your proposal is down right depressing.
I thought he just copied it, but maybe it was his post.
MWC is back to the days of the WAC with no Texas presence. No way they want us. Not sure they really want UTEP.
We have many things working against us for AAC membership, with budget being near the top.
It's been said many times, but for now we don't have to outrun the bear, just the others who are being chased by the bear. We are okay until C-USA starts falling apart.
The CUSA goal needs to be 12.
I get the feeling that Rice would be just as miserable in the MWC as they are CUSA. Those folks just hate it everywhere they are.
We can certainly count on Houston fans to want what would be best for Rice, right?
(I'm with you that they ought to stay in CUSA, but I have considerable bias here).
I'd expect UTEP fans to be for it (and CUSA fans to be generally ok with UTEP going, except the hardcore basketball folks - or cross-country fans maybe).
I like UTEP basketball being in our league, but don't want Rice to go (and don't want to be in a 13 team league). If UTEP alone went (to balance BYU for example) I'm sure we'd replace them, and that would be a shame. There isn't really a way to do it, but if we lost UTEP, the next best step for CUSA would be for one of the weaker CUSA East teams to leave and then stick with 12 teams (would never, ever happen).