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From The Daily News in Bowling Green, Kentucky...
http://www.bgdailynews.com/cgi-bin/v...0021017+sports
...Somewhere in the near future, the Sun Belt, Mountain West and Western Athletic conferences are expected to get together and swap some teams.
“There’s still a lot of discussion going on about that,” Selig said. “Now, the Sun Belt is in a position to be a pretty solid player when it comes to orchestrating what these new leagues are going to look like.”
Selig said the pressures of missed class time and travel costs likely would force the far-flung leagues to trade out some teams to become more geographically compact.
With the new additions, the Sun Belt hypothetically stretches from Miami (Florida International) to Idaho. The WAC goes all the way from Hawaii to Ruston, La.
According the Selig, the most likely scenario would see the Sun Belt getting Tulsa, Rice, Southern Methodist and Louisiana Tech as all-sports members.
The SBC would lose Denver to the Mountain West and Idaho, Utah State and New Mexico State to the WAC.
Selig said it also was possible that Conference USA would get into the mix with schools like Alabama-Birmingham and Southern Mississippi as possible new SBC members.
“There’s no telling what will happen with Conference USA. I think that is potentially a very volatile league as well,” Selig said.
Just when will all these changes take place?
“That’s the million dollar question. I don’t think anybody can look into a crystal ball and tell exactly when this will all happen,” Selig said. “I do think we will see some significant movement in the next two years.”
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So, IF we are to follow what WKU AD Selig thinks, the Sun Belt will POSSIBLY consist of the following FOOTBALL participants in 2 years...
Tulsa (WAC)
Rice (WAC)
Southern Methodist (WAC)
Louisiana Tech (WAC)
Alabama-Birmingham (CUSA)
Southern Mississippi (CUSA)
ULL (SBC)
Ark St (SBC)
North Texas (SBC)
I just do NOT think that the Eastern WAC schools, UAB, and Southern Miss will go for that. JMHO.
Denver to the Mountain West? HUH?
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Yeah, and what about Tulane from CUSA. I can't see them staying in that conference when all the schools closest to them leave for the Belt. Oh, and Houston too. Add Tulane and Houston and I wouldn't be opposed to that as a conference.
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If you add those schools, TCU has to come also...
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Oh yeah. That'd be just fine with me too. Or is to. Or is it two.
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While we are discussing possibilities, can we get rid of Commissioner Wright Walters and rename the conference to the Gulf States Conference? :twisted:
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The first priority would be for Wright Waters to go.
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I got this email from the WAC office. I basically accused the WAC of lieing about this and this guy assured me all this is BS (which means bullsh**) He got mad because I accused the WAC of lieing so I said I believed him when he said they were no plans for a team swap (just a Wrong Waters pipedream):
"Thanks. This has been tough trying to dispel these rumors started by people in the Sun Belt. We are still trying to figure out what the motive is. I assume (my assumption only....no knowledge here) that the Sun Belt is talking about approaching leagues about a switch. To put it bluntly, we are in no way interested. The WAC truly is committed to the 10-team league that we currently have and are in a position to make this a great league. That is our sole and entire purpose and are not kicking around any new membership models.
Steve Macy"
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and had a nice long talk with him - good guy...
He said then that rumors would be flying fast and frequent for the next 18 months or so...
