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After being "most favored son" in the WAC with alum Karl Benson using WAC funds to annually promote Boise State football, BSU now finds itself in an Eastern US pickle and Benson in "leading" the Slumbelch.
Yes, I am deriving some satisfaction from this.
This is where you and I have a major disagreement. Without Boise St, I don't think the new Big East football conference is formidable at all. That's why you've simply GOT to keep BSU in the fold. Without BSU, you're conference is toast. I could walk up to 10 people on the streets of Houston and not a single one of those 10 could tell me who the football playing schools are in the new Big East (other than Houston, SMU and Boise).Originally Posted by parialex
West VA, Pitt, and Syracuse ARE Big East football. They were the only Big East schools anybody really cared about.
HD
Recognizable schools aside, Conference USA did... less for us in that area than you might think. The big ones were SMU (who is going with us), Rice (who we will continue to play), Tulsa (due to repetition and circumstance), and USM (ditto). Tulane has a fair alumni base in Houston, but dang if any of them are college sports fans. UTEP always cared more about us than vice-versa. I've never met a Tulsa grad in my life. You'd be surprised how little ECU meant to us except as one of the tougher teams we play somewhat regularly. Except SMU and Rice (and to a lesser extent UTEP), there wasn't much that we would call regionally relevant regardless of it being a drivable game (unfortunately, we don't travel well anyway). The rest came with repetition and because it was noteworthy when they did well. Not because of their intrinsic recognizability (a tragic number of people think USM is a smallish private school). I expect Conference USA to be a lot better for you than it was for us (and I was *always* more upbeat about C*USA than most people I know and I'm one of the few who will genuinely miss it).
(Part - maybe most - of the reason I am so dour on BSU is that I am less than sure about their long-term prospects. I think a lot of their success is circumstance-generated and their circumstances are about to change. The same may be true for us, of course, and heaven help us if it is. But our turnaround started when we were in a conference not too much unlike the one we're about to enter, so I do have reason to be optimistic. And I have mixed feelings about it all anyway. If the others weren't leaving, I'd be against leaving.)
University of Houston '01. Any references to "we" or "us" likely refer to UH. Cheers!
At least as long as Petersen is at Boise their success should be little changed. Their success has been sustaind for too long, and their reputation now too widely known, to expect a sudden downturn in their circumstance. As far as football is concerned, as Boise goes, so goes the BE.
One word, QUARTERBACK. Most of the success has come under Moore. The 0 and 1 loss seasons are over. Though hedidnt get drafted, he was a great college QB.
They were good before Moore.
They'll be good after him (although they may take some lumps this year).
I don't see any all-sports members coming back, but getting BSU back could be big if the "alliance" ever happens.
Time is your friend. Impulse is your enemy. -John Bogle
I could easily see Boise deciding to "come back". And if that happens, we should keep the back door open for SMU & Houston. Playing conference football against the likes of USF, UCF, Memphis, Rutgers, SDSU, UConn, and Cincinnati will be a VERY tough sale for UH & SMU in the state of Texas. That's what I was trying to tell parialex.
HD
LABG
I think that the WAC has been a great situation for Boise State. It has provided them with the renegade chic of the BCS-buster and a good combination of profile games and gimmes. In the WAC, or the new MWC, I think it could go on for quite a while, especially if Peterson doesn't go anywhere. I think being a part of a traditionally BCS conference in a pond very far away is doing some serious tinkering with what has made them successful and the consequences will not be good.
University of Houston '01. Any references to "we" or "us" likely refer to UH. Cheers!
Meh. This means nothing.
Boise would have won the "old" Big East most of the last 10 years. Heck, Houston would have won it several of those years. And that's before it lost its better programs.
The travel may matter, if only that they're going to drop a game or two here and there. But it isn't like they weren't traveling a lot anyway. Boise State wasn't exactly busing to many WAC games (or flooding the stand with supporters).
I think you're underestimating how good the Big East has actually been. What they've lacked in powerhouses, they've also lacked in Weak Sisters (and I did believe this before we were on their radar - when I ran my conference analysis a couple years back, they actually outperformed the Big Ten). But that wasn't actually what I was getting at, though. My point was that this is a transition from a Has-Not to a Traditionally Has. Not exactly a "Has" now, but not exactly a "Has Not" either. Even with AQ gone, the perception will linger and they will not be in a "strong non-AQ" conference but rather a "weak AQ" conference. For some, being a sorta-member of the club would be a great benefit, but I don't think it will work that way for them. Given their lack of institutional strength (they're an academically weak, somewhat remote, commuter school of unimpressive size), I believe the renegade factor has been instrumental to their success (not sufficient, but necessary).
There's also a significant difference between flying from Boise to Reno and flying from Boise to Philadelphia. It's not a dealbreaker, but it's also not the same as flying more locally. The main reason I bring up the geography is that the MWC and WAC are nonetheless one of "our" conferences out here. The Big East isn't. And if you're in one of "our" conferences, you're on the radar even when you're not turning in 10-win seasons. The same is true of Texas, the BE not being one of Texas's conferences, and is one of the disadvantages for us. But for UH at least, we've been there as far as this goes. It's not ideal, but Houston isn't the same "world away" from the east as Idaho is. I consider it less problematic.
University of Houston '01. Any references to "we" or "us" likely refer to UH. Cheers!
They'll still be good. And the BE will be big news in Idaho starting now.
As long as Boise State remains sufficiently good. But 9-3 won't get the same national attention required for California and Texas recruiting (the annual Texas game and bi-annual California game may help, but only some) as 12-0, and they lack a local recruiting base. I think they need to do as well as they've done to continue doing that well. I fear a little slippage and they become Fresno. Not bad (I'm not predicting that they turn into U of Idaho), but not doing the main thing they were brought into the conference to do (and, in a tougher conference, having a lower floor than Fresno in the not-so-good years). A good comparison would actually be Marshall. It's not that Marshall is bad. And in their MAC years, they would have done quite well in C*USA. But they slipped into middling and, last I checked, had a losing record in C*USA play. That's my main concern.
University of Houston '01. Any references to "we" or "us" likely refer to UH. Cheers!
Just what I'm sure the Big East was counting on.....
HD
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