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Post by stevehorn on Oct 21, 2021 8:41:40 GMT -5
Being reported this morning that Marshall and So Miss are moving to Sun Belt. C-USA is losing more than 1/2 the teams in the league. Does it add and survive, or does everyone left find a new home and the league disappears? At this point, I would bet on it folding or remaining teams merge with another conference. |
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Post by Brutus Buckeye on Oct 21, 2021 8:58:19 GMT -5
The pecking order has always been that the AAC/Big East raids CUSA, and then CUSA raids the Sunbelt, and then the Sunbelt raids the FCS.
If indeed CUSA has been weakened to the point where they are getting raided by the Sunbelt, then CUSA is toast.
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Post by Brutus Buckeye on Oct 21, 2021 8:59:40 GMT -5
Why would Marshall go to the Sunbelt instead of going back to the MAC where they belong?
The entire MAC East is a short bus ride away from Marshall's campus.
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Post by karellen on Oct 21, 2021 9:12:45 GMT -5
Why would Marshall go to the Sunbelt instead of going back to the MAC where they belong? The entire MAC East is a short bus ride away from Marshall's campus. Cause MAC is not interested.... |
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Post by Brutus Buckeye on Oct 21, 2021 9:18:03 GMT -5
Why would Marshall go to the Sunbelt instead of going back to the MAC where they belong? The entire MAC East is a short bus ride away from Marshall's campus. Cause MAC is not interested.... I find that hard to believe. That would be like if Texas wanted back into the Big 12, and the Big 12 was like "nah, we're good." |
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Post by n00b on Oct 21, 2021 9:18:36 GMT -5
Why would Marshall go to the Sunbelt instead of going back to the MAC where they belong? The entire MAC East is a short bus ride away from Marshall's campus. The MAC seems to be one of the steadiest conferences in the country. They seem like they are in a good spot, no reason to shake things up. |
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Post by Brutus Buckeye on Oct 21, 2021 9:25:08 GMT -5
Why would Marshall go to the Sunbelt instead of going back to the MAC where they belong? The entire MAC East is a short bus ride away from Marshall's campus. The MAC seems to be one of the steadiest conferences in the country. They seem like they are in a good spot, no reason to shake things up. Bringing back your best football team after they ditched you for CUSA and it didn't work is some sort of major shake up?  |
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Post by karellen on Oct 21, 2021 9:27:25 GMT -5
Cause MAC is not interested.... I find that hard to believe. That would be like if Texas wanted back into the Big 12, and the Big 12 was like "nah, we're good." MAC already has 6 teams in each division. Why bring Marshall back to create an odd team in a division - which creates some scheduling issues - or go through process of finding another team which either creates a division of 8 compared to 6 in the other OR creates two divisions with an odd number of teams. Another option would trying to find 3 more teams in addition to Marshall so both divisions have even number of teams. Adding Marshall to a league that has been very consistent and stable does not but create small or large headaches. The MAC is not interested in Marshall. Add there is a big difference between the Big 12 bringing back a cash cow like Texas and the MAC bringing back Marshall. |
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Post by Brutus Buckeye on Oct 21, 2021 9:35:16 GMT -5
I find that hard to believe. That would be like if Texas wanted back into the Big 12, and the Big 12 was like "nah, we're good." MAC already has 6 teams in each division. Why bring Marshall back to create an odd team in a division - which creates some scheduling issues - or go through process of finding another team which either creates a division of 8 compared to 6 in the other OR creates two divisions with an odd number of teams. Another option would trying to find 3 more teams in addition to Marshall so both divisions have even number of teams. Adding Marshall to a league that has been very consistent and stable does not but create small or large headaches. The MAC is not interested in Marshall. Add there is a big difference between the Big 12 bringing back a cash cow like Texas and the MAC bringing back Marshall. The MAC had 13 teams for a long time. It was Marshall as team 13 in their hey day. After Marshall left they brought in Temple as the 13th team. When Temple left, they brought in UMass as the 13th team. Now that UMass is gone, all of a sudden it is unreasonable to bring back the original 13th team... because they would be a 13th team? |
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Post by n00b on Oct 21, 2021 9:45:03 GMT -5
MAC already has 6 teams in each division. Why bring Marshall back to create an odd team in a division - which creates some scheduling issues - or go through process of finding another team which either creates a division of 8 compared to 6 in the other OR creates two divisions with an odd number of teams. Another option would trying to find 3 more teams in addition to Marshall so both divisions have even number of teams. Adding Marshall to a league that has been very consistent and stable does not but create small or large headaches. The MAC is not interested in Marshall. Add there is a big difference between the Big 12 bringing back a cash cow like Texas and the MAC bringing back Marshall. The MAC had 13 teams for a long time. It was Marshall as team 13 in their hey day. After Marshall left they brought in Temple as the 13th team. When Temple left, they brought in UMass as the 13th team. Now that UMass is gone, all of a sudden it is unreasonable to bring back the original 13th team... because they would be a 13th team? The difference being, from Day 1 in the conference, you KNOW Marshall will be positioning to get themselves out again. That is what creates the constant state of instability. (Also, Temple and UMass were football-only. That's a little different. You don't have to account for increased travel costs for Olympic sports.) |
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Post by Brutus Buckeye on Oct 21, 2021 9:52:15 GMT -5
The MAC had 13 teams for a long time. It was Marshall as team 13 in their hey day. After Marshall left they brought in Temple as the 13th team. When Temple left, they brought in UMass as the 13th team. Now that UMass is gone, all of a sudden it is unreasonable to bring back the original 13th team... because they would be a 13th team? The difference being, from Day 1 in the conference, you KNOW Marshall will be positioning to get themselves out again. That is what creates the constant state of instability. (Also, Temple and UMass were football-only. That's a little different. You don't have to account for increased travel costs for Olympic sports.) Unlike Temple and UMass you don't have to worry about increased travel costs with Marshall in the MAC East because they fit nice and snug geographically into that Division. Huntington is right across the river from a state that contains 5 of the other 6 teams. I suspect that you are sort of right with the other piece of your reasoning though. If you leave you wife for another woman, then your wife isn't going to take you back just because things didn't work out with the other woman. |
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Post by karellen on Oct 21, 2021 10:28:03 GMT -5
MAC already has 6 teams in each division. Why bring Marshall back to create an odd team in a division - which creates some scheduling issues - or go through process of finding another team which either creates a division of 8 compared to 6 in the other OR creates two divisions with an odd number of teams. Another option would trying to find 3 more teams in addition to Marshall so both divisions have even number of teams. Adding Marshall to a league that has been very consistent and stable does not but create small or large headaches. The MAC is not interested in Marshall. Add there is a big difference between the Big 12 bringing back a cash cow like Texas and the MAC bringing back Marshall. The MAC had 13 teams for a long time. It was Marshall as team 13 in their hey day. After Marshall left they brought in Temple as the 13th team. When Temple left, they brought in UMass as the 13th team. Now that UMass is gone, all of a sudden it is unreasonable to bring back the original 13th team... because they would be a 13th team? Those teams were added as football only. does not create the scheduling issue since they do not play everyone in conference anyway. Creating a balanced schedule in other sports with an odd team is not ideal. |
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Post by cpvb6 on Oct 21, 2021 11:08:56 GMT -5
With Belmont joining the MVC, I'd expect MVC looking for a travel partner for them, and to even up the number of teams to 12.
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Post by chatchu-off moksri on Oct 21, 2021 11:28:57 GMT -5
Hopefully WKU joins a good conference so they can play some better competition during the season  |
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Post by Brutus Buckeye on Oct 21, 2021 11:57:07 GMT -5
The MAC had 13 teams for a long time. It was Marshall as team 13 in their hey day. After Marshall left they brought in Temple as the 13th team. When Temple left, they brought in UMass as the 13th team. Now that UMass is gone, all of a sudden it is unreasonable to bring back the original 13th team... because they would be a 13th team? Those teams were added as football only. does not create the scheduling issue since they do not play everyone in conference anyway. Creating a balanced schedule in other sports with an odd team is not ideal. Your arguments are sound for general conference expansion theory, but they don't allign very well with the MAC. Marshall was a 13th member for all sports, not just football. While the other two were indeed football only members, the scheduling for football was a nightmare. There was always at least one East division match up that would get nixed every year in order to make it all work, which means that you could wind up with divisional co-champs with no H-H match up. Yet they stuck it out with 13 teams anyway. Now they did try to add a 14th team from time to time. UCF joined briefly in the Marshall days, but they both left for CUSA simultaneously. Then UMass was initially supposed to be a travel partner for Temple, but then Temple was gone by the time UMass joined. But nevertheless Marshall is the best Football team that the MAC has ever had, and they don't seem to be all that adverse to having 13 teams. So none of the regular conference expansion logic really applies here. |
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