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Assuming we don't get an invite to the ACC or Big 12, here is a look at our best option going forward:
Football - Priority One
Boise, UConn, and UC are the 3 most powerful free agents in football. We need each other for football relevance, but none of us wants to be stuck sending our soccer teams to conference games on the other coast. We have two options here:
Option 1) Stay the course. Stick with the C-USA plan for all-sports, and have the Western members join for fb-only.
Option 2) We can work with Boise to form a true "best of the rest" football-only conference. Houston, Fresno, SDSU, USF, UCF, ECU, and whoever else we think is worthy.
In my mind, these two options are roughly equivalent for football. But I would advocate option two, because of the options that it gives us for basketball.
What do we do with basketball and our other sports?
Our best bet for basketball is for UC and UConn to join the CYO-7 (the Big East Catholic schools). With the additions of Butler, Xavier, and possibly Creighton, this will be a powerful conference with a good media deal. The new additions would make it even more geographically suitable for us than the current Big East. It would actually be a really good fit for us.
What's the upside for advocating this plan now?
If UC, UConn, and the CYO-7 agree on this, we can work together and keep the Big East name for basketball. The Big East may be destroyed as a football brand, but it is still a big-time basketball brand. We can keep the tourney in Madison Square Garden. It doesn't hurt that this makes it (legally) easier to keep all the exit fees and tournament credits that Syracuse and Louisville will leave behind.
We might have to hang on to Temple and USF in basketball, but that's a small price to pay. Temple's a good program, and it'll be good to have some other public schools in the conference.
Where does Xavier fit into this? Why should we care what happens to them?
It's inevitable that the Catholic schools will invite Xavier to this new basketball conference. We can't stop that; it's too good of a fit for both sides.
What we CAN do is start making it public that we're ok with having Xavier in our conference. We can score big brownie points with the national media NOW if Santa and Whit start publicly proclaiming that we want Xavier with us.
Plus, I'd just love to see the looks on Xavier fans' faces if we could tell them that the reason they got into an elite basketball conference is because UC helped them out.
Recap: Why is this preferable to the C-USA-like solution we're currently looking at?
Three reasons
1) Our football will be in about the same situation either way, likely playing most of the same teams.
2) Our basketball will be much better off.
3) We get to keep our smaller sports in a geographically-based conference. This will shrink our travel expenditures significantly.
Of course, getting into the ACC is much better than this plan. But we need to be talking about what we do if that doesn't happen.
Comments?
Football - Priority One
Boise, UConn, and UC are the 3 most powerful free agents in football. We need each other for football relevance, but none of us wants to be stuck sending our soccer teams to conference games on the other coast. We have two options here:
Option 1) Stay the course. Stick with the C-USA plan for all-sports, and have the Western members join for fb-only.
Option 2) We can work with Boise to form a true "best of the rest" football-only conference. Houston, Fresno, SDSU, USF, UCF, ECU, and whoever else we think is worthy.
In my mind, these two options are roughly equivalent for football. But I would advocate option two, because of the options that it gives us for basketball.
What do we do with basketball and our other sports?
Our best bet for basketball is for UC and UConn to join the CYO-7 (the Big East Catholic schools). With the additions of Butler, Xavier, and possibly Creighton, this will be a powerful conference with a good media deal. The new additions would make it even more geographically suitable for us than the current Big East. It would actually be a really good fit for us.
What's the upside for advocating this plan now?
If UC, UConn, and the CYO-7 agree on this, we can work together and keep the Big East name for basketball. The Big East may be destroyed as a football brand, but it is still a big-time basketball brand. We can keep the tourney in Madison Square Garden. It doesn't hurt that this makes it (legally) easier to keep all the exit fees and tournament credits that Syracuse and Louisville will leave behind.
We might have to hang on to Temple and USF in basketball, but that's a small price to pay. Temple's a good program, and it'll be good to have some other public schools in the conference.
Where does Xavier fit into this? Why should we care what happens to them?
It's inevitable that the Catholic schools will invite Xavier to this new basketball conference. We can't stop that; it's too good of a fit for both sides.
What we CAN do is start making it public that we're ok with having Xavier in our conference. We can score big brownie points with the national media NOW if Santa and Whit start publicly proclaiming that we want Xavier with us.
Plus, I'd just love to see the looks on Xavier fans' faces if we could tell them that the reason they got into an elite basketball conference is because UC helped them out.
Recap: Why is this preferable to the C-USA-like solution we're currently looking at?
Three reasons
1) Our football will be in about the same situation either way, likely playing most of the same teams.
2) Our basketball will be much better off.
3) We get to keep our smaller sports in a geographically-based conference. This will shrink our travel expenditures significantly.
Of course, getting into the ACC is much better than this plan. But we need to be talking about what we do if that doesn't happen.
Comments?
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