The MWCUSA: With Air Force In, Will the New League Add a Football School in the East?
by Adrian Mac on Dec 8, 2011 8:56 AM MST
in NCAA Conference Realignment
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PrintIt's simple math, really. There's no doubt that Air Force's decision to stay in the Mountain West Conference was the first good news that the MWC or C-USA has had in a while. But, now that the Falcons are staying, a quick glance at a map reveals that there are now 9 football schools that should be grouped in a "West" division and only eight football schools in the "East" division. Assuming UTEP plays in the western division, as UTEP AD Bob Stull hinted at last week, the divisions would look something like this:
The Mountain Division (West)
2. UTEP Miners
5. UNLV Rebels
9. Hawaii Rainbows (Football Only)
The USA Division (East)
3. Rice Owls
4. UAB Blazers
7. Southern Miss. Golden Eagles
Scheduling Issues
In football, the West teams would have 8 divisional games and the East teams would only have 7. Would a merged league allow one division to place a team in a championship game after playing one less game? That seems unlikely to me. Each school should have the same conference path to a league title, right?
So, it seems logical to assume that the MWCUSA would consider adding one football only school to the East Division. Assuming that the Big East adds Temple in lieu of Air Force, you'd have to think that the C-USA would look at Louisiana Tech, the 2011 WAC Champions, as a potential football member. Or, would the league want to regain a presence in the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex with North Texas and their shiny new stadium? Who else would be a candidate? Maybe another Florida school to replace UCF?
As far as hoops go, there are several unanswered questions. Usually, a school plays a 16 game conference schedule with home and homes against each school in their division. With two 8 team divisions, that leaves 14 divisional games and two wild card slots for cross-divisional games. While that's not terrible, I hoped for more. I want to see Memphis take on New Mexico and UNLV. I want to see UTEP take on Tulsa, Marshall, and Memphis. Would the league consider an 18 game schedule so that each squad could face half of the other division every third year? Or is that too many conference games?
The best approach to have right now is probably to not ask so many questions. The next focus of any C-USA or MWC conference school should be to watch the Big East to see what their next move will be. Media hype and logic indicate that Temple is next in line for a Big East invite. But, what if the league opts for Memphis or East Carolina? Only after the Big East hits 12 football schools can the C-USA and MWC really focus on the logistics of assembling a new league and getting it off the ground.
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Here's a thought.
Stay at 17 and screw divisions all together. Each team has 4 regional rivals that are played every year and the remainder of the games will be rotated between the other 12 schools on a 3year cycle. Top two teams would play in the championship game regardless of location.
Here’s how this would work for UTEP:
Regional Rivals: New Mexico, Rice, Tulsa, AFA
Year 1: C-State (home), ECU (h), UNLV (away), Tulane (a)
Year 2: Wyoming (h), Memphis (h), Nevada (a), Marshall (a)
Year 3: Fresno St (h), UAB (h), Hawaii (a), So Miss (a)
Year 4: repeat year 1 with home and away reversed
that's a really cool idea
It captures the “pod” mentality without creating actual pods an preserves rivalries in a unique way.
I want to do a more extensive post on potential issues with the merger and FYI I’m going to put this idea into that post (with credit to you of course). It’s a solid option. I have to admit I wish the MWC hadn’t added Hawaii but at the time they had to do it.
KL- What will your division in the big east look like?
Axes Up. Miner Rush - For UTEP Miners Fans
by Adrian Mac on Dec 8, 2011 11:47 AM MST via iPhone app up reply actions
They won't know divisions until they know who will be in the 12th team
Since AF balked and Navy won’t be available till late there has been talk (though mostly message board rumors) of Fresno State and/or Temple, but nothing for sure. There’s also talk of adding travel partners for Boise and SDSU and using the PAC-12s travel partner model. Again, it’s all message board rumor/conjecture right now.
Although based off of the BE’s track record, I’m going to say that we won’t know what division until we’re 3 weeks into our first season.
I will say
That Boise St officials only wanted to move to the Big East if they could guarantee a west division. I guess throw Houston, SMU, Boise, and SDSU in that “west” division. Without AFA, they may come looking for other schools like Fresno. Honestly, what a load of s*** this Big East is becoming. Are you serious? San Diego St, and Fresno St. in the Big East??? Its a joke. The ACC and Big 12 will come calling for schools like Houston, Louisville, Rutgers and UCONN in the next two or three years, and then what, add Hawaii and San Jose St?
Florida International University
They just make the switch to D1 from D1AA a couple of years ago and now they have made 2 consecutive bowl games (8-4 this year, 7-6 last year beating Toledo in bowl). This year they face Marshall in the Beef O’Brady bowl in Tampa. Could open some recruiting options in the talent rich South Florida (Miami) area. Basketball is a bit rough with FIU not getting to double digit wins in the last 5 years.
by garett1210 on Dec 8, 2011 10:00 AM MST reply actions 3 recs
That's my first pick
It’d help a lot to get back into the florida market. Texas and Louisiana schools are great, but we’ve already established ourselves in those states.
A Florida school definitely makes sense
Good points Garett- I guess- as much as I don’t want to- we should make a post with all the potential candidates and more extensive profiles.
Im hoping Knightline is wrong and the Big East hurries up already and announces who they are going for. Will there be 0 spots? 1? or Two? Anybody’s guess at this point.
Axes Up. Miner Rush - For UTEP Miners Fans
I see it much the way Knight Line sees it except with a 6-6-5 division alignment
Div-1 (MTN) AFA, CSU, WYO, UNLV, FRES, NEV
Div-2(SW) UTEP, UNM, TUL, RICE, HAW
Div-3(EAST) MEM, USM, UAB, TULANE, ECU, MARSH
I know this is crazy, but then again the Big East now has SDSU as a member so its obvious anything can happen in College Football.
A few things here, AFA made a point of saying they didnt want to lose their rivalries so they hold all the cards here and are going to play who they want and that’s their MTN rivals. The east div is pretty much set right now, but the SW div is where things will get weird because of the odd number of teams. HAWAII is kind of in no mans land so im plugging them here right now.
Each team plays 8 conf games…schedule example would be AF playing its 5 div rivals, 2 from the SW div (UTEP, UNM) and 1 from the East div. (MEM) The same scheduling format would apply to the east div…example would be USM playing its 5 div rivals, 2 from the SW div (TUL, RICE) and one from the MTN div (UNLV)…the SW div would also play 8…schedule example would be UTEP playing its 4 div rivals and 2 from each other div…in this case…AFA, CSU from the MTN and MARSH, UAB from the East.
The numbers look weird but I believe they all add up because weve already determined the MTN and EAST divs are playing 2 teams from the SW each year and 1 from their respective divisions. Conf champ game would be determined by the best 2 records in the league…there may be a tie, but several tie breakers could be put in place.
This format would also work for hoops eventhough I think u can do a little more with it because u have more games, but a 16 game sked would include home and home with div rivals, MTN and EAST divs get home and homes with 2 teams from the SW, and home and home with 1 team from those 6-team divs. BOOM send this shit to Craig Thompson…
And my thoughts are dont add anyone right now, lets settle into this and besides u want to add viable TV markets, LA TECH doesnt do it for me….UTSA, UNT, FIU possibly in the future.
by DFWMiner on Dec 8, 2011 12:10 PM MST reply actions 1 recs
To be honest
I really think the conference is just gonna go with a more traditional format. I’ve kicked around some idea as well for a four division conference, but once you get past two divisions you start running into trouble, not with scheduling, but conference champions….Let’s just say in the three tier conference, Air Force, USM, and UTEP win the divisions. All finish with the same record. Who plays for the championship? It’s tough because with so many teams you won’t really have enough common opponents to do a tiebreaker that way.
I think the most logical thing to do would be to just have a nine team Mountain division, and an 8 team USA division. Each team would play 6 divisional games, and two crossovers. You don’t get to play everyone in your division every single year, but you’d be able to maintain/create rivalries in the opposite division. It sets up much better for the championship game as well. If we want to go out and bring in a Florida or Texas school, you’d still have the same format, just an equal number of teams in divisions.
Let’s just say UTEP would play:
UNM
AFA
CSU
UNLV
Nevada
Wyoming
Tulsa
USM
or make a 9 game conference schedule and throw in Hawaii or Fresno. With an 18 team league, and a 9 game conference schedule, that would allow each school to only miss out on playing one divisional opponent a year, while maintaining a couple cross divisional games.
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