American Athletic Conference

[MoValley John]

NMSU plays football in the SunBelt. Not sure why the SunBelt would not take them for all sports. The SunBelt would certainly be better than the WAC as currently constituted.

I doubt the Illiana Valley schools would vote them into the Valley anyway.

Well, you must not be following the secret meetings and sealed envelopes, then. NMSU is being forced out of the Sun Belt. The Sun Belt is a major cog in the former BCS, now considered the group of P-6 conferences. The Sun Belt is taking a strong stance that you are either in the Sun Belt in all sports, or you're out. NMSU cannot commit to a conference as lofty as the Sun Belt and will be forced out at the end of next year. At that point, the newest member of the Sun Belt will be announced. I know what school it is, but I cannot say. Did I mention high, very high level meetings have taken place? Manila envelopes have changed hands. If I spoke, Freemasons, Skull and Bones Society members and the Trilateral Commission would be sure I never spoke again.

[AZ Shocker]

That's funny, because I think I remember being in LA watching them win some pretty big games...

Maybe I'm just going crazy though.

No you're not CRAZY!!!! Lol I was talking more about the mountain timezone areas like Utah, Colorado, Nevada.

[60Shock]

Ya mean that if we spend millions and millions and bring back football, we just might have a small chance of getting into the mighty Sun Belt?

Instead, perhaps we should give very, very, very, very (is that enought very's?) serious thought to joining the five independents of Notre Dame, BYU, Navy, Army, and Charlotte, and seeing if we could work out something? Like you don't beat us up to badly in FB and we will take it easy on you in BB.

And while our football team would be massacred by ND (we should really think about the need to provide our boys some additional medical insurance) every year and beaten soundly by Navy and BYU, we would probably sell out our 75,000 seat stadium at those three home games. Plus, we might be able to beat Army and Charlotte, once in a while and we would also draw well against Army as everyone likes marching bands and pomp and ceremony.

But, on second thought, perhaps I ought to downgrade it to just a 'not too serious' a thought.

[shock]

Well, you must not be following the secret meetings and sealed envelopes, then. NMSU is being forced out of the Sun Belt. The Sun Belt is a major cog in the former BCS, now considered the group of P-6 conferences. The Sun Belt is taking a strong stance that you are either in the Sun Belt in all sports, or you're out. NMSU cannot commit to a conference as lofty as the Sun Belt and will be forced out at the end of next year. At that point, the newest member of the Sun Belt will be announced. I know what school it is, but I cannot say. Did I mention high, very high level meetings have taken place? Manila envelopes have changed hands. If I spoke, Freemasons, Skull and Bones Society members and the Trilateral Commission would be sure I never spoke again.

I love every post you make like this. The disdain and sarcasm is soothing.

[WSUwatcher]

Black helicopters reported over Springfield...

[rrshock]

Black helicopters reported over Springfield...

Thats just the clouds making them look black...

I know the WAC isnt an option, but I just want three things from this discussion:
1. This thread stays closer to the top of relevant threads
2. This thread continues to have more posts than the Connor Frankamp thread unless he signs here.
3. Hopefully info will come up and the WSU Admin keeps it in their thoughts.

[Rocky Mountain Shock]

Everytime I see that there is activity in this thread, I'm hopeful that there's something more than just additional speculation. 82 pages of disappointment and counting...

[ShockTalk]

Everytime I see that there is activity in this thread, I'm hopeful that there's something more than just additional speculation. 82 pages of disappointment and counting...

Unfortunately, any real news may be 1 or 2 years out at best.

[Dave Stalwart]

Everytime I see that there is activity in this thread, I'm hopeful that there's something more than just additional speculation. 82 pages of disappointment and counting...

This is the most depressing thread on Shockernet. It was created before CU ever left to discuss all the many alignments that were happening, including their move to the mid major east, with the hopes that we would also wind up somewhere promising. Then, the MVC added Loyola. Then, the MVC had a really "down" season to boot. Now, this year, the MVC doesn't look any more promising so far, so all signs point toward a second "down" year. Yet, here is WSU...still hanging around, and we have very little to discuss on the horizon.

Realignment, Best Possible Outcome?
Creighton leaves, MVC adds a 300 rpi team that said they will try real hard, MVC continues to tank, Bradley continues to tank HARD, no other schools emerge, MoST now believes that the Sun Belt is a better conference than the MVC...did I miss anything.

When we made this thread, we were outlining best possible outcomes. In retrospect, I would have settled for anything other than worst possible outcome, which is what we got. In retrospect, I wish we would have just added all the MVFC schools plus UNO and called it a day. It would be simple, and it wouldn't have been any worse...

[SHOCKvalue]

This is the most depressing thread on Shockernet. It was created before CU ever left to discuss all the many alignments that were happening, including their move to the mid major east, with the hopes that we would also wind up somewhere promising. Then, the MVC added Loyola. Then, the MVC had a really "down" season to boot. Now, this year, the MVC doesn't look any more promising so far, so all signs point toward a second "down" year. Yet, here is WSU...still hanging around, and we have very little to discuss on the horizon.

Realignment, Best Possible Outcome?
Creighton leaves, MVC adds a 300 rpi team that said they will try real hard, MVC continues to tank, Bradley continues to tank HARD, no other schools emerge, MoST now believes that the Sun Belt is a better conference than the MVC...did I miss anything.

When we made this thread, we were outlining best possible outcomes. In retrospect, I would have settled for anything other than worst possible outcome, which is what we got. In retrospect, I wish we would have just added all the MVFC schools plus UNO and called it a day. It would be simple, and it wouldn't have been any worse...

Solid post.

I'm with you 100% on the last paragraph. Putting all biases aside, we ended up adding Chicago's equivalent (in almost all regards) to Newman, when we could have added schools that are very well supported by their home states (in spite of those states themselves being rather small). I'd get way more up for a game against SDSU or NDSU than I ever could for LOLoyola or AllAboutThatDrake. And as a bonus, the Dakota schools actually have fans that show up strongly for games and who like to talk sports online.

It seems like the MVC was hell-bent on adding another private school to replace CU. The myopathy there is that in the world of NCAA D1 sports the private schools are almost entirely halved into two groups - the haves and the have-nots. Unfortunately the "have-nots" in NCAA D1 are essentially the "have-nothings", and are mostly schools and athletic programs that would be better served by dropping down a division. I would honestly say - with the exception of Bradley (BU's crappy current situation notwithstanding), and former member CU - the private schools in the MVC are essentially D2 programs on steroids.

[wufan]

I'm not counting UNI out as a good team this year just yet.

[60Shock]

I keep hoping that 'One of these Days' we're going to see a silver lining.

And as far as this Title Thread is concerned, when the news finally breaks sometime between now and 2099, you can bet your whoopie it will be in a separate thread all by itself.

[Shoxthemonkey]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/early-lead/wp/2014/11/30/uab-expected-to-shut-down-its-football-program/

It looks like there will be another school looking for a conference. I read on another board that the CUSA commish doubts that there are enough votes to allow UAB to stay without football. This adds UAB to the list of basketball only options for any league that might be inclined to look for an addition. Maybe, if enough schools have to bail on football, a new conference could be formed and get WSU out of the valley. That could take years and in the meantime we are stuck.

[Blackmag]

looks like were stuck for the time being, so the Valley will just need to step it up. I think UNI will be pretty good this year and who knows maybe ISU Redbirds will get better as the season unfolds. Their win against Old Dominion looks pretty good especially since ODU just upset VCU. I still think it will be a two team race between the Shocks and UNI, but also the Redbirds and Evansville (who always give us fits at their place) will give us some good challenges

[Dave Stalwart]

If it's actually going to become a thing that some solid colleges are really going to drop football all of the sudden like this, the MVC had better get properly poised to rope them in and dump the dead weight.

This conference could easily be a landing spot for several schools if they need it and we better be on the phone ironing it out like we have a clue. There might be a lot of realignment about to happen. It could be a tough thing to navigate. You don't want to panic and make any hasty decisions and you also don't want to miss the boat.

I can tell you one thing... I think I'd trade UAB for about 3 MVC schools right now. I wonder how many schools are about to follow suit now that the ice is getting broken. Come on MVC. Don't blow this.