American Athletic Conference

[GoShockers89]

Doesn't Jobu prefer chicken sacrifice?

This is upgrading conferences, not hoping for a solo homer. The price goes up accordingly.

[SubGod22]

This is upgrading conferences, not hoping for a solo homer. The price goes up accordingly.

Fair enough. Does it have to be a woman or just a human sacrifice? I'd nominate sacrficing Elgin.

[GoShockers89]

Fair enough. Does it have to be a woman or just a human sacrifice? I'd nominate sacrficing Elgin.

I think you've found the perfect compromise.

[BenWSU]

Towanda is west of the turnpike. Is it okay to date women west of it ?

[ShockerPrez]

Doesn't Jobu prefer chicken sacrifice?

Ya know, you might try taking Jesus Christ as your savior....

[1972Shocker]

I believe Eric has hired 2 head coaches. His first hire was Colin Foster as head women's tennis coach. Colin took over a program that was in good shape and appears to have done a pretty good job of maintaining it. I would rate that as a good hire. His second hire was Kristi Bredbenner for softball. The jury is still out on that one as she is mid-way through her second year after taking over a program in the dolddrums and one that has never had great success other than the Tim Walton years. No one is going to be perfect in their hiring moves. Jim Schaus missed on Jane Albright, but he seems to have corrected that with Jody Adams although the tough part (sustaining success) is just starting for Jody. Jim also swung and missed on Mike Perniciaro also. But that may be about it I think. Jim's good hires far exceeded his poor hires. You can get away with a miss in programs like these as they do not generate a great deal of revenue. Eric's big challenge will be with the Baseball program a situation that he definitely inherited. Not sure who was responsible for allowing Gene to return from OU (Beggs, Schaus or both) but that appears to have been a poor decision (isn't hindsight wonderful). I will give Eric credit for not letting Mean Gene just run roughshod over him and not just automatically extending the contract of a legendary coach, but one whose program is in clear decline and one where he has lost a substantial part of the fan base.

Jim clearly led the most significant and badly needed facilities makeover with the Roundhouse Renaissance. However, that doesn't mean we can just sit back a let the facilities gradually deterioate like we did with HLA, but the ongoing facilities work will be more incremental and less visible absent some big dedicated gifts form alums/supporters. Somewhere I read/heard they are doing a $250,000 makeover to the Koch Arena lockerrooms. Not sure what all they are doing but this is clearly a pro-active step and was announced before the big NCAA run. Perhaps something Coach Marshall wanted, I don't know for sure. I suppose the big facility issue facing Eric is what to do with Cessna Stadium.

I suppose what to do with Cessna Stadium ties directly into what to do, if anything, with football. There just does not seem to be much of an appetitie for bringing back football at least among those than can make a difference money-wise.
Something that Jim Schause really never wanted to tackle. I guess will have to see how Dr. Bardo's initiatives play out for a few years before we get much of a feel for whehter their is any appetite to tackle that issue or not. Coach Marshall doesn't seem to be too distressed that we don't have a football program. Not sure what to make about 3G's recent statement that the administration is not interested in football. Did anyone else catch that?

[RoyalShock]

Id rather go East.

The more I think about it the more I agree. I don't like the idea of being the only non-football school in a league trying to become a football conference. WSU would have zero influence. Additionally, being the only school in the central time zone, get ready to switch all our home games to 8pm.

I'd much prefer the AAC, if they would have us.

[capnkirk]

I agree on heading east. I think West Virginia has shown everyone that heading west across time zones a couple times a week is not a good thing for a basketball team.....

[SubGod22]

I think West Virginia has shown everyone that heading west across time zones a couple times a week is not a good thing for a basketball team.....

Not sure I get that. I think WV was supposed to be down this year anyway. I don't think traveling one time zone had an effect on it. With the MWC, we'd mostly travel one time zone, but two in some cases. It may be an even split between the two, I haven't looked that much into it. But I would say that the MWC would definitely be an upgrade from where we're at. And if an eastern conference wanted us, we could still jump when/if they came calling. If the MWC shows interest and we're not getting anything from the Big East or AAC, then I'd be all for heading west and hoping that one of those two came calling down the road.

[Ta town]

Ya know, you might try taking Jesus Christ as your savior....

probably one of my favorite quotes of all time:

"Are saying Jesus Christ can't hit a curve ball?"

Kills me every time I think about it.

[Awesome Sauce Malone]

The way most MWC fans have been talking they would want and east/west split which us obviously being in the East. THe other teams would be in the Mountain Time Zone and we have proven in our current league thats not that big of a deal. (Evansville, Indy State, Illinois teams)

[1972Shocker]

The way most MWC fans have been talking they would want and east/west split which us obviously being in the East. THe other teams would be in the Mountain Time Zone and we have proven in our current league thats not that big of a deal. (Evansville, Indy State, Illinois teams)

Indy State is the only Valley team in the Eastern Time zone. Evansville and Illinois are Central Time zone.

It should not be that big of a deal for the existing MWC teams. They only have cross into the Central Time Zone once a year. The Shocks would be crossing time zones on every road trip. In other words, we will be in the same situation as Indy State is in now in the Valley.

[Rlh04d]

One thing I find wrong in your post. We fans are not the ones who makes the decisions. So ignore the posts on the other threads.

Absolutely, and if your conference seeks to add basketball-only schools to define the conference as being an elite-basketball conference rather than an after-thought in FBS football, I will be very impressed with their thinking, and they will likely be rewarded with an improvement in their TV contract and NCAA shares.

However, I think administrators tend to take over the opinions of their fans. Or the other way around, I'm not sure. As things are now, the "no football, no membership" mentality seems to be equally shared among fans and those who make the decisions. So I don't really see much of a reason to differentiate between them.

Don't get me wrong, I'd LOVE for us to be an MWC that values basketball. I'm just hesitant about being a member of a conference that has no respect for the sport it's best at, in favor of supporting pipe-dreams of relevancy in football. The mentality of basketball versus football seems to be pretty simple ... in basketball, you want as many teams as possible to be good. In football, the MWC only wants one team to be good to make the playoffs. The first mentality is what made the Big East elite in basketball. The second mentality is what made the ACC a national joke the moment FSU had a few bad years.

[Rlh04d]

The more I think about it the more I agree. I don't like the idea of being the only non-football school in a league trying to become a football conference. WSU would have zero influence. Additionally, being the only school in the central time zone, get ready to switch all our home games to 8pm.

I'd much prefer the AAC, if they would have us.

I think we'd all prefer to go east.

I guess the question would be, do we prefer the MWC to the Valley? And I think that goes without saying ;)

[pogo]

I think we'd all prefer to go east.

I guess the question would be, do we prefer the MWC to the Valley? And I think that goes without saying ;)

More timely exposure in larger markets we recruit in in the aac