Can Shox move to the Big XII

[billybud]

Football is all about being able to attract recruits...and then being able to schedule and beat some good teams.

USF (South Florida) first put a team on the field 10 years ago (1997), went IA in 2001...and Phil Steele has USF ranked in Top 10 in 2009 preseason. USF is a commuter school that borrows a stadium to play football in....but it is in a recruit rich environment.

If Wichita could attract recruits, get a break re conference alignment (being in a BCS conference really helps) down the road...a successful IA program could be built.

I am not sure of the recruiting difficulty of Wichita's location. Texas, obviously, is a huge feeder state for programs in the vicinity.

WVU has done well while being hemmed in by Ohio State, Penn State, Pitt , Virginia Tech, etc by combining local talent with country wide recruiting. Pat White from Mobile, Alabama and Divine from Ft. Myers complement more local talent like Josh Jenkins.

[SubGod22]

Like in basketball we would probably have to hit Texas hard for football. But we are also surrounded by what may very well be the best JUCO conference in the nation. The best of the best of that conference will continue to go to some of the top programs in the nation, but there are a number of good players that I'm sure we could land. And it's not as if KS has horrible HS talent. And Wichita still produces some decent players as FSU knows :D

[shockfan89]

I think we should encourage one of the bottom feeders Indiana State, Evansville, or someone to drop baseball or move to another conference to leave us with 8 teams. Then we should add ORU (which obviously needs to be in a different baseball conference) and Dallas Baptist (Independent) to the MVC for baseball giving us 10 teams.

Both ORU and Dallas Baptist are ranked 50-100 in RPI year after year and are committed to being quaility baseball programs. Plus they are very close. Dallas Baptist would be the most impacted by travel but they are already an independent and travel quite a bit.

We could divide the MVC into an East and West and have WSU, Creighton, MSU, ORU, and Dallas Baptist in the Eastern division.

I think this move would greatly improve the conference RPI and move us up to the 6-10 range as far as conference baseball rankings go.

[rrshock]

Who is Dallas Baptist? I've never heard of them before.

[ShockerFever]

Who is Dallas Baptist? I've never heard of them before.

No.2 seed in the College Station Regional this year. This was their first year of eligibility, I believe, for D-1 postseason. They were a D-2, NAIA?? powerhouse for years and years.

They'd rival any of our other conference members' history, besides us, in baseball.

[SHOCKvalue]

Who is Dallas Baptist? I've never heard of them before.

No.2 seed in the College Station Regional this year. This was their first year of eligibility, I believe, for D-1 postseason. They were a D-2, NAIA?? powerhouse for years and years.

They'd rival any of our other conference members' history, besides us, in baseball.

Also the current stop for one of WSU baseball's solid alums, Travis Wyckoff, current pitching coach at DBU.

http://www.dbu.edu/athletics/roster_detail.asp?RosterID=706

[rrshock]

That explains why I haven't heard of the school then.