2021-22 Basketball happenings around the American Athletic!

[bleed yellow]

SDSU thinks that they are destined for the Big 12 or Pac 12. The fan base is delusional and the administration isn't far behind. They would be a tremendous add for the AAC but likely a long shot. They are building out an entire west campus on the site of the former Qualcomm (fka Jack Murphy Stadium) site in Mission Valley complete with a new 35,000 seat football stadium, technology and innovation campus, huge park and open space, and a butt load of housing and retail/office space.

https://missionvalley.sdsu.edu/explore

So San Diego basically let the Chargers leave town over the stadium issue, then turned right around and let the state of California pay for most of the new San Diego State football stadium that is being built on the site where the now demolished Chargers stadium was.. Lol. That’s slick. The city/county didn’t want to pony up for the NFL probably due to lack of success, so they convinced the state to pay for their collegiate sports venue. It’s probably a similar situation here as far the stadium thing goes. Kansas already helps K-State and KU maintain their football stadiums, they probably just don’t want to help build and maintain a 3rd football stadium

[Shoxing Me Softly]

WSU without football is adrift when it comes to conferences.

Granted WSU is in best possible league it could be with or without football right now.

I'm concerned with the future. Say Big 12 does decide to go 16 teams. Well those last 4-6 teams taken from MWC/AAC will indeed create an even larger divide between P5 and G5. There will be no middle ground like AAC was and what now is sort of AAC/MWC. I think if that happens the focus will be football only and more regional for all of g5. I fear WSU will at that point become un attractive to the rest and be pushed out.

[Shoxing Me Softly]

Not sure where else to dump this.

Belmont to the MVC

https://twitter.com/MattBrownEP/status/1441419579574538246

[1972Shocker]

The one thing that was/is always going to make this a steep uphill battle is the fact we'd be the 3rd D1 program in state that produces a few hundred at best D1 football athletes every year. It's REALLY tough when you can't start at home, and basically we could never. KU has rarely if even been able to and KSU managed a BIT of success but it's not enough most years, and that's ONE school, not 3. We don't have the population base or interest in football to sustain that base.

I think you are right on target except a few hundred D1 (FBS) football athletes every year sounds quite high.

The top 3 football schools for FBS recruits from 2008-2013 were as follows:

Texas: Average of 358 Recruits Per Year
Florida: 320 RPY
California: 236 RPY

Texas' total represented about 15.3% of the total FBS recruits during that time period. Hawaii ranked 27th with 21 recruits per year. Kansas ranked 30th. So Kansas somewhere around 20 FBS recruits per year.

https://www.bannersociety.com/2019/8/14/20747379/college-football-players-map-where-from

https://www.footballstudyhall.com/2013/9/11/4718442/college-football-state-texas-california-florida

But that is why WSU has always had to have more of a regional recruiting footprint including recruiting Oklahoma and Texas heavily (and not just for football). The I-35/I-70 Corridor In-State Tuition initiatives implemented by President Bardo perhaps helps with the amount of funding needed to fund scholarships.

[Downtown Shocker Brown]

Expand the In-State to Arkansas/Louisiana. I know first hand that WSU has lost multiple recruits across several sports due to the TOPS program that helps keep Louisiana kids in Louisiana for college.

In-State could help reduce the gap.

[1972Shocker]

I assume the Board of Regents have to approve the expansion of in-state tuition coverage. Not sure that is just something WSU can do unilaterally. However, I don't know that as a fact.

[WuDrWu]

I think you are right on target except a few hundred D1 (FBS) football athletes every year sounds quite high.

The top 3 football schools for FBS recruits from 2008-2013 were as follows:

Texas: Average of 358 Recruits Per Year
Florida: 320 RPY
California: 236 RPY

Texas' total represented about 15.3% of the total FBS recruits during that time period. Hawaii ranked 27th with 21 recruits per year. Kansas ranked 30th. So Kansas somewhere around 20 FBS recruits per year.

https://www.bannersociety.com/2019/8/14/20747379/college-football-players-map-where-from

https://www.footballstudyhall.com/2013/9/11/4718442/college-football-state-texas-california-florida

But that is why WSU has always had to have more of a regional recruiting footprint including recruiting Oklahoma and Texas heavily (and not just for football). The I-35/I-70 Corridor In-State Tuition initiatives implemented by President Bardo perhaps helps with the amount of funding needed to fund scholarships.

I didn't want to undervalue Kansas athletes, and went stupid the other way. My first thought was about 2 dozen at best. Thanks for those numbers!

[1972Shocker]

I didn't want to undervalue Kansas athletes, and went stupid the other way. My first thought was about 2 dozen at best. Thanks for those numbers!

While Kansas is 30th in terms of numbers of recruits they are 21st on a per capita basis. Not all that far behind California, North Carolina and Michigan on a per capita basis. So Kansas athetes are not that bad. We simply don't have the population numbers in Kansas to produce a large number of D-1 recruits.

[Dan]

So really good pep bands then.

don't forget celebrity alums like Meatloaf

[Dan]

I may be in the minority here, but I think SDSU is the next pickup for the Pac 12, if and when that happens. They are in a good market and logical footprint of the conference. The school has good brand recognition, competitive teams - especially basketball, growing campus, and no longer compete with NFL for local fan support.

[swellafelon]

Belmont to join Missouri Valley Conference.

https://www.midmajormadness.com/2021/9/24/22691320/conference-realignment-belmont-bruins-ohio-valley-mvc-missouri-valley

Could Wichita State be next?

[SubGod22]

Delusion about the past is firmly taking hold here. Football was bankrupting the athletic department. Basketball was suffering from this. I would say, if we had kept football we would never been able to afford and keep the coaches it took to revive basketball. We would have football like Northern Iowa or Missouri State and no recent Final Four.

Not even getting into the fact that very very few people cared about football when we had it. There are more people at high school games than what WSU was drawing for many games.

The AD as a whole was poorly run at the time. Basketball was still fairly successful when football was dropped, and then became a joke for over a decade afterwards. I really don't think the two are as connected as you think. A good AD, a properly run program and a conference that actually supported football and we would have been fine.

We could also do it today if we wanted and could build it the right way and get where we wanted to be eventually with it. But football should have been brought back a long time ago.

Some put way too much emphasis on the results of the time instead of all that has changed since then. You can't sell short the not having a conference home for football and the impact it had. We had a **** AD at the time. Bad hires within the administrative staff had just as much to do with the struggles of the time. Football is definitely more popular today than it was nearly 40 years ago.

If we had kept football, we could be in an even better spot than we are now. Think about having had a football home where we could grow the entire athletic department. We would have been in conferences that were receiving much better media deals than the MVC could ever dream of. We could very well be in the same conference we're currently in but enjoying the fall a hell of a lot more. We still wouldn't be in play for the B12 because of KU, but we'd be in a better spot overall. And this wouldn't even require great football. Just a solid program that could have been built up over the past few decades in CUSA or the Belt or wherever to get where we wanted to be. That's every bit as likely as your polar opposite view of well it sucked in 85 so it would suck forever mentality.

Smaller schools with less support have successfully maintained or started football in the time we've dropped it. But somehow, Wichita is or would be incapable of having similar or better success to some. I'm not surprised, Wichita is infamous for holding itself back.

[SubGod22]

Not sure where else to dump this.

Belmont to the MVC

https://twitter.com/MattBrownEP/stat...19579574538246

Something they should have done years ago. Pretty sure I made a case for them on the old Valley board back in the day.

[WuTheOne]

Football had the athletic department on the verge of bankruptcy and it was hemorrhaging $$ like crazy. If WSU had kept football it was likely to have bankrupted the athletic department, and left WSU with no athletic programs.

I contend it would be more likely that the athletic department would have gone bankrupt and been shut down than WSU getting into a better FB conference than the MVC.

[MikeKennedyRulZ]

I may be in the minority here, but I think SDSU is the next pickup for the Pac 12, if and when that happens. They are in a good market and logical footprint of the conference. The school has good brand recognition, competitive teams - especially basketball, growing campus, and no longer compete with NFL for local fan support.

The powers that be and those who influence decisions in the Pac 12 (mainly USC and UCLA) will not let this happen. Trust me. It would be like the Big 12 trying to add WSU if WSU had a good football team and was in a recruiting hot bed. Add Arizona and ASU as well who recruit SoCal like crazy.