Knobby

Nobody is claiming that; however the BE did start this whole "sper conference" thing when they went to 16 teams, and that is when these much bigger dominos started to fall.

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Well, we were smaller, but at least we were slower!

Bona84

Dominoes? Haven't seen those in a while.

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Bona84

SpiderInTheMixingBowl

rusty X

I am having a hard time believing that the Charlotte AD is happy to be thrown into that collection of mutts that now comprise CUSA. With the exception of Tulsa and Rice, I think the rest of those schools have open admissions, or whatever the politically correct term is.

I am sure that the Tulsa and Rice ADs are spending every waking hour trying to figure out how to get their schools out of there. Twenty years ago Rice was in a conference with Texas, Texas A&M, Texas Tech, SMU, TCU, Houston, Baylor. Now they look at North Texas, FIU, FAU, La. Tech, UT-San Antonio, UTEP. How would you like to be the guy trying to sell football season tickets at Rice? Buy a six pack of Pepsi, get a free football ticket.

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If you are going to have sex with an animal, make sure it is a horse. That way, if it does not work out, you always have a ride home. So sayeth Willie Nelson.

Bona Wolf for Pope

I wish the southern Ivies conference had gotten going way back when. Vanderbilt, Rice, Tulane, SMU, Duke, etc.

Obviously it was never even close to happening, but I am more and more drawn to the current Ivy League because I know all the schools there care about a) school b) being in a conference with like minded schools.

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"Careful reading comprehension is crucial to an online forum discussion."

Palestra1

No, the BE isn't a super-conference because it's never been a true power conference in football and it's never done anything other than react to the actions of the actual football power conferences. Roughly 25 years ago, the SEC and the B1G started the movement toward super-conferences. The periodic (more like constant currently) reshuffling of conference membership won't end until those two are satisfied that there are no additional advatageous moves for them to make. The BE began sponsoring football only as a response to the B1G taking Penn State, the most valuable program by far in the east. All of the losing and adding of teams in football and basketball in the BE since has been the result of it being a collection of football have-lesses and have-nots who can only act in response to the big boys' moves.

The SEC kicked off the latest round of realignment mania by being the first to go beyond twelve teams and if the current five power conferences get reduced to four it will have been because of the B1G's most recent move. Unfortuantely, the remainder of college football and basketball operate at the mercy of those two conferences, Texas and Notre Dame. It sucks for fans of teams outside of that elite group plus the PAC, but unless there is a fundamental change in the economics college sports, we're stuck watching our favorite team fight over whatever remains of the pie after the power players have determined the size of the pie and have taken their slices.

xudash

http://www.cbssports.com/columns/sto...by-realignment

mainejeff

If the sh*t hits the fan with the ACC (more raids by the B1G, SEC and Big 12)........the ACC just might invite St. John's, Georgetown and Nova eventually. The ACC would never be able to add enough quality football schools to replace the departed.......so they might just go after top quality hoops/markets and those 3 would fit the bill.

The ACC could end up looking like this eventually:

BC
UConn
Syracuse
Temple
Pitt
Cincinnati

Memphis
Louisville
Duke
Wake Forest
Central Florida
South Florida

*Notre Dame
*St. John's
*Nova
*Georgetown

* All sports excluding football

This may be the best that the ACC can do if the unthinkable happens.

The A-10 could go after DePaul and Marquette........possibly Providence and Seton Hall as well.

URIrx

The day that providence and URI end up in the same conference is the day that the state of RI finally falls in the ocean.

This would be because the ground would shake with all the URI fans laughing after 30 years of supposed PC superiority, and the ocean would come fill the vacuum left by the deep gasps from the PC fans of having "sunk" to URI's level

xudash

I've noticed a couple comments along these lines on the Xavier board and elsewhere. It could happen, assuming the ACC really decides to solve for optimal basketball at the point solving for something other than football becomes necessary.

Still, I think the odds are against the ACC, in whatever form it ends up, taking in hoops only programs, because the conference obviously has a strong bias for the all-sports format and, more importantly, its ultimate composition is going to have to be able to effectively address its Olympic Sports requirements. With respect to the latter, there is no way the basketball schools can fund the number of sports that the football schools fund. Then again, as the football school's lose funding, perhaps they cut sports out.

We'll see.

DoubleJayAlum

From the Omaha World Herald:

http://www.omaha.com/article/2012112...t-be-easy-call

rusty X

when I think of big cities, I must confess that Omaha is not the first thing to come to my mind. Or even medium sized cities.

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If you are going to have sex with an animal, make sure it is a horse. That way, if it does not work out, you always have a ride home. So sayeth Willie Nelson.

Bona Wolf for Pope

Omaha: 408,000
St. Louis: 318,000
Pittsburgh: 305,000
Cincinnati: 297,000
Buffalo: 261,000
Richmond 205,000
Dayton 142,000
.
.
.
Olean 15,000

Edit: Obviously using just the city limits numbers doesn't give the total picture.

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"Careful reading comprehension is crucial to an online forum discussion."

Mac539

I doubt that the ACC would have invited ND to play basketball in their league if it did not have one of the most prestigious football teams in college sports. And I think ND will play 4 football games a year with ACC teams. Who in their right mind would think the ACC would want to follow the BE's road map to success.

Palestra1

It's almost comical how closely the ACC is following the BE playbook right down to inviting ND to place their olympic sports in the conference and participate in their bowl rotation. The ACC at this point is not all that different than the BE circa 1999 including having SU, BC, VT, Pitt, and Miami as members. Their big vulnerability in this realingment madness (as was the BE's) is that none of their members have the same national appeal and status as Texas, Michigan or USC or the other giants of college football. They don't have one football member which is so popular nationally that it can carry the conference by drawing huge audiences even in down periods. The ACC's status as a power conference would be secured if ND would join as a full football member, but ND isn't going to do that until absolutely compelled to by forces greater than pleading from their fellow ACC members (just as was the case with the BE). The ACC may manage to avoid being picked apart or they could end up morphing into something like what was mentioned a few posts ago, who knows at this point. Regardless, the ACC is the old BE+ and the BE is the old CUSA+ at least for the time being.