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Post by Gundo on Apr 17, 2023 12:37:18 GMT -8
According to the UAC release, “the United Athletic Conference now fully operates like a single-sport conference with an independent budget, policies and governing documents. The group will recognize its own league champion and at-large FCS playoffs automatic qualifier under a singular conference banner beginning with the 2023 football season.” The conference will play six games in 2023 and eight in 2024.
The nine teams in this league are Abilene Christian, Austin Peay, Central Arkansas, Eastern Kentucky, North Alabama, Southern Utah, Stephen F. Austin, Tarleton State and Utah Tech. Texas Rio Grande Valley will also begin football in 2025.
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Post by panammaniac on Apr 18, 2023 9:59:32 GMT -8
What's interesting about this is the WAC announced its intentions to become an FBS conference once again. But a few of those schools just recently started football or will be starting football, so the WAC becoming FBS is 10 years away at best, and that's assuming it doesn't lose any more schools between now and then. Tarleton has already been visited by CUSA officials who were looking at them as a possible expansion candidate (again, not for the immediate future). Some in CUSA would like to see Stephen F Austin added at some point. Tarleton is putting a lot of effort and money into developing their programs but if it were today, SFA is better positioned. I'm kind of skeptical that the WAC will ever get back to FBS.
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Post by Gundo on Apr 18, 2023 19:51:47 GMT -8
What's interesting about this is the WAC announced its intentions to become an FBS conference once again. But a few of those schools just recently started football or will be starting football, so the WAC becoming FBS is 10 years away at best, and that's assuming it doesn't lose any more schools between now and then. Tarleton has already been visited by CUSA officials who were looking at them as a possible expansion candidate (again, not for the immediate future). Some in CUSA would like to see Stephen F Austin added at some point. Tarleton is putting a lot of effort and money into developing their programs but if it were today, SFA is better positioned. I'm kind of skeptical that the WAC will ever get back to FBS. The WAC is losing two FCS schools to CUSA, New Mexico State and Sam Houston University in the Fall. Liberty joins this fall as well from the ASUN. Jacksonville State and Kennesaw State both from the ASUN also joins CUSA. |
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Post by panammaniac on Apr 20, 2023 8:54:49 GMT -8
NMSU is an FBS school and always has been. Sam Houston is moving up to FBS, along with Jacksonville State and Keenesaw State.
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Post by panammaniac on Apr 21, 2023 10:40:42 GMT -8
I think where things start to get very interesting is when (if?) SDSU leaves the MWC for either the PAC or Big 12. Will the MWC backfill your spot? We're joining CUSA which puts us in the same conference with long time rival UTEP for the first time in over 60 years. It makes sense, and unlike the nastiness in the NMSU-UNM rivalry, NMSU and UTEP actually sort of get along and make it fun. The two schools are about 45 minutes apart, so you couldn't ask for a more perfect travel pair. But there is some speculation that the MWC would invite UTEP to take your place, and that would leave NMSU on an island again as the far western outlier in a mostly southeast based conference.
The NMSU fan base is excited about joining CUSA, and for that matter so am I, but it is far from an ideal conference for us. A lot of our road games will be two time zones away in cities that aren't exactly easy to travel to. The conference basketball tournament is going to be in Huntsville, Alabama for the next two years, and that's not an easy place for NMSU fans living in and around Las Cruces to get to. We're partnered with some schools that we were conference mates with in the Sun Belt (Western Kentucky, LA Tech, and Middle Tennessee). None of those got the fans in Las Cruces very excited. I'm not at all excited about being conference mates with Liberty, for the same reasons that nobody really likes being conference mates with BYU. They're just a little wacko. I can see a little bit of rivalry forming with Sam Houston, especially now that we just hired away their basketball coach of 14 years. Two of the schools have football stadiums with less than 15K seating capacity. So if we lose UTEP, the conference becomes a lot less attractive to us. But of course we wouldn't leave unless there was a better option, and currently there isn't.
Now if the MWC loses multiple schools and has to add 3-4 new schools just to stay viable, I could see NMSU ultimately ending up in the MWC. I'm in the minority but ultimately that's what I'd like to see happen. Ideally I believe NMSU and UTEP belong in a regional conference that includes UNM, CSU, Wyoming, Utah State, and Nevada. Add SJSU to that just because theyr'e already there, keep Hawaii for football only, and maybe add Grand Canyon to make up for Hawaii being FB only. NMSU has a ton of history with several of them - we were conference mates with USU, Nevada, and SJSU in the Big West and WAC for many years. It will take a major shakeup for that to happen, but I don't think it's that crazy of a thought. Most of the NMSU fan base has the opinion of screw those schools because they turned their back on us for years and left us out in the cold. That's very true, but if the MWC loses that many schools, the ones I named will literally have nowhere else to go.
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