October 16, 2003
C-USA Expansion now as big as five schools
ESPN and the Tampa Tribune are reporting that Conference USA is now poised to extend membership to five schools: Marshall, Southern Methodist, Rice, Tulsa and Central Florida.
The move is to offset the potential departures of Louisville, Cincinnati, DePaul and Marquette to the Big East. Army is leaving Conference USA after the 2004 season. The Tribune reported that C-USA's South Florida also would receive a Big East invitation.
Two years ago, Marshall turned down consideration from C-USA to become a football-only member because the Herd couldn't find a suitable league for its other sports.
KRIV quoted C-USA sources Wednesday night as saying the conference plan also calls for Army and Navy to be allied members. The station said sources told it that the proposal involving Army and Navy would have them schedule four C-USA games a year apiece and be eligible for bowl games affiliated with the league. Army has been scheduled to leave the conference after the 2004 season.
If these moves pan out, I think Conference USA is poised to be the mid-major conference. I think you could even make a case for this version of C-USA to get BCS consideration. When you look this revised C-USA, it definitely has some schools with potential. Look at TCU (who has been ranked in the top 20 consistently over the last 4 years and has 5 straight bowl wins including a smack-down of Southern Cal), Southern Miss (which was everyone's darling two years ago), Tulane (who went undefeated a couple of years ago and started all this BCS flap), Marshall (who has shown they can knock off anybody they please), South Florida (just a couple of years in D-IA and they're already taking people to the mat), and East Carolina (who absolutely stink up the joint this year but have been very strong over the past four years). That's five teams right off the bat that can walk into almost any stadium in the country and press for a win.
Kudos to C-USA for throwing a couple of punches here rather than just sitting back and taking them. You never know, Cincy & Louisville may just decide to stay put.
Comments:
Justin Brady said:
posted on October 20, 2003 12:15 AM — 68.55.117.224 — link — abuse?
It almost seems to me that while Conference USA is trying to get 12 teams and a title game, every other conference sees CUSA as a pool of talented teams to choose from. Any conference that wants to add teams, always seems to eye 1 or 2 teams from Conference USA, while Conference USA is saying, "Back off Biatches!").
On the other hand, Conference USA doesn't do the teams that are good every year justice, while the teams that really suck and don't belong anywhere are just along for the ride. Going undefeated and having the Liberty Bowl be the best you can do is very disappointing to the talented teams. The money could be better with better bowl game options. The teams that NEVER have a winning season, get free money (which is what I meant by "along for the ride").
In any case, it seems like CUSA will have a steady stream of unhappy teams (and really happy teams) until some kind of balance can be achieved.
Mike T said:
posted on October 20, 2003 1:14 AM — 67.10.52.77 — link — abuse?
Yes to all the above. C-USA is underrated and it has a problematic bowl situation. However, it now has six bowls to chose from in major Mid-South cities like Memphis, Mobile, Fort Worth, Houston, and New Orleans. And then there's the game in Hawaii. That's SIX good weekend trips. All the teams have a history of inconsistentcy, with the exception of TCU and Southern Miss. SM is always a very hard nosed competitor. Houston is coming back, give it a couple of years. Cincy isn't bad, Louisville is ok, and TCU is currently doing a fine job of continuing Jim Wacker's legacy. Tulane is up and down, UAB is always tough, and while USF is doing very nicely for a johnny-come-lately, they have no track record of success. 2 seasons and they want to leave. [Fine, play with the big boys and see how your season goes.] I like the idea of having Navy and Army as affiliates, they can play other schools in their catagory and still schedule a few of the C-USA teams nationwide for away games. I'll bet the thought of having access to the Hawaii bowl got Navy's attention.
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Mike Boone said:
posted on October 16, 2003 8:15 AM — 146.201.133.125 — link — abuse?I still think that USF is the best pick-up out of all of the above. The Bulls' program has really taken off and when Jim Leavitt starts to get more exposure the recruits are going to notice.