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New Conference Possibilities

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muffler dragon

muffler dragon

Bien. Bien chiludo.
On my way home last night, the local sports radio station commentators were talking about the "idealistic" notion of creating another conference. The two conferences that they were discussing as far as combining the premier teams were the MWAC (Mountain West) and WAC.

Edit: HTM said it best in his post below, and I have added it here for clarification:

HTM said:
I think the idea is to shuffle the two conferences to end up with one conference that's as good as any BCS conference and one that's Sun Belt quality.
Click to expand...

The teams in each of these conferences are as follows:


MWAC
  • Air Force
  • BYU
  • Colorado State
  • New Mexico
  • San Diego State
  • TCU
  • UNLV
  • Utah
  • Wyoming
WAC
  • Boise State
  • Fresno State
  • Hawai'i
  • Louisiana Tech
  • Nevada - Reno
  • New Mexico State
  • San Jose State
  • Utah State
FTR, the MWAC is 6-1 against the PAC-10 this season.
One Commentator was attempting to make the following points about a combined conference of these two above:

a) It would be better than the Big East
b) It would be comparable if not better than the ACC
c) It would battle the PAC-10 rather well.

The main teams that were being discussed were Boise State, Fresno State, BYU, TCU, and Utah.

The reason I started this thread was two-fold:

1) What do you think about combining the MWAC and WAC? What teams would you put in it?
2) Are there any other conference combinations in the US you would like to see or can imagine happening?
 
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Personally, I don't care what you do with those teams from the Mountain West or WAC as has been documented in my BP poll almost every week. They probably should throw all of them into one conference and have a conference championship game and that way we won't have to be worried about the BCS picking the team and than all the other ones complaining that they didn't get in. I know it is not their fault but they just do not play enough quality teams during the season for a person to be able to judge how good they really are.
 
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Uhhh...the Mountain West Conference was formed by teams that left the oversized WAC in '99.

I don't see this happening.

from wikipedia:

.
Charter members included Air Force, BYU, Colorado State, New Mexico, San Diego State, UNLV, Utah, and Wyoming. Prior to forming the Mountain West Conference, seven of the eight charter members had been longtime members of the Western Athletic Conference; half were WAC charter members at its formation in 1962 - UNLV had only joined the WAC in 1996.
The WAC expanded from 10 to 16 universities in 1996, absorbing three teams from the defunct Southwest Conference (Rice, SMU, and TCU), adding two from the Big West (San Jose State and UNLV), and Tulsa from the Missouri Valley. After three football seasons, most of the pre-expansion members decided the that the new WAC was oversized, and departed to form the Mountain West Conference. The MWC added a ninth team in 2005: TCU, also a former WAC member, joined after four seasons in Conference USA.
.
Click to expand...
 
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Instead of doing that why don't they setup a mini playoff between the winners of all of the non BCS conferences and let them fight it out for a spot in one of the BCS games. If they have to play a few games leading up to the BCS game more people would get to see them play and they might have a larger following. While they're at it they should kick the Big Least out of the BCS and give the winner of this playoff that BCS spot. Give the 2 highest ranked teams a bye and have a 3 week playoff.

As of now it would look like this:
Week 1: Troy at Ball St and Tulsa at Pitt
Week 2: Lower ranked team at Utah, higher ranked team at Boise St
Week 3: Lower ranked team at higher ranked team
Winner goes to the BCS. Other teams go to their conference bowls.

That would give the big conferences 9 BCS spots and the BCS wouldn't have to fight as hard to not get stuck with the non BCS schools.
 
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FCollinsBuckeye;1324259; said:
Uhhh...the Mountain West Conference was formed by teams that left the oversized WAC in '99.

I don't see this happening.

from wikipedia:
Click to expand...
I think the idea is to shuffle the two conferences to end up with one conference that's as good as any BCS conference and one that's Sun Belt quality.

So, say:

BYU
Utah
TCU
Boise State
Fresno State
Hawaii
Air Force
Colorado State

and

New Mexico
UNLV
Wyoming
Louisiana Tech (which geographically should be in the Sun Belt anyway)
Nevada
New Mexico State
San Jose State
Utah State
 
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setup a mini playoff
Click to expand...

screaming.jpg
 
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LitlBuck;1324253; said:
Personally, I don't care what you do with those teams from the Mountain West or WAC as has been documented in my BP poll almost every week. They probably should throw all of them into one conference and have a conference championship game and that way we won't have to be worried about the BCS picking the team and than all the other ones complaining that they didn't get in. I know it is not their fault but they just do not play enough quality teams during the season for a person to be able to judge how good they really are.
Click to expand...

I completely understand what you're saying. That said, (and maybe it's a function of living on the Left Coast) a LOT of these teams are trying to schedule games with the "strongest" conference near them (PAC-10). The MWAC teams always play the PAC-10 strong. Recently, Boise State has beaten both Oregon universities as well.

I should note that I'm not making a case for or against the ideas that I heard on the radio. Just thought it would make for a good discussion.

I will also admit that I was drawn in with the down-grading of the Big East and the ACC. Which I would say at this point in time should be just as questionable regarding an automatic bid. The teams at the top of the MWAC and WAC could[i/] give the teams in those conferences more than they could handle, IMO.

FCollinsBuckeye;1324259; said:
Uhhh...the Mountain West Conference was formed by teams that left the oversized WAC in '99.

I don't see this happening.
Click to expand...

I don't (nor did the commentators) see this sort of thing happening. It was just a discusison topic that I found interesting. I must say it's intriguing living out here, because it's so different from east of the Mississippi where there are top tier conferences everywhere. It would be advantageous for those of us west of the Rockies to see some higher grade football games.

exhawg;1324280; said:
Instead of doing that why don't they setup a mini playoff between the winners of all of the non BCS conferences and let them fight it out for a spot in one of the BCS games. If they have to play a few games leading up to the BCS game more people would get to see them play and they might have a larger following. While they're at it they should kick the Big Least out of the BCS and give the winner of this playoff that BCS spot. Give the 2 highest ranked teams a bye and have a 3 week playoff.

As of now it would look like this:
Week 1: Troy at Ball St and Tulsa at Pitt
Week 2: Lower ranked team at Utah, higher ranked team at Boise St
Week 3: Lower ranked team at higher ranked team
Winner goes to the BCS. Other teams go to their conference bowls.

That would give the big conferences 9 BCS spots and they wouldn't have to fight as hard to not get stuck with the non BCS schools.
Click to expand...

Very intriguing concept.
 
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Another option would be to throw out all of the current BCS tie ins and say the top 10 teams go to BCS games. If no one in your conference is in the top 10 you don't get to go. That would insure the best BCS games.
 
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exhawg;1324303; said:
Another option would be to throw out all of the current BCS tie ins and say the top 10 teams go to BCS games. If no one in your conference is in the top 10 you don't get to go. That would insure the best BCS games.
Click to expand...

Not that I'm looking for a discussion on how to improve the bowl system, but I must admit that even this conception makes me nervous.
 
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exhawg;1324303; said:
Another option would be to throw out all of the current BCS tie ins and say the top 10 teams go to BCS games. If no one in your conference is in the top 10 you don't get to go. That would insure the best BCS games.
Click to expand...

trouble is, this is completely subject to polling bias (except for the computer polls :nerd: ).

How about the conference champ from every conference plus the top _ rated teams go into a playoff format? :sneaky:
 
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I could definitely see the MWC pulling Fresno and Boise out of the WAC. San Diego State might drop their football program in the near future. I could also see the MWC pulling a couple teams out of CUSA as well. Houston and Rice being two top candidates. Houston has shown that it can consistently make bowl games and the Rice football team has done well in recent years. Both teams would also help the conference in baseball, which is arguably it's weakest sport. Rice has one of the top baseball programs in the country. Houston has made 6 NCAA tournament appearances this decade. Adding Fresno, who is the reigning NCAA D1 champion in baseball, would also be huge. If SDSU leaves and you add those four schools, you've got 12 teams. You get the football championship game. Also those teams probably put the MWC above the Big East and possibly the ACC in football. The PAC 10 is up and down all the time so it's hard to say if it would be a consistently better conference.
 
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HailToMichigan;1324287; said:
I think the idea is to shuffle the two conferences to end up with one conference that's as good as any BCS conference and one that's Sun Belt quality.

So, say:

BYU
Utah
TCU
Boise State
Fresno State
Hawaii
Air Force
Colorado State

and

New Mexico
UNLV
Wyoming
Louisiana Tech (which geographically should be in the Sun Belt anyway)
Nevada
New Mexico State
San Jose State
Utah State
Click to expand...

Was going to say the same thing. One is the Sun Belt (OK, the West Belt) and the other is as good as the Big East on their best weekend. I'd actually switch Hawaii with NM though...now that Jones is gone Hawaii won't be truly good again for quite a while, I don't think.
 
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FCollinsBuckeye;1324317; said:
trouble is, this is completely subject to polling bias (except for the computer polls :nerd: ).

How about the conference champ from every conference plus the top _ rated teams go into a playoff format? :sneaky:
Click to expand...

Too many teams. I wouldn't mind a playoff, but no more than 8 teams.
 
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