GP1

All kidding aside. That league would have to be the A-10 and ONLY the A-10. With the addition of VCU and Butler to the league, it presents a strong challenge and we have the horses to compete. I wouldn't do it for any other league.

Do you mean like the Ivy League or something even better?

Simple.... You address it with a furry mascot with a name not even remotely related to the team.

Link 1:30 commissioner of this league will be on the radio. Listen over the internet. USFL Q&A This guy is looking at cities like Omaha, Akron, etc. I think that could be a mistake. TV networks want viewer and one can't leave out Boston, NY, LA, etc. if the league is going to make it financially. The original USFL had teams in major media markets and was doing just fine. No reason to go away from that design. Funny, they don't seem to think playing in the summer/spring will hurt the players chances of getting with an NFL team...I agree. It wouldn't hurt a college kids chances either.

For the next five years, our entire athletic department is better off in the MAC.

If we accepted the bid with the idea we would have 1-2 more years in the MAC, we wouldn't draw enough players in the next two years to compete early in the BE. No BE player wants to come to the MAC and play against the MAC for half of his career. I'm not willing to risk an immediate jump for a hypothetical that may not pan out and in 20 years we are still in the building process. I've had enough of that. If the odds of Akron moving to another conference in the next decade are 1,000,000 : 1...... I'd like to put $50 on Akron.

We want the same thing. You want it today, I want it when we are ready. Will we have a team to compete in the BE in five years? Not if we run into their league and go at best one year of 3-8 the first 3 years. We don't have nearly the talent to compete with all of their teams right now. It would be even more losing. We need to get winning in the MAC and then turn that momentum into something else. More losing does zero for the program and gets coaches fired...coaches getting fired extends the never ending "building process". No thanks. Some on this board have been obsessed with the BE since I started reading this board years ago. I have a feeling the BE for some would be like the good looking girl in college everyone wanted to have sex with only to find out the girl was bad in the sack once you got her there. If the BE is such a great league, why is everyone leaving?

I wouldn't make the jump to either right now. Suicide doesn't interest me. If we are good enough for the BE right now (which we aren't and the move would destroy our basketball program), in five years when Bowden has the program turned around and we are comfortable with the shake-ups in college football being over, we would be able to make a better decision. I don't think we know enough about what the BE will look like in five years to make an informed decsion. I don't see how joining a conference on the decline is the solution. Quick decisions and panic result in the current form of the Cleveland Browns. I'm not interested in being The University of Akron Browns. I actually think gozips19 is right on the money with not making any moves on our own. Something bold needs to be done and a couple of conferences acting together is the type of bold move I would like to see. Until then, Captain Smith needs more help on the deck.

Would we recruit better? Yes. Would we recruit well enough? I don't know that and neither do you. Cincinnati is a good example right up until they got absolutely run off the field against Florida in the Sugar Bowl. However, it just so happens they were able to hire an excellent coach and benefit from Va Tech, BC and Miami leaving a few years earlier. Cincy will further benefit from WVU leaving the league and the illusion of them being a national program will continue. UCONN has the attention of an entire state. UofA has the attention of an entire county. What makes you think UCONN and Cincy will be in the BE in five years? L'Ville? Rutgers? We are decades behind these programs. All of them probably have better and bigger stadiums than we do. Do you want to add to the stadium we already aren't filling a section of? Good luck getting the money. Maybe you can take another 20 year building process, but I've seen enough. We need to start winning where we are now. Once we start winning (we will win under Bowden) and the future of college football becomes more clear, then we should talk moving.

I don't know if I was too old, but I was too drunk. I fell down when I jumped over the wall.

I love the listing ship remark. Above is a nice league if UCONN, Rutgers, L'vill and Cincy stay in the league. If they do, it will be years before we could compete for a football championship in this league. That's the pickle we would be in. The BE is not worth being in of these four schools leave...It also could hurt our other sports if they stay. It would be the end of our success as a basketball program if UCONN, Rutgers, Lvill and Cincy stay in the BE. We can't beat the 7th place Big Ten team in the first round of the NIT with the most talented team in recent memory, we wouldn't compete well in the BE at all. Sometimes, the best move is to do nothing. Right now, the nonbcs conferences are either cannibalizing each other, or they are bringing in teams that simply don't belong in D-1A. None of them are getting better in a meaningful way. Everyone at our level needs to stop fighting each other in an attempt to become king of the midgets and figure out a way for everyone to work together to stabilize nonbcs football. I'm going to channel the Dave in Green within me now....We only get one shot at this because of the cost of exiting conferences. We shouldn't rush into anything and should be very careful where we go and have a full understanding of what we are going to will look like in 5 years. Doing nothing and trying to dominate the MAC over the next five years could be our best option.

I don't mean to be a wet blanket, but can anyone describe to me what the Big East will look like in five years? The way I see it, the only attractions to the BE at this point are the remaining schools of Rutgers, UCONN and L'Ville. I would be shocked if any of those schools were in the BE in five years. My guess is they are waiting to see how things pan out for Syracuse and Pitt before escaping the BE...probably a good move on their part. Why would we want to join a league others are trying to escape? This is what I mean by looking at the world in the rearview mirror. Sometimes, people see the world as what it was and want it to be that way forever even after the world changed. Republicans want it to be the 1950s forever and the Democrats want it to be the 1960s forever. That's the way I think some see the BE. Some want it to be Pitt, Syracuse, WVU, Boston College, Miami, VA Tech, etc. instead of leftovers living in a dying, but once really good league. What teams the BE replaces Pitt, Syracuse and WVU with will not be nearly as good as those three so the quality of football will not be any better than a CUSA. If football is the reason we examining options, the BE is not the place to be. We have one shot to get this right.

In your first paragraph, you might be exactly right. However, the disaster was complete with Ianello. At some point, TW needed to save HIS job and my guess is that move had more to do with it than anything. A home run? Ianello got on base because of catchers interference. The thing we know about the TW/Proenza team is this, and it is the part that scares me....They were smart enough to hire Bowen...They were stupid enough to hire Ianello. IF we move to another conference, I give them a 50/50 shot at making the right decision about which conference to land in. Conferences are making it mighty expensive to leave now so the decision has to be the right one the first time. Lastly, Winters posted on the football alumni forum he turned down the job.

Had I heard a year ago these three people would be working at UofA, it would have foreshadowed the disaster that was Coach I. These three coming to Akron aren't part of a great plan by the University. They are at UofA because of a terrible hiring decision by Dr. P, which resulted in a terrible hiring decision by TW, which resulted in the dismissal of his hand picked apple from the Charlie Weis coaching tree after two forgettable (being kind) seasons, which resulted in a former Zip actually turning down the head coaching position. Don't get me wrong. I'm glad Bowden and Amato are here, but let's not forget how they got here. Let's also not forget there are people in positions above them who have made horrible mistakes the past 3 years and are still in positions to make horrible mistakes again. These are also the same people who will pick the next conference if we make a move. Those are the surprises that worry me.

I don't know how far along it is, but I was told one of the reasons TW was brought to Akron was his connections with other conferences and his experiece working for two other conferences. I was also told there is at least one person on the Board of Trustees (probably someone really old who sees the world through the rear view mirror) who is dead set on trying to get us into Conferrrrr...The Big East and believes TW is the guy to do it...God help us all. UofA badly wants out of the MAC and I can't blame the administration. There are only three real questions: 1. Who would want us? 2. Why would they want us? 3. With the current direction of the Big East, why them? I'm sure it will jump start another 20 year building process, which doesn't seem that bad since we are already 25 years into the current one. We've got all the time in the world.... I'll only be 62 when it is all over. Some on this board may even die of old age before the next building process is completed. BTW, Captain Smith says to move the chairs again...

If the choice is MAC and Sun Belt, then we shouldn't do it. If we could get the other MAClike D-1A schools to follow, we would really have something national. If we can't do it on a national level, we shouldn't do it.

Having football to watch would be compelling enough. Americans love the game and will watch it when it is presented. They will watch football over MLB, which gets terrible ratings. Vacation? Peoople can plan their vacations around the Zips home games and not go when they are being played. The USFL produced football games and people watched them. It was plain old football just like the nfl and people watched. There is a constant demand for football in the US....look at how much espn covers the nfl when it is not in season. We could give America real games in a national super conference. As far as ratings, sell it to a network like Fox. Fox is shameless and would promote the heck out of it and people watch a lot of Fox programing because it is so will promoted. Regional coverage could be provided through local stations. Nothing would have to be reinvented. It is a sport in great demand and people will watch it. Fill the demand.

This is as good of a reason for not doing it as saying UofA firing Jim Dennison is reason people don't go to games. It's a non issue and a bad excuse for not doing something. Every 5'10" kid thinks he is going to play in the NFL. It's outside of the world of reality. If an NFL team thinks a kid can play, they will find a way to get them on their team. A team might see a kid playing in May in a game and say, "We need that guy." I love the idea of a national conference in combination with other MAClike conferences. Further, I like the idea of getting publicity through being the only game in town in the spring and early summer. What are our other options? 1. Big East...Becoming worse by the year and will be no more than a glorified CUSA before too long. 2. CUSA...not a bad choice, but nobody watches the games in the fall because of BCS schools sucking the air out of everything. 3. Make the MAC better..... 1948. 4. Stay where we are. How is this working out for us? MAClike conferences are on the college football version of the Titanic. There is an old joke on this board about rearranging the chairs on the Titanic. Conference realignment at the MAClike level is nothing more than rearranging the chairs. Worse, we are throwing more chairs onto the deck (see UNCC, ODU, etc joining S-1A) while the ship is sinking. The best thing for the chairs is to get them off of the ship. We have met the enemy and we are us.

That's part of what a spring football league does.

Isn't conference realignment part of repackaging a part college football? Traditional rivals like Texas and Texas A&M will no longer play as part of realignment...That's not a fantasy, it is reality. The game has changed a lot in the past five years and we need to change with the times. The game wouldn't be reinvented, it would just be played at a different time. I'd go watch a college football game tonight if I wasn't at the beach and one was offered near me. I'd be willing to bet a lot of money a lot of Americans would do the same thing. I'd also be willing to bet a lot of money a lot of Americans would watch the games on television. The USFL was a successful league and if people were open minded enough, we could experience a similar success. With the personality of our coach and his media style, we would be one of the schools people talk about going forward in this league. All of our discussion centers around how MAClike teams survive in the new world of college football. Mainstream solutions believe teams jumping from one conference nobody wants to watch to another conference nobody wants to watch and then trying to compete against BCS and NFL for attention is the solution. Isn't that already what we are doing? Are we not insane if we don't take a drastic step to save our brand of college football by not trying to compete for national attention against the NFL and BCS? When President Kennedy said we would go to the moon and bring the person back in 10 years, it seemed like a far-fetched idea..then we did it.

Great post. It would look especially bright in the spring and early summer. You're a good poster STZ, what do you think about a spring football league in college? I think the market is there.

Kids who play hockey and baseball in college get drafted every year while their sports are still going on. Screw the NFL. We aren't going to play their game any longer. We really shouldn't be worrying about what everyone else does and do the right thing for ourselves. Only 52 kids were drafted out of non-bcs D-1A schools this year (180 for BCS conferences). That would be less than one player per team in my spring conference. Where are these kids going to go play to get the national visibility they could get in my spring football league? They have no other choice. On a positive note, a player could graduate high school, get two summer terms in and the fall term in before he ever has to start to practice for football season. That's a year and a half of school. It's a good way to raise graduation rates and get kids focused on school early. Stop looking for little reasons to not do this. Kids getting drafted is a little reason. All of the big reasons and history, point to it being a success.

I respectfully disagree. The problem isn't with the rules of the game. Football is already a much higher scoring game than in years past. We need to take our product to market at a time when people want to buy the product. Running up against BCS and the NFL isn't the way to do that because they take all of the air out of the room. Playing on Tuesday and Wednesday nights isn't the way to do that. People want football in the spring and they would want it on Friday and Saturday nights. The USFL was successful and the Arena League gets good ratings. People watch spring games on tv for crying out loud. There is a market for a spring football league in the United States. Leagues like the mac, wac, cusa, etc should join together and show their game in the spring when people badly want football. Making one big league with the same marginal teams as before and trying to compete against BCS and NFL is the definition of insanity. We should join together and sell the tv rights to a network like Fox. We could change the league's name to something patriotic...Fox loves marketing that kind of stuff and they are really good at it. Have a red, white and blue ball. Fox is shameless and would promote the heck out of a spring league. The would have sideline reporters that make Erin Andrews look like the wicked witch. It would be the best thing for all of us.

By the time the Big East is done, there will be little difference between it and cusa. I want out of the mac as well. Heck, I want out of the ncaa and to play our games in the spring as part of a 45-60 team conference/division with a national championship game on July 4th, but that is a whole other issue. I have heard that part of the reason why TW was brought to UofA was to get us out of the MAC. His background working in conferences was seen as a plus when he was hired. Further, there are people on the BOT who are dead set on joining the Big East regardless of it's condition by the time we get into it. Short sighted, but that is the view of some in power. I wouldn't let TW make a decision on which fantasy football league a person should switch to.

So basically you are saying it is a never ending building process with no real goal? Aren't we already on that ride? What would the better conference be??