kevinfootes

How did the Big East go about getting rid of Temple? The Mountain West was formed when several memebers of the WAC bolted. It certainly isn't easy to dump schools from a conference and I don't know how likely it really is, but money ultimately talks. BTW, I don't know if the Big 10 would really "need" to add 1-3 more teams if ND joined. They could simply have 13 and go unbalanced.

Purdue has a much better football history than Indiana. Getting bigger is easier, but if you already have a BCS tie-in and an NCAA automatic bid you might not get more money per school by expanding from 12 (or 10) to 16.

You bring up a very good point. Rather than expanding to 16 teams, some conferences might start to prune the dead wood football programs. The Big 10 doesn't need Indiana football, especially if they land ND. The SEC could do without Vandy, Big 12 Iowa State, etc. IMO, 10 is a very good number for a conference. Even before reworking the TV contract, the Big 12 was claiming that it would have only lost 8-10% of its TV money by shedding 16.7% of its teams. More money to go around.

For what it's worth the Big 12 saying no to exapnsion at this time, and if they do at some point it will be beyond the current geographic footprint (no TCU, Houston, Rice, Tulsa, etc.). http://www.foxsportssouthwest.com/06/20/10...amp;feedID=3742 While the conference loses it's championship football game, each team will now get a bigger slice of the pie (cut 10 ways vs. 12). Even though it's been a hot topic, 16-teams leagues may be too big to make any financial sense. IMO unless you have the perfect lineup, 16 goes past the point of diminishing returns in most cases. Things can and will change down the road, but this might mean that the dust has settled for the next couple of years.

Our conference made some gains last season. What matters, of course, is how many teams get bids to the big dance. If a conference establishes itself as being solid rpi-wise, it can only help to get the extra bid. It's okay if you don't agree.

A couple of things here. Colorado is a weak basketball teams based on the past few decades of poor play, not just last year's rpi. Utah is an up and down team (currently down). Short of the time the RM was there, they haven't been a great program. I don't think I posted anything about the A10 being "regularly" better than the pac 10. Please show me otherwise. They were better last year and can stay better this year. The a10 was farther ahead of the pac 10 in rpi than the pac 10 was ahead of the next conference, the mvc. Also, adding a traditionally bad team shouldn't help the Big 10. The mountain west should be weaker with Boise St. I wasn't trying to imply that things would be significantly better for SLU, but they are better than 2 weeks ago.

How is this different than most other teams in the country?

"dog" might be an overstatement for Utah, but they haven't been a great program either. As I've posted on here, the Pac 10 gets a couple of decent tv markets but did little to improve the overall stature of the league outside of getting a championship game for football.

The Pac 10 does have some power programs that will get better, but they've also added a couple of dogs that might netralize that to a certain extent. Don't forget that the A10 has a few programs that are on the rise.

While Big 12 football will be hurt by the loss of Nebraska, the remaining schools should create a much better basketball conference. The Big 12 loses Colorado (120 rpi) and Nebraska (149 rpi). The Big 10 gains #149 Nebraska, which should soften them a bit. The Pac 10 gains #120 Colorado and #157 Utah, which should also soften them up. The Mountain West trades #149 Utah for #207 Boise St. The net of this is that the A10 should remain ahead of the Pac 10 and Mountain West in terms of rpi and could close the gap with the Big 10. Does anyone see the events thus far as being anything other than positive for SLU and the A10?

Like I posted, one big happy family.

Vermeil was hell-bent on drafting Curits Ennis and loved Lawrence Phillips. I don't think his talent evaluation was all that great. Here's my quick take on how/why the Rams became successul.... 1. trading for Marshall Faulk 2. drafting Orlando Pace and Torrie Holt 3. signing Adam Timmermann 4. Being lucky enough to have Warner as a backup when Green got hurt There were good moves on the defensive side as well. You can't take the super bowl away from Dixie, but IMO he was as lucky as he was good in many cases.

Can you give us the salaries of the assitatn coaches going back to the Grawer era? I'd be interested to see how they have progressed.

I agree with most of what you posted here. I will say that Spoon was actually paid pretty well by SLU. They did nickel and dime him, but his salary wasn't bad.

What happened? The team went 56-36 under his watch, including playoffs. You could also ask the question: How has the team done since Martz left? Playing devil's advocate here, but things weren't all that bad under Martz compared to where they are now. I know you can claim that Martz drained the system or whatever, but's it's been 5 years since he left and no one has been able to improve the situation to date.

Dallas Cowboys, not Houston Texans!

The Yankees and Red Sox do just fine, but teams like the Pirates have almost no chance to win without losing money. Now we're getting even more off topic for the board!

I wasn't trying to list every possible team, but you covered the rest. I think the SEC is clearly the #1 football conference. You could debate the next 2 spots, but I'd probably put the big 12 ofthe past ahead of the big 10. The big east wound up with a pretty good conference rpi, but I think they benefit statistically by only having 8 teams. I see your point, but Iowa and Minnesota isn't what's being shown on national tv. You listed 3-4 big 10 schools with broad national appeal. Throw Nebraska into the mix. The SEC has at least 5 teams with broad national appeal. The big 12 now has 2 teams with broad national appeal (sorry aTm). There are more big games in these conferences, and I think the revenue sharing tends to help as schools like Wisconsin, Arkansas, etc. float in and out of the mix. Heck, the NFL has had revenue sharing for ages and is really a role model...despite what the cowboys are trying to do.

I'm not necessarily disputing your point, I'm just pointing out the way more successful conferences work. The SEC has some great teams but also has teams that are typically average at best. The Big 10 has teams like Iowa and Indiana which are a drag for everyone else. Would the Big 10 be more successful if Ohio State, Michigan, and Penn State got more funding than Indiana, Iowa, and Purdue? The SEC has states like Florida and Georgia, but Mississippi doesn't generate much excitement and Vandy certainly plays second fiddle to the Vols. Not every game is regional. Many go acroos most of the country, like the SEC games on CBS. As I mentioned earlier, Texas and Oklahoma vs. patsies won't get much national attention. The SEC and Big 10 are in much better position to have nationwide appeal by having more competitive teams. Again, this is a big disfunctional family and I don't think the arrangement will last. Maybe Texas should go independent.

I'm not trumpeting any one school here, just looking at the big picture. In a few years more people will be watching other conferences play football, IMO. Do you think Ohio State likes sending checks to Indiana? Does Florida like sharing with Miss State? That's how the big, successful conferences operate.

How does the second best football conference nearly fall apart...because it has a bad business model. It looks like the business model is even worse now. Texas and Oklahoma played this well for the near future, but I'm guessing the conference won't be alive in 5 or 10 years...at least not looking like it is right now. The Big 10 is growing because they have a good business model. The SEC is healthy beacuse they have a good model. There is a funny comment that Richard Petty made one time. He was asked why his crew helped opposing racers. Petty said something to the effect of "no one will pay to watch me race around the track by myself". In a few years when the big 12 consists of 2 big names and a bunch of patsies on tv every week, the SEC and Big 10 will continue to bring in good ratings and revenue. At some point Texas and Oklahoma will bleed this conference dry and then approach a different conference about joining. At that point they'll get decent deals but will have to cede a great deal of control and won't see additioanl funding. Just my opinions, but this has been fun speculation far the last week or so! This big disfunctional family will keep rolling along for now, but we'll all enjoy watching the next round of this in a couple of years.

The Pac 10 probably won't sit at 11. They could consider Utah or BYU and possibly New Mexico. The Big 12 will try to get 2 teams back, IMO. As I've posted on here, adding more Texas schools doesn't help much in terms of media revenue. However, it would add more flunkies to the UT bandwagon, and that might be desirable. Here are some candidates: Air Force, BYU, Utah, New Mexico, Cincy, Louisville, Memphis. Just when the Mountain West added Boise State (and maybe even kansas and missouri) and was looking to improve, they might be in big trouble. Any team that isn't in a BCS conference would be foolish to not pursue it, and the Big East football deal is small compared to what the Big 12 has.

can't argue with that.

I believe I typed "if they're smart". The smart move would not include adding more Texas schools.

Hah, now you're changing your states around!!! Remember, you posted that Arkansas had more D1 talent than Illinois. Now you're changing to Georgia...Hah! I never compared Illinois to Georgia, you just changed things around because I proved your stupid post to be incorrect. You are correct, in 2 minutes on maxpreps anyone can know more about football than you. I've posted that states with higher population produce more D1 players. Texas, California, Florida. But hey, thanks for pointing out the obvious to everyone. BTW, I didn't find 1 example, I simply refuted the one example that YOU used. Come up with a better example, Einstein. I don't think SLU will or should try to start a football program. If they wanted to drop $25 million and hire a top flight coach it could be a success at some point, but I don't think anyone reasonably expects us to do that. I'd like to say "nice try", but it wasn't. Just weak and pathetic.