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elizarrj

Thamel says Air Force and Colorado State Staying in MWC

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1 minute ago, sactowndog said:

And the split to pods was an approach to solve the travel issue which also could have been solved by divisions.  But the pod divisions didn’t work then.   Just admit you either weren’t born or you were sucking on your mommies tits when this whole thing went down and you have no idea what happened.  

When you are mature enough to actually make a point in the discussion I will respond to you again, however as you have just relagated to yourself to have to go to name calling and other means, means you don't have any other points. So I wish you a good day and wait until you actually make a point in the discussion which will not be coming anytime soon seeing many of the posts you very rarely make any points just as many of your AAC cohorts from their board don't make any points here and just scream and yell until someone responds to you. 

Have a good sir and when you decide to have an actual conversation I will be waiting, which i think will be a long while, until then have a nice day.

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7 minutes ago, sactowndog said:

Yeah except the “pod mess” never happened.   Yates called the meeting before it was even tried.  And you are correct Fresno was kept out due to 

a) a dislike for Welty 

b) a dislike for Tarkanian.  
 

the problem with pods breaking up key rivalries (the driving force of the WAC 16 break-up) is not a major issue today.   If the pods worked as well then as today, the WAC would never have broken up.  
 

What could be an issue today is 8 versus 9 and short term revenue versus long term stability.   I think the 8 versus 9 could drive whether Navy is included as they almost have to be under 9.   As far as long term stability, I hope that becomes the priority as it is good for all teams versus the 1-2 that may get a Big-12 invite.   
 

 

Not how I remember it.  While I don't remember if we had formal pod structures or not, we played with the 16 team behemoth for three years.  For a Wyoming fan, we were no longer playing Utah and BYU, and instead playing Tulsa, Rice, and SMU.  No history with any of them, fan interest waned.  It sucked.

Go Pokes!

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50 minutes ago, sactowndog said:

Yeah except the “pod mess” never happened.   Yates called the meeting before it was even tried.  And you are correct Fresno was kept out due to 

a) a dislike for Welty 

b) a dislike for Tarkanian.  
 

the problem with pods breaking up key rivalries (the driving force of the WAC 16 break-up) is not a major issue today.   If the pods worked as well then as today, the WAC would never have broken up.  
 

What could be an issue today is 8 versus 9 and short term revenue versus long term stability.   I think the 8 versus 9 could drive whether Navy is included as they almost have to be under 9.   As far as long term stability, I hope that becomes the priority as it is good for all teams versus the 1-2 that may get a Big-12 invite.   
 

 

Incorrect.  The WAC played under pods for 3 years.

 

Starting in 1996, the 16 conference members were divided info four pods, each with four teams. Two pods comprised the Pacific Division, and the other two pods were the Mountain Division. Pod one would always compete in Pacific, while pod four would always compete in Mountain. The other two pods were scheduled to swap divisions every two years, with the new alignment to take effect in even-numbered years. The pods and divisional alignment were discontinued after 1998.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Athletic_Conference_football

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40 minutes ago, wolfpack1 said:

It wasn't just a pod issue that made it happen. Jesus christ, there were man problems with the WAC-16 starting with Benson inviting the remains of the SWC conference when the AD's were kept out of the discussion. The costs started to rise with all the travel that was being done and the promises of becoming a player in the scene did not come true. There wasn't one issue that caused the whole the thing there were a multitude of issues that came when they expanded to WAC 16. It came to a tipping point where it there was finally a split. Benson over reached when he did what he did at the time. Hell even Thompson said the same damn thing. It wasn't just one issue, it was a variety of issues that caused the split.

Agree and Air Force saying they were leaving due to pods was the final  straw that finally broke the camels back.

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7 hours ago, Billings said:

I don't disagree but when he said that UTEP would not join the MWC he is flat wrong.

They and NMSU would join yesterday. However, what's the upside for the MW ?

I can see it when Boise and a few others leave. If Boise leaves alone, leave the Conference alone. No need to make panic adds just to reach 12.

"We don't have evidence but, we have lot's of theories."

Americans Mayor

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9 hours ago, Poke in Billings said:

Not how I remember it.  While I don't remember if we had formal pod structures or not, we played with the 16 team behemoth for three years.  For a Wyoming fan, we were no longer playing Utah and BYU, and instead playing Tulsa, Rice, and SMU.  No history with any of them, fan interest waned.  It sucked.

Yep I get it.  The pods were the “answer” to the concern you mentioned but it never got implemented as Yates blew it up.  
 

It is one reason I like the pods with 2 permanent cross over rivals.   It gives you guaranteed games against your main rivals: CSU, Air Force, New Mexico. It also provides a guaranteed game against 2 others.   Nothing is ever perfect but this model comes pretty close.  

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9 hours ago, Billings said:

Incorrect.  The WAC played under pods for 3 years.

 

Starting in 1996, the 16 conference members were divided info four pods, each with four teams. Two pods comprised the Pacific Division, and the other two pods were the Mountain Division. Pod one would always compete in Pacific, while pod four would always compete in Mountain. The other two pods were scheduled to swap divisions every two years, with the new alignment to take effect in even-numbered years. The pods and divisional alignment were discontinued after 1998.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Athletic_Conference_football

Good catch.  Thanks for the update.  
 

But unlike today you can see how the pods didn’t work well at the time.   If we had decent alignment Pods might have worked but you couldn’t create clean groups of 4 like you can now.   

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9 hours ago, Billings said:

Agree and Air Force saying they were leaving due to pods was the final  straw that finally broke the camels back.

Yep though the Pods were created to solve the “travel issues”.  The solution as you mentioned created more problems than it solved.   The issues mostly arose due to the group of 5 schools in the middle where you could not split them apart into divisions or pods.  

This central issue doesn’t exist today when compared to the WAC-16.   In fact, going above 12 today fixes some issues as Boise and to a lesser extent Utah State fit better in the west whether in a western division or a pod with Nevada and UNLV.  

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8 hours ago, wolfpack1 said:

And I will agree that was the straw the finally broke the camel's back

Not a final straw.  It was all related.  

Travel issues arose because you couldn’t cleanly break into pods or divisions.  Pods and divisions wouldn’t work because the 5 teams in the middle refused to be split apart in any manner.   It was the fundamental problem which wasn’t fixable. 
 

That central concern doesn’t exist today and in fact expanding actually fixes some issues as Boise moves west to play Nevada, Fresno, and SDSU. 

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7 hours ago, Spaztecs said:

They and NMSU would join yesterday. However, what's the upside for the MW ?

I can see it when Boise and a few others leave. If Boise leaves alone, leave the Conference alone. No need to make panic adds just to reach 12.

Not to mention adding UTEP creates more alignment issues unless they go into a Texas Pod.    UTEP is a better add if we lose CSU in a future expansion to fit in the pod with Wyoming, AF and New Mexico.   

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4 hours ago, sactowndog said:

Not a final straw.  It was all related.  

Travel issues arose because you couldn’t cleanly break into pods or divisions.  Pods and divisions wouldn’t work because the 5 teams in the middle refused to be split apart in any manner.   It was the fundamental problem which wasn’t fixable. 
 

That central concern doesn’t exist today and in fact expanding actually fixes some issues as Boise moves west to play Nevada, Fresno, and SDSU. 

And that was my point, all the issues the conference had at 16 were all related and maybe not the final straw, but maybe the pod thing was what finally made everything blow up. I think Benson didn't really think anything through when he grabbed those other schools, thinking we would turn into a super conference and not think of the other issues that came with it.

Having teams in the central area was a heavy concern I agree with that. I think there is still some concern today as when they were making the divisions, schools from both sides were lobbying to have Boise in their division at the time and then Boise was doing some lobbying to be put in the Western side so they could recruit more of California. If they redid the divisions now, someone would from the west would have to move out to the mountain which might start something else. The easiest choice might be no divisions but then that could have an affect on conference scheduling. 

I think with expanding it could create issues, however at the same time I don't want to add two more schools to drink at the football trough if there is no reason to add them and there isn't a school in the area that moves that. 

Now if MWC wants some eastern exposure and AAC wants western exposure maybe talk a possible schedule agreement.

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45 minutes ago, wolfpack1 said:

And that was my point, all the issues the conference had at 16 were all related and maybe not the final straw, but maybe the pod thing was what finally made everything blow up. I think Benson didn't really think anything through when he grabbed those other schools, thinking we would turn into a super conference and not think of the other issues that came with it.

Just to set the record straight, Benson didn't have anything to do with expanding the WAC to 16.  The decision had already been made when he was hired in 1994.  In fact he was surprised to find out on the day he was offered the commissioner job.

Benson over the years has been quoted as saying he thinks the ideal size for a conference is 10 Olympic sports members with 9 playing football.  When he went to the Sun Belt that was the original model he worked to create.

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The WAC 16 failure ultimately reduced the number of FBS conferences out west from four in 1999 to two now.  Good job, I guess.

 

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1 hour ago, HawaiiMongoose said:

Just to set the record straight, Benson didn't have anything to do with expanding the WAC to 16.  The decision had already been made when he was hired in 1994.  In fact he was surprised to find out on the day he was offered the commissioner job.

Benson over the years has been quoted as saying he thinks the ideal size for a conference is 10 Olympic sports members with 9 playing football.  When he went to the Sun Belt that was the original model he worked to create.

aw must had been that between time. I thought he was commish at the time thank you for the clarification

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59 minutes ago, jdgaucho said:

The WAC 16 failure ultimately reduced the number of FBS conferences out west from four in 1999 to two now.  Good job, I guess.

 

the only one that disappeared was Big West. WAC disappeared when Benson tried to lure BYU and then was going to get MWC teams as well when Thompson jumped on getting Fresno, Utah St, Boise and Nevada to MWC which then killed the WAC but they are back now

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52 minutes ago, wolfpack1 said:

the only one that disappeared was Big West. WAC disappeared when Benson tried to lure BYU and then was going to get MWC teams as well when Thompson jumped on getting Fresno, Utah St, Boise and Nevada to MWC which then killed the WAC but they are back now

Utah St actually came with SJSU when Boise and SDSU announced their intension to leave to the Big East a few years later. Hawaii was part of the group that left after 2010/11 during the conference realignment turmoil at the time after giving notice to Benson they had no intension of playing in a conference that was moving to the Midwest with multiple FCS moveups and major supporters of the program gave the choice of either leaving to be Indy/BW or MW/BW to the AD.

WAC wasn't able to entice any other movers from the FCS to move up (also because nobody they looked at were ready for FBS like Lamar, SHSU, Liberty, etc.) after the larger remaining programs at the time announced their intension of leaving for the MW (Hawaii, Fresno and Nevada) following Boise over. Which caused newly conference schools like Denver, Texas St, UTSA, Seattle, etc. to look elsewhere for more regional fits or a stable conference.

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2 hours ago, wolfpack1 said:

And that was my point, all the issues the conference had at 16 were all related and maybe not the final straw, but maybe the pod thing was what finally made everything blow up. I think Benson didn't really think anything through when he grabbed those other schools, thinking we would turn into a super conference and not think of the other issues that came with it.

Having teams in the central area was a heavy concern I agree with that. I think there is still some concern today as when they were making the divisions, schools from both sides were lobbying to have Boise in their division at the time and then Boise was doing some lobbying to be put in the Western side so they could recruit more of California. If they redid the divisions now, someone would from the west would have to move out to the mountain which might start something else. The easiest choice might be no divisions but then that could have an affect on conference scheduling. 

I think with expanding it could create issues, however at the same time I don't want to add two more schools to drink at the football trough if there is no reason to add them and there isn't a school in the area that moves that. 

Now if MWC wants some eastern exposure and AAC wants western exposure maybe talk a possible schedule agreement.

They were all related around the same base issue:  you could not reasonably divide the teams into 2 divisions or 4 pods.  It was not a mix of issues, it was one central core issue.   

if they added 2 in Texas, which is the minimum that should be done, Boise would move west where it belongs.  As was mentioned by the SDSU AD and on the USC telecast, recruiting in Texas is increasingly important.  Having team(s) in Texas is a must.  Ideally that team would be SMU and if you could eject the AAC at the same time it would be more than worth it.   

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1 hour ago, sactowndog said:

They were all related around the same base issue:  you could not reasonably divide the teams into 2 divisions or 4 pods.  It was not a mix of issues, it was one central core issue.   

if they added 2 in Texas, which is the minimum that should be done, Boise would move west where it belongs.  As was mentioned by the SDSU AD and on the USC telecast, recruiting in Texas is increasingly important.  Having team(s) in Texas is a must.  Ideally that team would be SMU and if you could eject the AAC at the same time it would be more than worth it.   

I believe adding Tulsa and SMU is a win on so many levels.  It would put Boise in the West division which makes them happy, it keeps USU in the mountain which keeps us happy, it gives the entire conference a better recruiting and television presence, it also makes it more sensible to add Wichita state and possibly Gonzaga which should really please SDSU.  I think it is the best move that is a plus for every single school in the conference. It also protects us from future AAC predation out west and stability if/when Boise leaves. It would firmly put us as the top G5 conference and arguably the best basketball league in the west, cha Ching$$$$$$

This may be our only chance to be at the drivers seat in conference expansion. Make it happen presidents!!!!

 

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24 minutes ago, Agzrule said:

I believe adding Tulsa and SMU is a win on so many levels.  It would put Boise in the West division which makes them happy, it keeps USU in the mountain which keeps us happy, it gives the entire conference a better recruiting and television presence, it also makes it more sensible to add Wichita state and possibly Gonzaga which should really please SDSU.  I think it is the best move that is a plus for every single school in the conference. It also protects us from future AAC predation out west and stability if/when Boise leaves. It would firmly put us as the top G5 conference and arguably the best basketball league in the west, cha Ching$$$$$$

This may be our only chance to be at the drivers seat in conference expansion. Make it happen presidents!!!!

 

I believe we don't want anything to do with Tulsa.

I am Halfmanhalfbronco's bitch.

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