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Conference Expansion: Stanford, California and SMU Join the ACC

I'm just remembering that Texas A&M finished the season ranked #4 last year and thinking that was pretty good.

I thought so too. Pilch disagrees.
 
They went from 5 games under .500 in the Big XII to 11 games over .500 in the SEC. That’s not the same shit. It’s not Bama but it’s better.
They were actually 68-61 in their time in the Big XII. They are 42-31 (through last year) in the SEC. That is heavily skewed by last year's weird outlier COVID season in which they were 8-1. aTm has been largely irrelevant in the SEC except for a year under Johnny Football and last year, which was weird. That's pretty much how they were in the Big XII with a couple good years at the beginning under Slocum, then a lot of mediocrity and a decent year under Sherman near the end. A lot of 4-4/5-3/3-5 types of seasons in conference.
 
I was comparing their 9 years in the SEC to their last 9 years in the Big XII.
 
I was comparing their 9 years in the SEC to their last 9 years in the Big XII.

Yes, but the 9 year comparison is faulty because it includes mostly crap years by aTm and ignores times when they were actually a consistent, quality product. I mean, unless you want to give the impression that the SEC of the last 9 years was an inferior product to the Big XII in aTm's last 9 years in the league, and that's why aTm improved in the SEC (in fairness, the Big XII as a 12 team league from its inception through about 2010 was a very good conference). Regardless, whether you look at it from my perspective or yours, last year was an outlier and weird season and I think aTm comes back to earth this year. They almost already have against Colorado. Their D can be tough, but their O is stuck in 2000 FSU territory. That was a great offense then, but a bit archaic now.
 
I don't know about all of this, but I live in Texas, close to College Station, and I've never heard a single Aggie fan express one word of regret about joining the SEC.

Now, the level of joy about UT and OU joining the party is another matter.
 
Belmont leaving the Ohio Valley Conference (#22 rated hoop conference) to head to the Missouri Valley (#10 rated conference). That gives the MVC 11 teams. Murray State may follow.

Air Force and Colorado State are rumored to be leaving the Mountain West for the American Athletic Conference.
 
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Ten years ago, Belmont was in the Atlantic Sun (#26 rated conference) along with their rival Lipscomb. This is an incredible rise in a short period of time.
 
Belmont has finished the season with a superior Pomeroy rating to WF in 7 of the last 11 seasons:

2011
2012
2013
2014
2018
2019
2021

WF better than Belmont (clap, clap, clap clap clap) by six spots in 2020; by eleven spots in 2016; by 22 spots in 2015. The Danny Manning glory season of 2017 saw WF at 47 spots ahead of Belmont in the Pomeroy ratings

Thanks, Ron!
 
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Belmont has finished the season with a superior Pomeroy rating to WF in 7 of the last 11 seasons:

2011
2012
2013
2014
2018
2019
2021

WF better than Belmont (clap, clap, clap clap clap) by six spots in 2020; by eleven spots in 2016; by 22 spots in 2015. The Danny Manning glory season of 2017 saw WF at 47 spots ahead of Belmont in the Pomeroy ratings

Thanks, Ron!

"Historical competitiveness"
 
Ten years ago, Belmont was in the Atlantic Sun (#26 rated conference) along with their rival Lipscomb. This is an incredible rise in a short period of time.

They are still such rivals that they play a home and home pre conference every year. I don't know anyone else that does that.
 
Yeah. The schools are basically beside each other so it makes sense.
 
TIL that the Missouri Valley Conference is different than the Missouri Valley Football Conference
 
It's a long shot now, but it may make sense in the long run. Right now, a few states are split have teams in each conference.

NC has ECU/Charlotte
FL has USF/FAU, FIU
TN has Memphis/MTSU
TX has SMU/Rice, North Texas, UTSA
LA has Tulane/La Tech

The AAC has little to offer. They are firmly on the same level with CUSA and the Sun Belt which also has teams in NC, LA, and TX. Can you really argue that ECU is better off playing SMU than playing App and Charlotte? Wouldn't Tulane be better off establishing conference rivalries with La Tech, LA-Monroe, and LA-Lafayette?
 

This proposal makes sense. The American has never been a real conference. Started by a smattering of teams that thought they could make it in the world of power conference athletics but were left out to dry at the collapse of the old Big East, and then joined by whoever they could grab to get enough teams. How is Temple and SMU a rivalry? USF and Tulsa? I absolutely hate realignment and think it sums up everything wrong with American sports and greed, but in this one case I can kind of understand how this makes sense because it can actually do a lot to foster new rivalries.
 
But more TV markets if you're scattered? Or maybe more viewers if you consolidate. I don't know how the money works.
 
But more TV markets if you're scattered? Or maybe more viewers if you consolidate. I don't know how the money works.

We know the former doesn’t work. They tried that and failed.
 
This proposal makes sense. The American has never been a real conference. Started by a smattering of teams that thought they could make it in the world of power conference athletics but were left out to dry at the collapse of the old Big East, and then joined by whoever they could grab to get enough teams. How is Temple and SMU a rivalry? USF and Tulsa? I absolutely hate realignment and think it sums up everything wrong with American sports and greed, but in this one case I can kind of understand how this makes sense because it can actually do a lot to foster new rivalries.

Regionalism makes sense when you're talking about the Sun Belt and Conference USA, but it doesn't make sense for schools in the American and it is entirely because of athletic department budgets. If you look at the expenses reported for the public school athletic departments, the schools in the American spend in the range of $50M-$60M per year on their athletic departments while teams in the Sun Belt and C-USA both typically spend in the $30M-$40M range. So while it would make geographical sense to combine all three of those conferences and divvy them out by region you're going to wind up with conferences where USF has an athletic department budget of $53M playing FIU and FAU who each have athletic department budgets near $36M. Worse yet, the three lowest spenders in the three conferences (ULM, LaTech, & Southern Miss - combined budget of $65M) would likely all wind up in the same conference as Memphis ($55M).
 
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