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Leagues repositioning in wake of upheaval
By RALPH D. RUSSO
AP Sports Writer
BOSTON — When the Atlantic
Coast Conference raided the Big East to become a football powerhouse, it
started a wave of change that has left the non-BCS leagues in a state of
flux.
Like the Big East, Conference
USA, the Western Athletic Conference, the Mid-American Conference and the
Sun Belt Conference are preparing to play the upcoming season with several
lame duck members.
So how do you lead a league in
limbo?
"Get through this year and
look to '05 when the new members join," WAC commissioner Karl Benson said
Tuesday during a break in the Collegiate Commissioners Association meetings.
"The disadvantage here is you lose a year of planning and there's confusion.
In the past it hasn't been all that damaging. We've got four schools that
are playing in their final year. It's awkward, but it's not unmanageable."
Teams switching conferences is
nothing new. Since 1990, the Pac-10 is the only Division I-A football
conference that has not changed members.
But never before have so many
teams in so many leagues been shuffled in such a short time. Over the next
two seasons, about 20 percent of the 117 Division I-A football schools will
be changing leagues.
The ACC knocked over the first
domino when it lured Miami and Virginia Tech out of the Big East. Those
schools join the ACC this season. Next season, Boston College follows.
The Big East recouped by
adding five schools from Conference USA, three that play football.
Louisville, Cincinnati and South Florida join Big East football in 2005.
Marquette and DePaul are also shifting from C-USA to the Big East.
C-USA will say goodbye to two
more football schools after the 2004 season when Army goes back to being an
independent and Texas Christian heads to the Mountain West Conference after
just three football seasons in C-USA.
The Horned Frogs garnered
national attention for themselves and C-USA last year by going 11-2 and
reaching as high as sixth in the Bowl Championship Series standings, the
highest ranking ever for a team from a non-BCS league.
TCU, Louisville and Cincinnati
have football programs that have blossomed into consistent winners in recent
years, and all three are expected to contend for the C-USA title in 2004.
Next season they will be
replaced by Marshall, Central Florida, Texas-El Paso, Rice, Southern
Methodist and Tulsa.
"It think it's a challenge for
us because we're changing so many of our members that have strong
identities," said C-USA commissioner Britton Banowsky, whose conference is
also losing non-football members Charlotte and St. Louis to the Atlantic 10.
"The league I think has a
reputation as being very strong in the sport of men's basketball, we have
some very high profile coaches in men's basketball. Sometimes that
overshadows the quality we have in football. I think we're just going to
have to reposition the brand and promote in a balanced way all of our
assets, including football."
C-USA will be a two-division
12-team football league in 2005, with plans to play a league championship
game.
The reconstruction of C-USA
left the WAC looking for new members to replace UTEP, SMU, Rice and Tulsa.
Benson found replacements in
misplaced Sun Belt Conference schools Idaho, New Mexico State and Utah
State.
The good news for the WAC —
unlike C-USA — is the league is not losing its marquee football schools,
Boise State, Fresno State and Hawaii.
MAC commissioner Rick Chryst
said his league has no plans now to replace Marshall and Central Florida.
While Marshall became an immediate league power when it entered the MAC in
1997, the rest of the league caught up to the Thundering Herd in the last
couple of years.
Traditional members Miami of
Ohio and Bowling Green played in the league title game last season. Northern
Illinois and Toledo, another longtime member, also played prime roles in the
MAC's breakout 2003 season.
"What's been encouraging for
us is there has been real momentum coming off of last year," Chryst said.
"Our core is intact. As we go about the internal work of launching ourselves
in '05, I think we're also looking at this year to really try to sustain the
growth of the past couple of years."
As for the Sun Belt, it
welcomes Troy State this season and fledgling I-A programs Florida Atlantic
and Florida International in 2005.
Copyright 2004
The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be
published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
02/23/2007 10:40:27 AM
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