– Six Lycoming College Warrior student-athletes were named representatives to the 2021 MAC All-Sportsmanship team, the conference office in Annville, Pa., announced on Thursday, Nov. You have seven or eight conference games per week and could load up the mid-week slots with just three or four of those games.Story Links WILLIAMSPORT, Pa. The only way any of this works though is if you get ESPN on board to promise the MAC that the now configuration either holds the per team value or increases it.Īnother advantage of 14 or 16 teams is that maybe you can convince ESPN that MACTion should be just twice a year for each member, once at home and once on the road. MAC West - NIU, BSU, Miami, EMU, CMU, WMU, MTSU, WKU.MAC East - Buffalo, Akron, Kent, ODU, JMU, Ohio, Toledo, Bowling Green,.MAC West - NIU, BSU, Miami, Toledo, Bowling Green, EMU, CMU, WMU.MAC East - Buffalo, Akron, Kent, WKU, ODU, JMU, Marhsall, Ohio.Once again a slight pull to the south/east but they pair well and bring in markets and decent potential. If you can do either of the above, and you still want to go a little harder, try to Pull ODU and invite JMU all sports.MTSU may seem odd, but as a pair with WKU they fit nicely, once again pulling the conference footprint just a slight bit to the south without wrecking the travel footpring Assuming we cannot get Marshall, who may not want to try the MAC again, go for WKU and MTSU as a pair.The MAC should go after Marshall and WKU, these two teams slightly stretch the conference's footprint, but they do it in the right direction.
However, nothing ventured, nothing gained so here goes ( in order of what I’d want to see happen) With Buffalo off the menu it seems as if our snug 12 team league is as well off as ever. Honestly staying where they are and not moving would not be the worst move for the MAC at this point. This would bring the Belt up to 12 and put CUSA down to 6. The Belt had already become a peer and now with a terrible “TV Deal” and only 8 teams in the conference the Sun Belt may set it’s eyes on Marshall and one more school. I suspect that ESPN expansion is not done with conference USA. This is also why I think Buffalo was not one of the six teams asked, that would damage an ESPN property (MAC) and I don’t think ESPN was going to allow the sweetheart deal to go through on this for the American if they took a hit somewhere else.
The sports network owns the TV rights to all MAC, AAC, and Sun-Belt games, and this move assure those three conferences are the only ones with real growth potential? They are the only group of five football conferences NOT under contract with ESPN at the moment. Want to know what these two conferences have in common? The MWC is not really hurt, so much, but they are kind of stuck now, with nowhere to expand unless they want to call up FCS and/or try to raid NIU? I mean UTSA is always there.CUSA is either going to get poached more, by the Sun-Belt and MAC (more on that later) or be forced to reload with FCS teams for the second time in a decade.Who's Behind The Curtain (Tinfoil Hat time) But it didn’t work well, maybe it will be better for the AAC. This is similar to the last moves made by CUSA who decided to bring up so-so programs for their markets. It’s surprising because these teams are by no means the consistent strong programs in CUSA. Overall, this is as good a job at making lemonade out of lemons as one could expect. Kept the 7 million per year to keep other teams not named Memphis from jumping at the next offer (cause they are the only AAC member on a bigger conferences radar).
Charlotte, Miami (I think that’s FAU, right), Dallas Metro, Added another in Houston, San Antonio What did the AAC accomplish with this move?