WoolyBully

Well, during the early days, football was the shiny object at USF. But let's not forget, it was always about onward and upward...IAA, I-A independent, Conference USA, Big East...see the progression. Always upward. There was no concern about being 'left out', because there was no consolidation effort for comparison. Just getting INTO CONFERENCE USA was huge, enormous deal. I don't remember anyone saying, 'Oh no! This is a mistake! We should have stayed I-AA and kept playing Drake and Valparaiso.". But, the clock has ticked since then and the name of the game is still onward and upward. Only this time around, there are gatekeepers with considerably more muscle. It's not 1997 anymore, it's a whole new ballgame. But...in the interest of fair play, I'll still leave the 'so what if we're in the AAC for twenty years' question out there. Are we still 'just happy to have a program'?

Nice to hear from you again, it's been some time.

What constitutes a 'quality team'? App State ? Coastal Carolina? I watch those novelty games, only because I'm from that neck o'the woods. I honest-to-god don't see where they are any level above what was added already. Or should I be thinking in terms of "Hey, let's take a road trip to this cool campus and vacay destination' when we use the word 'quality'.

I seems to be more interesting via chart than just text.

Tough one. Personal preference: ACC Bidness: Stadium Why would I say something like that? Because - and this just mean old Mister Robinson's thinking - the stadium can get utility and serve as a building block for a decade to come. And in that decade, I do not believe U of SF will be playing ACC conference foes over on Fowler Avenue. So, if we're gonna be in the AAC, why not have a nice house? 'Cause the house will still be there, in time, when/if USF ever gets called up to the bigs. My personal preference would be ACC inclusion, simply for entertainment purposes. If U of SF were playing an ACC schedule, I'm not certain that I'd be pining for an OCS. It'd be nice, just maybe not as important.

Indeed. Winning and being a part of that winning tradition pays dividends. We used to rail against the huge alumni population in the area compared to the fan base. Well, for a great deal of those alumni, there is a disconnect. Can't go back in time and change that, but going forward, that's how you secure the next generation of invested fans.

That would be 16 wins (37%) and 27 losses lifetime total against those teams, not all of which were during their respective ACC years.... FSU (1-3), MIAMI (1-5), PITT (3-7), etc. We could probably leave that part out of the marketing brochure and be no worse off. UNC is 0-2 against USF, and 'cuse is 2-8 against USF. In basketball, we're 1-10 against 'cuse. My point being, that I'm not sure how historical records would sway the decision for an invite one way or the other, given the number of factors that weigh into the decision-making process.

Oh, don't sell yourself short! I'm certain that if we put forth the effort, do the heavy lifting and really come together as a team, that we can stay in this conference for one - if not two - more decades. All you have to do is put forth the effort! Get in there and make every effort to be the star of the AAC. Why, we might become so valuable to the brand that the conference won't let us leave!

Remind me, did Lane Kiffin express interest in coaching at USF - or was this a one-way street - where we had interest in him? And if we did have interest, was it substantive or was it a case of 'we'll interview anyone who shows up'?

Intercept from a message board operating at the intersection of Mac Everett Way and Phillips Road:

So, anyway, some time back there was this thing called "Y2K" which was a watershed moment for the wonderful world of IT. This little thingy came with a hard-and-fast deadline and to crash the project we ...

already did it.

Another reminder of the ticking clock. Can't remember the last time I was on campus for one reason or another.

Additional thinking on the AAC down the road... Still, the American's additions are about more than the immediate need to preserve the ESPN contract. They are part of a long-term, strategic plan based on demographics. From 2000-2022, Texas gained more than 9 million residents, the most of any state and a 43% increase for what was already the nation's second-most populous. Number two in that same time frame was Florida. Last year, Charlotte had the fifth-highest numerical growth of any U.S. city. The best players come from where the people are, and the people are increasingly moving into what is now the American's footprint. The schools entering the league are making new investments in athletics at a time when they will be well-positioned to capitalize on them. If the American can't get their next set of big brands through expansion, they will have to grow them. When the next television contract is up for bid in 2031-32, the league will hopefully have developed a new set of marquee programs that networks will want. When the Power 5 was seen as the dividing line, the American's strategy was to position themselves as college football's middle class; maybe not as powerful as the wealthiest conferences, but good enough that any breakaway wouldn't feel legitimate without them. Today, the Big 12 and ACC are playing that middle-class role as they try not to be left behind by the Big Ten and SEC. Both the ACC and Big 12 also lean heavily on basketball, but that won't help if college football becomes its own entity independent of the traditional conference framework. The American has little choice but to become as good as it can get in the hopes that it will be enough. https://navy.rivals.com/news/what-s-next-for-navy-and-the-american-athletic-conference-?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly90LmNvLw&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAMcLZZ0KTU7692L9ZIIno9ylA148RtuAK5zSMejVLgQ8ASZfztvXWDVvhz9i_ek_B9_DVI8mbFSmUzlxaMX_csgOzfyo9Ij5153t6edTphjq4L5y5djbQ6km19yGkDStsFTLDaX2UsPronoCGhYh_Np5a7-dzznwyl12IIG7kKjK

Which constitutes a credible and highly reliable source when it comes to the interwebs of 2023.

As an awareness, the lab is hard at work on an AI replacement for the carbon-based life forms. So, in the not-so-distant future we won't have to rely on humans for these weighty decisions.

Is that a polite way of saying FSU? 'Cause I'm pretty sure that was one of our instances.

It depends on where you're sitting. If you're in the academics & research business, AAU matters more. If you're in the athletic program business, football relevance matters more. The two are indeed at opposite ends of the spectrum, but we have to define what constitutes 'better'. If you - as a university - could have but one distinction, which would you choose? Would you rather cool your jets with the likes of MIT, Yale, and Vanderbilt or Alabama, Texas and Oklahoma? Our good friends at Ohio State and University of Southern California have demonstrated how to achieve both football success and academic success. If we throw Duke in there it would be basketball success as well. But it's not a very good argument to state - blanket wise - that one is necessarily better than the other.

Yep, anyone trotting out the academic "fit" argument in relation to conference realignment will not pass the polygraph. This is about football bidness, plain and simple. What matters is the spreadsheet. Revenue.

Well, it's a case of not having any reason to transit Boy Scout. It's odd to look back on how amped up we were in the way-back-when. I remember often thinking, we need to be there early to get a table (Capogna's, Beef O'Bradys). Now? I don't know if @mutt still drives Capogna's venue or not.

Yeah, we went to two watch parties at Selmon's off Boy Scout, didn't dig the vibe, so we started going to Capogna's. We went to a couple of watch parties at Beef O'Brady's on Fowler, not far from USF. And eventually, we pulled the plug on any watch parties and just watch from the ranch. It's odd how that happens...a slippery slope of non-participation.

Having been out of the loop for a time, have all of the watch parties for USF disappeared? Capogna's? Selmon's? I know they're not proximity close to USF, but an option perhaps.

Cornell Princeton Dartmouth Yale Penn Brown Harvard Columbia Stanford Duke Rice USF ... which would make for some nice road trips in the fall. And if we're feeling all magnanimous, we should invite Cal as well, since we don't want to run the risk of having to include some non-AAU schools. Of course, we'd all have to forego that whole FBS playoff thingy and settle for life in FCS land.

Well, we're 3-3 with Tulsa, 1-0 with North Texas, never played Rice or Charlotte. We are, however 0-1 against SDSU and never played BSU. I wonder how the folks at at SDSU & Boise feel about playing South Florida?

And so, we have landed at Stage Seven: acceptance. I have asked the question, so what if USF is a mid-major program, in perpetuity? Really, what is so bad about truly competing to the absolute best of our ability (and talent and resource availability) if we live on a world firmly and clearly divided between the haves and have-nots? What if, by not starting a program until the late twentieth century, we are truly and irreparably late to the party? Can we live with that (not saying the choice is solely under our control, but...)? Why not just stay in our weight class and dominate that? Think about all of the non-P schools out there. And I'd be willing to bet that when the next magnitude Seven hits the realignment Richter scale, that number grows. The P-boyz could very well install a system whereby if certain metrics are not met, pack your bags 'cause the bus is leaving for Mid Majorville. Could happen. We're talking about the distribution of millions of dollars. And we all know how those stories end when the robbers get back to the rendezvous. I know, I know, this is all in fun about whipping together some fantasy conference that we'd all like to see come to fruition and one day get all amped up about the annual U of SF - Ohio State game. And I also know that the whole point of rumors and tweets is to entertain, otherwise the thread would be called Realignment Facts Released Through Athletic Departments Only. We'd never get to the rarified air of a 4K page thread. I would be paperclip-in-the-electrical-outlet shocked to see U of SF depart the AAC anytime soon. Just not anchoring to that idea. Now, maybe after a period of being at the top of the conference and really, really distinguishing us from the rest of the Non-P universe, then we might have some appeal. I just don't see us dumb lucking (à la Big East) into P-dom. That's just my opinion and it's worth every single, solitary cent you paid for it.