No More Rumors - Official AAC Expansion

[UCF_rustbucket]

14 minutes ago, BiggTipp said:

For a reason that I cannot explain, I feel as if we will never be a member of the Big 12. Again, I have no idea why I feel this way but when the smoke clears, I think we will be a member of the ACC. I know that may be way off base but I just have a feeling.

A full strength ACC seems like a long shot. To go from 14 to 16 I feel like they wouldn't triple dip into FL and would try to raid a fellow P5 first since off the top of my head, P5s don't add G5s unless they got raided by another P5. Some combination of ND, Cincy, and WVU would seem more likely. But if that's what they go with, y'all are still in a good position because USF and Memphis would easily be the Big 12's first picks. 

[USFRaider]

9 hours ago, USFBULL_08 said:

If we were losing like this in the old Big East nobody would show up either.

Tampa is a pro sports town on the ocean. There are a million things to do and watching a bad third tier college football team in Florida is near the bottom of the list. Heck, the lightning could barely give away tickets when they were crap and Koules was the owner.

People in FL are as bandwagon as it gets. If we are winning 10 games a year in any conference people will show up.

Then why didn't people show up in 2016 and 2017?  

[BiggTipp]

6 minutes ago, UCF_rustbucket said:

A full strength ACC seems like a long shot. To go from 14 to 16 I feel like they wouldn't triple dip into FL and would try to raid a fellow P5 first since off the top of my head, P5s don't add G5s unless they got raided by another P5. Some combination of ND, Cincy, and WVU would seem more likely. But if that's what they go with, y'all are still in a good position because USF and Memphis would easily be the Big 12's first picks. 

I agree. I did listen to some podcasts and watched some videos that suggested there is another layer of Big 12 expansion coming as well. The suggestion was there were three more schools in the mix but the Big 12 felt that was too much at one time. Those schools were USF, Memphis, and SMU. So who knows.

Maybe just wishful thinking on my part. 

[NewEnglandBull]

2 minutes ago, USFRaider said:

Then why didn't people show up in 2016 and 2017?  

That is a very good point…

[USFRaider]

Just now, NewEnglandBull said:

That is a very good point…

In my opinion, people didn't show up because the AAC is perceived as a minor-league college football conference, and the casual fan is not going to support something percieved as minor-league in a pro sports town.  Its even worse with the Bucs and Lightning and Rays being so successful and USF football being so horrible.

[USFRaider]

10 hours ago, Brad said:

It’s a real concern.  UAB, Rice, FAU, UTSA Charlotte, UNT added to TempleTulaneTulsa and SMU?  
 

 

That is just an awful lineup of home games.  Even if USF were to become dominant and run through this conference like a hot knife through warm butter, the casual fan won't show up to watch those teams at Ray Jay.

[I like GOOOOLD (and green)]

44 minutes ago, USFRaider said:

In my opinion, people didn't show up because the AAC is perceived as a minor-league college football conference, and the casual fan is not going to support something percieved as minor-league in a pro sports town.  Its even worse with the Bucs and Lightning and Rays being so successful and USF football being so horrible.

If that’s true then that means this push is dead in the water.  Replacing Ucf with fau and Cincy with uab isn’t going  to suddenly make things different in a good way.  I prefer to believe what you said isnt true.  I hope that we just feel one game short of building the multi season success required for carryover success.  It’s about winning consistently to me.  

[USFRaider]

Just now, I like GOOOOLD (and green) said:

If that’s true then that means this push is dead in the water.  Replacing Ucf with fau and Cincy with uab isn’t going  to suddenly make things different in a good way.  I prefer to believe what you said isnt true.  I hope that we just feel one game short of building the multi season success required for carryover success.  It’s about winning consistently to me.  

I guess we agree to disagree.  When this new AAC/Conference USA 2.0 starts up in 2023, I think that USF can go undefeated in the conference and people are not going to show up to watch them take on Rice or North Texas or Charlotte.  The AAC is going to take on an even more minor-league perception starting in 2023.  Conferences such as the Big 12 and the ACC are perceived as major-league, power conferences and will draw more fans to home games if USF were to be lucky enough to join one of those leagues.

[I like GOOOOLD (and green)]

3 minutes ago, USFRaider said:

I guess we agree to disagree.  When this new AAC/Conference USA 2.0 starts up in 2023, I think that USF can go undefeated in the conference and people are not going to show up to watch them take on Rice or North Texas or Charlotte.  The AAC is going to take on an even more minor-league perception starting in 2023.  Conferences such as the Big 12 and the ACC are perceived as major-league, power conferences and will draw more fans to home games if USF were to be lucky enough to join one of those leagues.

I agree with all that, it’s what I was saying.  Before the aac was actually pretty good and competed favorably with the pac and ACC in quality.  We won’t have that moving forward.  Previously, attendance problems weren’t good because of the lack of consistent winning and apathy from not taking advantage of the huge gift of the Big East ( leadership blew that).
 

 As an aside I never understand why it had to be either/or with academics and Athletics.  To be Frank the academic gains were not nearly large enough to make up for the loss on the other front.  We went from middling in academics to the upper end of middling in academics.  We are still in the same realm academically as the jerks out East, they’re actually a harder school to get in to now.  To make things worse they built a better foundation and are well placed to improved their academics to pass us there too, eventually.  

[Gatorbull325]

6 hours ago, smazza said:

i believed this for along time but if we cant get in big 12 who else would take us at this point?

 

our football program is horrible

Were Rutgers or Maryland ever good teams? Hell, Maryland left the ACC for the Big 10 and they always sucked. There are plenty of losing schools that get invites to P5 conferences. Missouri  wasnt killing it when they got invited 2 the SEC. The Big Ten NEEDS a Florida school and if we simply win our games and focus on improving ou program than the opportunity will come. And if it doesnt than we will create our own path to success. Have faith my friend.