What's the next realignment domino to fall?

[AndShock]

Yes and I make it with full knowledge that the AAC will most likely grade out ahead of the MVC at season's end but those were facts as of the time of that post (Illinois State has since lost to FGCU so one of my points is no longer true) but just because the MVC is a league you've outgrown (and congratulations on that by the way) doesn't make it a terrible league. It's still a top 10 conference and to talk as though the AAC doesn't have its bottom feeders (ECU USF Tulane ) is very disingenuous. These teams will cause seeding headaches, maybe not as severe as the ones in the Valley but still. Moreover realignment may have a negative effect on the AAC, since programs like UCONN and Cincinnati may look to leave and who knows who might replace them? You might get some decent programs out of the likely end of the Big 12 but will the conference be stronger on balance? Plus, you'd have to fight the Mountain West for those schools and that conference has a trump card in football that cannot be matched in Boise State, which will appeal to those football first Big 12 schoolsso there's no guarantee that the AAC would get those schools. It's unlikely but possible that Wichita State could end up paying major travel costs to dominate a high profile one bid league within five years the same fate you fear for the MVC. If that's all right with you then have at it but don't be surprised if the administration at WSU considers a return to the MVC if the future unfolds as I've written it might.

I only called the MVC a terrible league because someone called the AAC a future terrible league. The AAC is not going to be worse than the MVC even if we lose Cincy, UConn, Houston, and SMU so if the AAC is going to be terrible then the MVC is terrible. Your rant is entirely misdirected.

I will nitpick for a second though. The MVC hasn't been a top 10 conference for 3 years and just lost a top 50 team. To call it "still a top 10 conference" might be a stretch regardless of the early returns.

[VUGrad1314]

The veracity of the "top 10 conference " remark depends on the metric you're using. I should have specified that I was using KenPom not RPI (which is what I believe you were using). Still, it's the third best league of its kind (basketball first FCS or non-football) and could very well become the second best after the next big realignment dependent on how badly the A10 gets raided. I'm sorry for the misdirected rant but I get very upset when a conference I have enjoyed following since childhood and that I am positively overjoyed that my alma mater is now a part of gets attacked by claims that just aren't true when you look at the history of the league. I can see that I'm in a shrinking minority that believes that the MVC can recapture its former glory but it's that same defeatist position that the majority holds that caused any real or perceived decline by the conference which caused WSU to bolt. If it doesn't rebound it's because of that pervasive attitude and nothing else. You can blame realignment but the second one wouldn't have happened if the majority of the conference presidents and ADs hadn't decided to lay down after the first one.

[TheAsianSensation]

So let's get this right, if about 15 bad things happen to the AAC and we construct an absolute worst-case scenario....the AAC will recede to the same level of power as the MVC, except more nationally relevant.

k

[glm38]

If you compare conferences it's no contest. Not even close. But to call the MVC a bad conference is also pretty stupid. And even though when you compare the two conferences the AAC is clearly superior people tend to forget the bottom of the AAC is bad. Really bad.