Missouri State to Sun Belt Conference?

[Aargh]

Delusional MSU fans have a long-standing run at being the most entertaining aspect of this board during the off season.

The CUSA thing was kinda fun because there was simply no way MSU would ever get an invite from the mediocrity their FB was at to what CUSA was at that time. It's almost ironic to consider what would have happened if MSU had actually gotten that invite and what has happened to CUSA since then.

The Sun Belt makes a little more sense. It's conceivable MSU could actually get an invite there. But the Sun Belt is the absolute bottom of the barrel. I suppose that's the only practical way to break into FBS FB. Sadly, the only reason the Sun Belt is in that group is so that the actual FBS schools can get 1 of the 6 FBS wins they need to be bowl eligible. I don't think the power schools really like having to pay the also-rans a million bucks just to make sure they can get a bowl invite. They'd rather do it without paying anyone.

If the upper-level administration at MSU thinks FBS FB is the best track for the future of their athletic department, then MSU is going to go that direction. If that is the case, I would speculate that none of the upper-level administration at MSU studied Accounting, Finance, or Economics.

[rlh04d]

Meh. If the Sun Belt is an option for MoSt, they should take it.

[Someone_Else]

I have been reading this thread trying to wrap my head around a legit way a move to the sunbelt would help MSU and the only thing I can come up with is:

A. Big 12 implodes with Texas, TT, OU, and OSU going to Pac 12 to bring them to 16.
B. KU goes to Big 10 along with 3 ACC schools (lets guess Virginia, NC, and ND) to bring them to 16.

Big 12 and ACC fight over the AAC with Big 12 taking Houston, SMU, Tulsa, Memphis, and Tulane, UCF and South Florida while ACC takes Cinn and Uconn.

The American which is Army and East Carolina takes FIU, FAU, Marshall, Southern Miss, LA tech, Rice, UAB, and UNT.

Conference USA disappears while Sunbelt gets the scraps, effectivly making the sunbelt the new Conference USA.

I think thats best case, but really it might be more probable that a monkey fly out someone's butt then an el chupacabra eats the monkey while TMZ has a cameras onsite.

[Snaggletooth]

Meh. If the Sun Belt is an option for MoSt, they should take it.

I think MoSt should resign immediately from the MVC and go wait by the mail box for the offer that their esteemed program deserves...

[troutangler]

Here is the way most MSU fans see it. If our goal in the next 20 years or so is to get to the levels of a Kansas State or Oklahoma State, we will probably have a zero chance of getting there if we don't move our football program up. I don't think any of us think that the Sun Belt is a good choice but it may be our only choice and our last chance to move up. We have to get to the FBS level if we want to have any chance to move up to a bigger and better conference in the future. We could never get to the Big 12, for example, if we stay in FCS. I'm not saying that would ever happen anyway, but I'm just pointing out that its the only chance we would have to get to a conference like that. Sometimes you have to roll the dice and hope for the best.

Having said all of that, I'd say its about 50/50 as to whether or not we even make a move right now. Its a big expense and I'm not sure we are ready just yet. We will go though at some point, that I'm sure of.

We could have moved our football team to "FBS" 10-15 years ago, and in 2040 we still wouldn't be sniffing the Big 12 like Kansas State or Oklahoma State.

[troutangler]

I love how a thread gets started by another fan base about a very speculative possibility for MSU, and then because it draws a couple posters like Casey to go off on their usual rants , it then becomes a free for all in labeling Bear fans in general and bashing MSU.

Is there a faction of Bear fans who have always wanted to move up in football, certainly, and to that end they tend to jump on every reference to such by outside sources as evidence of a coming revelation. I've never been one of them and quite frankly I don't think the majority of Bears basketball fans are. If you look at the threads on Bear Nation you'll see it's pretty much the same posters over and over. I have no idea whether we are close, in negotiation, or not even interested in such because our administration has not ever indicated a clear goal. Our president is a very strong advocate for athletics and a "football guy" so I'm sure if it's possible he's listening. But I can tell you that in every public statement our AD has made that I've seen or heard in the last year or two, he scoffs at the idea and says it would be years away if ever that we would look at such. Is that a smoke screen or an honest appraisal of the situation, who knows.

I think a few things I see on here in many's rush to assume they know the University's intentions and Bear fans in general desires, are misinformed, inaccurate and petty attempts to act superior. Right now the University's focus in athletics has first and foremost been in building and improving facilities and increasing resources for student athletes, and secondly securing those coaches that fit the profile of who we believe can lead our teams back to levels we came to previously expect. As many schools in the Valley finances have been tight for a while but our recent initiative to finally add a student activity fee is now dumping a couple extra million a year into the kitty and allowed us to move forward on projects. JQH is complete[ although many would like to still add ribbon score boards] and with the locker rooms fully done we now have a complex that includes the largest and arguably as fine of on campus venue for basketball in the Valley and when you combine the adjoining 9,000 seat HSC with the Turner Practice facility enclosed, to the 11,000 seat JQH, I think it represents an outstanding sports complex. Add major overhaul to the football stadium, new softball complex, new track and field and soccer complexes, a new student athlete educational support center with state of the art technology, and a new student recreational center that is an outstanding recreation facility, and we a hardly are a picture of the destitute and desperate Institution portrayed by some. In fact I would challenge that no Valley institution besides WSU is able to match those facilities when you also include the fact we still play baseball at Hammon's Field as well.

My point is this, bash if you want, but you're mostly throwing trash at a small group of passionate and probably over zealous Bear football fans, and deluding yourselves if you think MSU is not very much in the process of developing the infrastructure and resources to raise the level of their athletic programs . And most likely that will continue to be so that we can compete in the MVC until that proves to otherwise be a bad thing. My comment earlier about the participation in basketball in the MVC being inconsequential is I believe an accurate one about all conferences below the power group and not a knock at the MVC. I think the noncon season and MVC Tourney are the only things that can get you into the NCAA tourney, and the conference season can only keep you out by negating a strong noncon if you do poorly in conference, but can't get you in by overcoming a poor noncon just because you do well. And that's true of all conferences below the power elite in most years.

This is exactly correct.

The best way to improve every one of our other sports (Especially men's and women's basketball) would be to drop football. It is a dumpster fire now. We have a small group of MSU fans hell bent on moving up to FBS, yet we're so committed to football we just let our coach's contract run into its last year with no extension and didn't fire him.

Lets face it (And this has been discussed): The BCS conferences are going to create their own division, and everyone else is going to be eating scraps. Being in the SunBelt in 10-15 years will be no different than being in the Valley right now. It may be worse by that point. In addition, our basketball recruiting will absolutely go in the toilet. I fail to see the positives of being an Arkansas State, where our basketball team is an afterthought just so we can see Texas State and South Alabama come in and play football, and maybe make a bowl game in 10 or 12 years.

In the grand scheme of things, no one nationally cares about 1AA football, and no one cares about FBS football outside of the BCS conferences. There is no difference.

[Mikovio]

I wouldn't be in favor of it if I were an MSU fan. The Sun Belt was bad before C-USA raided it. Now, it makes the MAC look like the NFL. No Sun Belt team has even cracked the top 25. There's no chance someone from there gets the Access Bowl bid. It will be 12 teams fighting for 2 bowl spots against the CUSA and MAC.

Someone mentioned TV coverage. Here are the televised Sun Belt games last year and their ratings:

http://www.sportsmediawatch.com/college ... v-ratings/

Rating Viewers Time Away Home Net

(On Thursday 9/12, at the same time as TCU/TT on ESPN and Tulane/LT on FS1)
0.1 137K 7:30 PM Troy Arkansas State ESPNU

(On Thursday, 10/3, at the same time as Texas/IA ST on ESPN)
0.1 81K 7:30 PM W. Kentucky UL-Monroe ESPNU

(On Tuesday, 10/15)
0.3 456K 8:00 PM UL-Lafayette W. Kentucky ESPN2

(On Tuesday, 10/22)
0.5 767K 8:00 PM UL-Lafayette Arkansas State ESPN2

(On Thursday, 10/31, starting a half hour after USF/Houston on ESPN and at the same time as Rice/UNT on FS1)
0.1 73K 7:30 PM UL-Monroe Troy ESPNU

(Thursday, 11/7, at the same time as Oklahoma/Baylor on FS1, with Oregon/Stanford starting 90 minutes in)
0.1 101K 7:30 PM Troy UL-Lafayette ESPNU


..... so basically the league gets 6 games televised, in the middle of the week, with awful ratings, and all but 2 on ESPNU running concurrently with BCS conference games to ensure nobody will watch. If the league expands to 12 you might not even get a televised game as a Sun Belt member. You want to kill your basketball program for that? It might not be such a bad idea if you think you could dominate in basketball and capture the auto bid more often, but I'd wager New Mexico State will stake the claim as top dog there in basketball. It would be NMSU and everyone else, like it was in the Horizon with Butler.

[TheAsianSensation]

There's no way MSU makes the jump thinking the Sun Belt is the destination. They move because they think it'll be one of the steps in a 30-50 year process to get higher than the Sun Belt.

[Mikovio]

The Sun Belt itself is 3 stepping stones away from a BCS conference. First you need to get to CUSA, then AAC, then a BCS. Along the way you need to triple the size of your stadium, quadruple your attendance and dominate on the field of play. Arkansas State and La-La have a multi decade head start and aren't going to just lie down. It's a 30 year project if everything goes well despite your coaches getting plucked away. One bad hire and you're a no name bottom feeder in the SB or CUSA. Good luck.

[MoStBear93]

This thread can go away. Cliff Smart, MSU President, squashed all rumor/speculation of MSU moving to the Sun Belt on our local radio station last night. Amen and Hallelujah....MVC is the best fit for MSU in my opinion. While I enjoy football, Springfield is a basketball town...and moving to the Sun Belt would have been awful.