Big 12 Armageddon????

And we don’t have to associate with those egotistical narcissist they call fans.
Cusa was a dream not long ago seemed likely out of reach.

Once it was clear WKU and MTSU were staying, this is where I wound up in my post-Armageddon thinking.

SBC PROS:

• troy state as a conference opponent
• USA as a cross-state opponent (see CON below)
• Ga State as a conference opponent (see CON below)
• Ga Southern as a conference opponent (see CON below)
• App State as a conference opponent (see CON below)
• Coastal as a conference opponent (see CON below)
• Southern Miss as a conference opponent (see CON below)
• Marshall as a conference opponent (see CON below)

SBC CONS:

• We have exactly ZERO history with USA. Calling this a rivalry or a potential rivalry just because we share a state is naive. Were we rivals with Livingston back in the wayback? No. Not at all. And Livingston's closer than Mobile.
• The rivalry with Ga State is only about 20 years old, and most of that was non-football. It started to heat up just as they began their FBS transition. Our schools are nothing like each other. We're a rural school with most students living on campus. They're a commuter school in a major metropolitan city. Sure, some students live in dorms there. Some of ours commute. The "rivalry" was only a rivalry because they were 2 hours away. We are not the same. Look at UAB -- we've played them multiple times. It's a "big game" when we do. But it's never been a rivalry.
• We played Ga Southern a couple times back in their FCS days, including our D-II NC year in '92. Our Georgia-based fans are familiar with the Eagles. Our Alabama-based fans couldn't care less. This might've grown to be a minor rivalry, kind of like EKU, but it's not the kind of game that would've filled our fans with excitement. And as Gem pointed out, the harsh truth is, only our most diehard fans would've traveled to Statesboro. It's not an easy drive from Atlanta. From Jacksonville and points west, it's horrific.
• We have exactly ZERO history with App. Most casual fans know of the Mountaineers only because of a single football game in 2007, when this fall's incoming freshmen were still getting used to their "big boy" (or "big girl") underwear. Most of our diehard FCS fans know App for their brief run as the NDSU of the 2000s. Boone is too far away for any kind of real rivalry to develop. Their fans barely know we exist.
• Had Coastal remained in FCS a few more years, and we'd met them in the playoffs more than once, maybe, just maybe, our diehard fans would care about the Chanticleers. No one else does.
• Southern Miss only excites fans who remember their glory years when Brett Favre was still playing for them. (Damn you, Jerry Glanville. But I digress.) There's a certain segment of JSU fans from the general area south and west of Birmingham who would be beside themselves having the Golden Eagles on the schedule. For everyone else, they're just another G5 program. Worse, they're a mediocre G5 program in freaking Mississippi.
• "You know Marshall! It was Randy Moss's alma mater!" "Who's Randy Moss?" "Nevermind. Just ... nevermind."

To be clear, not having a "rivalry" with a team doesn't mean the opponent is worthless. But of all the teams listed under Pros, only that one school in Pike County doesn't come with a "Let's be real here" qualifier. The best con anyone can offer for them is, "It's been 20+ years since we played the trojans. No one cares about the rivalry anymore." These people are naive and maybe stupid. Most JSU fans have never forgotten. And I can tell you from firsthand experience, troy state fans are as excited as anyone about the prospect of playing Jax State again. To paraphrase Sally Field, "They hate us! Right now! They hate us!"

But here's the thing... with troy state, and with schools like USA, Ga State, Ga Southern, and even UAB, we don't have to be conference mates to play each other. We don't have to be conference mates even to be rivals. Eventually, troy state and JSU will wind up as permanent OOC opponents. It just makes too much sense. (Look at UAB and troy state now.) Heck, we may wind up with permanent home/away games with both the Blazers and the trojans, with the schedules structured so that we play troy state at home when we travel to UAB. UAB travels to troy state when they play JSU at home. And troy state travels to UAB when they play JSU at home. So every year, each of us would get one GI-FREAKING-NORMOUS home game which would approach a sellout. Money, money, money. It makes things happen.

Over in CUSA, we'll have MTSU essentially right up the road. That'll be a rivalry quicker than most people realize. JSU fans in extreme north Alabama and northwest Georgia are very familiar with MTSU.

WKU is a couple hours more distant, but they're still closer than EKU. It won't be as big a game as MTSU, but it'll be a big game nonetheless.

Liberty is way far away, so that'll be a limiting factor, but so many people in Alabama and Georgia attend(ed) Liberty online, they still feel some kind of attachment to the school and will travel to a game if it's nearby. It won't be a huge rivalry, but it will be as big a rivalry as App or Coastal would've been.

The same can be said for La Tech. It's too far away to be super huge as a rivalry game, but it'll be as big or bigger than Southern Miss would've been. (In baseball, it could be really big.)

Bottom line: We'll have conference games in CUSA which will be as big or bigger than some of the games we would've had in the Belt. We'll eventually have regular OOC games against the teams which would've been exciting conference opponents. And unlike the Belt, which has expanded, frankly, beyond capacity, CUSA is a small, tight conference right now. With the exception of Sam Houston's lone fan and FIU, which doesn't have any fans, most of the fans in the new CUSA are excited about being there (and excited about what JSU can bring to the table). If and when CUSA does expand, it will more than likely add FCS teams we've heard of... the list of potential candidates includes KSU, EKU, UTC, NCAT, SFA, and UCA. We probably won't add them all, but any of those would be a solid add. A couple of them would absolutely fire up even our casual fans. (I'll let you guess which ones.)

Competitively, in almost all sports, CUSA is taking a huge leap forward by subtraction. The conference is losing some of its premier teams to the AAC, but the AAC is also taking some cellar dwellers. The Belt is mainly getting bad-to-mediocre teams. I'm not saying CUSA is SEC Lite. I'm not even saying it's better than either the AAC or the SBC. But it's *mostly* as good or better, and where it's not, it's not too far behind. It's a far better league than its detractors give it credit for.

We got genuinely lucky. Now it's up to JSU to do something with its good fortune.

FBS with CUSA is much better than Gumball’s pipe dream of the ASUN. But you are putting lipstick on a turd if you are trying to convince me it is better than the Sun Belt.


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Thanks largely to the tight groupings of schools in the east and south, the Sun Belt will certainly generate more overall fan excitement for those teams in those particular games. No arguments there.

My point was that, from a JSU perspective, we're not missing out on anything. We can still play the teams who'd generate excitement for our fans in OOC games.

As for conference competitiveness:

SAGARIN FOOTBALL:

1. American 2023 (102.6 avg ranking, 62.63 avg rating)
2. Sun Belt 2023 (106.1 avg ranking, 61.85 avg rating)
3. CUSA 2023 (122.9 avg ranking, 58.02 avg rating)

MEN'S BASKETBALL NET:

1. American 2023 (136.8 avg ranking)
2. CUSA 2023 (142.4 avg ranking)
3. Sun Belt 2023 (198.4 avg ranking)

The new CUSA is just a hair behind the new, improved American conference, based on current NET rankings. The new Sun Belt is... not very good.

The AAC will have 5 of 14 teams (35.7%) in the Top 100, with UAB the lone team in the Top 50. Six teams (42.9%) fall outside the Top 150, two teams fall outside the Top 200, and one team (UTSA) falls outside the Top 300.

CUSA will have 3 of 9 teams (33.3%) in the Top 100, with 6 teams (66.7%) in the Top 150. Only one team (FIU) falls outside the Top 200.

The Sun Belt will have no teams -- zero, nada, zilch -- in the Top 100. Only 2 of 14 teams (14.3%) are in the Top 150. Fully 6 of 14 teams (42.9%) fall outside the Top 200, with Southern Miss even failing to meet that mark with a dismal #328 ranking.


I don't have time to compare baseball, WBB, or softball at the moment, but the numbers for the Big Two revenue sports show the new CUSA is close to the Belt in football, and far, far beyond the Belt in men's hoops.