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Realignment 2022

The ND/SD tv markets aren't that far behind the El Paso market. 109/116 to our 92. I think their football programs more than make up the difference.
 
I just looked at tv market ratings. EL Paso is #93 Sioux Falls ( Brookings is 55 miles away but gets Sioux Falls stations)is #109 Fargo is #114.
Not a big difference.
 
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Attendance suffers when the host team is no longer playing but all session tickets were sold and El Paso bid for the tourney again a couple of times which means they and UTEP and CUSA did ok financially regardless of the bad optics of an empty arena in the champ game. UAB and Birmingham won the bids and had much worse attendance and ticket sales.
Proof that “all session tickets” were sold, that UTEP and CUSA “did ok financially” and that Birmingham “had much worse attendance and ticket sales”
 
Proof that “all session tickets” were sold, that UTEP and CUSA “did ok financially” and that Birmingham “had much worse attendance and ticket sales”
There are single session tickets and all sessions tickets. I did not say all of the all sessions tickets were sold. UTEP sold enough all sessions tickets for the finances to work or else EP and UTEP would not have attempted to host again, but they did.
 
I just looked at tv market ratings. EL Paso is #93 Sioux Falls ( Brookings is 55 miles away but gets Sioux Falls stations)is #109 Fargo is #114.
Not a big difference.
Funny that El Paso is the USA's 20th-largest city (https://www.politifact.com/largestcities/) but its metro is "way" down there.

I think that really speaks to El Paso's isolation, which I think has been one of our struggles attracting recruits in football. There aren't that many people near us. There isn't a great talent pool near us to draw recruits from.
 
There are single session tickets and all sessions tickets. I did not say all of the all sessions tickets were sold. UTEP sold enough all sessions tickets for the finances to work or else EP and UTEP would not have attempted to host again, but they did.
Fair to say that every conference tournament has “all session passes” sold? Fair to say that most “all session passes” were bought by UTEP fans and not MTSU/LaTech fans?
 
Not yet. There will be a vote in August. If they vote yes, then there is really no use in following mid-major school athletics. There will be no continuity whatsoever. UTEP and others will turn into glorified JCs.
In many ways, the recruiting challenges for mid major D1 schools will be even more difficult than the JCs since the JC guys need to graduate in order to move up. So most JC guys will need to spend two years in Juco, whereas the D1 guys will be able to move yearly. The D1 mid major schools will need to recruit an entire new team each year. Pretty much what Golding did this year. As usual, the NCAA continues to cater rule changes to benefit the power schools, which from a strictly business perspective makes sense for them.
 
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Aside from whether or not it's possible, I wonder why it would even be desirable.
It’s not. The Sun Belt just got USM, Marshall, and ODU from CUSA. They could have had WKU and MTSU if they wanted. There’s no reason for them to add all of CUSA, especially with UTEP and NMSU.
 
In many ways, the recruiting challenges for mid major D1 schools will be even more difficult than the JCs since the JC guys need to graduate in order to move up. So most JC guys will need to spend two years in Juco, whereas the D1 guys will be able to move yearly. The D1 mid major schools will need to recruit an entire new team each year. Pretty much what Golding did this year. As usual, the NCAA continues to cater rule changes to benefit the power schools, which from a strictly business perspective makes sense for them.

It works both ways though. In order for UCLA to bring in a good mid major, they have to get rid of one of their players.
 
It works both ways though. In order for UCLA to bring in a good mid major, they have to get rid of one of their players.
True. However, UTEP is pretty far down in the food chain to get those type of guys. More than likely we are looking guys from lower mid majors, like Solomon from SFA. It's not impossible to build a roster, but it won't be easy. Getting a NIL collective is a big key. Pay 2/3 good guys, and fill in the rest.
 
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Because conferences are probably going to 20 teams plus. PAC12 AND Big12 will probably merge if not Big12 maybe ACC merges with the Pac.

MW merges with the AAC

SEC probably gets Clemson and Florida STATE.

A merger with the MAC wont work , so I think Sun Belt will be CUSAs partner.
 
Being in the middle of nowhere geographically, we may just have to create our own conference universe. But UTEP must improve itself as much as possible in every other aspect so that geography is the only reason other conferences and schools are ignoring us. It's lead follow or get out of the way. Let's think about how to do that.
 
Being in the middle of nowhere geographically, we may just have to create our own conference universe. But UTEP must improve itself as much as possible in every other aspect so that geography is the only reason other conferences and schools are ignoring us. It's lead follow or get out of the way. Let's think about how to do that.
There's one way and one way only. That's to build a winning football program. For decades UTEP fell further down because the athletic department wanted to chase ghosts in basketball. People say we can't win in football. My rebuttal has always been we've never tried. They have never fully funded football. They have never dumped the resources into football they needed to. People talked shit about UTSA's convocation center. It was "high school gym". Instead of wasting money on the gym UTSA invested almost $50 million on a football practice facility. They paid low salaries to their basketball coach and high salary to their football coach. Meanwhile we were paying our basketball coach more than our football coach. We spent more on basketball than any school in CUSA after Memphis left and we have nothing to show for it. We've tried to be good at basketball and we're not. Meanwhile UTSA invested in football put basketball on the backburner and they and "their high school gym" are off to the AAC. Meanwhile we're playing grab ass with NMSU Jacksonville State and SHSU. I could put alot of schools in that example other than UTSA. Look at where we were in 2005 and look how far we've fallen in 17 years. It embarrassing. The fact we built an basketball facility before an ipf for football is one of dumbest things any d1 school has ever done. I think they have finally gotten the message and are prioritizing football. I fear they won't go far enough to fund football. Unfortunately I have zero faith in Jim Senter. He'll have his thumb up his ass tweeting motivational tweets and NMSU will out maneuver us and get into the MWC. Hopefully we fully invest in football for the first time ever. It's the only thing that can save us.
 
UTEP isnt the 9nly team that will be left in the dust. There will be a Super league with all the top programs. Then there will be everyone else. CUSA/Sun Belt/AAC/MWC/MAC , all the schools in these conferences will be left behind. Maybe they could just have a separate championship for these leagues.
 
UTEP isnt the 9nly team that will be left in the dust. There will be a Super league with all the top programs. Then there will be everyone else. CUSA/Sun Belt/AAC/MWC/MAC , all the schools in these conferences will be left behind. Maybe they could just have a separate championship for these leagues.
🤯 I don't think anyone saw this coming
 
I'm not going to bitch about the money we've put into basketball. I've wanted us to put money into basketball. But your point is taken that we need to put more into football than we have. Football is the engine that drives college athletic departments. Basketball is the nice paint job on the car that people ooh and aah over, but if the engine don't run, and UTEPs has traditionally run well only two years out of every ten, then the paint job doesn't matter. And it might come down to having a separate football championship for the left behind conferences.
 
There's one way and one way only. That's to build a winning football program. For decades UTEP fell further down because the athletic department wanted to chase ghosts in basketball. People say we can't win in football. My rebuttal has always been we've never tried. They have never fully funded football. They have never dumped the resources into football they needed to. People talked shit about UTSA's convocation center. It was "high school gym". Instead of wasting money on the gym UTSA invested almost $50 million on a football practice facility. They paid low salaries to their basketball coach and high salary to their football coach. Meanwhile we were paying our basketball coach more than our football coach. We spent more on basketball than any school in CUSA after Memphis left and we have nothing to show for it. We've tried to be good at basketball and we're not. Meanwhile UTSA invested in football put basketball on the backburner and they and "their high school gym" are off to the AAC. Meanwhile we're playing grab ass with NMSU Jacksonville State and SHSU. I could put alot of schools in that example other than UTSA. Look at where we were in 2005 and look how far we've fallen in 17 years. It embarrassing. The fact we built an basketball facility before an ipf for football is one of dumbest things any d1 school has ever done. I think they have finally gotten the message and are prioritizing football. I fear they won't go far enough to fund football. Unfortunately I have zero faith in Jim Senter. He'll have his thumb up his ass tweeting motivational tweets and NMSU will out maneuver us and get into the MWC. Hopefully we fully invest in football for the first time ever. It's the only thing that can save us.

I still refer to the UTSA gym as a poor excuse for a basketball gym, but you are right on the money about them. UTSA has surpassed UTEP in almost every aspect.
I also want to see UTEP return to it's glory days in basketball. Basketball glory appears to be cheaper than football glory, but football success means athletic department viability. The same cannot be said for basketball success.
If NMSU out maneuvers us to a better conference/TV deal/football success/academic success I might throw in the towel on UTEP.
 
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Don Haskins took advantage of an opportunity when he started his career at TWC. Segregation was a hindrance to most schools getting top players. He was willing to recruit top players who were black and able to get them out here in the middle of nowhere to play. A coach now days couldn't get top caliber players like Haskins did. We all got spoiled by Haskins making his career here. Billy Gillespie caught lightning in a bottle here but he was gone after only two seasons. So was Doc Sadler. We managed to hire Tony Barbee, who had a Memphis pipeline to some good players. We had a resurgence then but once Barbee left, so went the pipeline to Memphis's quality recruits. Tim Floyd was a good coach but his career was starting to wind down when he became UTEP's head coach. He had a good first season with what was left of Barbee's players, but it was down hill after that. He tried to coach in Haskins' style but players saw through that. Think of the trouble he had getting recruits to actually show up, or to stay. And the arguments he had with individual players. He needed to retire a year or two before he actually did. Here we are now with a new coach who has to deal with transfer rules. I hope Golding can turn things around but he still has to prove himself up to the task. I hope so.
But we still have to build up UTEP football better than we have. We have to be able to see more than two winning seasons at a time. We'll see.
 
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So you really think (with a straight face) that UTEP will one day go to the NCAA Tournament 8/9 years, go to the Sweet 16, and also win three 1st round games?
With the way college basketball works now, 8/9 years isn't feasible (unless your program is head and shoulders above the rest of your conference). For example, our 86-87 team was 25-7, lost in the WAC tourney semis, and still got an at large and a 7 seed. If it was 2017 instead of 1987, we'd be lucky if we were playing in Dayton.

However, going to 3 or 4 tourneys a decade and winning a few games shouldn't be a far fetched goal for the program.
 
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