Realignment

[kyyote]

Shits about to shift again and of course UTEP is in position to be dumped again. UT and OU are gone, West Virginia looking ACC the Big Ten is sniffing around. Look for the Big 12 to invite Houston Tulsa and SMU. Plus, I think it is possible that San Antonio with its market might be a good add. The dominoes really start dropping as the AAC falls apart. That?s when the trickle down starts reaching El Paso. 

[Minermojo]

Honestly, I don't think the AAC will be looking the Miners way solely because of how far away we are from them...so they tell us or should I say used to tell us. They used to cry crocodiles tears every time about how far we were from them and we were depleting their travel funds, which unfortunately was true.

After all these years of suckage I don't think we're prime beef for their conference if anything they would go with ut san antonio because face it they are still about 500+ miles to them and they bring a major city into the equation. What do we bring? Even though we love our city and school we're in the minority they don't think highly of either one even if we're now a Tier One University but so is North Texas in that regard and again they are 500+ miles closer too...and in a bigger city. We're stuck in this conference and we as much as we shouldn't complain we have no one to blame but our ex-president for not thinking ahead and getting prime coaching and athletic direction. We got stuck with really BAD coaching and an AD (Boob Stall) who was just happy to receive a paycheck every month and doing minimally for the school that paid him.

But, like it's said "hope springs eternal" and that's all we got. Even with a depleted roster of schools that leave we would still be in better shape in the AAC then where we are right now. Who knows what will happen and since I don't go to the conference usa fan website anymore but spend most of my time fighting the Red Tide (commies) in the other place on the same site I'm not always in the know. But...we have this site where us who do come here should have more news about.

[SisyphusMiner]

If we were in a better league, would we do better?  Would we be able to recruit better players?  Would our coaches be better?  Would we win more games?

[Minermojo]

I'm sure that we would. Players would rather play in triple A baseball than double A for instance. Especially if there's a better tv deal in AAC than in cusa I'm sure the players would rather be seen on tv than not.

I'm not too optimistic about UTEP heading to the AAC ahead of utsa, noTexas, for instance, there's more eyes in those cities.

[Chanson]

CUSA lost its luster a long time ago. It's a shame UTEP didn't do something about it then. Any change away from this conference is a good change.

[SisyphusMiner]

yeah, I didn't express myself well. 

What I was really trying to say is that if we got in a better conference, even though we would get better players than we have today, it's all relative.  Would being 2-10 in a better conference be better than being 2-10 in CUSA?  Absolutely.  But it's still 2-10.

Would we get better players?  Of course.  But if they are still bad relative to the level of play in the conference so what?  From the mid-90s to the mid-2000s, Baylor was awful.  I suppose it was better to be an awful team in the SWC than in CUSA.  But I'm not sure I wouldn't be happier being 10-2 in CUSA than 2-10 in B12.

I feel that it's nearly all about coaching, and having a philosophy of what you are looking for when hiring ADs and head coaches that is replicable.  If we get a head coach that wins, he is moving on.  How do we find the next one?   

At least being in a better conference makes you more attractive to potential head coaches.

[kyyote]

We are what makes cusa shitty. We are the anchor around other team?s necks. We have coaches that can?t win a single game against a div1 team for years get extensions for the great work they do. UTEP football is much worse than bad. It is coaching but the problem may be higher than the head coach. Here is absolutely no reason or excuse for how bad UTEP football is. It defies natural just plain odds to be as bad as it is. We have to be trying. 

[SisyphusMiner]

I think most of us here at the Den think that there was something off about the last couple hires in BB and FB.
Stull hired Kugs and Floyd.
Senter was hired Nov 22, 2017.  Dimel was announced Dec 6, 2017.  Uncertain how involved Senter was in that hire.  Terry was hired 3 months later, so Senter was involved with that.

The one thing that didn't change over that span was Natalicio.  It's only circumstantial evidence.  But basketball went in a completely different direction on the last hire than the previous hires.

Giving Terry another year was a very strange move

[SisyphusMiner]

I was reading a bit on realignment, and I thought this was an interesting point that I read in some guy's article:

In previous rounds of realignment, TV markets were a massive consideration. Rutgers, for example, got into the Big Ten because it could deliver the Big Ten Network to the entire New York City area. The Big 12, unfortunately, doesn?t have its own TV network ? and even if it did, increasing numbers of fans are cutting the cord. The emphasis is now on how many subscribers a new school could drive to a streaming platform like ESPN+, bolstering the value of the Big 12?s ESPN deal.

These days, it?s not the sheer size of the media market. You no longer have an entire metropolitan area?s worth of viewers forced to pay for an additional channel. It?s the size of the fanbase, wherever they may be.

Not saying that helps us any, just a different way of thinking about it that I hadn't heard before.

[Chanson]

That is interesting. We haven't heard of it because our market is small & the fan base has become small. We are small potatoes. The way out of this mess is to be a great coaching hub.(IMO)
Good players will go to big programs. Since we can't get them, UTEP should look outside the box & look at up & coming coaches & give them the opportunity. Getting the occasional talent is great, but picking up really good young coaches might turn this franchise around.

[SisyphusMiner]

Imagine if we could have kept Reid or Koetter when Stull moved on to Missouri

[kyyote]

I was reading that WV is going ACC, Kansas and Iowa State to big ten OklahomaState and K State to Pac12. Limbo for Texas Tech, TCU, and Baylor.  Desperation could put them in the AAC which could cause more changes, but they might instead keep the big 12 monicker and poach. Two or three teams from aac and cusa. Maybe even Texas League with TCU, Baylor, Texas tech, uh, rice(for cred), unt, utsa, Texas st Texas Southern. Not really serious about that last part. But, the point is that here comes more shifts.