Navy considers C-USA

[Murph]

Monday, December 29, 2003

Associated Press
HOUSTON -- The Naval Academy is considering aligning itself with Conference USA for football, a Navy official said Monday.


It would be the first conference affiliation for the Midshipmen, who began playing football in 1879.


"The idea, the concept that's on the table right now is that Army and Navy would split a membership and actually play a number of games, not necessarily a full schedule but number of games, say four each to constitute eight in total in Conference USA," Navy athletic director Chet Gladchuk told Houston television station KRIV.


Houston athletic director Dave Maggard said the schools and conference have discussed the possibility for several weeks and that he thinks such an affiliation would benefit the conference.


Gladchuck is in Houston for Navy's Tuesday game against Texas Tech in the Houston Bowl.

http://sports.espn.go.com/ncf/news/story?id=1696292

[cdawg44]

C-USA up to 14 teams.

[cliburn]

Exactly how would this benefit C-USA? I just don't see how it could help anyone but Navy and Army.

[fsquid]

Quote:

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shortsoldier said:
Exactly how would this benefit C-USA? I just don't see how it could help anyone but Navy and Army.

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Evidently, the conference has been told that if they take Army and Navy in as associate members and they play a partial C-USA schedule, then the Houston Bowl and the Tangerine would be very interested in a C-USA tie due to the number of military people located in those two cities. Both teams would play 4 C-USA games andbe eligible for C-USA bowls, but ineligible to play in the C-USA Championship game. Basically, they would both be our Notre Dames.

[Chibi]

Basically, as affiliate members, they would each agree to play four C-USA teams each year. A C-USA school that played them would count that game as an OOC game, but a 6-win Army or Navy team would be eligible for a spot in one of C-USA's bowls. As mentioned earlier, the Houston and Tangerine are both solid possibilities to be picked up by C-USA in the near future (the Hawai'i tie-in is almost certainly not going to be renewed).

This is apparently totally independent of the TCU issue. If the Horned Frogs do decide to head to the MWC, though, don't be surprised if UTEP makes a strong push to take that #12 spot.

[Murph]

Actually, this rumor has been buzzing (faintly) since earlier this year.

This was the offshoot of the earlier rumors that Army, Navy, Rice, SMU, etc. would form their own conference, until those schools surfaced in the C-USA rumors.

C-USA boards have mentioned this on and off since this summer, allegedly one of the sticking points is who gets the Army-Navy game broadcast money (IOW is it split with the conference).

[fsquid]

C-USA got a quarter of Army's share when they were in the conference. It couldn't hurt to have these guys as "associates", they are bowl eligible once a decade, I can live with that.

[Murph]

I'm surprised the Big East didn't consider this as an option.

Both Army and Navy fit into the Big East's geography and with old teams leaving and new teams coming in, the bowl affiliations could change too, making new bowls such as the Tangerine and Houston seem desirable in a conference with an uncertain future.

Incidentally, the Tangerine also expressed an interest in hooking up with the Big East if we took both South and Central Florida. Obviously, we only took one team.

It would also seem that adding Navy would be yet another lure for ND to consider the BE sometime down the road, when conference affiliation may become necessary.