ConferenceUSA finally gets it\'s championship game!
It appears that the game ConUSA has been trying to arrange it's membership for over the last several yrs, a Conference Championship Game, will finally become a reality. The conference has been trying to add members to get to 12 for a few yrs. They added Army, then TCU, then So Fla. It's ironic that it took Army deconferencing & the Big East raiding the CUSA of Louisville, Cincinnati & So Fla to bring on the situation.
ConUSA has added Rice, SMU & Tulsa to join TCU, Houston & Tulane in the Western Div. The Eastern Div has added Marshall & Central Fla to join Southern Miss, Memphis, UAB & East Carolina. This makes for a fairly balanced & fairly split conference.
The problem is that there just isn't any BIG names & BIG draws, yet. TCU, Marshall & So Miss have made stunted moves to play 'big-time' ball, but haven't quite succeeded. Cen Fla also may make a jump up. The travel should be much, much better for all teams. Could this conference make a major move? Not unless they start winning some big OOC gms, but they could.
Where will their Conference Championship Game be played??? Houston would be real nice. New Orleans? Birmingham?
Here's an article on the 'new' Conference USA:
ConUSA will have 12 members in '05
It appears that the game ConUSA has been trying to arrange it's membership for over the last several yrs, a Conference Championship Game, will finally become a reality. The conference has been trying to add members to get to 12 for a few yrs. They added Army, then TCU, then So Fla. It's ironic that it took Army deconferencing & the Big East raiding the CUSA of Louisville, Cincinnati & So Fla to bring on the situation.
ConUSA has added Rice, SMU & Tulsa to join TCU, Houston & Tulane in the Western Div. The Eastern Div has added Marshall & Central Fla to join Southern Miss, Memphis, UAB & East Carolina. This makes for a fairly balanced & fairly split conference.
The problem is that there just isn't any BIG names & BIG draws, yet. TCU, Marshall & So Miss have made stunted moves to play 'big-time' ball, but haven't quite succeeded. Cen Fla also may make a jump up. The travel should be much, much better for all teams. Could this conference make a major move? Not unless they start winning some big OOC gms, but they could.
Where will their Conference Championship Game be played??? Houston would be real nice. New Orleans? Birmingham?
Here's an article on the 'new' Conference USA:
ConUSA will have 12 members in '05