Marshall University Athletics
BOGACZYK: C-USA Commissioner Talks Bowls, Hoops, More
11/22/2013 12:00:00 AM | General
Nov. 22, 2013
HERDZONE.COM COLUMNIST
HUNTINGTON, W.Va. - Britton Banowsky, like plenty of major college conference commissioners, is in charge of a league in which plenty of introductions have been necessary in the past year.
Conference USA's membership additions have focused on adding teams in major markets, if not the marquee programs in those cities. Banowsky and the C-USA university presidents were looking for potential.
Now, Banowsky said in a visit to Marshall's campus two weekends ago, it's time for the conference to settle into a comfort zone with its new members, a soon-to-be 14-team association that includes teams in markets that include Miami; Nashville, Tenn.; Charlotte, N.C.; Norfolk, Va.; Birmingham, Ala.; Dallas; Houston; and San Antonio.
And while the league "has come to Marshall," in Banowsky's words, in a geographic sense, it also has spread its wings into bigger - and what he hopes are better - prospects for the future.
He also doesn't see C-USA moving beyond the 14 members the conference will have after this school year, when East Carolina, Tulane and Tulsa exit for the AAC and Western Kentucky comes aboard.
"For the time being, everything seems to have settled in the system," Banowsky said in reference to the realignment that has roiled Division I conferences in recent years. "That's really good, because we needed to begin growing the conference, growing the brand, working on things like 'getting better,' improving, putting facility plans in place.
"You really can't do that when you're in the middle of a state of membership flux. So, I'm really pleased with the way things have settled. My sense is - knock on wood - that what's just up above us in the system is settled - I think it has - at least for the near term, so we look pretty good right now.
"Overall, I'm very pleased with the way our transition is happening."
As the 2013 football season winds toward its finish, Banowsky feels good about having six bowl-eligible teams to date (Marshall, East Carolina, Middle Tennessee, Tulane, Rice, North Texas), with a seventh possible in Florida Atlantic.
The league has six guaranteed bids, but he doesn't see any team being shut out, because a few other conferences haven't filled their quota and likely won't.
"We've kind of maxed out at six (bowl eligibles) over the last few years, some years even fewer than that," said Banowsky, explaining that the league office already is identifying potential bowl landing spots outside the C-USA guarantees.
"This time of year, things go from blurry, to a little more clear, then dramatically clear right around Thanksgiving. We already are looking at every bowl lineup of every conference, finding out who's going to be long, who's going to be short, what the tie-ins are, where the likely openings are. Then, it's whether they fit in our region, and then what kind of moves we've got to make that make sense.
"We try to get every bowl eligible team in bowls. That's what we focus on, and some years you have a top-heavy conference and some years they get bunched up in the middle and when they get bunched up in the middle, you have more teams you have to find spots for.
"Our philosophy is to try to get every team in that's eligible. And obviously, the teams with seven wins get priority over teams with six wins."
He conceded that C-USA is in need of one of those so-called "BCS buster" programs, like Fresno State or Northern Illinois will be in this final BCS season. And with the College Football Playoff kicking off next season (a Word on the Herd column earlier this week went into detail on that with the commissioner), he feels a real need for a marquee team.
"It does," Banowsky replied when asked if it hurts C-USA without a Boise State on Northern Illinois of recent years. "A couple years ago we had a Houston that was in the conversation the entire year and then Southern Miss kind of got into that conversation the same year and ended up knocking Houston out. That was great year for the conference, because it showed we have high quality football.
"We've started beating ourselves up. We're a conference with a lot of parity. And in order to do that, you've got to have a team that - first of all - they're a very good team, and it schedules right. And we've talked about all the time about moderating schedules to the point where you can put yourself in the position to be in a national conversation at the end of the year.
"So, I think our folks are doing a little bit better job of strategically scheduling in the non-conference, so they can manage the non-conference and then get in the conference and be undefeated or have one loss and be that conversation."
Banowsky said the league will play with a "one-season" football scheduling arrangement in 2014, because Charlotte will not be an FBS program until 2014. And while he didn't exactly address the question about divisional alignment, it was easy to ascertain C-USA plans on a 7 West/6 East grouping next year.
That would move UAB and Southern Miss to the West. With six teams in the East, the 49ers would slide into that group in 2015.
So, Marshall's conference schedule in 2014 will include FIU, FAU, Old Dominion, Western Kentucky and Middle Tennessee, plus three of the West Division teams. In 2015, the breakdown becomes 6-2 again, as it is now.
"(Divisional alignment for 2014-15) will happen in the not too distant future," Banowsky said. "Clearly, we move Southern Miss to the West, Old Dominion into the East. We try to be logical. Get the GPS out.
"With UAB, you've got to think about the way the sports work ââ'¬Â¦ everything kind of gets scheduled differently, obviously there will be crossover games, and you strategically schedule crossover rivalries that are geographic fits so that (a team is) playing the games in the West, but also playing some key opponents in the East.
"You find the best schools, then fit the division afterwards, not the reverse."
He also said the potential is there for some cross-division rivalries, like the 14-team Southeastern Conference currently plays.
"It does make some sense to model after what other people have done successfully," he said.
In basketball, minus longtime C-USA kingpin Memphis, the league has posted some impressive early success, which should aid the conference.
Southern Miss has won at Summit League favorite North Dakota State and DePaul. Charlotte has topped Kansas State and Southern Conference favorite Elon. Middle Tennessee won over Akron. UTEP downed Colorado State. ODU defeated Murray State and UAB took No. 19 New Mexico into double overtime before falling.
So, the league prospects for the future obviously will include more balance, making tournament site selection crucial. On that topic, Banowsky said C-USA will dribble around.
C-USA had some early hopes of making Nashville -- sandwiched between the WKU and Middle Tennessee campuses and a central location for league schools -- at least a semi-regular anchor site for the conference tournaments, but the SEC has pretty much locked up Bridgestone Arena, with only 2018 open in coming years (until 2022).
However, Conference USA does have other great options - think Charlotte, San Antonio, Houston, Dallas, Birmingham. Those are all locales where the league could play in or near a home team's market, but still stage the tournament at a neutral-site arena.
"We're in El Paso this year," Banowsky said, "and philosophically, we like the idea of moving the event around, exposing it to different fan bases throughout the conference. I think that makes some sense.
"The SEC kind of has locked up Nashville, which would have been a great spot, but there are other great options as well. And then we've got schools like Charlotte ââ'¬Â¦ we'll take our time and figure it out."
Banowsky said C-USA's telecast contracts run through 2015-16. He likes what the league has on the tube - and the addition of new (and larger) markets could only make the property more valuable.
"We have really good TV platforms," said Banowsky, in his 11th year as the C-USA boss. "We play (football) mostly on Saturdays and that's what our folks wanted to do, and Fox Sports 1 (in 86 million U.S. homes) has been a great pump for us this year. We're getting great exposure on FS1.
"CBS Sports (Network) continues to grow, the audience is up to 50, 60 million homes right now, and it's in all of our markets.
"We have two more years left after this year on our agreements, so we're beginning the process of looking at the future, but the good news is this content is limited and it's valuable and desirable, and people are consuming college football like never before."
