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ORU confirms talks with Southland Conference


ORUTerry

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Did anyone else know that Dallas Baptist will be a provisional member of the MVC in baseball this year with a conference vote later on to determine whether or not to accept them as a full member in the Summer of 2012?

http://proxy.espn.go.com/blog/dallas/colleges/post/_/id/4672619/dallas-baptist-to-get-provisional-year-with-mvc

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Did anyone else know that Dallas Baptist will be a provisional member of the MVC in baseball this year with a conference vote later on to determine whether or not to accept them as a full member in the Summer of 2012?

http://proxy.espn.go...l-year-with-mvc

You are a step behind DBU is now in the WAC

http://www.baseballamerica.com/blog/college/2011/09/wac-welcomes-cal-state-bakersfield-dallas-baptist/

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One thing I don't get (maybe someone on this site can explain it to me) is why the strong basketball & baseball schools that have aboslutely no plans to expand into football don't stick together to form their own conference? The entire landscape of college athletics is changing because of the revenue that can be gained through the football programs. Instead of waiting to see where you'll end up, why not be proactive and seek to secure your own future?

Schools like Bradley, Creighton, Evansville, Witchita State, UMKC, Oakland, UALR,etc.

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One thing I don't get (maybe someone on this site can explain it to me) is why the strong basketball & baseball schools that have aboslutely no plans to expand into football don't stick together to form their own conference? The entire landscape of college athletics is changing because of the revenue that can be gained through the football programs. Instead of waiting to see where you'll end up, why not be proactive and seek to secure your own future?

Schools like Bradley, Creighton, Evansville, Witchita State, UMKC, Oakland, UALR,etc.

A newly formed conference would not have an auto-bid to the Dance.

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Thanks, Rabbit. Let me re-phrase the question. Why wouldn't these school re-align themselves in a different conference that already exist. For example, the Southland conference is losing football members, why not let them all exit and fill the conference with schools with no football?

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A lot of those schools you are talking about actually DO play football, but just not D-1 football.

The Summit League has several teams that play non-D-1 football, as does the Missouri Valley, Southland, Horizon, etc. They all have to take into account whatever rivalries and travel considerations exist for football in deciding their conference affiliations now and in the future.

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Lots of great talking ponts in this thread guys. I'll add a few comments to some of the points made above.

Ron, while a larger percentage of Oklahomans are attending the University, ORU still continues to have students enroll from all over the country and that is not slowing. Currently 49 states are represented.

Even If the Summit kept all of it's current members and the Southland lost all of those schools that were mentioned, I would still be in favor of a move if that meant the expenses to our athletic department's budget would be greatly decreased. For me it's a matter of continuing to position the University as a whole towards long-term economic sustainability and viability. If their is no school, their are no athletics. So what if we're in a conference that has a lot more directional schools that not many in the country has ever heard of before, as long as they're D-1 and we have the chance to compete in the NCAA tournament every year then I think it's worth it.

I love the action that this topic is bringing to the board in what can usually be a slow time. Keep it going!

Trivia question of the day: what one state from the USA is not represented in the ORU student body?

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Rutland was not in chapel today. He said in a video message that he took a trip to Dallas, TX with Mike Carter.

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Rutland was not in chapel today. He said in a video message that he took a trip to Dallas, TX with Mike Carter.

Well, there's your proverbial smoking gun: the Southland Conference offices are in Frisco, a suburb of Dallas.

Things must be moving along at a pretty good clip if we're at the stage of Dr. Rutland making a site visit.

I think we're talking days or weeks here, not months.

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Rutland was not in chapel today. He said in a video message that he took a trip to Dallas, TX with Mike Carter.

Hopefully Mike Brown is reading the message board so that he knows to call Mike Carter and get a story for the paper. :-D

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The only announcement that might come from ORU during the courtship process would be our official notice of leaving the Summit League to pursue other conference options.

The Southland Conference would be the one to announce an invitation to ORU, and that's going to be a tough story for any Tulsa reporter to confirm before it's announced from their offices down there.

And of course, the Summit League won't have any official response at all, other than Douple being quoted in the paper that he's sorry to see ORU go, but that the league will be fine, blah, blah, blah...

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I have heard that we could be in the Southland conference as early as next July....

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it sounds like things are moving right along. i think they can make a compelling case to the Southland. let's hope this gets settled soon so ORU can get going with their goodbye tour of winning MBB, WBB, and Baseball titles on the way out the door.

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Hummmmmmmmmmm.............sounds like the next few weeks could be very interesting......Southland here we come?..... :nerd:

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Carter said Summit League bylaws require a team to play two additional seasons after announcing the decision to leave the conference - or pay a $250,000 buyout. That could mean the Eagles won't be eligible to join the new league until 2014-15.

That quote would seem to indicate that ORU won't be going the buyout route.

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