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Earlier today, we were talking about the Liberty Bowl, and who they would align themselves with after the current CUSA versus Mountain West contract runs out, which is this year, I believe. More than likely, they'll stay with CUSA, but look for someone to replace the Mountain West champ.

One idea that came up in the thread was pitting the CUSA champ against the MAC champ. Obviously, the biggest concern is how well the fans would travel. Under that scenario, this year's Liberty Bowl would put Louisville against Toledo. You guys obviously know Toledo a lot better than we do. How many people would do you think they'd bring to Memphis for New Year's Eve? And if this idea did actually materialize, do you think the MAC would be all for sending their champion to Memphis every year?

The Liberty Bowl is a fantastic bowl, and I think we'd be lucky to be able to hook up with a bowl with that kind of history. It's the best bowl game involving non-BCS programs, the way I see it.

But I am also mindful that we have two very good bowls right now.

The Motor City was there when no other bowl wanted us, and it has grown into a heck of a thing, drawing 50,000 fans in each of the past two seasons.

And the GMAC is great. The stadium is perfect-sized and the community gets so excited about the game that we don't seem to face quite as much pressure as a league to support it.

So I'm not sure how our commissioner would go about guaranteeing the Liberty Bowl our champion and still keep these two other very good bowls happy.

Also, while we might be able to do better than the Mountain West does, I'm also not sure we would support it to quite same extent that the game would be supported with the fourth-best SEC or Big Ten team (for example).

I always figured the Big East would end up putting its champion in Memphis... but, then again, I always figured the Big East would lose its automatic BCS bid.

to answer your question, in a non-direct way,

you would not want toledo fans there !! 8)


Now, BG . . . . .

I've expressed my positive view on the Memphis area in other posts on this board. The Liberty Bowl would be a great tie in for the MAC.

However, for BG, the MCB Bowl is a better option for attendance because of it's close proximity. Attendance for the MCB has been very good the last 2 years. Most of the other MAC programs are fairly close to Detroit.

It would be nice to see another bowl game with a MAC/CUSA team. There are enough good teams in each league to make this proposal feasible. I think that many people who aren't familiar with Memphis would be impressed with the number of recreational opportunities available for those going to the Liberty Bowl.

I think that the MAC would have been in crisis had BG gotten to a bowl during any of Blackney's last years. For that matter, I think the conference would have had issues if any team other than Marshall had gotten to a bowl until a few years ago. The conference dodged a huge mess had the league not had who we did, playing when they did.

However the MAC having two bids, and a slow trickle of new blood playing in those games, has changed the psychology of the MAC's fans. The transition year with the GMAC bowl taking the Herd, and Little Detroit getting sent to Big Detroit was the key.

Had the Herd gone to Detroit yet again, it would have been damaging to the MAC's image. Their being able to take a large crowd to the GMAC bowl, and lighting up the board as they did, while Little Detroit proved to prospective teams visiting the MCB could win-by a lot.

Miami and BGSU Bowling last year built on that. You might recall the GMAC bowl had evenly hedged their bet by noting they could take somebody from another conference. However since that first success, GMAC has more tightly embraced the MAC. There hasn't been a whisper of their considering another conference since.

Now where we stand today still leaves us with room to build and solidify fan bases and their desire to follow teams to bowls. If we are not where we want to be, we are at least much closer than we were. The key is getting fans thinking in terms of going to bowls. This has been an alien concept until recently. A fan base that thinks there is a chance to go to a bowl, is much easier and quicker to mobilize than one that gets shocked with an unexpected bid-as Akron would have been.

We are lucky NIU has been desperate for a bowl all of these years. We are lucky BG and Miami have recently seasoned fan bases. We are lucky Little Detroit's local fan base is being sent to the nearest game.

IF I give Marshall any real credit for helping the MAC, it is the fact they traveled so well to the MCB and GMAC bowls. To a lesser extent, if they draw well to Ft. Worth, that will leave a good taste in that bowl's mouth.

Meanwhile, we need to impress sponsors for the possible games in Toronto and Indy.

Enlighten me on one thing.....who's Little Detroit?

I have your back. Little Detroit is none other than......Toledo.