C-USA, MWC merger could add three new teams to league
South Carolina men’s soccer coach Mark Berson could never have predicted the kind of conference realignment that has taken place in collegiate athletics.
With Southern Methodist, Memphis and Central Florida leaving Conference USA and joining the Big East in 2013, Berson knows what to expect for 2012, but any more than that is simply conjecture. C-USA will be left with six soccer teams, including the Gamecocks, in 2013, but after the merger of C-USA and the Mountain West Conference was announced Monday, there is a possibility the departures will be replaced by teams in the MWC that have soccer, though like the Southeastern Conference, the MWC does not sponsor men’s soccer.
“Nothing will affect next year,” Berson said. “There are no changes for 2012, so everything’s intact. For 2013, SMU, Central Florida and Memphis are leaving. Beyond that, nothing is exactly clear. In other words, it’s my understanding that Air Force, UNLV and New Mexico are teams within the Mountain West that have soccer. That is all that is really known right now.”
Berson said that anything concrete would come from the conference office, but his guess would be that the teams that have soccer in the MWC would join C-USA soccer. San Diego State also has a men’s soccer team, but Berson said it wouldn’t make sense for them to leave the Pacific-12 because of the distance. As far as travel will be concerned with USC having to potentially make trips to Las Vegas, Colorado Springs, Colo., and Albuquerque, N.M., Berson said it was just a matter of the Gamecocks being “spoiled” in the East, as schools in the MWC, for example, were having to make lengthy trips prior to conference realignment.
“It’s probably an eye-opener for us in terms of travel, but for a lot of schools around the country, they’re used to that kind of travel,” Berson said. “Even if you think about it in the SEC now with Texas A&M and Missouri, for all of our sports, that’s going to be really expanding the travel.”
Berson explained that with SMU, an already lengthy trip for USC, leaving the league, there will essentially only be two long trips added, as one of the trips would be theoretically taking the place of SMU. Furthermore, with conference expansion reaching the SEC with Texas A&M and Missouri, all Gamecock sports will be forced to travel more than they have in the past.
“[For] some of the teams, you’re going to stretch yourself because you’re going to have to play some schools in our division, and then there’ll be some crossover,” said Athletics Director Eric Hyman. “It’s going to be a longer trip than there has been in the past. Now you’ve got to throw two more teams into the scheduling equation, so it is an impact.”
As far as the special circumstance with men’s soccer since it plays in a different conference, Hyman said he “hadn’t thought about that yet” in regards to the consequence of the C-USA and MWC merger.
If UNLV, New Mexico and Air Force do play in the C-USA soccer league, Berson would still be satisfied with the quality of the league.
“The strength of the conference would be good,” Berson said. “Also, there’s been some talk that West Virginia may be looking at Conference USA because they have joined the Big 12, which does not sponsor men’s soccer, so they need to find a league to play in as well.”
If Berson has realized anything in conference expansion, it has been that C-USA was before its time in 2005, when it invited three teams outside of its conference to be affiliate squads, which is similar to what has occurred in several conferences for football only.
“I think that Conference USA was way out in front of the curve years ago when they looked at bringing in South Carolina, Kentucky and FIU as affiliate members,” Berson said. “They said, ‘Well, we’ve got teams in our league that want to play in a good league and we need to strengthen the league, so we will bring in these affiliate teams and embrace them in our conference.’ That was really forward thinking.”