Perhaps the BEST B1G Forum anywhere, here at College Football Fan Site, CFB51!!!

The map is interesting.

There's an error on the map.
Baylor is located in Waco, between Austin and Dallas on I-35, not between San Antonio and Matagorda Bay.

My thoughts are that the Big 8 added four schools that add a lot of value to the existing conference. 

• UCF has an enrollment of 70,000. Is there another school this large in the USA? UCF will bring a lot of eyeballs to television sets now, and even more in the future.
• Houston has a history of doing well in football and basketball. Remember Elgin Baylor? The city is the 3rd or 4th largest in the USA. Enrollment is 46,000.
• BYU is little Notre Dame (because it has a built-in national following), but with 2-3x the enrollment (enrollment 33,000). It won a national championship within most of our memories.
• Cincinnati has had good basketball since the Big O, and damned good football for being a Group of 5 school. Enrollment is 46,000.

After the three-conference alliance was formed, it was important for the Big 8 to reformulate quickly, and Bob Bowlsby did a good job in doing so.

Are you their PR director?  Sheesh.

These schools had no where to go. If you were the Big 8 conference commissioner (who I really do not care for), after Texas and Oklahoma announce their departure, and the Pac-12 and Big Ten announce they are forming an alliance, and were not adding members, what would you do?

Probably not as many ripple effects as usual. 

The AAC is down to 8 teams after losing these three teams and UConn. Since they no longer need 12 teams in order to hold a CCG, I predict that they only add two and stand pat at 10. 

If both teams come from CUSA, then they will be down to 12 from 14, and that's probably just fine with them. 

Worst case scenario, they take one from CUSA and one from the Sunbelt. CUSA would probably stand pat at 13, like the Mac did for a long time. The Sunbelt might add one to get back to ten, and they have plenty of options. They could bring back NMSU for example, or they could add Liberty, or some overachieving FCS team from the Southeast. 

That's about as crazy as it will get, unless something really unexpected happens. Like the American adding 8 teams to get to 16, or some such. 

CUSA has always been a feeder conference for the AAC. 

Do you know the difference between the AAC and Conf USA?
.
Time.

Yes, very observant. 

CUSA has indeed always been a feeder conference for the AAC/Big East. 

Breaking News:  Conf USA is changing its name to "Crap Salad."

The MAC is the only G5 in the North, and the MWC is the only G5 out West. So they will be fine. 

AAC, CUSA and the Sunbelt are all in the Southeast. 

I'm not sure I'm buying Marshall and S Miss to the Sunbelt because the pecking order has always been that CUSA raids the Sunbelt after the AAC raids them. In fact three of the remaining schools in CUSA used to be in the Sunbelt in W Kentucky, M Tennessee and FIU, but the Sunbelt doesn't want any of them back?