The Karl Benson Interview (old BR)

I talked with WAC commissioner Karl Benson this morning and here’s what he had to say.

“What did you like the most about your trip to San Marcos?”  Benson loved the enthusiasm shown toward moving up and was impressed with the leadership of Trauth and Teis and the rest of the administration.  He was particularly interested in the stadium complex and the West end improvements.  Once finished, he felt that we would have the premier football facility in the Western Athletic Conference.  He thought we were already in the top half of the league as is.

“ What did you think the biggest difference between Texas State and Texas-San Antonio’s candidacy was, and did anything from either school really stick out with you?”  Benson said one WAC member AD mentioned in October at the presentations that in five years he thought UTSA will dominate the conference.  Their administration had a very methodical plan and the potential of San Antonio as a member city was enormous.  He appreciated that UTSA has potential and that Texas State had a actual plan, and that each could be the next Boise State.  Both had “the necessary ingredients and pieces” to be monster programs.

Benson liked what Texas State and UTSA would bring for Louisiana Tech and New Mexico State.  He said it formed a natural pocket and a great travel destination for weekend Olympic sports.  The Aggies or the Bulldogs could play a game versus UTSA on Thursday and against Texas State on Saturday.  He mentioned that Texas State and UTSA are likely travel partners and the same went for NMST and LA Tech.

Regarding a playoff, Benson said without having an automatic qualifier status for the conference, a playoff wouldn’t be any different than the BCS.  The 8 team model would have to have an at large granted to a team ranked as high as TCU is and that there would be an uproar from the BCS conferences that would get a one or two loss team shunned over a 6-6 league champ from another BCS league in addition to the at large teams from non-AQ’s.  He also said a 16 team playoff with 11 automatics wouldn’t happen in this generation.  Best case scenario for him would be for schools to follow the Boise/TCU/Utah model.

Benson talked about how the WAC is losing affiliation with the New Mexico Bowl and Hawaii Bowl, plus the likely loss of the bowl game in Boise.  There are arrangements with the bowls in San Francisco and San Diego, but there’s to be no new bowls until 2014 – the NCAA has approved 35 games until then.  He stated with all the bowl games in Texas, UTSA and Texas State would be considered extremely attractive at-large candidates.  He acknowledged how well Texas State travels to current FBS schools.

Finally, what I considered to be the best part of our talk.  Benson acknowledged a 3 to 5 year plan to extend membership to some combination of Cal Poly, Sacramento State, UC-Davis, Montana, Montana State – plus “some Texas schools to join us whenever they are ready”.