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Owl
(209.56.200.119) on 9/27/2005 - 9:00 a.m. says: ( 5 views
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"Clarification..."
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::::>Conference USA vs. East or West team
By Ron Higgins
September 27, 2005
In a move guaranteed to make many Mid-South football fans happy, the AutoZone Liberty Bowl will announce today a Southeastern Conference vs. Conference USA matchup starting with the 2006 game.
Sources close to the negotiations say both conferences have signed a four-year deal with a per team payout expected to exceed the $1.5 million the bowl paid last year. The bowl will have first selection in Conference USA, and will work with the SEC, which has eight bowl tie-ins, to get a team that's a geographical fit for the bowl.
Steve Ehrhart, the bowl's executive director, declined comment on whether a deal has been struck, saying only that the bowl has called a press conference at noon at the Downtown Marriott. Just last week, SEC commissioner Mike Slive told The Commercial Appeal that they were waiting on Ehrhart to close the deal.
Ehrhart talked with Slive, former commissioner of Conference USA, for several months, about re-establishing ties with the SEC. But as those reports became public, Ehrhart received many calls and e-mails from University of Memphis fans asking him not to abandon the current Conference USA tie-in.
This year's game on Dec. 31 at noon on ESPN marks the final year of the current contract with Conference USA. The bowl's contract with the Mountain West Conference expired last season, so this year's game will feature C-USA vs. an open selection.
"This has been a very emotional issue," Ehrhart said recently. "There's a great passion for both the SEC and Conference USA. Our title sponsor AutoZone and key presenting sponsor FedEx have worked very hard with us to hopefully create something everyone will like. Everybody in our Liberty Bowl community has worked feverishly."
The SEC has had nine of its current 12 teams -- missing only Florida, Kentucky and Vanderbilt -- play in the Liberty Bowl a combined 23 times. Arkansas and South Carolina played in the game before 1992, when both schools joined the SEC.
Among the Mid-South SEC schools, Ole Miss is 4-0 in the bowl, last appearing in 1992, the last time the SEC had a school that played in the Liberty Bowl; Tennessee is 3-0, last playing in 1986; Mississippi State is 1-1, last playing in 1991; and Arkansas is 0-3, last appearing in 1987.
The SEC and seven of the 12 current Conference USA members (when they were in other conferences) have met in bowls 13 times, with the SEC holding a 8-2 edge against members other than Rice, and a 1-2 record against Rice, which beat Alabama and Tennessee like a rented mule. The last postseason meeting was in the 1997 Motor City Bowl when Ole Miss beat Marshall, then in the Mid-American Conference, 37-31.
Though the SEC and Conference USA have several regular-season matchups annually -- this season there are six such games with two each for Tennessee (UAB, Memphis) and Mississippi State (Tulane, Houston) -- it was believed that the SEC might shy from any tie-in with Conference USA.
The reason was that several SEC schools won't schedule in-state C-USA schools, such as Southern Miss (vs. Ole Miss or Mississippi State), or Alabama-Birmingham (vs. Alabama or Auburn).
But with the way the SEC office works with its bowl partners to place teams in the various bowls, such matchups would probably be avoided.
The SEC traditionally has tried to place Western Division and Eastern Division teams in bowls with locations close to the fan bases of each school. For instance, most Eastern teams have been in the Peach, Capital One and Outback Bowls, and most Western teams in the Cotton and Independence Bowls.
What made the AutoZone Liberty Bowl and Memphis attractive to the SEC is its geographical crossover appeal. SEC executive associate commissioner Mark Womack said several weeks ago that the league would be comfortable placing teams from either division in the Liberty Bowl.
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