Let me know the next time someone whips out their endowment to score a touchdown on the field.
Rice has a huge endowment. Bigger than any non-private 3-4 P5 teams put together. Doesn't make them good at football. Unless playing us, of course.
You don't have to build a conference out of stuffshirt teams with academic accolades and large endowments. You can build a conference out of teams committed to winning football games. And as soon as you start thinking you're too good for them is when they start whipping your @ss. I'll take the scrappy little conference that could over the markets and potential, thanks.
Haha. Ok then look at football success...pick something, anything. It's not close across the board. The "trash" Temple and Navy have been (AP) ranked as much in the top 25 since 2015
as every team in the entire Sun Belt combined. I didn't even count the 3 times Memphis has been ranked, or the 3 times South Florida has been ranked, or the 2 times SMU has been ranked, or the 1 time Tulsa was ranked....all recent.
You don't even want to get into athletic budgets, or fan support, or facilities, or markets, or TV deals (even future).
Fawning over the Sun Belt is just the worst.