This may be hypercritical on my part but I still find it very irritating when the implication is made that we left the BE for the AAC. The schools that ended up purchasing the BE name from the AAC left us, and they did it under the cover of darkness (kind if like Irsay moving the Colts from Baltimore) without informing anyone outside of those who would be in the new conference what was happening until it was completed.
My issue with that was that with proper notification, we would have been in position to take the lead role in what would become the AAC (we were by far the most senior, most successful and biggest brand) and should have been able to benefit from all of the capital we had contributed over nearly three and a half decades. Instead we were reduced to being one of the masses who handed all decision making to a new hire once the five remaining schools hastily filled out the initial conference.
Yes, we did end up in a conference with a different name, due to a financial and spent a number of separated from what was called the BE. We did not however leave and then return, we left at a later date than seven other schools from the prior conference.
For the record, the only reason I care is that when everything fell out, the one thing that we should have been in position to capitalize on was taken away from us by the manner that it unfolded.