Conference USA Commissioner Judy MacLeod was at Joan C. Edwards Stadium last Saturday as Marshall took on Louisville. The commissioner took questions from the press before the game to talk about the state of the conference and the impact that Marshall’s game against Louisville had.

“Our AD’s have done a nice job getting games like this in our stadiums,” MacLeod said. “Every time we have that opportunity to play well against the opponents, it’s important to us.”

Over the summer, Conference USA agreed to a new television deal in which four partners (ESPN, CBS, The American Sports Network and beIN SPORTS) will share the broadcast rights to conference basketball and football games for the next season.

“We feel like the exposure is great and we’re happy to be with ESPN. CBS has pulled out all the stops and put the sky cam in and it really promotes this game,” MacLeod said. “We’ve been really impressed with our new partner beIN as far as their preparation and their production capabilities, so that’s been a pleasant surprise.”

MacLeod also spoke about the challenges that the conference faces being a Group of Five Conference (AAC, C-USA, MAC, Mountain West Conference and Sun Belt) instead of a Power Five Conference.

“It is a challenge. All we have to do is work with our programs and try to get better every day.

I think we have the opportunity to take some chances that other people might not have,” MacLeod said. “Everybody is ultra-competitive and they want to beat each other, but, at the end of the day, we need everybody’s programs to get better.”

Rick Farlow can be contacted at [email protected].