(06-05-2012 07:15 PM)DaBigBlue Wrote:  Mike makes a case for the CAA dropping football all together.

http://www.caahoops.com/

Really, if more schools leave the CAA, it makes little sense for the CAA to limit its basketball expansion options to address football needs. Some form of football league will continue. It may be under the CAA flag, the America East flag, or some other form

If you want to make a case for the CAA and AEC reorganizing, why not do it this way, so football schools are with football schools and basketball schools are with basketball schools ...

CAA (12)
BU (out of AEC)
Northeastern
Vermont (out of AEC)
Hartford (out of AEC)
Hofstra
Drexel
UMBC (out of AEC)
George Mason
UNC Greensboro (out of SoCon)
Davidson (out of SoCon)
UNC Wilmington
Charleston (out of SoCon)

AEC (10)
Maine
New Hampshire
Central Connecticut (out of NEC)
Binghamton (non-football) \ Villanova (football-only)
Albany
Stony Brook
Delaware (out of CAA)
Towson (out of CAA)
James Madison (out of CAA)
William & Mary (out of CAA)

Forget about Rhode Island, Duquesne, and Richmond. They are part of the A-10 which helped cause this mess. Time to bring together the remaining Northeastern public schools in FCS.

(06-05-2012 07:15 PM)DaBigBlue Wrote:  Mike makes a case for the CAA dropping football all together.

http://www.caahoops.com/

I think he's misdiagnosing the disease. Not having a football conference wouldn't have kept VCU, ODU and GSU around. If anything it may have pushed ODU and GSU out faster, which in turn would have pushed VCU out faster. And if America East had had control of the football conference, Delaware, Towson, Hofstra and Northeastern would have felt pressure to remain there instead of moving to the CAA back when it was on the verge of collapse.

If the writer wants to assert that the CAA's expansion should focus entirely on basketball-oriented schools, that at least is a defensible position. The CAA Football Conference is a separate legal entity anyway, and doesn't need full CAA members. Its membership has never had more than 50% come from any single conference. There are plenty of expansion candidates out there who don't need a full CAA invite to join the football conference. Stony Brook is already a football-only in the Big South. Albany, Duquesne and now Rhode Island are football-only members of the NEC. Fordham is a football-only member of the Patriot. Youngstown State is a football-only member of the MVFC. The only candidates for whom football-only membership would be a potential problem are App State and Georgia Southern, if the CAA wants to go that route.

But without football, the CAA is basically resigned to becoming "A10 Jr." When the CAA made their new TV deal with NBCSports, the one thing they had to offer over the A10 was football. The A10 has absolutely nothing to offer a broadcast partner between the months of April and October. That's a significant disadvantage. Even if half the teams in CAA Football aren't actually CAA teams, it keeps the conference relevant. It's like the situation between Rhode Island and Providence. Now that URI has de-emphasized football, what do they have to offer over PC? Football was the one thing they could inherently do better than PC, and they gave it away for nothing. Now all URI has is a really bad basketball team they hope to turn around under a new coach, while PC has a better location, better arena, better conference, better academics, ice hockey, and lacrosse. How does URI beat them now? Dumb luck in hiring and basketball recruiting? That's what the CAA would be hoping for vs. the A10 if they focused entirely on basketball.

Would it be that complicated for these Eastern FCS programs to just get together and form their own all sports league? Maybe it could be done under one existing conference that has the majority of them. Coastal, App St, JMU, Delaware, Towson, W&M, Stony Brook, URI, UNH, Maine, Richmond, Georgia Southern. That seems like it would be a very solid conference.

(06-05-2012 09:55 PM)blunderbuss Wrote:  Would it be that complicated for these Eastern FCS programs to just get together and form their own all sports league? Coastal, App St, JMU, Delaware, Towson, W&M, Stony Brook, URI, UNH, Maine, Richmond, Georgia Southern. That seems like it would be a very solid conference.

We've been speculating about that for years. However, we also realize that the NCAA, BCS, and other FBS conferences will fight it tooth and nail. They don't want extra competition right in their neighborhood. Plus many of those schools (basically every one except JMU, App State, UD and GA Southern) are not even remotely ready or will ever be ready for FBS football. Many of those schools can't even draw 10k fans on average. They seriously lack fan support to compete at the I-A level.

(06-05-2012 09:56 PM)Dukes09 Wrote:  

(06-05-2012 09:55 PM)blunderbuss Wrote:  Would it be that complicated for these Eastern FCS programs to just get together and form their own all sports league? Coastal, App St, JMU, Delaware, Towson, W&M, Stony Brook, URI, UNH, Maine, Richmond, Georgia Southern. That seems like it would be a very solid conference.

We've been speculating about that for years. However, we also realize that the NCAA, BCS, and other FBS conferences will fight it tooth and nail. They don't want extra competition right in their neighborhood. Plus many of those schools (basically every one except JMU, App State, UD and GA Southern) are not even remotely ready or will ever be ready for FBS football. Many of those schools can't even draw 10k fans on average. They seriously lack fan support to compete at the I-A level.

I'm talking about an FCS conference. Seems like that would make life much easier. Take whichever league has the majority and build from there and kick out schools that don't play football. Obviously it's more complicated than that.

I don't understand why the NCAA makes it so difficult to create a new conference. Does anybody have the answer to that?

(06-05-2012 10:03 PM)blunderbuss Wrote:  

(06-05-2012 09:56 PM)Dukes09 Wrote:  

(06-05-2012 09:55 PM)blunderbuss Wrote:  Would it be that complicated for these Eastern FCS programs to just get together and form their own all sports league? Coastal, App St, JMU, Delaware, Towson, W&M, Stony Brook, URI, UNH, Maine, Richmond, Georgia Southern. That seems like it would be a very solid conference.

We've been speculating about that for years. However, we also realize that the NCAA, BCS, and other FBS conferences will fight it tooth and nail. They don't want extra competition right in their neighborhood. Plus many of those schools (basically every one except JMU, App State, UD and GA Southern) are not even remotely ready or will ever be ready for FBS football. Many of those schools can't even draw 10k fans on average. They seriously lack fan support to compete at the I-A level.

I'm talking about an FCS conference. Seems like that would make life much easier. Take whichever league has the majority and build from there and kick out schools that don't play football. Obviously it's more complicated than that.

I don't understand why the NCAA makes it so difficult to create a new conference. Does anybody have the answer to that?

Well, a school like App State would not have it in their best interests to join the CAA, which is known as a tougher conference. They consistently dominate the Southern Conference because most of the teams in that league are cupcakes. If they played in the CAA, they'd lose more often, increasing their likelihood of missing the playoffs and upsetting fans with a worse W-L record. If you're averaging 26.2k with your current schedule of conference members, even drawing 31k at one game, PLUS you're consistently getting into the playoffs, why fix it if it isn't broke?
There's just a lot of conflicting interests to get that to come to fruition, mainly the fact that the top 4 drawing schools in that list are eyeing FBS and not caring about rearranging FCS.

(06-05-2012 08:55 PM)Lolly Popp Wrote:  If you want to make a case for the CAA and AEC reorganizing, why not do it this way, so football schools are with football schools and basketball schools are with basketball schools ...

CAA (12)
BU (out of AEC)
Northeastern
Vermont (out of AEC)
Hartford (out of AEC)
Hofstra
Drexel
UMBC (out of AEC)
George Mason
UNC Greensboro (out of SoCon)
Davidson (out of SoCon)
UNC Wilmington
Charleston (out of SoCon)

AEC (10)
Maine
New Hampshire
Central Connecticut (out of NEC)
Binghamton (non-football) \ Villanova (football-only)
Albany
Stony Brook
Delaware (out of CAA)
Towson (out of CAA)
James Madison (out of CAA)
William & Mary (out of CAA)

Forget about Rhode Island, Duquesne, and Richmond. They are part of the A-10 which helped cause this mess. Time to bring together the remaining Northeastern public schools in FCS.

LOL. URI doesn't play in the CAA anymore. Duquesne never did. UR didn't join the CAA, but moved over when the CAA stole the football league (and its problems) from the A-10. And if the CAA wants to declare war on the A-10, the A-10 can simply reconsider its decision not to add George Mason at this time.

(06-05-2012 09:20 PM)LastMinuteman Wrote:  

(06-05-2012 07:15 PM)DaBigBlue Wrote:  Mike makes a case for the CAA dropping football all together.

http://www.caahoops.com/

I think he's misdiagnosing the disease. Not having a football conference wouldn't have kept VCU, ODU and GSU around. If anything it may have pushed ODU and GSU out faster, which in turn would have pushed VCU out faster. And if America East had had control of the football conference, Delaware, Towson, Hofstra and Northeastern would have felt pressure to remain there instead of moving to the CAA back when it was on the verge of collapse.

If the writer wants to assert that the CAA's expansion should focus entirely on basketball-oriented schools, that at least is a defensible position. The CAA Football Conference is a separate legal entity anyway, and doesn't need full CAA members. Its membership has never had more than 50% come from any single conference. There are plenty of expansion candidates out there who don't need a full CAA invite to join the football conference. Stony Brook is already a football-only in the Big South. Albany, Duquesne and now Rhode Island are football-only members of the NEC. Fordham is a football-only member of the Patriot. Youngstown State is a football-only member of the MVFC. The only candidates for whom football-only membership would be a potential problem are App State and Georgia Southern, if the CAA wants to go that route.

But without football, the CAA is basically resigned to becoming "A10 Jr." When the CAA made their new TV deal with NBCSports, the one thing they had to offer over the A10 was football. The A10 has absolutely nothing to offer a broadcast partner between the months of April and October. That's a significant disadvantage. Even if half the teams in CAA Football aren't actually CAA teams, it keeps the conference relevant. It's like the situation between Rhode Island and Providence. Now that URI has de-emphasized football, what do they have to offer over PC? Football was the one thing they could inherently do better than PC, and they gave it away for nothing. Now all URI has is a really bad basketball team they hope to turn around under a new coach, while PC has a better location, better arena, better conference, better academics, ice hockey, and lacrosse. How does URI beat them now? Dumb luck in hiring and basketball recruiting? That's what the CAA would be hoping for vs. the A10 if they focused entirely on basketball.

URI is the flagship state university. Providence is a private, religious school. Providence's basketball program stinks too. They haven't won a NCAA tournament game in 15 years. Read that last sentence again.

URI can compete with Providence. I'm not sure Providence can compete in the Big East anymore.

(06-05-2012 10:37 PM)Tom in Lazybrook Wrote:  

(06-05-2012 09:20 PM)LastMinuteman Wrote:  

(06-05-2012 07:15 PM)DaBigBlue Wrote:  Mike makes a case for the CAA dropping football all together.

http://www.caahoops.com/

I think he's misdiagnosing the disease. Not having a football conference wouldn't have kept VCU, ODU and GSU around. If anything it may have pushed ODU and GSU out faster, which in turn would have pushed VCU out faster. And if America East had had control of the football conference, Delaware, Towson, Hofstra and Northeastern would have felt pressure to remain there instead of moving to the CAA back when it was on the verge of collapse.

If the writer wants to assert that the CAA's expansion should focus entirely on basketball-oriented schools, that at least is a defensible position. The CAA Football Conference is a separate legal entity anyway, and doesn't need full CAA members. Its membership has never had more than 50% come from any single conference. There are plenty of expansion candidates out there who don't need a full CAA invite to join the football conference. Stony Brook is already a football-only in the Big South. Albany, Duquesne and now Rhode Island are football-only members of the NEC. Fordham is a football-only member of the Patriot. Youngstown State is a football-only member of the MVFC. The only candidates for whom football-only membership would be a potential problem are App State and Georgia Southern, if the CAA wants to go that route.

But without football, the CAA is basically resigned to becoming "A10 Jr." When the CAA made their new TV deal with NBCSports, the one thing they had to offer over the A10 was football. The A10 has absolutely nothing to offer a broadcast partner between the months of April and October. That's a significant disadvantage. Even if half the teams in CAA Football aren't actually CAA teams, it keeps the conference relevant. It's like the situation between Rhode Island and Providence. Now that URI has de-emphasized football, what do they have to offer over PC? Football was the one thing they could inherently do better than PC, and they gave it away for nothing. Now all URI has is a really bad basketball team they hope to turn around under a new coach, while PC has a better location, better arena, better conference, better academics, ice hockey, and lacrosse. How does URI beat them now? Dumb luck in hiring and basketball recruiting? That's what the CAA would be hoping for vs. the A10 if they focused entirely on basketball.

URI is the flagship state university. Providence is a private, religious school. Providence's basketball program stinks too. They haven't won a NCAA tournament game in 15 years. Read that last sentence again.

URI can compete with Providence. I'm not sure Providence can compete in the Big East anymore.

PC has a great freshman class coming in this year although it is 4 guards, they could have a few bounce back years

(06-05-2012 10:26 PM)Tom in Lazybrook Wrote:  LOL. URI doesn't play in the CAA anymore. Duquesne never did. UR didn't join the CAA, but moved over when the CAA stole the football league (and its problems) from the A-10. And if the CAA wants to declare war on the A-10, the A-10 can simply reconsider its decision not to add George Mason at this time.

This is a perfect example of what happens when someone doesn't read an entire thread in its full context but, instead, starts firing off venemous responses in the middle of the night.

I was responding to someone else who said CAA football should have those three schools as associate members. Nor did I even remotely say anything about declaring war on the A-10.

Furthermore, Rhode Island will still be playing CAA football this coming fall, before later moving to the NEC. I know what I'm talking about when it comes to conference memberships.

(06-06-2012 02:25 AM)Lolly Popp Wrote:  

(06-05-2012 10:26 PM)Tom in Lazybrook Wrote:  LOL. URI doesn't play in the CAA anymore. Duquesne never did. UR didn't join the CAA, but moved over when the CAA stole the football league (and its problems) from the A-10. And if the CAA wants to declare war on the A-10, the A-10 can simply reconsider its decision not to add George Mason at this time.

This is a perfect example of what happens when someone doesn't read an entire thread in its full context but, instead, starts firing off venemous responses in the middle of the night.

I was responding to someone else who said CAA football should have those three schools as associate members. Nor did I even remotely say anything about declaring war on the A-10.

Furthermore, Rhode Island will still be playing CAA football this coming fall, before later moving to the NEC. I know what I'm talking about when it comes to conference memberships.

I was responding to your posting regarding throwing UR out of CAA football, because the A-10 'started this mess'. The A-10 didn't start this mess....The CAA decided to take the mess that was A-10 football from us. We are glad they did. Hybrid conferences are very messy. You really need teams that help your conference in football AND basketball or the conference suffers. Even the Big East has problems with this (Memphis will not be a 'big add' for football) and so does the ACC (Florida State is sniffing around for the exits due to the basketball focus of the conference).

URI has announced they are leaving. I don't think that the CAA kicking them out a year early is going to be too painful for them.

[quote='jmufan' pid='7964591' dateline='1338918426']
I wonder if ODU will benefit from recruiting in the tidewater region or will it be the same as usual, that is, kids wanting to get away from the area, so they choose a college that isn't located in the Tidewater region? I think they will benefit some, but not much more than they are now. UD has that problem. A good football program, but few want to stay and play for their state school.
[/quote/]

Don't be surprised if Bobby Wilder doesn't put up a wall around the 757, the only kids that will be leaving the area are the ones that are good enough to play at Tech and West Virginia and the ones not good enough to play at ODU. East Carolina and Marshal are going to find it harder and harder to find recruits in Hampton Roads soon.

JMU just received Ocean Lakes QB and Vanderbilt 3 star transfer Throughogood. JMU also just got a lot of recruits from the Tidewater region in their 2012 signings (ranked as the best recruiting class in the FCS for 2012). Quite the lockdown indeed! Any and every school will be getting recruits from there. You just get the recruits that "don't want to go too far away from mom and dad".

I didn't say that we had already but once we finally move up and get established. Plus we already have an excellent QB, I think you're familiar with him.

(06-05-2012 08:55 PM)Lolly Popp Wrote:  If you want to make a case for the CAA and AEC reorganizing, why not do it this way, so football schools are with football schools and basketball schools are with basketball schools ...

CAA (12)
BU (out of AEC)
Northeastern
Vermont (out of AEC)
Hartford (out of AEC)
Hofstra
Drexel
UMBC (out of AEC)
George Mason
UNC Greensboro (out of SoCon)
Davidson (out of SoCon)
UNC Wilmington
Charleston (out of SoCon)

AEC (10)
Maine
New Hampshire
Central Connecticut (out of NEC)
Binghamton (non-football) \ Villanova (football-only)
Albany
Stony Brook
Delaware (out of CAA)
Towson (out of CAA)
James Madison (out of CAA)
William & Mary (out of CAA)

Forget about Rhode Island, Duquesne, and Richmond. They are part of the A-10 which helped cause this mess. Time to bring together the remaining Northeastern public schools in FCS.

This seems a little extreme. My thought is that Maine and UNH really need Stony Brook and Albany in the conference to keep some semblance of geographic connection. Adding more southern schools to replace URI and UMass would be a nightmare. At that point, AE becomes coequal with the CAA, and with further departures may become the dominant part of the league.

AE is very academically conscious. BU is the best academic school in the conference BU is a dominant player in the politics of the league, a la UNC in the ACC or UT in the B12. Maine, Vermont, UNH , Stony Brook, Binghampton and Albany are all flagships. AE would love to get Delaware, URI or W&M, but there is no way CCSU gets invited for hoops. AE also probably prefers UMBC over Towson.

(06-06-2012 07:33 PM)orangefan Wrote:  This seems a little extreme. My thought is that Maine and UNH really need Stony Brook and Albany in the conference to keep some semblance of geographic connection. Adding more southern schools to replace URI and UMass would be a nightmare. At that point, AE becomes coequal with the CAA, and with further departures may become the dominant part of the league.

AE is very academically conscious. BU is the best academic school in the conference BU is a dominant player in the politics of the league, a la UNC in the ACC or UT in the B12. Maine, Vermont, UNH , Stony Brook, Binghampton and Albany are all flagships. AE would love to get Delaware, URI or W&M, but there is no way CCSU gets invited for hoops. AE also probably prefers UMBC over Towson.

The problem is the CAA is not looking at Northern schools. According to the rumors, Northeastern, Hofstra, and Drexel are blocking Stony Brook, as well as Boston U if the CAA Commissioner tries to add them. So instead he is supposedly targeting Elon, Davidson, and Charleston. One football school and two basketball schools. This would make the CAA even more of a mess.

Furthermore, the CAA Commissioner supposedly has a fixation with Appalachian State, even though that school clearly wants to go FBS in the next few years. Why cause bad blood with the Southern Conference going after a school that would be with you two or three years at best? His plan also maroons UNC Greensboro as the only non-football school in the SoCon. Awful.

My plan would be to rip the whole thing up and start again. Let the CAA become a basketball league and let the AEC become a football league. This has nothing to do with academics. If hybrid conferences were so wonderful, Syracuse would still be in the Big East, rather than joining the ACC. Let one league concentrate on basketball while the other concentrates on football.

The CAA and AEC are both a mess right now. It would be much better for everyone if they would just set aside all the academic lip service and mutually agree to realign on football/non-football lines. The new AEC football could take over the CAA deal with NBC Sports, while CAA basketball keeps the hoops broadcasts, with the new AEC getting a smaller basketball package.

(06-06-2012 08:50 PM)Lolly Popp Wrote:  The CAA and AEC are both a mess right now.

Every conference in the northeast is a mess. It's standard procedure.

On a sidenote, we have 6 games nationally televised on NBC Sports Network. The schedule was just released by NBC. It's part of our recent, 5-year deal between the CAA (football & basketball) and NBC Sports Network and other regional Comcast Channels.

All games listed are on NBC Sports Network:
3:30 p.m. Sat., Sept. 8 Delaware State at Delaware*
12:00 p.m. Sat., Sept. 15 William & Mary at Towson
1:00 p.m. Sat., Oct. 6 Towson at James Madison
12:00 p.m. Sat., Oct. 27 Delaware at Old Dominion
12:00 p.m. Sat., Nov. 3 Towson at Delaware
7:00 p.m. Sat., Nov. 17 Old Dominion at James Madison

*Out of Conference Game

(06-07-2012 01:51 PM)Dukes09 Wrote:  On a sidenote, we have 6 games nationally televised on NBC Sports Network. The schedule was just released by NBC. It's part of our recent, 5-year deal between the CAA (football & basketball) and NBC Sports Network and other regional Comcast Channels.

All games listed are on NBC Sports Network:
3:30 p.m. Sat., Sept. 8 Delaware State at Delaware*
12:00 p.m. Sat., Sept. 15 William & Mary at Towson
1:00 p.m. Sat., Oct. 6 Towson at James Madison
12:00 p.m. Sat., Oct. 27 Delaware at Old Dominion
12:00 p.m. Sat., Nov. 3 Towson at Delaware
7:00 p.m. Sat., Nov. 17 Old Dominion at James Madison

*Out of Conference Game

Six? So NBC upped it one? That's really great to hear, glad negotiations between NBC and CAA are still strong. Surprised the Delaware v Delaware State game will be televised, I would think the CAA would prefer intra-CAA matches to be on TV.

Delaware: 3 (2 home 1 road)
Towson: 3 (1 home 2 road)
ODU: 2 (1 home 1 road)
JMU: 2 (2 home)
W&M: 1 (1 road)

It's too bad Maine, UNH, Villanova and UR wont be able to be represented. GSU and URI are also left out.