(07-19-2014 11:04 AM)EigenEagle Wrote: I would think any FCS league that votes itself stipends is either going to have to come up with its own football postseason or see its teams sit at home Thanksgiving weekend. There is no way they will want to compete against programs with stipends.
This is why I'm focusing on the stipend rules. How these rules are implemented by the NCAA and the conferences is going to have a potentially massive impact.
Not really on FBS. Virtually every team in FBS will pay the stipend in football.
Here's the way this could work.
Scenario 1 - No restriction on who can provide a stipend and no mandate that a stipend will have to be produced in every sport. Title IX considerations will still apply. Result - all FBS teams move to the same stipend for football and men's basketball as well as for any number of women's sports. A-10, Big East, WCC, MVC follow for basketball. CAA moves for basketball only. Impact - D1 basketball becomes defacto bifrucated. No conference will allow some members to stipend while others don't.
Scenario 2 - Institutions using stipends must do them in all sports at the same level. Impact - disaster for the basketball programs at FCS programs.
Its possible that the NCAA will remove the requirement that a FCS team wishing to move up be sponsored by an existing conference. But that will likely have little consequence to the existing FBS conferences, as there's no way that most of the schools in the MVFC, CAA, or Big Sky will choose to move to stipend for football (look at their stadiums). At most, you'd see Liberty move to independence. And with the CAA tossing out members that do anything to move their programs, it looks like JMU might get trapped. And that's even if the NCAA allows these programs to 'move up' without a sponsor.
JMU might seriously regret not joining. Not only could their football program get seriously compromised (imagine competing with any stipend school for recruits) but it could kill their basketball program depending upon how the stipend rules are implemented.
I'm glad my two teams are both in conferences that will go 'stipend' no matter what.
You know, if the MVC doesn't (or can't) go stipend because the NCAA will require stipends in all scholarship sports if offered in any, we could snag some basketball schools desparate to find a 'stipend' home for their basketball programs. Like Wichita State for example.