Underwhelming, if true. I'm not a fan of Austin Peay and we have enough of a Florida presence even if in other parts of the state. It isn't a good look to add a Division II school.

Austin peay is a solid add, if they continue thee very recent upward trend in football. They were the worst ovc team now they're consistently competing for the title. It would be terrible to end up with the 1st AP.

(07-07-2021 08:18 PM)GE and MTS Wrote:  Underwhelming, if true. I'm not a fan of Austin Peay and we have enough of a Florida presence even if in other parts of the state. It isn't a good look to add a Division II school.

As Slim said, the Peay of the last few years (since 2017) is solid, and not just in football. They've won or been in serious contention for multiple OVC championships in other sports, and have made a serious commitment toward improving their facilities.

In football, at least, they've maintained this commitment through 2-3 coaching changes, so it's not just a case of getting lucky with one guy. True, looking at the years prior to 2017 will cause sleepless nights, but they seem to have left that Peay in the past. (Let's hope so.)

Men's hoops has had 20-plus win seasons in 2020 and 2019. Their counterparts on the women's side haven't been as successful, but are consistently at or above .500. Like women's hoops, the baseball team hovers around .500, but they won 30+ games in 2019, and are always a threat to win a series. Their OOC scheduling is very strong.

Softball consistently wins 30-plus games. Volleyball is solid and won the 2017 OVC Championship. Women's tennis is very strong, having won the OVC in 2021 and 2019.

Peay's trajectory is taking them in the right direction. I'm happy with this one.

As for UWF, I absolutely understand the reluctance to take a D-II, but if you add the right D-II, it benefits the conference. I believe UWF is the right D-II.

They may have caught everyone's attention with their meteoric rise in football, but they're awfully strong (for D-II) in other sports as well, with recent conference championships in men's hoops (2018), softball (2019), and volleyball (2019), plus a regional semifinals appearance by their women's hoops team in 2019.

It's D-II. As a JSU fan who lived through our own painful transition in the 90s, I know as much as anyone that success down there does not equate to success up here. But winning championships at any level at least shows they have a commitment to being competitive. When that winning comes in multiple sports, it suggests a systemic mindset, and (as with Peay football) isn't just the result of one lucky coaching hire.

As for UWF's location... it's not merely a case of being "another Florida presence."

The Panhandle is incredibly different from anywhere on the Peninsula. Pensacola, in particular, has far more in common culturally with Mobile and Biloxi than it does with anywhere east of the Destin/PCB area, and almost nothing in common with Jacksonville, DeLand, and Fort Myers.

From a media standpoint, absolutely no stations in the Mobile-Pensacola market (No. 57 nationally) cover JU, UNF, Stetson, or FGCU, except in those rare instances when a team makes a splash in the NCAA Tournament (see Dunk City).

Adding UWF wouldn't merely increase the ASUN's presence in Florida, it would create a presence in west Florida, southwest Alabama, and southeast Mississippi that doesn't currently exist.

(07-07-2021 08:18 PM)GE and MTS Wrote:  Underwhelming, if true. I'm not a fan of Austin Peay and we have enough of a Florida presence even if in other parts of the state. It isn't a good look to add a Division II school.

I realize you're coming at this from Liberty's perspective, but in football we have literally no Florida presence, and that's the sport where Florida presence matters the most.

Austin Peay may not be our dream get, but as someone who has been in a conference with them, their renewed commitment to football is genuinely one of the most impressive turnarounds I've ever seen from an athletics department. They're also about to break ground on a brand new basketball arena. It's a good time to be buying Austin Peay stock because most of the nation hasn't caught on the the obvious upward trend in Clarksville.

Has the ASUN totally abandoned the idea of splitting in two somewhere down the road?

It was a truly revolutionary idea when they first floated it.

As far a UWF goes, I don’t think the ASUN should shy away just because they are D2. You have to consider why they are currently D2–they are a young and growing school. I’d take a young program on the rise over a declining institution any time.

(07-08-2021 01:11 PM)Fighting Muskie Wrote:  Has the ASUN totally abandoned the idea of splitting in two somewhere down the road?

I don't think they have. It's just been back-burnered for now.

From a priorities standpoint, it really does fall behind getting enough schools to qualify for an autobid for football, and from an NCAA regulatory standpoint, it'd be much easier creating a "new" conference from schools with a history of playing in the same conference together than from a ragtag bunch of schools breaking away from multiple other conferences.

I have a feeling we'll start hearing a lot more about a potential split by about 2024 or so. Nothing from an official source before then. (Just a hunch. No inside info.)

The whole of college football is undergoing fundamental and structural changes. Who know or can know what it will look like in the coming years. What is fbs p5 g5 is up in the air and only time will tell whether you even want fbs.

(07-08-2021 01:11 PM)Fighting Muskie Wrote:  Has the ASUN totally abandoned the idea of splitting in two somewhere down the road?

It was a truly revolutionary idea when they first floated it.

As far a UWF goes, I don’t think the ASUN should shy away just because they are D2. You have to consider why they are currently D2–they are a young and growing school. I’d take a young program on the rise over a declining institution any time.

I can't remember the details, but I thought I remembered reading that some move a school made rendered this moot from a numbers standpoint (as in keeping together two groups that had enough members that had been playing together for long enough).

I definitely wouldn't hold my breath on that one.

(07-12-2021 12:41 PM)eku05 Wrote:  

(07-08-2021 01:11 PM)Fighting Muskie Wrote:  Has the ASUN totally abandoned the idea of splitting in two somewhere down the road?

It was a truly revolutionary idea when they first floated it.

As far a UWF goes, I don’t think the ASUN should shy away just because they are D2. You have to consider why they are currently D2–they are a young and growing school. I’d take a young program on the rise over a declining institution any time.

I can't remember the details, but I thought I remembered reading that some move a school made rendered this moot from a numbers standpoint (as in keeping together two groups that had enough members that had been playing together for long enough).

I definitely wouldn't hold my breath on that one.

Monmouth's departure killed that in the form it was presented.

I don't see the point in breaking into two conferences. We can't even fill one conference.

(07-13-2021 09:12 PM)GE and MTS Wrote:  I don't see the point in breaking into two conferences. We can't even fill one conference.

This.

(07-12-2021 01:37 PM)EKUSteve Wrote:  

(07-12-2021 12:41 PM)eku05 Wrote:  

(07-08-2021 01:11 PM)Fighting Muskie Wrote:  Has the ASUN totally abandoned the idea of splitting in two somewhere down the road?

It was a truly revolutionary idea when they first floated it.

As far a UWF goes, I don’t think the ASUN should shy away just because they are D2. You have to consider why they are currently D2–they are a young and growing school. I’d take a young program on the rise over a declining institution any time.

I can't remember the details, but I thought I remembered reading that some move a school made rendered this moot from a numbers standpoint (as in keeping together two groups that had enough members that had been playing together for long enough).

I definitely wouldn't hold my breath on that one.

Monmouth's departure killed that in the form it was presented.

Do you mean NJIT? Monmouth left the NEC for the MAAC (Big South for Football)

(07-14-2021 08:13 AM)Cruhawk Wrote:  

(07-12-2021 01:37 PM)EKUSteve Wrote:  

(07-12-2021 12:41 PM)eku05 Wrote:  

(07-08-2021 01:11 PM)Fighting Muskie Wrote:  Has the ASUN totally abandoned the idea of splitting in two somewhere down the road?

It was a truly revolutionary idea when they first floated it.

As far a UWF goes, I don’t think the ASUN should shy away just because they are D2. You have to consider why they are currently D2–they are a young and growing school. I’d take a young program on the rise over a declining institution any time.

I can't remember the details, but I thought I remembered reading that some move a school made rendered this moot from a numbers standpoint (as in keeping together two groups that had enough members that had been playing together for long enough).

I definitely wouldn't hold my breath on that one.

Monmouth's departure killed that in the form it was presented.

Do you mean NJIT? Monmouth left the NEC for the MAAC (Big South for Football)

Yes

With rumor that McNeese would entertain the idea of the WAC, the ASUN should pitch them and SLU for membership quickly, IMO.

Am add of McNeese, SLU, and Austin Peay hampers both the SLC and OVC and makes the ASUN "that" much stronger then either. Plus, that autobid to the FCS playoffs.

(07-20-2021 01:38 PM)Yosef Himself Wrote:  With rumor that McNeese would entertain the idea of the WAC, the ASUN should pitch them and SLU for membership quickly, IMO.

Am add of McNeese, SLU, and Austin Peay hampers both the SLC and OVC and makes the ASUN "that" much stronger then either. Plus, that autobid to the FCS playoffs.

I’d be for it. I think of McNeese like I do Murray St.

In what way are McNeese and Murray similar other than blue/gold color schemes? Murray would not be a good fit here unless they just dropped scholarship football. McNeese would be great save for making us even a little more spread out.

And here I thought the ASun picking their #6 football school would be the catalyst for all the 2021-2022 expansion talk

Interesting stuff from Matt Brown, who I believe posts pretty often on this site...

https://www.extrapointsmb.com/what-im-he...-the-asun/

The gist is, Austin Peay may not be in play as much as we think, but McNeese State could be.

(07-30-2021 08:12 AM)UNAfied Wrote:  Interesting stuff from Matt Brown, who I believe posts pretty often on this site...

https://www.extrapointsmb.com/what-im-he...-the-asun/

The gist is, Austin Peay may not be in play as much as we think, but McNeese State could be.

What other conference could Peay be looking at? The only other "fit" I see for them would be the SoCon, and I don't believe they're looking at expansion at the moment (though things certainly can change).

There's the Missouri Valley or the Summit... but those seem even less likely. Geographically, the MVC wouldn't be so bad, but both it and the Summit are non-football. Peay would have to find a football league willing to take them, and as good as the Govs have been of late, I don't believe they'd want any part of the MVFC. (And I'm not sure the MVFC would want them, either.) Besides, the MVFC is already big for FCS at 11 members. Why would they want to go to 12?

The Southland may have contacted them, but that's not a good fit at all. It would only make sense if the Southland and OVC plan some sort of merger. And while this may be on the table, it wouldn't exactly be a "new" conference for Peay. They'd just stay in the OVC and merge with them.

If I were in a position of leadership in Clarksville, I'd consider my options as 1) Remaining in the OVC or 2) moving to the ASUN. Geographically, it's a much tougher decision than it was for JSU and EKU. It would boil down to Peay's ultimate goals and athletic philosophy, and what they know (behind closed doors) about the OVC's future.

As for McNeese... while I'd fully support them in the ASUN, I know their fan base would rather follow their traditional rivals to the WAC. But if the WAC's not taking their calls, they'd probably be happy to join us, as long as it got em out of the Southland.

No mention of Southeastern Louisiana? As vocal as some of their fan base have been about re-joining their old Gulf South Conference mates in the ASUN, I'd have to think they're at least in the discussion.

We'll take McNeese and SLU. Nicholls and NWSU can go to the OVC.

(07-30-2021 09:44 AM)whupemall Wrote:  

(07-30-2021 08:12 AM)UNAfied Wrote:  Interesting stuff from Matt Brown, who I believe posts pretty often on this site...

https://www.extrapointsmb.com/what-im-he...-the-asun/

The gist is, Austin Peay may not be in play as much as we think, but McNeese State could be.

What other conference could Peay be looking at? The only other "fit" I see for them would be the SoCon, and I don't believe they're looking at expansion at the moment (though things certainly can change).

There's the Missouri Valley or the Summit... but those seem even less likely. Geographically, the MVC wouldn't be so bad, but both it and the Summit are non-football. Peay would have to find a football league willing to take them, and as good as the Govs have been of late, I don't believe they'd want any part of the MVFC. (And I'm not sure the MVFC would want them, either.) Besides, the MVFC is already big for FCS at 11 members. Why would they want to go to 12?

The Southland may have contacted them, but that's not a good fit at all. It would only make sense if the Southland and OVC plan some sort of merger. And while this may be on the table, it wouldn't exactly be a "new" conference for Peay. They'd just stay in the OVC and merge with them.

If I were in a position of leadership in Clarksville, I'd consider my options as 1) Remaining in the OVC or 2) moving to the ASUN. Geographically, it's a much tougher decision than it was for JSU and EKU. It would boil down to Peay's ultimate goals and athletic philosophy, and what they know (behind closed doors) about the OVC's future.

As for McNeese... while I'd fully support them in the ASUN, I know their fan base would rather follow their traditional rivals to the WAC. But if the WAC's not taking their calls, they'd probably be happy to join us, as long as it got em out of the Southland.

No mention of Southeastern Louisiana? As vocal as some of their fan base have been about re-joining their old Gulf South Conference mates in the ASUN, I'd have to think they're at least in the discussion.

We'll take McNeese and SLU. Nicholls and NWSU can go to the OVC.

On Austin Peay, that part definitely surprised me. The SoCon makes the most sense, but why would the SoCon even be looking at expansion? Maybe it's a proactive move. Adding APU, assuming that they continue to be a solid program and not the Peay of the past, would help them fight back against the image that their football stock has went down after the departures of Appy State and Georgia Southern. I could see Chattanooga, and possibly ETSU and Western Carolina as well, encouraging that as a good-faith move, especially if Chattanooga (and maybe the other 2?) has closed the door on leaving for the ASUN.

I think it at least makes sense for the Southland to reach out to APU. Does it make sense for Peay to leave a still-stable OVC to go to the Southland, which even with adding them would still be in a less than ideal situation? Probably not. Not unless at least one other current FCS team would tag along. If they can convince APU to come and ALSO convince West Florida to move up... then maybe you have something?

Personally I think the ASUN - assuming Chattanooga is definitely out as a possibility - should extend invitations to APU, McNeese, and SLU, and take whoever accepts. The Louisiana schools may have their problems, but they have decent football reputations and don't hurt the conference, IMO. I guess the only hurdle would be Central Arkansas. If they left due in part to anything having to do with the LA schools... they might need some convincing.