(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.