From SBC board's Surbadger

No need for new conference rumors - this is pure celebration and next steps. The MECC is gonna be for real!! ...$2M payout doesnt hurt at all either... no more Flo..regional peers...OOC opps...national brand getting real

Effin great! Is there any realistic way this could have gpne better for the Dukes?

(10-24-2021 02:53 PM)bcp_jmu Wrote:  
From SBC board's Surbadger

No need for new conference rumors - this is pure celebration and next steps. The MECC is gonna be for real!! ...$2M payout doesnt hurt at all either... no more Flo..regional peers...OOC opps...national brand getting real

Effin great! Is there any realistic way this could have gpne better for the Dukes?

One thing that pumps me up is that since the conference is 14 teams, we only have to play 2 West teams a year… the 6 east games per year will be great

(10-24-2021 03:25 PM)jmu18 Wrote:  

(10-24-2021 02:53 PM)bcp_jmu Wrote:  
From SBC board's Surbadger

No need for new conference rumors - this is pure celebration and next steps. The MECC is gonna be for real!! ...$2M payout doesnt hurt at all either... no more Flo..regional peers...OOC opps...national brand getting real

Effin great! Is there any realistic way this could have gpne better for the Dukes?

One thing that pumps me up is that since the conference is 14 teams, we only have to play 2 West teams a year… the 6 east games per year will be great

Yep, figure one home and one away against the West each year. Looks like S AL, Monroe, Laffy and TX St all have airports that can be reached from SHD and/or Charlottesville.

Our football schedule just went from ick to freakin amazing.

SBC east teams will be great games each year. The only one that feels a little meh to me is Georgia St, mostly because they were not so great in FCS. And there still isn't a team we play this year I would take over them in terms of interest.

Even better ... we get to add OOC games that will likely include at least one P5 school, and the chance to play others like ECU, Temple and Navy.

Really hope we find a way to get UVA and VT regularly in the rotation also. If they ever agreed to a 2-1 deal, we will need the other side of BFS built out. I'm guessing P5 generally don't do home and home with G5, and thats a pipe dream.

(10-24-2021 03:40 PM)JMURocks Wrote:  Our football schedule just went from ick to freakin amazing.

It's funny to look at what this schedule is going to be like and think back to "a home schedule of Hampton, Buffalo, WKU, LaTech, FAU, Charlotte isn't moving the needle for most fans either!" type arguments. It's pretty amazing how well this ended up working out.

Also, that example is ODU's home schedule for this year. Yeah they have a great deal with VT coming up and have been getting a handful of really good home games since moving up, but overall it's not hard to see them being almost as excited as us in the upgrade our schedules are both getting.

Good info on the airports Bill... thanks!

ACC, SEC, BIG games coming up regularly..and we will certainly get some 2-1 with them, and 1-1 with a rash of G5s.... we will be down to one FCS game of our choice soon enough. I wouldn't mind seeing a regular rotation of CAA schools for that

And for all of it..knock on wood until announced officially

+ SBC will be marketing for us too..a notch up from Joey

Is the first football season 2023? Are we bowl eligible immediately?

What about other sports and now how does the CAA get to screw us until then?

The only thing that would make this better is to have ECU and Liberty with the Eastern schools in a single conference. But I'm not complaining this is awesome

(10-24-2021 04:13 PM)JMUDuke25 Wrote:  Is the first football season 2023? Are we bowl eligible immediately?

What about other sports and now how does the CAA get to screw us until then?

These things should get much clearer once an official announcement is made, but based on how it's gone for previous teams football is pretty clear. This season is normal except I guess maybe there's the possibility the CAA declares us ineligible to win the conference championship. Not much issue since an at large shouldn't be in any kind of doubt. Next year should either be a CAA schedule with no championship/playoffs or an FCS independent schedule with no playoffs. 2023 will be Sun Belt and based on previous move ups we should be ineligible for a bowl game, but I assume we'll see whether that's any different once we get the official announcement.

Other sports is much less clear until the official announcement comes. Going by previous moves as examples, you would expect JMU to play their CAA 2021-22 schedules but be ineligible for conference tournaments/championships/auto bids then play Sun Belt in 2022-23. This time around seems like it could be different though because of the timelines for teams above(and "above") us making their moves. Texas and Oklahoma aren't scheduled to join the SEC until July 1, 2025 but there's been plenty of talk and speculation that they could speed that up. BYU is set to join the Big 12 in 2023 while the other three join "no later than July 1, 2024" and there are plenty of reports those three could begin play in fall 2023. It's been reported that the AAC will add their new teams in 2023 but they haven't officially said even though they've officially announced the additions. Sun Belt has been reported as 2023, but only USM has officially applied and been invited. Even in unofficial reports, it's hard to find much that addresses non-football sports for any of this year's moves. Here is one link that talks about the possibility of BYU playing non-football sports in the Big 12 for 2022-23.

Sooo yeah a lot of it is very unclear at this point, especially for the AAC and Sun Belt whose official announcements are more recent or haven't come yet. Hopefully it doesn't take long to become more clear once an official announcement is made, and at that point it'll be much easier for Mettlen, Madia, and others to directly ask JMU about this and get a real answer. Also seems possible that we could even need CUSA to make their moves and set a timeline there before things become completely clear. Maybe they go forward with only five eligible for their basketball tournament and it gets more important for the teams leaving to speed things up, maybe the timeline of their additions makes them be more lenient for the teams leaving so that they're able to fill out their schedules/tournaments.

(10-24-2021 02:53 PM)bcp_jmu Wrote:  
From SBC board's Surbadger

No need for new conference rumors - this is pure celebration and next steps. The MECC is gonna be for real!! ...$2M payout doesnt hurt at all either... no more Flo..regional peers...OOC opps...national brand getting real

Effin great! Is there any realistic way this could have gpne better for the Dukes?

Personally, this is about as good as I could have hoped for. Playing with the schools I care the most about, who will also raise the level of our program. If I was still in VA I could see myself making the trip for a lot of away games.

(10-24-2021 03:40 PM)JMURocks Wrote:  Our football schedule just went from ick to freakin amazing.

SBC east teams will be great games each year. The only one that feels a little meh to me is Georgia St, mostly because they were not so great in FCS. And there still isn't a team we play this year I would take over them in terms of interest.

Even better ... we get to add OOC games that will likely include at least one P5 school, and the chance to play others like ECU, Temple and Navy.

Really hope we find a way to get UVA and VT regularly in the rotation also. If they ever agreed to a 2-1 deal, we will need the other side of BFS built out. I'm guessing P5 generally don't do home and home with G5, and thats a pipe dream.

I hope VT/UVA are not regional G5 booked out for 10 years. I think I have heard that ODU and Liberty have both schedule out several years.

VT played ODU in a stadium smaller than BFS now.

I can't imagine what BFS ticket demand would be like if the ticket say "Virginia Tech Hokies" on the stubs.

Somebody call Whit and ask for an alum favor

I’m excited for the unknown. Which 4 teams will JMU schedule OOC every year. That is the real prize for moving up to FBS.
Playing App and ODU and Marshall every year will be much better than CAA games.
Playing UVA, Va Tech, Maryland, UNC, NC State, Duke, Penn State, South Carolina etc multiple times every year is what will really excite our fanbase. Especially those who have been non supporters because we played “D II” football. Now al those people have lost their excuse to not support the program financially and in person.

Beating any of those P5 teams is what will explode our fanbase.

I see only a couple of Sun Belt teams play at least 2 P5 opponents each year. Seems less than ambitious. Also, less revenue from pay games than could be had.
Is there a conference scheduling strategy for OOC football ? I know some hoops conferences have scheduling policies to ensure the league is maximizing its power ratings for postseason eligibility.

(10-24-2021 05:55 PM)Hart Foundation Wrote:  I’m excited for the unknown. Which 4 teams will JMU schedule OOC every year. That is the real prize for moving up to FBS.
Playing App and ODU and Marshall every year will be much better than CAA games.
Playing UVA, Va Tech, Maryland, UNC, NC State, Duke, Penn State, South Carolina etc multiple times every year is what will really excite our fanbase. Especially those who have been non supporters because we played “D II” football. Now al those people have lost their excuse to not support the program financially and in person.

Beating any of those P5 teams is what will explode our fanbase.

I see only a couple of Sun Belt teams play at least 2 P5 opponents each year. Seems less than ambitious. Also, less revenue from pay games than could be had.
Is there a conference scheduling strategy for OOC football ? I know some hoops conferences have scheduling policies to ensure the league is maximizing its power ratings for postseason eligibility.

I think the formula for a G5 is:

1 FCS Home game (payday win)
1 to 2 G5 regional H&H games
1 to 2 P5 on 2:1 deals or an outright road payday game

Gives you 6 home games per season guaranteed

so what does next year look like? do we play a sunbelt schedule but are not eligible for the conference championship? I imagine we keep our ooc games next year and begin to reconfigure in 2023?

We play CAA next year...playoffs are out

I'm not celebrating til I see Alger in an inside out Sun Belt shirt.

(10-24-2021 06:12 PM)JMaddy Wrote:  

(10-24-2021 05:55 PM)Hart Foundation Wrote:  I’m excited for the unknown. Which 4 teams will JMU schedule OOC every year. That is the real prize for moving up to FBS.
Playing App and ODU and Marshall every year will be much better than CAA games.
Playing UVA, Va Tech, Maryland, UNC, NC State, Duke, Penn State, South Carolina etc multiple times every year is what will really excite our fanbase. Especially those who have been non supporters because we played “D II” football. Now al those people have lost their excuse to not support the program financially and in person.

Beating any of those P5 teams is what will explode our fanbase.

I see only a couple of Sun Belt teams play at least 2 P5 opponents each year. Seems less than ambitious. Also, less revenue from pay games than could be had.
Is there a conference scheduling strategy for OOC football ? I know some hoops conferences have scheduling policies to ensure the league is maximizing its power ratings for postseason eligibility.

I think the formula for a G5 is:

1 FCS Home game (payday win)
1 to 2 G5 regional H&H games
1 to 2 P5 on 2:1 deals or an outright road payday game

Gives you 6 home games per season guaranteed

In the 2 transition years where JMU isn’t eligible for postseason, I’d prefer to see 4 P5 teams.
1- we need the money
2- the record is irrelevant those 2 years. Bite off as much as we can chew
3- play those P5 on the road so they owe us a home game later once JMU is fully transitioned and is operating with 85 scholarships and all are filled with FBS quality players that are experienced.
4- once you get to host a P5, you can play 3 P5 teams in the same year by having one home FCS game.
5 - G5 games are nice, but only if regional. Like Navy, ECU, Liberty, maybe even Army. I don’t think anyone wants to see JMU playing a home and home with MAC schools like Eastern Michigan.

All good ideas! But we may find it tough to get extra P5 games as FCS next year...makes sense to get those and look at them as practice for 2023

I'm looking forward to seeing that conference logo on the field/court!

Originally I was wondering if there would be a conference name change, but I see zero reason to do that. The conference has a great reputation now and that's only going to get better.
CUSA on the other hand.....