RE: Gumbart Announces Retirement
Everyone is welcome to his own opinion, of course, but as for me, even if the CUSA invite hadn't come Jax State's way, I'd STILL be ecstatic that we'd left the OVC behind.
Stable or not, any football conference with KSU, EKU, Peay, UNA, and UCA is light years better than one featuring UTM, EIU, SEMO, TTU, TSU, and freaking Lindenwood. And that doesn't even factor in OLY sports, where the ASUN holds a huge advantage, especially with Murray and Belmont gone to greener pastures.
Over in the Southland, I do like McNeese and SELA, but that conference pales in comparison to ASUN football, and the Southland can't begin to hold the ASUN's water when it comes to OLY sports.
As for the SoCon, yeah, it's a solid and stable conference, but -- speaking purely from Jax State's perspective -- I don't like the geographical and cultural fit over there, especially with App State and Ga So gone. Samford's right down the road from us, but that rivalry never gained traction despite playing each other regularly for over a decade and even being conference mates in the OVC for 5 of those years. I don't think privates like Mercer, Wofford, and Furman would be any different. Western Carolina would be a cool rival for JSU's band, but athletically, there's not much there to fan the flames of a rivalry. ETSU is a bit too far from Jacksonville to build a strong rivalry against, to say nothing of VMI and The Citadel. That pretty much leaves UTC as the only real rival there, and we can hate them plenty without sharing a conference with them.
(In case anyone out there didn't notice, I think rivalries are important.)
EKU's mileage may vary, of course. The SoCon would be a decent geographical fit for the Colonels, with UTC, ETSU, and WCU all about 4-4.5 hours away. Not great, but much better than some of your alternatives.
That said, I'd much rather see you guys join us in CUSA.
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