mainejeff

Yeah, both schools should be a bit concerned......especially Cincinnati IMO. I have had a hard time placing them in any scenario which breaks up Big East Football (which is looking more likely by the day). I think that Louisville's best shot is the ACC. I actually placed Cincinnati in the SEC, which though highly unlikely.....may be their best shot!

It's taking me longer than expected to figure out the A-10/CAA/AE/NEC mess........

mainejeff

This article provides even more support for my predicted scenarios.........

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/201...l?xid=FanHouse

Crazy days ahead........

UNH_Alum_In_CT

Some primary hopes if the explosion does occur:

• Football becomes an organizing factor in the fallout re-alignment.
• Schools like JMU, Delaware, UMass, Old Dominion, etc. make a decision they can and will live with for 20-30 years.
• The Patriot League makes a freaking decision on football scholarships so their members can make a decision.
• If 64 teams segregated themselves into super conferences to control the $$$$$$ and schools like Villanova and Georgetown are excluded because they don't have FBS football, would they align themselves on school mission, academic standards, like-minded schools and football levels? (Is it just me or don't they look like Patriot League schools who've sold their soul for the $$$$$ of basketball.)
• Would UMass, Richmond and URI chose their alignment on factors other than the level of basketball? UMass will most likely have to join a league with potentially worse geography than today's A-10. For example, aligned in some conference with Temple, Buffalo, Youngstown State, Akron, Kent, Ohio U., etc. or with Temple, JMU, and other southeastern schools. IMO, URI won't be able to tag along because they aren't willing/able to make the football commitment. Would that bring them to re-evaluate? Align with Maine, UNH, Albany and Stony Brook or with NEC schools because they prefer reduced scholarship football or drop football all together and go with schools that concentrate on hoop (see league three below).

It makes your head spin!! And unfortunately it's difficult to predict what is going to happen until the Big Ten shows their cards. I mean if they add one to get to 12 and are content with a football league championship game, then things fall differently than if they go for 16. All hell breaks loose with the latter scenario.

Personally, I think JMU wants to be in an association of large, growing Southeastern public institutions. With 68 teams in the Dance, there's room for another AQ, so I could see them aligning with Old Dominion, East Carolina, App State, GA Southern, GA State, Jacksonville State and Marshall in a new league. Delaware would need to decide if they want to be part of that or remain "Northeastern-Mid Atlantic" and be true to their academic standards. Personally, I don't think Delaware wants to be part of that group with JMU. UMass will want to go where Temple goes, but can they fund that?

The Patriot decision is important because it determines what Fordham, Holy Cross and maybe even Colgate do. For example, if the PL decides against scholarships, could a new association become Maine, UNH, Holy Cross, Albany, Colgate, Stony Brook, Fordham, Delaware, Towson and maybe William & Mary because of football? (N.B. -- The SoCon might be more inviting to W&M if App and GaSoU have moved on.)

Even if the Patriot remains intact, you could throw the AE and CAA into a mixer and re-align with football in mind. There are two AQs for basketball, maybe even have different alignments for other sports. Or you could see how even three divisions could shake out:

The following is a work in progress, but it is an effort to organize around more commonality than today. Please don't shoot the messenger since I admit that I've probably neglected a school. And that there are so many variables it is impossible to align every school appropriately.

League One: JMU, Liberty, Old Dominion, East Carolina, Charlotte, App State, GA Southern, GA State, Jacksonville State and Marshall (UMass, Temple and/or Buffalo????)

League Two: Maine, UNH, Albany, Stony Brook, Delaware, Towson, William & Mary (UMass and URI would fit right in here if they could live with it for basketball, alas they can't and will be associates for football). Do you go after 1-3 more football schools for all sport membership and to ease the travel for W&M (from Richmond, Monmouth, Delaware State, Morgan State, Norfolk State, Hampton, etc.)? Or do you go after three non football members of the AE to get to ten all sports members and live with football affiliates? Or some combination of football and non football schools.

When I was playing around with this when AGS had a perfect conference thread, I came up with some proposals, but never quite finished it because it is so friggin complicated! Especially when you organize with football AND basketball in mind.

League Three: BU, NU, Hartford, Hofstra, Rider, Drexel, George Washington, George Mason, VA Commonwealth, UMBC, Binghamton, Vermont

Parochial One (New Big East): St. Joseph’s, La Salle, Providence, Georgetown (Patriot football), St. John’s, Seton Hall, Siena, Villanova (Patriot football), Canisius, Niagara

Parochial Two (New MAAC): Loyola (MD), Mt. St. Mary’s (MD), Fairfield, Sacred Heart, Iona, Manhattan, St. Francis (NY), St. Peter’s, St. Bonaventure, *Marist

Patriot: *American (no football), Bucknell, Colgate, Duquesne, Fordham, Holy Cross, Lafayette, Lehigh, Monmouth, Army (FBS Football), Navy (FBS Football), *Villanova (football only)

NEC: Central CT, Quinnipiac, Bryant, Wagner, Farleigh Dickinson, Long Island, Robert Morris, St. Francis (PA)

SoCon: Charleston Southern, The Citadel, Davidson, Elon, Furman, Garner-Webb, Presbyterian, Samford, VMI, Western Carolina, Wofford
(Richmond and William & Mary ????????)

"Midwest Urban": Dayton, Xavier, Marquette, DePaul, Detroit-Mercy, Bradley, Butler, Evansville, Saint Louis

Kingfish019

Standing O to UNH Alum, that's a hellacious amount of work and thought there. If the Big Ten adds just one, I agree this is all moot. Ideally for them, it's Notre Dame, but I doubt that happens. Say it's Pitt or Rutgers that goes, and the Big East will just pick someone like Memphis to fill that spot, simple enough

Also, speaking out of ignorance here, but I know that Villanova won the I-AA championship this year in football. Any chance they'd maybe want to upgrade to D-I to make themselves a more attractive candidate?

Redwyn

William and Mary won't sever all its rivalries with other VA schools to be in a conference with SBU and Delaware.

I believe the schools are likely to split on demographics, since that's where their monetary trajectory will send them.

Thus, using the members of your model I see SBU in a league with other large, primary football institutions like Old Dominion, Charlotte, JMU, Ga State, U Mass, Temple, Delaware, and Buffalo (throw in Villanova as an affiliate to preserve their rivalry with Delaware and you're at 10 members. If you want 12 add in William & Mary and Richmond to lock down the VA market even further, though they don't match the demographic). This would be a very high end FCS league that could go FBS over the next decade or two as a group since -
1. Football is their #1 investment
2. Budgets (particularly football investments) already surpass many FBS schools
3. School population is 25K+ and stadiums are all expandable to the "official" FBS minimum (Stony Brook's can expand to ~20K if opposite sideline, corners, and end zone filled. That was the goal of the initial stadium design)
4. Endowments are all on an upward trajectory
5. You need a conference invite to move up, which means it's likely that the only way these schools can make that move would be if they latched onto an expansion as a block. Pile of issues around that, but with Temple and Buffalo as existing members it's not unrealistic to see the MAC expand or CUSA split to bring in these schools. You'd have the NYS upstate, NYC, Philly, MD/DC/VA, and NC Charlotte markets covered, giving you a chunk of marketing change.

For the record
1. While you're correct that Albany and Rhode Island (Towson might too? I know URI does but don't know of Towson's arrangement with the CAA) have reduced scholarships, SBU, UNH, U Mass, Maine, and Villanova all are at full rides. No possibility of Villanova entering the Patriot league for football. They'd affiliate with the group of larger schools.

mainejeff

Good stuff UNH_Alum! What will we do in the off-season once the dust finally settles?

Here's my predicted scenario for America East (I'm sure that many of you will disagree).......

First off........Boston U. is gone (somewhere). They really have no choice.......they have very little in common with the rest of the league members, have a brand new area to fill, and need to grow their revenue sources......that ain't happening in AE. I still think that they have a good shot at the new "Big East" basketball only set-up (a conference that would include Providence, Georgetown, St. John's and Villanova).

That leaves AE at 8 members.......I think that the league attempts to grow to 12.

Here is my predicted full-conference members......and the reasons why I see these new members joining:

Maine
UNH
Vermont
UMass
URI
Hartford

Albany
Binghamton
Stony Brook
Delaware
Towson
UMBC

It would have made more sense to do AE membership after analyzing the A-10 break-up and CAA break-up but here goes:

UMass - If the Big Ten goes to 16 members, UMass is left out in the cold due to the resulting domino effect:

Xavier, Dayton, GW & St. Joe's (BE Basketball), Fordham & Richmond (Patriot.....more on this later), (St. Louis (Valley) & Charlotte (new unnamed FBS Football.....more on this later too) will all be gone from the A-10.

That leaves:

UMass
URI
St. Bonaventure
Duquesne
LaSalle
Temple

Not only bare minimum for a conference, but also a very unattractive membership (for UMass) excluding URI and Temple. There is NOTHING to build upon here IF this scenario happened.

Next we must move onto the CAA to see why UMass will not be looking in that direction.......

I predict that the CAA will lose the following members:

ODU (ACC....I know, a very BIG stretch at this point.....or unnamed FBS Conference.....not so much of a stretch), JMU & Georgia State (unnamed FBS Conference), W&M (Patriot.....more on this later), and UNCW (Southern based basketball only conference).

That leaves the CAA with:

Northeastern (basketball)
Hofstra (basketball)
Drexel (basketball)
Delaware (football)
Towson (football)
George Mason (basketball)
VCU (basketball)

As you can see......only 2 public football schools remain. Both Delaware and Towson will be locked out of every conference expansion scenario that involves football. The same can be said for UMass......I just don't see them anywhere else unless they upgrade to FBS Football......and even then, they are NOT going to be invited to join the BCS Conferences. I don't see them upgrading to join the MAC which offers very little financial return and would be black hole for their Olympic Sports.

Now on to.......

URI - This is the easiest call IMO. They just don't have the resources that UConn or UMass does to make the needed investment to keep up with everyone else. There will be no other options available other than AE. I think that they will be a great fit in the league, and should enjoy great success and build some great new rivalries once the A-10 blues subside.



More on everyone else later.........

Redwyn

http://www.boston.com/sports/college..._dame_not.html

From the Boston Globe. Notre Dame not joining the Big 10, haven't been in consideration for a bit.

In addition, Villanova doesn't have the attendance, interest, money, or standing to move to FBS. They're a basketball institution first, a football one second. So long as that relationship holds (and think St. John's or Georgetown if you want examples of schools similar in demographic and outlook), football will be in FCS.

mainejeff

If that is true then it looks even more likely that a chunk (4?) of the Big East football schools will be leaving for the Big Ten.......and even more dire for the A-10 and CAA.

That would adjust my scenario by one school......and have a resulting domino affect:

Big Ten to 16 teams:

Syracuse
Rutgers
Penn State
Pitt
Ohio State
Michigan
Michigan State
Indiana

Notre Dame
Northwestern
Purdue
Illinois
Wisconsin
Minnesota
Iowa
Missouri

Looks like UConn (ACC?), West Virgina (SEC?), and even *gulp*, Texas(!) come into play!

The Notre Dame news is probably a wash for BU aspirations as yes, this might push the new Big East Basketball set-up to an all-Catholic league.......or it may make BU even more attractive as it would provide market penetration for the Irish into heavily Catholic Boston.

mainejeff

And how funny would it be if UConn makes it into the Big Ten while BC dangles in the tobacco laced winds of the ACC?!?

Watch for a massive meltdown of pinheads up on the Hill if that happens!

UNH_Alum_In_CT

No doubt if the Big Ten goes to 16 and expands more to the East than West, then the Big East football conference is toast. If the Big 12 gets poached as well, then you can see C-USA splitting/imploding into a new SW Conference for B12 leftovers and C-USA west schools as well as a C-USA East leftover which could add Cincy, Louisville, ODU, JMU, etc.

What is clear that some schools will have to make difficult decisions and some schools will have decisions made for them. Schools that appear to have fallout they won't like are URI, West Virginia, Villanova, Georgetown, etc.

I figured the Big East would implode over football and that fallout would be significant. This Big Ten to 16 stuff has fallout that is mind boggling!!!!!

UNH_Alum_In_CT

Oh, I think NUHF would organize a tailgate to watch that meltdown!!!!

UNH_Alum_In_CT

I agree about the demographics and the monetary trajectory stuff, that's why I aligned JMU, ODU and the other large, public Southeastern schools. I have no idea how the final grouping will evolve because Youngstown State is kind of in limbo because the MAC won't accept them. Buffalo, Temple and UMass could easily fit within this group which I alluded to. But no way does either W&M or Richmond project to this type of group. Richmond is opening a brand new football stadium with a 9K capacity! They were forced by the city of Richmond to that capacity. W&M's stadium probably could be expanded, but it sits right on the edge of the colonial district of Williamsburg -- a significant expansion isn't happening. Plus, neither school is remotely close to 25K students.

People always said JMU would never leave their VA rivals, but with the school growing and their desire to continue to expand their football stadium, they have to move away from those VA rivals to grow their football program. William & Mary will have choices, a Patriot League with football scholarships (they almost joined at the inception of the Patriot); a SoCon with small privates, high quality academic schools with a couple of small publics; a public-private combo of FCS Football schools or alignment with the AE-CAA football schools remaining.

I didn't include Stony Brook with the group of larger publics because I figured they would be so geographically isolated and frankly I forgot about their grandiose aspirations. From the many discussions I've had with Delaware alums, I just don't see them aligning with the group I mentioned. But if you came up with a North Division of UMass, SBU, Buffalo, Temple, Delaware and say JMU or Youngstown State, then maybe it happens. The bottom line I see is that those schools better to be ready to make that decision when the explosion occurs. I'm not sure Buffalo isn't happier with the Midwest schools. I'm not sure UMass can pull the trigger and raise the funds. I'm not sure Delaware is ready to go that route -- they did approve a modest expansion of their stadium rather than a brand new one. Can Stony Brook fund the stadium expansion without much state assistance? Is Stony Brook ready to jump on board if the closest league mate is James Madison?

I just see that if the CAA split into two or three leagues, you'd have the group of Southeastern schools ready to align without the issues outlined about. You'd have built in OOC games with the old rivals. And you'd have your block to meet the NCAA regs. (Not sure they won't be blown asunder if the B10-16 explosion occurs.) Shoot, this new league could end up being the best home for West Virginia who probably wouldn't get invited to either the ACC nor the B10-16.

Going to be an interesting 12-18 months!!!!

UAalum72

Only five for football in the NEC, with Monmouth in the PL; CCSU also possible for full-ride FB?; possibly Marist football to the NEC rather than the MUC or PFL?

__________________
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. " - B. Franklin

UVM Hoop Cat

League Three: BU, NU, Hartford, Hofstra, Rider, Drexel, George Washington, George Mason, VA Commonwealth, UMBC, Binghamton, Vermont

This would be a fun hoops league.

__________________
"Let's win this game for all the small schools that never had a chance to get here"
- Hoosiers,
& UVM mens basketball NCAA's 2005

Redwyn

Marist isn't leaving the PFL. Albany is a member of the NEC, so there's its 6th. CCSU is rumored to be interested in going higher, but it won't happen while it's an all sports NEC member.