72Spider said:

The Spider Gang page on Facebook

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Went looking and could not find, can you cut and paste here? Thanks.

mojo-spider said:

Agree the impact on recruiting at the level necessary to compete for an FCS Championship is my biggest worry about this change.

Prior to the decision my impression of the Patriot League was like that of most, weak and usually non competitive outside of the conference. Then I looked at last season. The PL was just lower than the Southern in the final conference rankings. That’s not historically where it’s been, but it seems to be on the uptick. We’ll make it stronger.

Someone posted the conference ratings for 2023 in the other PL thread.

No doubt the PL will be a tougher close for our recruiters.

Go Spiders!

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Holy Cross had Matthew Sluka at QB last year that ran it for 1200+ yards and threw it for 1700+ more with 20 TD vs 5 INT. He has left I think as a transfer to UNLV.
They actually lost to Layfette and did not win AQ due to head up tie breaker, and they were left out of playoffs and some of their fans think Spiders got that spot due to being tri-champion. Sluka ended up as a 3rd team All-American. Two of their other three loses were FBS Boston College and Army, both by 3 and the final one was Harvard by 10. So, in reality they were 7-2 vs FCS and did not get selected. I fear Spider playoff chances with one FCS slip in the new conference, even though I do agree Spiders make it better, but at large invites will be a challenge.

Patriot league is definitely the academic fit that the administration is looking for, but I feel that it is more likely that football would be dropped than for all sports to move to the Patriot league. One would think the A10 has staying power because it does not have to pander to football interests and UR has been crafting it to be its athletics foundation (ie establishment of lacrosse).

ViennaSpider said:

W&M won't be going FBS without a bigger stadium. Zable seats 13,000 tops.

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Stadium requirement was scrapped.

Mo 2.0 said:

I've been heavily medicated ever since.

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Please share.

whampas said:

If Richmond is smart, they become the bell cow and drive the other schools to keep up and strengthen the league. The CAA is very steadily headed in the wrong direction and the PL just got stronger. All it would take is for Nova and WM to leave and that would be the end of the CAA. It would not surprise me to see WM go FBS in the footsteps of JMU, ODU and Liberty. It's just going to keep changing. This could be an okay stopping off place.

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W&M won't be going FBS without a bigger stadium. Zable seats 13,000 tops.

AnnapSpider said:

I must admit I don’t remember what your avatar was, but I appreciate your acceptance that there was a possibility it could be seen as racist.
Thank you for being a stand-up person.

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Similar I believe

Mo 2.0 said:

Do you think staying in the CAA at it's current state and twiddling our thumbs as it continues to erode would show 'seriousness' about our football? I don't.

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Current CAA is better than the patriot league and it’s not even close. So yes I would have stayed there until either we left for the SoCon, or started a new league with nova, William and Mary, Towson, Elon, those type of schools.

urfan1 said:

link?

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The Spider Gang page on Facebook

Mo 2.0 said:

Do you think staying in the CAA at it's current state and twiddling our thumbs as it continues to erode would show 'seriousness' about our football? I don't.

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So true!

localspider said:

Annap thought my avatar was racist, so much so I changed it. (a stuffed fanatic doll from the UR bookstore) Believe me he will never stop until you change.

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I must admit I don’t remember what your avatar was, but I appreciate your acceptance that there was a possibility it could be seen as racist.
Thank you for being a stand-up person.

urfan1 said:

link?

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Maybe they do, maybe they don’t. They are the Big East, that won’t change for football. Therefore they don’t move up as some on here or Facebook have said. I think a good chance they follow us

712LLC said:

I doubt we end up being good in the patriot after the first few years. We’ll have enough talent early on but after recruiting inevitably drops off and with that support of football we’ll be toast. This is the excuse the administration needs to completely push football off to the side and neglect it. I’ve heard people say that level of investment won’t change but I have a hard time believing that. If anything I expect us to eventually not offer scholarships or at least cut the amount of them in half. You don’t make this move if you’re actually serious about football.

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Do you think staying in the CAA at it's current state and twiddling our thumbs as it continues to erode would show 'seriousness' about our football? I don't.

72Spider said:

PQ said on another venue that he expects Villanova to join the Patriot.

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link?

The more I think about it, the more I think this was a good move. The Patriot is far more stable than the CAA or the SoCon. Quite an awkward mix of public and private schools in the SoCon too. The difference between the CAA and the Patriot has narrowed substantially since JMU went FBS and since the Patriot loosened a few of their rules.

We made the first move here. My prediction -- Villanova follows soon. In a year or two, William and Mary moves all sports to the Patriot. The CAA will become untenable for them.

GKiller said:

Thought so too but not if they stay CAA they aren’t. I think they’ve had a perpetual invite to Patriot & haven’t done it. Idk about Southern but I suspect it will be more strongly considered by the league & WM now. I kinda doubt they r long for the CAA think Patriot or Southern more likely but we’ll see they’ve stuck it out so far.

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They’d be a better fit all sports. Alumni would hate it for a while but Academically, they don’t fit the CAA or the Southern Conference

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Didn't listen to it yet.

bullfrog91 said:

Delaware-gone,richmond-gone, Nova will leave as they're big east for everything else ...not as bad of a move as many will see ..CAA is a sinking ship

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PQ said on another venue that he expects Villanova to join the Patriot.

SpiderAlways said:

I thought William & Mary was an academic institution

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Thought so too but not if they stay CAA they aren’t. I think they’ve had a perpetual invite to Patriot & haven’t done it. Idk about Southern but I suspect it will be more strongly considered by the league & WM now. I kinda doubt they r long for the CAA think Patriot or Southern more likely but we’ll see they’ve stuck it out so far.

localspider said:

Annap thought my avatar was racist, so much so I changed it. (a stuffed fanatic doll from the UR bookstore) Believe me he will never stop until you change.

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So it wasn’t a Golliwogg?

Defensively, Hunt and Tyne are really, really good. Offensively, it might be that White and Washington are the better play. Or mix and match accordingly.

urmite said:

I’m not certain the Golda Meir quotes were both from the same time.
I also wonder if the groups and the situations were at all different from 1948-1966, the time she was active, from today.

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They were.

Spider B said:

If I'm W/M, I'm making a hard push to get in the SoCon for all sports.

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Seriously, they don’t consider themselves an Elite Academic Institution anymore?