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Spider football to the Patriot League in 2025

Very emotional dude. It's FCS football. Chill
If we hadn’t really had any success then I’d agree with you. Once again we have won a national title and have a bunch of conference titles, playoff appearances and playoff success in the last 2 decades. You don’t make this move if you’re a program that has had the level of success we’ve had.
 
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Too bad we couldn't just create a league that looks something like:
UR
W&M
Villanova
Wofford
Citadel
Elon
Furman
Lafayette
Lehigh
Fordham
Towson
Anyone know if it is true that we canceled plans for a football conference with Villanova, Delaware, VMI, JMU, W&M, UR, Furman and The Citadel, so we could move to the A10? Back in 2000…
 
If we hadn’t really had any success then I’d agree with you. Once again we have won a national title and have a bunch of conference titles, playoff appearances and playoff success in the last 2 decades. You don’t make this move if you’re a program that has had the level of success we’ve had.
All true. But the good CAA teams have already left. This conference is a shell of it''s old self. Let's see what Villanova does! Who cares about western Carolina does or ut chatt or wofford. Furman only school we've had with a past. Hell, the good teams from the Southern conference have moved on well. We aren't going FBS. Never happen
 
I agree with this.

Not a popular move right now - I get it - but we might be among the "winners" in this shakeup, if there are any.

The CAA as it currently stands is a bad league with worse leadership.
Mo, you’re handling this well. I will follow your lead. So what are your drinking?
 
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All true. But the good CAA teams have already left. This conference is a shell of it''s old self. Let's see what Villanova does! Who cares about western Carolina does or ut chatt or wofford. Furman only school we've had with a past. Hell, the good teams from the Southern conference have moved on well. We aren't going FBS. Never happen
Ok and all those programs you named are still far better than anyone in the patriot league. I’m just guessing here but I think there’s a pretty good chance that since 2005 when we really took off that we have more playoff wins than the entire patriot league does in that time. Patriot also is a regular one bid league while the SoCon gets 3-4 in a year. It’s not even close to the level we need to be at.
 
So you don’t care about trying to win titles? That’s what it’s about at the end of the day. Have to just think of you as a loser if you don’t care about trying to win.
Think what you want.

We will win plenty of Patriot League titles. We will win plenty of Patriot League games. We will have a better chance of winning in the Patriot League than we did winning the CAA because we will be competing apples-to-apples with our conference competitors.

That's not true now, given the financial and admission advantages the public schools in the CAA have over us. It certainly wasn't true when ODU, JMU and Delaware were in the league.

If your only measure of success is winning FCS national titles, if "that's what it's about at the end of the day," then you are almost, almost always going to be disappointed; in fact, you'd be disappointed with every single year in the 100+ season history of Spider football, except for one.

Contrary to your belief, college athletics is about far, far more than winning titles.

And the fact "we have plenty of money" does not mean we should spend it foolishly. Part of the reason we have "plenty of money" is we don't spend it foolishly.
 
Think what you want.

We will win plenty of Patriot League titles. We will win plenty of Patriot League games. We will have a better chance of winning in the Patriot League because we will be competing apples-to-apples with our conference competitors. That's not true now, given the financial and admission advantages the public schools in the CAA have over us.

If your only measure of success is winning FCS national titles, if "that's what it's about at the end of the day," then you are almost, almost always going to be disappointed; in fact, you'd be disappointed with every single year of Spider football, except for one. Contrary to your belief, college athletics is about far, far more than winning titles.
You do know we’ve won a national title right? And also been a few plays away from winning at least one more. Even in 2016 there’s a good chance that if the roster didn’t fall apart due to injuries that we win one that year. You’re acting like we can’t compete at the level we’re at when we quite literally were one of the best programs in our conference over the last 2 decades. By my count only jmu has more league titles than us in that span. We actually had more success when the CAA was even tougher than it is now so to say that we can’t win in at this level unless we drop down to the patriot league means you’re a moron. Also I doubt we win Anything in the patriot league because now that we’re in it we’re just gonna use that as an excuse to take football even less seriously.
 
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Gonna need to up our spelling and grammar game in the Patriot.

Screenshot-2024-05-14-at-3-50-18-PM.jpg
 
Pros: Leaving the CAA and that dufus commissioner. The CAA we are leaving is not the same as the one in 2005.

Cons: Leaving W&M and Villanova, affiliating North vs. South which is harder travel for locally based fans and SoCon is arguably the better conference.

TBD: A lot (What is Nova doing? Will we abide by their redshirt rules?)

I believe they allow non med redshirts now. But they do have an Academic Index that affects recruiting but idk if much different than our own standards. I know little about it their rules fwiw I'm just going by a few comments of Pat League posters over on AGS when I glanced at reactions over there.
 
CAA turned into a bummer! Socon didnot fit our profile.
Overall, Patriot league is a good decision and better than Socon. Hoping Villanova will join and possibly W&M.
  • 63 scholarships
  • Academics
  • Travel
  • Majority students & alumni from NE
  • Must win to bring fans back
  • Espn+
  • Recruiting still has great facilities, best geographic location and academically the U of R diploma!
  • Stepping stone to NFL or pro football doesn't change
 
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On Sagarin, SoCon was actually rated only slightly higher than Patriot last year, but SoCon clearly gets more respect...four ranked teams and three playoff participants last year compared to only Lafayette out of the Patriot.

Sagarin Ratings last year:

CAA (19th - 47.14)
93. Villanova
116. Albany
142. Delaware (leaving)
145. UNH
167. Elon
168. UR
171. W&M
172. Bryant (incoming)
174. Monmouth
177. URI
190. Towson
196. Campbell
208. Maine
228. Hampton
230. NC A&T
243. Stony Brook

Patriot (22nd - 42.91)
135. Holy Cross
154. Lafayette
188. Fordham
198. Colgate
207. Georgetown
219. Bucknell
229. Lehigh

SoCon (21st - 44.33)
130. Furman
159. Western Carolina
161. Chattanooga
166. Mercer
181. Samford
209. VMI
221. Wofford
232. ETSU
252. Citadel

So based on this we would be 3rd in the Patriot in ratings and in the middle of the pack in the SoCon.

Based on Playoff Bids in 2024:
MVFC - 6
Big Sky - 4
CAA - 4
SoCon - 3
The other 6 conferences competing - 1 each

Of course Delaware has one of the bids and we had another, so that's 2 leaving from the CAA. I don't see how the CAA can keep getting multi-bids the direction the conference is taking.

Hoping Nova comes over to Patriot and maybe the Patriot can get more than one bid.
 
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I believe they allow non med redshirts now. But they do have an Academic Index that affects recruiting but idk if much different than our own standards. I know little about it their rules fwiw I'm just going by a few comments of Pat League posters over on AGS when I glanced at reactions over there.
Are redshirts permanent or was that only for duration of Covid. I don’t know and we will see.
If no redshirts, that does make it difficult.
 
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This is about money. The NIL requirements for the Patriot League are much lower than the CAA. This is designed to cut the monetary support for football at UR. Richmond will never get top flight quality players in football- like Tim Hightower, Kyle Lauletta, Reece Udinsky, Jacob Herres or Shawn Barber.
 
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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.
 
The four AE schools plus URI could be a decent group, but they need a few more. Merrimack and Sacred Heart are currently homeless for football as they transition from NEC to MAAC for their primary affiliation, but NEC had a max of 45 'ships for football, so those two would have to step up if they wanted to join the AE/URI group.

Villanova and W&M seem to be what's holding things together at this point. If they too explore other options, the CAA will be in bad shape. It would feel like a missed opportunity for us if W&M ends up going to the SoCon, but if Villanova went Patriot that would be a decent consolation prize. Villanova has been the subject of FBS rumors seemingly forever though, so I wonder if there will be any renewed momentum for that.
Does WM even have an option to leave for football only?
 
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.
W&M won't be going FBS without a bigger stadium. Zable seats 13,000 tops.
 
As I said on one of the other discussions, I'm not sure how I feel about this medium and long term. Short term it might be a convenient placeholder while we wait to see how the FCS landscape shakes out. And at least initially, we should be able to win quite a few games, so the first few years we might actually have a better W-L record. After that, we'll see.
 
How many players will we lose off this roster? How many NFL players have come out of the Patriot League?
 
Is there a way to get a refund on season’s tickets? I don’t want to pay to watch a high school conference.
I'm sure the ticket office would refund your money if you asked them.

BTW, the "high school conference" you'll be watching this year is the CAA. Unless you paid a year in advance for your 2025 season tickets.
 
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I'm sure the ticket office would refund your money if you asked them.

BTW, the "high school conference" you'll be watching this year is the CAA. Unless you paid a year in advance for your 2025 season tickets.
Patriot is the high school conference. How many playoff wins and national titles do they have? Even if you take just us, unh, William and Mary, nova, and Elon it’s a far better league. Hell even if it’s just us as a program we have accomplished far more than the entire patriot league combined.
 
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Patriot is the high school conference. How many playoff wins and national titles do they have? Even if you take just us, unh, William and Mary, nova, and Elon it’s a far better league. Hell even if it’s just us as a program we have accomplished far more than the entire patriot league combined.
Reading comprehension is a wonderful thing. Perhaps you should read the post I quoted again.
 
On Sagarin, SoCon was actually rated only slightly higher than Patriot last year, but SoCon clearly gets more respect...four ranked teams and three playoff participants last year compared to only Lafayette out of the Patriot.

Sagarin Ratings last year:

CAA (19th - 47.14)
93. Villanova
116. Albany
142. Delaware (leaving)
145. UNH
167. Elon
168. UR
171. W&M
172. Bryant (incoming)
174. Monmouth
177. URI
190. Towson
196. Campbell
208. Maine
228. Hampton
230. NC A&T
243. Stony Brook

Patriot (22nd - 42.91)
135. Holy Cross
154. Lafayette
188. Fordham
198. Colgate
207. Georgetown
219. Bucknell
229. Lehigh

SoCon (21st - 44.33)
130. Furman
159. Western Carolina
161. Chattanooga
166. Mercer
181. Samford
209. VMI
221. Wofford
232. ETSU
252. Citadel
So, remove UR and Delaware from the CAA and put UR in the Patriot League and they essentially are even-steven.
 
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