A number of schools have small private planes for athletic recruiting and other small-group travel, but I don't think the economics work to own a large plane, even if you're flying teams a lot. Purchase, ownership, and operation costs rise significantly for those types of aircraft. Those planes need to be in the air most of the time to be cost-effective, and I don't see any way the need is there. Plus you have vastly different sized squads. You're not going to pay fuel and other costs to fly a 180-seat plane somewhere to transport the 6-person tennis team and a few coaches/staff (extreme example I know, but it even applies to larger teams where you might transporting ~40 people).

NFL teams with all their billions in value (other than the Patriots to my knowledge) just charter planes instead of owning. The Patriots-owned planes are operated by a third-party charter company that charters them out for other purposes in the offseason.

brooklyn brownstone said:

and that includes a conference win vs the only NCAA lock team. Two bad OOC losses and zero great OOC wins negated all hopes.

Cannot rely on the A10 based on the past 5 years of data. Either you get all the good wins or suffer losses that really hurt. Not enough volume of great games bc of a lack of top tier teams that are all upside to play.

Click to expand...

But, we were only 16-6 thru 22 games last year. Even with a much worse OOC schedule, 19-3 would put us in much better shape this year.

SFspidur said:

Maybe you can drop it to 2 games each and then four of the five teams match up for third games that aren't technically part of the MTE and the fifth team is left hanging for a game.

Click to expand...

not sure how you could justify the "four of the five teams match up for third games that aren't technically part of the MTE" as not being part of the MTE ... especially if you are holding it at the same E.

GKiller said:

Correct, it doesn't work. However....1. MTE rules are made by the NCAA and they continually don't adhere to any more rules. 2. Have u heard about my boys at Florida Southwestern State College!!

Click to expand...

alright, you have pumped them up so much I had to go check things out for myself. Looks like they do have those dates available!!

brooklyn brownstone said:

and how would that technically stay within the bounds of the MTE structure, and not be considered an entirely differently scheduled game altogether? (which wouldn't be allowed bc teams are already at their non-MTE limit.)

Clown show.

Click to expand...

It absolutely would be an entirely different game., but it's permitted. Right now we're using the 28+3-game MTE limit. This would just be using the 29+2-game MTE limit. Either way you get 31.

SFspidur said:

I could be wrong, but I assume most sports (basketball and football excluded) fly commercial, not private, even at the P4 level. Between getting to and from the airport, security/check-in, and making connections, those cross-country flying trips end up being way longer than a 5-hour door-to-door bus ride where you can at least nap pretty much the whole way.

Click to expand...

This is correct- but I did hear that when these West Coast schools made the move to the ACC and Big Ten conferences, that they did commit to their non-revenue sports the ability to travel private for a select number of games. So yes - not all of the games like basketball and football will travel, but they will get a limited access to private flights.

I assume these schools now that fly private just charter/rent a flight each time. With all this travel - would it be better for them to just purchase their own private plane(s) to be held by the school? Or lease a plane or two with a major airline carrier (Delta, JetBlue, etc) and in return - in the NIL world we live in, have their programs market for these companies to help offset some of the costs.

SFspidur said:

No idea what Rocco is getting at with "a mix of games."

The MTE rules definite pretty tightly how these things can be set up, and unless there's something creative that I've overlooked, a 5-team MTE playing 3 games each simply doesn't work.

Maybe you can drop it to 2 games each and then four of the five teams match up for third games that aren't technically part of the MTE and the fifth team is left hanging for a game. Even that would be messy because you can't do all of that in just 3 days I don't think, so then you're either adding another day onto the event (either starting on Sunday or playing on Thanksgiving) or finding schedule gaps and just playing those extra games completely separately.

Click to expand...

Correct, it doesn't work. However....1. MTE rules are made by the NCAA and they continually don't adhere to any more rules. 2. Have u heard about my boys at Florida Southwestern State College!!

SFspidur said:

No idea what Rocco is getting at with "a mix of games."

The MTE rules definite pretty tightly how these things can be set up, and unless there's something creative that I've overlooked, a 5-team MTE playing 3 games each simply doesn't work.

Maybe you can drop it to 2 games each and then four of the five teams match up for third games that aren't technically part of the MTE and the fifth team is left hanging for a game. Even that would be messy because you can't do all of that in just 3 days I don't think, so then you're either adding another day onto the event (either starting on Sunday or playing on Thanksgiving) or finding schedule gaps and just playing those extra games completely separately.

Click to expand...

and how would that technically stay within the bounds of the MTE structure, and not be considered an entirely differently scheduled game altogether? (which wouldn't be allowed bc teams are already at their non-MTE limit.)

Clown show.

and that includes a conference win vs the only NCAA lock team. Two bad OOC losses and zero great OOC wins negated all hopes.

Cannot rely on the A10 based on the past 5 years of data. Either you get all the good wins or suffer losses that really hurt. Not enough volume of great games bc of a lack of top tier teams that are all upside to play.

ok, I'm just saying it's not necessarily the hardship for student athletes that some make it out to be.
traveling for sports is always tough. time demands for student athletes isn't easy. but they do it. and some are serious students as well as athletes.

VT4700 said:

Our conference is way better than JMU's. They had no chance to get quality conference wins. We do.

Click to expand...

it is better but we had 15 league wins last year & didn't help us.

No idea what Rocco is getting at with "a mix of games."

The MTE rules definite pretty tightly how these things can be set up, and unless there's something creative that I've overlooked, a 5-team MTE playing 3 games each simply doesn't work.

Maybe you can drop it to 2 games each and then four of the five teams match up for third games that aren't technically part of the MTE and the fifth team is left hanging for a game. Even that would be messy because you can't do all of that in just 3 days I don't think, so then you're either adding another day onto the event (either starting on Sunday or playing on Thanksgiving) or finding schedule gaps and just playing those extra games completely separately.

I could be wrong, but I assume most sports (basketball and football excluded) fly commercial, not private, even at the P4 level. Between getting to and from the airport, security/check-in, and making connections, those cross-country flying trips end up being way longer than a 5-hour door-to-door bus ride where you can at least nap pretty much the whole way.

97spiderfan said:

See JMU last year. Ranked early, zero chance of at large. And they had a W at Michigan State on their resume. We are going to have to win the Auburn game to have legit bubble chances.

Click to expand...

Our conference is way better than JMU's. They had no chance to get quality conference wins. We do.

GKiller said:

Saw this.

"Event has five team commitments, meaning a mix of games needed." Yep we're all wondering how that mix will be sorted out.

Login to view embedded media

Click to expand...

Winner stays, loser walks

I’ll be shocked if we don’t have any q4 a10 games

some schools bus 5 hours to games. Stanford will fly 5 hours. not as big a deal as it seems excluding costs ... which don't matter to the high majors.

The travel for schools like Cal and Stanford is just another sign that this is not college sports. This is minor leagues, and probably in some cases - better than the minor leagues. We all know AA and even AAA baseball teams don't travel as well as some of these college programs. Granted - minor league systems are usually set up regionally to a degree, but even with that - they have some long bus trips that I think many colleges even turn into flights these days.

A10 should be stronger this year. Unfortunately for teams like JMU in conferences like CAA, it takes essentially perfection to be considered for at-large given how much the conference schedule likely weighs down the metrics. For fun, I took the average between Kenpom and Tovrik (used from Atlantic10Stats) rating for our conference games this year and used that as a pseudo-NET to see how teams may line up. Definitely not an exact way of doing this, but one way to look at it and discuss before official NET rankings come out several weeks after the season starts. Corresponding NET quadrant is in parenthesis.

Login to view embedded media
GW - 137 (Q3)
@ UMass - 119 (Q2)
@ George Mason - 92 (Q2)
Rhode Island - 134 (Q3)
@ Bonnies - 129 (Q2)
SLU - 107 (Q3)
Davidson - 146 (Q3)
@ GW - 137 (Q3)
@ VCU - 47 (Q1)
Duquesne - 128 (Q3)
@ Davidson - 146 (Q3)
Loyola - 85 (Q3)
Fordham - 153 (Q3)
@ La Salle - 166 (Q3)
@ SJU - 84 (Q2)
VCU - 47 (Q2)
@ Dayton - 49 (Q1)
George Mason - 92 (Q3)

Q1 - 2
Q2 - 5
Q3 - 11
Q4 - 0

Ideally some games like SLU and Loyola at home and away games at Davidson and/or George Washington would be Q2. If we could end up with 9-10 Q1-Q2 opportunities during conference play with no Q4 games, that would be excellent. Last year we only had 6 Q1-Q2 games in regular season conference play and 2 Q4 games. The tough part is we will like have at best 2 Q1-Q2 opportunities in OOC play (@Auburn, and maybe @Charlotte or neutral game in Gulf Coast if it happens). Whereas last year we had 5 Q1-Q2 games OOC.

Saw this.

"Event has five team commitments, meaning a mix of games needed." Yep we're all wondering how that mix will be sorted out.

Login to view embedded media

The dreaded doomsday clock has entered the 30's 🫣

brooklyn brownstone said:

19-3 could be a ranking or get votes, but a closer look at our schedule would make any bubble talk vanish.

Click to expand...

See JMU last year. Ranked early, zero chance of at large. And they had a W at Michigan State on their resume. We are going to have to win the Auburn game to have legit bubble chances.

urfan1 said:

Clinton may have lost a step or two but he still runs laps around Trump.

Click to expand...

I would vote for Bill Clinton, if we could have Newt Gingrich.