I completed understand the sentiment that you all are sharing. I remember being at college gameday in 2016 when we beat JMU and it was an awesome experience. I am in complete agreement that I want us to have the mentality of athletics and academics working synergistically with one another as evident by numerous other schools who use athletics to leverage and boost their school profile.

I will say though that in fairness to our athletic department, we aren't a JMU when it comes to school profile. We do not have the resources, infrastructure, money to be an FBS school. Even if we did join FBS, for every JMU success stories there are plenty more of the UMass's of the world that the football is on a sinking ship and its dragging down all of its athletics department. In today's day-and-age of college football, the divide is becoming even more apparent between the haves and have-nots. Not only would we need money for a lot more scholarships, coaching salaries, facilities, but even the higher NIL to keep up with the Jones's is too much. All for what? To be in Conference USA and hope we finish 6-6 and make it to the Cheez-itz bowl? I don't know how many others feel this way, but I do not want to hurt all of our other sports for the sake of chasing an FBS pipe dream.

This leads me to the next point. Just because we aren't throwing everything we have at football, doesn't mean we aren't dedicated to the athletic success on this campus. I can't find the newsletter for it, but didn't we have 10 out of our 19 teams either finish 1st or 2nd this year in the A10 conference? We also had 5 championships this year (WBall regular season + tournament, MBall regular season, Football regular season, WLax tournament) which is the most since the mid 2000s. The reality is we don't have infinite amount of money/resources and we have to pick and choose our battles. I think many people would rather strive for national success in basketball first and foremost, and also have success with sports like lacrosse or baseball than put all our eggs in the football basket like UMass has.

I agree though that the timing of the move of Patriot League was not good, nor was the reason we gave to be near other teams geographically where our alumni reside. I do think CAA is unstable and will likely break apart at some point, and whether teams like W&M and Villanova come to the Patriot League, time will tell. Also, I wouldn't say it has hurt our recruiting so far. Look at the other offers of high school recruits who have committed here. They have been very solid and comparable to years past. We even have a verbal commitment from a recruit who had P5 offers from Tennessee at one point. The goal is to make deep runs in the NCAA tournament. The conference affiliation is a means to that end.

spiderstudent17 said:

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thanks.
we list Robinson at 6'6" and McGlothin at 6'8" ... yet Robinson looks substantially bigger than McGlothin. if Roche is 6'5", I'll give McGlothin 6'6" and Robinson 6'7" along with Dusan. AP and D'Entremont at 6'8".

whatever GW3 likes ... but 40 doesn't look right to me on a guard! that's a number for Beagle.

and we've got some ugly team shoes. look like solid black sneakers with red galoshes.

97spiderfan said:

All I know is that 10-15 years ago, we were right there with JMU and others as the cream of the crop of FCS football. Now look at JMU, they are playing big boy ball and succeeding at a level that must make every fan, alumni and supporter of those programs beam with pride. Every JMU fan I know is on cloud fricking nine. Games are sold out, they were ranked in FBS last year, just went to UNC and whipped their asses.

And here we are moving to the effing Patriot League to play games against Bucknell and Georgetown every year. Teams that were warm up games, that we would blow out by 50, 10 years ago, now we will be in dogfights with. Our nice stadium is practically empty on most games day, interest in our program continues to fall year after year.

And if NOVA and William & Mary come to the Patriot League than MAYBE things won't be a complete cluster*****, but that is big if. You would think if we were going to make that move, we would have made it together with the, but it is just us making the move. Right now, we are going right where Bill Cooper wanted us to take us before the alumni rose up and drove him out. And now, they've broken us down this program down to the point, where their is put no point to even fight this. Just resignation from alumni at this point. It's been a slow bleed to get us here, but here we are.

Anyone who has any confidence in what our athletic department is taking our program needs to have their heads examined. It sickens me to think we were peers with JMU as little as 10 years ago and seeing where are respective programs are now and the directions they are both trending couldn't be more opposite.

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I agree with most of what you state here. The reality is Richmond just doesn't fit the profile of a FBS football school so your comparison to JMU is a bit unfair. I'm not so sure at the rate that the power schools are pulling away in this pay for play era that they will be able to keep up either. Richmond just isn't going to put athletics over academics. I wish that Richmond would learn that leveraging athletics success could build the overall Richmond brand. Athletics and academics can coexistence and complement each other.
I read somewhere the other day that VCU just passed JMU academically. Fricin VCU.

All I know is that 10-15 years ago, we were right there with JMU and others as the cream of the crop of FCS football. Now look at JMU, they are playing big boy ball and succeeding at a level that must make every fan, alumni and supporter of those programs beam with pride. Every JMU fan I know is on cloud fricking nine. Games are sold out, they were ranked in FBS last year, just went to UNC and whipped their asses.

And here we are moving to the effing Patriot League to play games against Bucknell and Georgetown every year. Teams that were warm up games, that we would blow out by 50, 10 years ago, now we will be in dogfights with. Our nice stadium is practically empty on most games day, interest in our program continues to fall year after year.

And if NOVA and William & Mary come to the Patriot League than MAYBE things won't be a complete cluster*****, but that is big if. You would think if we were going to make that move, we would have made it together with the, but it is just us making the move. Right now, we are going right where Bill Cooper wanted us to take us before the alumni rose up and drove him out. And now, they've broken us down this program down to the point, where their is put no point to even fight this. Just resignation from alumni at this point. It's been a slow bleed to get us here, but here we are.

Anyone who has any confidence in what our athletic department is taking our program needs to have their heads examined. It sickens me to think we were peers with JMU as little as 10 years ago and seeing where are respective programs are now and the directions they are both trending couldn't be more opposite.

*mostly all smiles

brooklyn brownstone said:

Of note from the team picture last week, it seemed that AP was taller than Nescovic by an inch. So Nescovic likely closer to 6'7"?

Spiders have pretty good size balance IMO, though I do wish we had at least one 6'4" guard skills guy like Dji to help on other teams' taller scoring guards.

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would love to see the team picture. can you link it please?

Hope he is a bigger version of Tristen. Love the program loyalty.

Love it!

South Carolina State 45, North Carolina A&T 25
Box Score

Justin Fomby passed for 205 yards and three touchdowns, but North Carolina A&T (1-4, 0-1 CAA) dropped a 45-25 decision at South Carolina State.

The game was tied 10-10 at the half as Andrew Brown kicked a 30-yard field goal and Fomby hit Ger-Cari Caldwell with a 26-yard TD pass. A 29-yard scoring strike from Fomby to Anthony Rucker put A&T on top, 17-10, early in the third quarter, but SCSU reeled off 28 unanswered points. Cameren Dalrymple rushed for 93 yards on 11 carries for the Aggies.

Elon had a nice game day experience yesterday as usual. It was Family Weekend but lots of events going on all around stadium with a lot of excitement for a 1-3 team. Marching band and large dance team was impressive as usual. Their stadium definitely is a better football venue as many have pointed out due to no track. I also like their seating arrangement of a large home side to accommodate the majority of the alumni, home fans and students and then a smaller visiting side to take care of any overflow of fans. I think we lose a lot of our home field atmosphere with our fans split on two sides. That being said we are still the better program and team and that is what matters most.

Any harm to any US citizen by someone who is not legally entitled to be in the country is a failure of our government, regardless of party.

Right now, folks ain't coming bc of the track. (Delaware State had a track too.)

Let's do better. This team deserves it. Invite friends. Bring the grandkids. Lets get attendance support going.

List of top 100 recruits for class of 2026 and their commitments thus far:


UR Commits:

Looks like Richmond has gotten a verbal commitment from Michael Marino, a defender from NJ, who is ranked 4 stars and 81st in the class of 2026. I believe this is the 2nd top 100 commit we’ve had next to Ryan Lanchbury who had a stellar career here. Great job staff!

Wood Hall said:

Did they open their eyes when they were there and see they didn't have a track?

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Can't answer that question as I was not on the committee. The only stadium that they visited that had a track I believe was Villanova. I agree with you that the track should have been moved.

Solid game yesterday in most areas. Converted some short yardage situations and failed on a couple. First and goal inside the eight and settled for FG in first half and failed to convert on two 4th quarter third and less than two yards to maintain possession. Offense otherwise played well with some creative play calling. Drive to end first half and opening drive of second half were excellent. I continue to be impressed with the depth of quality talent on this roster. Our 5th DE, RFreshman, Hodges played great and will only get better. We were much the better team yesterday. We do have an issue with injuries mounting but hope to get most back from yesterday for Deleware in three weeks. Hopefully we can take care of business next week early in game and get our starters off the field.