Future of East Coast FCS Football

[Ferrum Spider]

Anyone want to share their thoughts on the state of it?

The losses of App St, JMU, Coastal Carolina, GA Southern, ODU, UMASS, (And now Delaware) has really left a competitive void for east coast FCS football to where its viewed as a level below the top tiers of FCS football. The CAA clearly isn't respected along with the Patriot League. As much as I detest leaving the CAA for the PL, it is now a weaker conference with our exit and should make the Patriot League stronger assuming we can keep up the current standards of the program up and running. With the Ivy league potentially adding a FCS playoff berth, hopefully that will help swing the pendulum a bit, but I worry about it weakening the appeal of the Patriot League. What's the future of the CAA? Do some of the America East schools break off and form their own conference?

What's annoying to me is that as of this week there were 3 full A10 members with ranked FCS football programs as of this week, and somehow we couldn't come together with the other CAA affiliate members like ranked Villanova and ranked New Hampshire to start our own conference.

 

[Wood Hall]

Doesn't appear the touted "CAA brand" carried much weight with the Selection Committee if the league champion can't even get a bye and then gets shipped off to Idaho if it wins.

After all the crap that has been said about the Patriot League, we better beat Lehigh.

 

[Gallipoli]

Doesn't appear the touted "CAA brand" carried much weight with the Selection Committee if the league champion can't even get a bye and then gets shipped off to Idaho if it wins.

After all the crap that has been said about the Patriot League, we better beat Lehigh.

The CAA is like the Rodney Dangerfield of FCS football- we don't get no respect. We should join the MVFC.

 

[seattlespider]

At a minimum we should be scheduling one MVFC team every year moving forward.

 

[DTSpider]

Our OOC scheduling hasn’t exactly set the world on fire and the CAA schedule the past couple of years hasn’t done us any favors. But we’ve known for a long time that Hardt cares more about easy Ws and making the postseason than about potentially winning titles. The loss against Wofford cost us the seed and we knew at the time it could be a costly loss. Time to get to work and win some games. If we can run the ball and control the line on defense, we have a shot to make some big noise.

 

[ViennaSpider]

Doesn't appear the touted "CAA brand" carried much weight with the Selection Committee if the league champion can't even get a bye and then gets shipped off to Idaho if it wins.

After all the crap that has been said about the Patriot League, we better beat Lehigh.

Don't take Lehigh lightly. They beat us back in 1998 by a single point, 24-23, in a first round playoff game at City Stadium.

 

[Gallipoli]

The Future of East Coast FCS Football runs through Richmond. Enough said.

 

[SpiderRick]

7 of the 8 top seeds are west of the Mississippi
Gone are the days when the CAA dominated at the national level when 6 DIFFERENT schools won National Championships over maybe 18 years.

 

[SpiderRick]

7 of the 8 top seeds are west of the Mississippi
Gone are the days when the CAA dominated at the national level when 6 DIFFERENT schools won National Championships over maybe 18 years.

Correction 5 different schools, Madison twice.

 

[KE Spider]

Big Sky and MVC have distinct advantages. Talented player in that area, wants to play within a reasonable distance of home, there are few BCS options. In contrast, same kid on East Coast has multiple BCS options. They are playing with a talent level hard to match in the East.

To compound matters, the CAA decided to become a bloated tick rather than sticking with what brought them respect. Given our SOS, totally out of our control of course, disappointed, but not surprised, Spiders were not a top 8 seed. Should be a wake up call to our CAA Commissioner (soon to be our former Commissioner. GOOD!). Too late though, the error has already been made.

1-0 is the right team mantra. That said, believe as a fan our Spiders have excellent chance of winning next two.

Go Spiders!

 

[SFspidur]

Have to admit I don’t know much about Idaho, and always hard to tell with limited crossover east and west, but they did well in a tough conference and had no bad losses. Stomped an Albany team that was ranked at the time but which ultimately didn’t have a good season. Only lost to the #1 FBS team in the country by 10, so they certainly look solid.

 

[KE Spider]

Definitely solid, but believe beatable. Talking about a 8 v 9.

 

[JSLA_Spider]

Albany beat Idaho last year

 

[urmite]

Trying to remember if Idaho came back to FCS from FBS…

 

[SFspidur]

Trying to remember if Idaho came back to FCS from FBS…

Yes, they moved up to FBS in 1996 and back to FCS in 2018 after struggling for a few years as an FBS independent once the WAC had to stop sponsoring football due to many of its members moving up to the Mountain West.

 

[urmite]

Yes, they moved up to FBS in 1996 and back to FCS in 2018 after struggling for a few years as an FBS independent once the WAC had to stop sponsoring football due to many of its members moving up to the Mountain West.

2018? Completely lost track of years since Covid…