If we are going to leave the CAA we should go to the SoCon if anything. They would gladly take us.
Monmouth U to CAA?
- Thread starter Jwilk2
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Well, certainly nothing is forever, so I suppose the CAA might dissolve at some point. Since JMU has no good options for FBS at this point, such a scenario is not imminent.
Just for fun, who would you put in this new conference, and who at UR should be formulating this?
UR, the Indians, the citadel, furman, UD, nova, Fordham, WCU, mercer, Chaz south, Samford, and Jax Sate, or EKU.
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Colgate,Lehigh,Fordham,UNH,Nova,UR,Maine,WM,UTC,Wofford,EL Cid,YSU,JAX State
Hale anoints PQ to begin stealth talks with potentials in conjunction with Nova,
Do we play basketball with these folks also? Most all of them have all sports arrangements and certainly wouldn't be joining the A10 for hoops.
If JMU, Delaware, and Nova leave and Monmouth, Duquesne, and Central Connecticut join, will it still work?
Everything in this thread are things to plan for, but not much to act on...now.
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Maybe UVA would want to join CAA football if JMU leaves. They could be competitive in a few years. 
Oh for the Glory Days of The Big Five in our Beloved Commonwealth!
VT UVA UR W&M VMI
At one time it was the Big Six when W&L was included.
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In football we have The Big Four FBS
VT UVA ODU
Meanwhile the Dillweeds of JMU have their noses against the window watching the FBS party in our Commonwealth!
Let 'em watch and weep! I think it is wonderful!
VT UVA ODU
Meanwhile the Dillweeds of JMU have their noses against the window watching the FBS party in our Commonwealth!
Let 'em watch and weep! I think it is wonderful!
Nothing has changed since Cooper - the Patriot League would be a giant step backward.
True, but add Villanova, W&M and UR and things change.... a lot!
It means they want us. Would not be a downgrade if W&M and Villanova went with us; rather it would be a major upgrade for both PL and us.
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I hate status quotas. Allow absolutely no room for improvement.
The PL will never be an upgrade. Most of the teams in it are barely d1 teams. Remember how bad Georgetown was when we used to play them? Lehigh got smacked out of the playoffs last year by a CAA team that wasn't even that good. Then Holy Cross, Lafayette, bucknell, really? Colgate and Fordham are okay at best but not worth us leaving where we are. We don't have any natural rivalry with those schools either. If jmu leaves the CAA will be fine because UD will be pretty good by then and so will we. The league could be even better if we add a few teams. We want to be in the best league to help us qualify for the playoffs and prepare us for the Playoffs. That league will never be the PL.
Yes, but not nearly enough. I have feelers out for other conferences hoping that I can obtain a higher fee. The Southern, Big South and Pioneer are all considering a proposal I just sent them. The Ivy wanted my services, but they low-balled me worse than the PL.
I consider you a true Sage, even though you appear not to have positive views towards Baptists and General Spidey!
FRS
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I can't see Georgetown sticking around the PL if UR, Nova and W&M bolt to the PL. In a way, that would benefit the PL as a whole. They could hook up with the Pioneer (Davidson, Dayton, Butler are members) who don't award scholarships.
I'd be way more concerned if we hooked up with our A-10 brethren in the Pioneer than going to the PL, who would benefit by our presence (as long as Nova & W&M join us).
I'd be way more concerned if we hooked up with our A-10 brethren in the Pioneer than going to the PL, who would benefit by our presence (as long as Nova & W&M join us).
I agree with you 32. I think the top FCS programs in the CAA and Southern Conference should
bolt and start a new conference with the goal to maintain the number 1 ranking FCS Conference.
with all the rumors, speculation and movement, would be prudent for UR to have a plan in place should certain things take place. first things first, hire an excellent person to be in charge of athletics and have them get a committee looking at what is out there and what might be a fit. working with some of our close schools so that we could make a move in unison with them. you don't exclude conferences in this process, any of them might work for us and other members.
Who other than Wofford and maybe Chattanooga is worth joining up with from the SoCon? Please don't say The Citadel because aside from the last 2 years, they had like 3 winning seasons in the between 1995 and 2015. They've got a long way to go before they're a long standing winning team.
Furman, Jax State and EKU from the ovc. Possibly mercer. The citadel I think is gonna be pretty good. Charleston Southern would be a good addition too.
I think I fully acknowledge, understand and grasp the importance of our current brand, the need to maintain and/or elevate it, and our need to anticipate changes beyond our control both within and outside our current conference affiliation. And I am "all in" for taking the steps which may be necessary to augment both our status and any enlargement of it. To be clear, I would oppose any move which I considered even a threat to our current status.
Where we disagree is the path we should choose to preserve what we have established and further enhance it. In this regard, the PL makes much more sense to me in terms of accomplishing this goal than a future association within the CAA with those schools you find attractive. The PL, with some minor modifications to their scholarship limitation rule and by allowing redshirting, with the addition UR, W&M, and NOVA would increase the status and success of all involved by a conference affiliation for football. I am not sure that such an affiliation should now be pursued, but we should plan for our options should a need to make such a change become more clearly evident.
I try to think in terms of the potential impact of a new synergism rather in terms of maintaining a status quo, especially when both the power and prestige of the status quo are evaporating.
In Cooper's time, joining the PL would have been a mistake and I opposed it vigorously, despite the potential for a large increase in academic prestige by association which, I admit, I find appealing. However, the PL (and the CAA) have changed (and continue to change), and with the addition of UR, W&M, and NOVA, the PL could take over the historical power slot of the CAA while increasing the attendant benefits of a closer association with schools more accurately reflecting our academic vision.
Believe me, I would not sacrifice for an instant a de-emphasis of the current status and potential for continued national success of our football program for the benefit of any intangible, including academic prestige. However, I think that by following the path that you suggest, we are merely associating with other schools which have academic and educational visions disparate from ours and many of which, especially the public ones, will ultimately pursue the reclassification goals of ODU, JMU, Charlotte, etc., and leave us yet again in the same situation and dilemma that we now or will soon find ourselves.
I'll have to disagree. The PL will always be an inferior league. Teams like Georgetown, bucknell, Lafayette and in most years Lehigh will never be anywhere close to even the worst teams in the CAA. Fordham and Colgate are really at best middle of the pack teams in the CAA and even if we added us and the Indians and nova it still wouldn't be a better option than the SoCon. William and Mary isn't leaving the CAA for the patriot league, but they might go to the SoCon with us.
"Reasonable people may differ."
Though this conversation will long have departed our memory, if we live long enough we may see how things develop and it will be only in looking back that we can see with some degree of clarity how we might have predicted the future of events from where we then stand.
Change is inevitable, though not always compelling immediate attention, but it needs to be anticipated, and even though it always carries with it some degree of unpredictability, it should never be avoided out of fear based on an experience that the status quo is acceptable because it provided an acceptable level of comfort and therefore needs to be maintained, even in the face of the inevitable. One's perspective, to the extent that it impairs an ability to support a needed change based upon known factors, reasonably predictable events, and calculated risks, constitutes the greatest threat to continued success. That said, the passage of time and observations of events often provide one a better calculus upon which to make decisions when implementing needed changes.
So time will tell about how things shake out. I believe it to be in the best interests of our university that we make whatever decisions that need to be made in a timely manner, and that we calculate our risks based upon factors free of nostalgia, and that in the process of making our decisions we discard consideration of the need for maintenance of a status quo ante with postbellum partners.
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