In addition to other previous points mentioned: stability of PL, dilution/eventual destruction of CAA, and the hopes of Villanova/W&M joining, here are some other considerations. First, I will see I completely agree that the timing of going to PL was not the right one, but I have no inside information with the AD and don't know what considerations there were behind the scenes to make the move now as opposed to later. But I want to provide another hopefully more positive perspective pushing back on the notion that our entire football program is going to become irrelevant because of this move.
The first point is the kind of recruits UR has gotten have almost never been 3 or 4 star recruits. I don't mean this in a negative way, but expressing the reality of our situation and level of football program we are compared to the larger college football landscape. Unlike basketball where we are often recruiting against power programs for recruits and getting kids in the top 200 of their class in the entire country, football is a different story. We go for recruits who typically are under the radar and we see potential/develop them into the great football players they are. As far a I've been following UR for the past decades, a solid recruit (in terms of offers) is one who has offers from other CAA/Ivy programs and maybe schools like Army/Navy. As far as I am aware, the recruits in this upcoming class are just as good as they've ever been.
This leads me to my 2nd point. Why do recruits choose UR? Since we're not talking about recruiting players who have offers from Ohio State, what is important for them? I imagine our education, history of strong football success at this level, and even having players who are on active rosters of NFL teams today graduate here (Turner & Funderburk. Mustapha played at UR 1 year too). That hasn't changed with move to PL. Only thing is conference affiliation. Again, since the recruits we're going after likely don't have any significant FBS offers, how much of a difference will it make in their decision to play in the 10th best conference in division 1 vs. the 14th best conference? In other words, what's a more important recruiting pitch for recruits at our level: conference affiliation or winning conference championships and making deep NCAA runs? I don't see how PL automatically means we can't build and sustain a winning program. As an example, Gonzaga's reputation was not hurt by being in WCC relative to other top teams being in power conference. Different situation, but my point is conference affiliation is not a reason a program should be held back, especially at our level of FCS.
Also, we are ranked top 20/top 15 in the country depending on the poll and we've technically not played any ranked opponents this year (but I will count Delaware because they obviously would be ranked). So even though CAA has several ranked teams, we're not playing them (i.e. New Hampshire, Villanova, Rhode Island). It's still very realistic to be ranked in polls in PL if we don't play any ranked opponents, especially if we try and schedule 3-4 other top FCS teams (including W&M) every year in our out of conference schedule. Holy Cross was a top 8 seed to NCAA's a couple years ago.
In summary, conference affiliation for the kind of recruits UR goes after likely isn't the driving factor in their decision and we can continue to sell the things that make UR special (education, football pedigree, NFL players) and now can also add to our recruiting pitch coming here to win championships and make NCAA tournament every year. We can continue to play good teams out of conference to boost our strength of schedule and not see a drop in our rankings. Add this to the other established points that PL is more stable, the hope Villanova and/or W&M join, and the CAA is not as good as it was and is much more diluted/unstable/and potential to break-apart. Add smaller points that UR probably cared about such as affiliating with more like minded academic institutions, likely similar attendance from fans to UR games, not having as much of a say in CAA that is poorly run by AD, ESPN+ vs. FloSports, and I can see why they took a calculated risk to leave now. Whether this will prove to be a good decision or not, time will tell.
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