(04-19-2016 09:14 PM)JMaddy Wrote:  

(04-18-2016 06:10 PM)NJDuke97 Wrote:  

(04-18-2016 04:33 PM)olddawg Wrote:  Most of the AAC and Mountain West have the basic ingredients for a big time feel, even if they are classified as G5. They usually have been playing football for 100+ years and have an established alumni/booster base. Their facilities are pretty good. They draw decent crowds and do get some P5 teams to play at their stadiums. The latter likely is due to history if nothing else. Beating out them for a player would be something to crow about.

Now the rest of the G5 generally has warts. We can match or beat them for stadium/ facilities, game day experience and attendance. We might not have the history of all of these programs (which stretches into alumni/booster base), but recruits don't see that. Most play two P5 teams on the road. We usually play one too. We can compete for an FCS championship. Most of the "lesser 3" of the G5 is shooting for the Carmelia Bowl in Montgomery. Not sure how much that excites young recruits.

There's a lot of crossover in low end FBS and high end FCS. We'll still deal with that even if we do move up. I like recruiting stars as much as the next guy, but my barometer before seeing these guys on the field is "Who else is recruiting them".

The one thing that I would disagree on taking AAC and MW out for a moment- focusing on CUSA and Sun Belt- most programs in those conferences (as currently constituted) don't have the history that JMU football does. They are trying to sell the kid on a vision of where they are going rather than where they are much like JMU probably does. The difference is JMU has more of a big time feel than those places do in terms of facilities, support around the program and even recent success.

If I'm a kid being recruited by ODU and JMU one has no history and only artist's renderings of a stadium. The other has a history and a stadium that as nice or nicer than many G5 stadiums. Does the extra mismatch against a P5 school mean that much to you or one more game on ESPN3? Is the fact that your games are in Florida, Tennessee Texas and other far away places with luke warm game day experiences a good thing (one thing if you are playing Florida State, Tennessee and Baylor) or does that get old real fast- especially if you are a kid who values family being able to see you play and keeping up with your academics. If you want to go pro it's proven that you have as good a chance from JMU as you do from G5. I actually think JMU has a recruiting advantage over ODU not the other way around.

I'll go one further- if this is all about football I bet pragmatic and truthful ODU fans would change places with us if they could. They'd take their chances that the admin would see us through to the right conference when the time was right and ride the wave to a more immediate level of success. ODU did what they had to because they were a football startup- they leveraged the only asset that they have- their market to take a chance.

We have ̶h̶a̶l̶f̶ two-thirds of a really nice stadium. The other ̶̶h̶a̶l̶f̶ third looks like the leftovers from a dumpster fire at Forest Hills.

FIFY: I thought it about time that we get it right. It corrently seats 25K and the total has been projected to be 35K - 40K.