http://ncaafootball.com/index.php?s=&url..._well_id=2

Starts in 2010. The NEC, who has not yet placed a team in the NCAA playoffs in its 1st ten years, will be guaranteed an auto bid at that time. It can get an auto bid in 2008 & 2009 for its conference champ under the following criteria:

1) win eight games vs. D-I competition
2) two of those eight wins must be OOC wins against conferences who also receive an auto-bid
3) rank 16th or higher in the final coaches, media or computer poll

The NEC champ has never met all three criteria in a season (usually missing on the ranking).

The field as a whole will go from 16 to 20 teams starting in 2010 as well.

With the NEC getting a bid, makes you wonder if Stony Brook is kicking themselves. They moved from the NEC to the Big South because the NEC limits football scholarships to 30 (and there is a increase coming possibly to 40) where NCAA limits for FCS teams is 63. The Big South is a full 63 scholarship league, but does not have an automatic bid.

mattsarz Wrote:http://ncaafootball.com/index.php?s=&url..._well_id=2

Starts in 2010. The NEC, who has not yet placed a team in the NCAA playoffs in its 1st ten years, will be guaranteed an auto bid at that time. It can get an auto bid in 2008 & 2009 for its conference champ under the following criteria:

1) win eight games vs. D-I competition
2) two of those eight wins must be OOC wins against conferences who also receive an auto-bid
3) rank 16th or higher in the final coaches, media or computer poll

The NEC champ has never met all three criteria in a season (usually missing on the ranking).

The field as a whole will go from 16 to 20 teams starting in 2010 as well.

With the NEC getting a bid, makes you wonder if Stony Brook is kicking themselves. They moved from the NEC to the Big South because the NEC limits football scholarships to 30 (and there is a increase coming possibly to 40) where NCAA limits for FCS teams is 63. The Big South is a full 63 scholarship league, but does not have an automatic bid.

Koolllll, Go CCSU.

Big South champ will be playoff bound; FCS postseason to expand from 16 to 20 teams beginning 2010

The Football Championship Subdivision playoffs are expanding - and the Big South has an automatic invite to the dance.

Coastal Carolina athletics director Warren “Moose” Koegel told The Sun News on Friday that the NCAA has approved the selection committee’s proposal to expand the playoff field from 16 to 20 teams beginning in 2010.

Koegel is a member of the committee.

After the expansion, all conferences that meet the criteria of having six teams together for at least two seasons will receive automatic bids, according to Big South commissioner Kyle Kallander.

With the addition of Stony Brook this year, the Big South will meet the criteria and will receive an automatic bid as part of the expansion, barring changes in the conference.

“It’s good news for FCS football,” Kallander said. “More teams in the playoffs means more interest in the sport and in the regular season.

“FCS football has one of the smallest ratios of teams in the postseason.”

The FCS has 114 member schools eligible for postseason play. The expansion brings the percentage of teams that qualify for the postseason to 17.5.

By comparison, 19 percent of Division I men’s basketball teams qualify for the NCAA tournament and 53 percent of Football Bowl Subdivision teams play in bowl games.

It is the first expansion of the FCS playoffs since the playoffs grew to 16 teams in 1986.

In its history the Big South has sent just one team - Coastal Carolina in 2006 - to the playoffs. To qualify, Coastal - or any other Big South team - needed a near-perfect record to earn one of eight at-large berths in the previous format.

The new playoffs will feature four first-round games with 12 teams earning byes. Koegel said the first round will be moved up a week, slotted to begin before Thanksgiving.

Koegel said the number - 20 teams - is a compromise from the committee’s original desire to expand to 24 teams.

This article appeared on the Championship Subdivision News website on Friday, April 25, 2008.

Gotta wonder if this will lead to the end of the CAA conference as it is configured now. The consensus has been that the football teams all stuck together because they thought they'd get fewer playoff berths if they were two separate conferences because both wouldn't get AQs.

I still think UMass and URI will try to do a major realignment. Both they and Northeastern are getting killed by travel costs. Those three plus Delaware, Towson, Hofstra. Maybe Albany or Stony Brook. Temple and GW as non-football members. American East teams as football onlies. That'll save them a hell of a lot of money.

Krocker Krapp Wrote:After the expansion, all conferences that meet the criteria of having six teams together for at least two seasons will receive automatic bids, according to Big South commissioner Kyle Kallander.

I wonder if that includes the non-scholarship Pioneer Football schools, many of whom have been together well over a decade.

After that, only the SWAC and Ivy will choose to be unavailable for the playoffs and the Great West will not have enough teams.

I do not think a major realignment is possible at the FCS level. The schools may have to settle for tweaking some of the existing conferences instead. Where this runs into problems, however, is the disparity in basketball levels. Some programs need to understand that taking care of football now will take care of basketball later.

Hofstra, Drexel, Delaware, and Towson ticked off the rest of America East with how they left the league together for the CAA a few years ago. Northeastern followed in their path a couple of seasons later. Richmond and American, similarly, ticked off the CAA with how they left for the Atlantic-10 and Patriot League, respectively.

Right now Maine, New Hampshire, Albany, and Stony Brook are in America East with Vermont, Boston U, Hartford, Binghamton, and UMBC for everything except football. What they need to do is engineer a trade where the two private schools - Boston U and Hartford - go to the A-10 in exchange for Massachusetts and Rhode Island.

They should also add Central Connecticut. Doing this would give America East seven football schools - Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Central Connecticut, Albany, and Stony Brook - and three non-football schools - Vermont, Binghamton, and UMBC - that would not obstruct the progress of a football league.

Once again, the issue is basketball quality, and nothing can happen there until Massachusetts and Rhode Island start thinking about football first and realize that the other teams will improve over time. A league of six top New England public schools, three SUNY schools, and Maryland's number two school has unlimited potential.

In addition, the America East football schools should broker two deals with the CAA. One is to take along Villanova and Richmond as football only schools in order to get the membership up to nine schools. The Wildcats and Spiders should be guaranteed to keep their annual rivalries with Delaware and William & Mary, respectively.

Each of the other seven America East schools should then be guaranteed a game with one of the other seven CAA schools every year. This eases the scheduling burden that Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, and Maine seem to fear would follow a split with eight league games and one non-league game all done.

The CAA would be left with eight football schools - Northeastern, Hofstra, Delaware, Towson, James Madison, William & Mary, Old Dominion, and Georgia State - plus four non-football schools - Drexel, George Mason, Virginia Commonwealth, and UNC Wilmington. One more football school would be needed for nine in the league.

Charlotte will be starting football and it would make sense for the CAA to try to trade one of the non-football schools - most likely Drexel or Virginia Commonwealth - to the A-10 in exchange for Charlotte. Doing this would give the CAA a better alignment of nine football schools for scheduling plus three non-football members.

As for the A-10, it would continue its inevitable trend of becoming a private school league without football distractions as Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Charlotte would have been replaced by Boston U, Hartford, and Drexel or Virginia Commonwealth. The NEC would simply replace Central Connecticut with New Jersey Tech.

Everyone retains the vast majority of their realignments in this scenario and all automatic bids to NCAA postseason play remain intact. America East would become all public and the A-10 would become nearly all private. The NEC would be all private while the CAA would still be a hybrid, but with most members having deep ties.

Krocker Krapp Wrote:I do not think a major realignment is possible at the FCS level.

Okay.

Krocker Krapp Wrote:Right now Maine, New Hampshire, Albany, and Stony Brook are in America East with Vermont, Boston U, Hartford, Binghamton, and UMBC for everything except football. What they need to do is engineer a trade where the two private schools - Boston U and Hartford - go to the A-10 in exchange for Massachusetts and Rhode Island.

They should also add Central Connecticut. Doing this would give America East seven football schools - Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Central Connecticut, Albany, and Stony Brook - and three non-football schools - Vermont, Binghamton, and UMBC - that would not obstruct the progress of a football league.

Once again, the issue is basketball quality, and nothing can happen there until Massachusetts and Rhode Island start thinking about football first and realize that the other teams will improve over time. A league of six top New England public schools, three SUNY schools, and Maryland's number two school has unlimited potential.

In addition, the America East football schools should broker two deals with the CAA. One is to take along Villanova and Richmond as football only schools in order to get the membership up to nine schools. The Wildcats and Spiders should be guaranteed to keep their annual rivalries with Delaware and William & Mary, respectively.

Each of the other seven America East schools should then be guaranteed a game with one of the other seven CAA schools every year. This eases the scheduling burden that Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, and Maine seem to fear would follow a split with eight league games and one non-league game all done.

The CAA would be left with eight football schools - Northeastern, Hofstra, Delaware, Towson, James Madison, William & Mary, Old Dominion, and Georgia State - plus four non-football schools - Drexel, George Mason, Virginia Commonwealth, and UNC Wilmington. One more football school would be needed for nine in the league.

Charlotte will be starting football and it would make sense for the CAA to try to trade one of the non-football schools - most likely Drexel or Virginia Commonwealth - to the A-10 in exchange for Charlotte. Doing this would give the CAA a better alignment of nine football schools for scheduling plus three non-football members.

As for the A-10, it would continue its inevitable trend of becoming a private school league without football distractions as Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Charlotte would have been replaced by Boston U, Hartford, and Drexel or Virginia Commonwealth. The NEC would simply replace Central Connecticut with New Jersey Tech.

Nothing major there.


UMass and URI decided 30 years ago they were too good to be associated with the other NE publics. If at any point they thought they were worthy, they could have added them to the A-10. Why would they now go backwards to re-join them?

Also, the America East schools think they're too good for Central Connecticut. They had plenty of chances to add CCSU if they wanted to, but didn't. Instead, they added UMBC, which has a much better academic reputation. You just can't assume they're all going to end up together. There's been nothing stopping them from getting all together if that's what they wanted.

I sprinkled disclaimers throughout my post clearly indicating that I know very well the drawbacks of what I propose. The fact that I deal with a lot of the affected administrators on a regular basis makes this awareness even moreso. My point is that football needs to start coming first to ensure the well being of many of these athletic programs and the situation today is not what it was three decades ago. The reason the Big East is stuck in this current hybridized rut is exactly because of that type of thinking.

What the Northeast needs is visionary leaders in AD and Commissioner positions who can get schools over their narrow ways of thinking for the sake of their futures. The only worse hybrid, structurally, than the Big East is the A-10 and their leaders are equally behind the times. Barring the difficult formation of completely new conferences, the easiest path to clearing up the FCS picture in the Northeast is through a few tweaks, but everyone is entitled to their own civilly-stated personal opinions on the matter.