Welcome to the OVC! You can find our forum at http://www.ovcfans.com - it's much more active during the basketball season.

any truth to the rumors of Tennessee State moving to the SWAC or Jacksonville State to FBS? That could open up a spot for Lipscomb and/or ETSU I guess.

TSU has been looking to leave for years and it's all but done that JSU will move to the Sun Belt. Two spots will open up for hopefully ETSU and Lipscomb, though at this point ETSU's best bet is to get a football program going again ASAP and go to the Big South. The A-Sun is in serious trouble right now.

(05-13-2011 03:22 PM)Buccaneerlover Wrote:  TSU has been looking to leave for years and it's all but done that JSU will move to the Sun Belt. Two spots will open up for hopefully ETSU and Lipscomb, though at this point ETSU's best bet is to get a football program going again ASAP and go to the Big South. The A-Sun is in serious trouble right now.

Interesting. The Big South seems like a lot of smaller privates. You all go to a conference where you all are much larger than average, and Belmont goes to OVC where they are the only private and much smaller than average.

I don't think Charleston Southern is private, Coastal, UNC-A are public. For ETSU, the Big South would provide something similar to what Belmont has done. It puts us within two hours of over half the conference, and 4-5 hours for the others. It's all contingent on adding football, though.

Apparently I may be the only Belmont fan who's not elated with this. It's not that I love the Asun, but I mentioned this in prior discussions, the OVC is a small regional conf full of regional state schools, that will not likely ever be more than that. I have hopes that Belmont will become like Butler and Gonzaga in name recognition. Having more press coverage in Martin, tn or Edwardsville, or Cookeville or Murray, Ky doesn't sound exciting to me.

I will stipulate to the obvious positives of smaller geographic footprint. Will our students attend more for Tn Tch or even APSU than they do now? Maybe someone did a survey and they students said yes, or maybe they just need to save some travel money.

Yes it will be nice to have the tourny in Nashville every year. There's no denying that. And clearly the OVC teams have done well when they've been to the tourny recently. I just had higher expectations and dreams for Belmont and I'm not yet convinced that we can achieve on a national level in the OVC.

I'm starting to feel like the ESTU fans have rubbed off on me.

(05-13-2011 04:04 PM)Buccaneerlover Wrote:  I don't think Charleston Southern is private, Coastal, UNC-A are public. For ETSU, the Big South would provide something similar to what Belmont has done. It puts us within two hours of over half the conference, and 4-5 hours for the others. It's all contingent on adding football, though.

CSU is definitely private, its old name was Baptist College.

the only problem with this is it never happened. stanton tried to make out that an invitation was received but it never was. initial discussions had been held to determine interest

(05-13-2011 12:52 PM)ETSUfan1 Wrote:  So uh remember 2 years ago when the OVC invited Lipscomb, Belmont, and ETSU and we all turned it down and decided to stay. My biggest fear was that Belmont would decide to leave and we would all get screwed. Looks like my fear has been realized.

Congratulations on becoming a real school

(05-13-2011 03:22 PM)Buccaneerlover Wrote:  ...it's all but done that JSU will move to the Sun Belt...

Not true. Sun Belt Commissioner has stated only FBS(1a) member schools will be considered for any future expansion and there is no need to expand at this time. No disrespect to JSU, but if FCS programs were being looked at, there are others more attractive.

Good luck to Belmont with the ovc.

(05-14-2011 11:20 AM)SpaceRaider Wrote:  

(05-13-2011 03:22 PM)Buccaneerlover Wrote:  ...it's all but done that JSU will move to the Sun Belt...

Not true. Sun Belt Commissioner has stated only FBS(1a) member schools will be considered for any future expansion and there is no need to expand at this time. No disrespect to JSU, but if FCS programs were being looked at, there are others more attractive.

Good luck to Belmont with the ovc.

Our ownership of MTSU is fun.

Very excited for Belmont moving to the OVC. Attendance will rise and ill be back for another review of the Curb!

(05-13-2011 11:33 AM)BelmontSuperFan Wrote:  The one downside? No OVC message board on NCAAbbs! How do we get one started?!

As a West Tennessean who follows all the schools that lie between the rivers it'll be good having Belmont in a conference with a local school again.As you already know if you go to the NCAAbbs homepage & scroll down to the 1-AA section it'll list all of the conferences,including the A-Sun & OVC.Be aware that there is very little activity on the OVC board right now.I believe there is a site called "OVCfans" as well but I'm not certain.

Scrolling down the thread after I posted this I see the ovcfans site has been linked.

Then if not the Sun Belt, then somewhere. Either way, JSU has talked of moving up for some time and I believe fully intends to in the near future. That would leave TSU as the only HBCU type school, and anyone who's ever listened to TSU fans down here talk they ALL want out of the OVC.
Today's interview and subsequent comments on George and Willy's show tell me that there's something else in the works. Maybe not immediately, but within the next 1-2 years...