(04-25-2013 09:19 AM)ODUalum78 Wrote: This makes no m sense.
I don't see what a GOR accomplishes, since the MAC is already the most stable conference in FBS.
Are they trying to force UMass' hand, and guarantee that there will be in fact 13 so there can be an add?
I was under the impression that the MAC contractually holds all the cards re UMass by virtue of the Temple move anyway.
Not all the cards. According to what others are saying, UMass could join all-sports and then leave with no exit fee. A GOR would take that play off the table.
UMass would still be a small market share school with a position in a large media market that is heavily tilted to pro sports, mediocre basketball with a history of more success, abysmal FB so far in their step up to FBS, and hockey as the sport in which they are the most recognizable as a marquee name. So there's always some degree of risk that some conference further up in the pecking order looks on UMass as a market play, if over the coming five to ten years they get their act together on their FB.
Against that background, a GOR would be a guarantee to the MAC that they are not going to be used as the greenhouse for UMass FBS football only for UMass to move on if and when UMass has started to actually contribute to the profile of MAC football.
With major conference realignment mostly settling down for a decade or so, a lot of the scenarios that bring most desirable FBS schools into the frame are much less likely. That is, a gutting of the American that left Temple behind might make a return to the MAC look good to Temple. A gutting of CUSA as a result of a gutting of the American that left Marshal behind might make a return to the MAC look good to Marshall. Etc. But those are now a lot less likely.
The strategic situation that the MAC is in is that there is one FBS school out there which the MAC would add as a FB-only school in a hot New York minute ... Army. The academies don't want to put their future officers and gentlemen through the meat grinder of Major Conference football week after week (which says something about the average size and strength of Old Big East football teams if Navy was willing to join the Old Big East).
With Navy joining The American, the Army-Navy game will have to be rescheduled. Maybe the Black Knights want to be in the same conference as Navy, in which case they say so and are in. But maybe Army prefers not being on the same conference ladder as Navy. The Black Knights would get their share of #MACtion games on national cable. Maybe they decide they have reasonable prospects of going bowling if they had a schedule that was not mostly away games the second half of the season.
The Black Knights are not going to be sharing with any of us whether they are looking to get into a conference or not, but if the MAC is talking to them, the risk of joining a division that allows the Black Knights to play in Boston every second year and then seeing that walk away before Army joins, that would come up.
For most of the FCS prospective adds, there's no harm in waiting for one among several well-placed schools to be ready to join. So locking UMass in place and playing with 13 for a year or two waiting for Army to decide if its going to join a conference would be a quite reasonable strategy for the MAC, if its talking to the Black Knights and they are simply undecided as to whether they want to make it 3 of 3 service academies in a Group of Five conference.