I am convinced by talking to a number of people in leadership positions that JMU is currently doing everything possible to get us into the right FBS conference. I don't want to argue about what should have been done in the past. We can't change the past and continuing to talk about the past does not help the present or the future. We control the present and we can shape the future.

As alumni and current students on this Board, we have proven we are change agents and people of action. Let's turn that JMU spirit and know how for the following:

1. Help pack BFS for every game and attend as many away games as possible. It does not matter who comes to town, we show up early and stay through the entire game.

2. Give more money to the Duke Club. Let's get to $6,000,000 by 2020. We will be at $2,000,000 this year.

3. Let's start an FBS crowd funding account. I don't know how to do this but someone on here does. Let's show everyone we are ready to move with an invitation.

Hot Ham,
Has there been any change in opinion about the Sun Belt from our leaders since the sudden urgency to get any willing school to join (that isn't liberty of course)?
The Carr Report claimed that there would be an increase in revenue in even the Sun Belt. It does appear to be the only remaining entry point into FBS for the forseeable future. Even a Big 12 expansion of two teams could fail to lead to a trickle down effect that directly affects JMU's options.

I like the positivity and agree with the suggestions, but the bottom line is that if our leadership continues to refuse to consider the Sun Belt we're not going anywhere, because no MAC or CUSA offer is anywhere in sight.

(07-25-2015 04:56 PM)Madison 91 Forever Wrote:  I like the positivity and agree with the suggestions, but the bottom line is that if our leadership continues to refuse to consider the Sun Belt we're not going anywhere, because no MAC or CUSA offer is anywhere in sight.

This. We have fallen for this schtick for years and look where it's gotten us. I am tired of the admin not accepting responsibility for their inaction and their misleading our fans and alums. They need to take the sunbelt opportunity and save face or else we will be seeing Ham repeat this post for another 10 years.

I love me some Ham & Cheese...but fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me.

This administration has for years, REFUSED to be transparent. Not once has this admin said, "we want 1A football"...they don't.

To this admin, filling BFS means one thing and one thing only...We can stay in the CAA/FCS and townies will show up and businesses that rely on JMU contracts will buy club tickets and that is good enough for JMU alum.

With all due respect H&C, we have reason to have lost faith in this admin...they lie to us, you now it, they know it and even Deez knows it but he is under contract to say otherwise.

Calling conferences that are already full or out of reach isn't effort.

It's a half hearted attempt with a preordained outcome. No one besides the SBC will be inviting any FCS school.

I think the world of you Steve, but none of the things you mentioned will happen in FCS. We are the few diehards, but those goals will need to bring in the fringe fan.

You have to open your eyes to the landscape.

We've done exactly as you have asked of us. We exceeded all expectations of attendance at BFS by increasing our numbers by 60% prior to 2010. The past five years we have seen Duke Club contributions increase 95%. Last year we had a goal of 3500 contributing to the Duke Club, this year they are asking for a 35% increase to 4750 (which is a lofty goal). I cannot imagine they would ask for such a movement if we had not reached our numbers in 2014. All of this information can be found on JMU.edu.

HH&C, we are doing our part, but how can JMU keep going to the well without doing their part? We have not increased the number of scholarships over this time period which is the primary purpose of the Duke Club as stated by JMU. We were fully funded in all sports prior to 2010 and we are fully funded today with no additional sports added. Our travel costs have not gone up significantly as there has been no conference change requiring a significant increase. The coach's salaries have seen a minor uptick but nowhere near the increase compared to our support.

I appreciate your push for more and respect what you are trying to achieve, but the one's who have supported are tired of being asked to do more without seeing a need or communicated what JMU is attempting to achieve.

Take a look at what happens when you show people a goal and what their money could possibly do by researching UAB over the past nine months. We have been steady increasing without any goal for our support, can you imagine what we'd do with a shock (FBS announcement) to the fan base. I for one believe JMU would see the arena 12M almost overnight.

I'm not naive enough to discount a spike in support and then level off. Much the same happened with BFS attendance, but to get us to a new level, we need a defibrillator put in action, rather than the continued statement, "We strive to put ourselves in the best possible situation to advance our athletic program and give our student athlete the best opportunity for success."

Love ya, brother, but "Show me the Money".

Regarding #1 of your points: IMO, we have such a large portion of our fan base who drive more than two hours to BFS. It would be tough for these out-of-town folk to come to Harrisonburg three weeks in a row if the competition were to be Appy, Marshall, and ODU to start the season. If you believe this to be true, how much harder is it going to be to get those same out-of-towner's to come three weeks in a row to see us play Morehead St., Lehigh, and Albany?

Regarding #3: All this takes is for someone to get the ball rolling. It needs to be totally unaffiliated with the school but have JMU as the benefactor should certain criteria be achieved by our athletic department. The difficulty will be that there most definitely needs to be a time frame or the money returned. For the most part, this is what UAB did, but their time frame was much shorter than could be expected in our situation. With JMU already wanting dollars for immediate use, it will be a tough sell by an outsider to get significant monies put into this pot. Should Coach Withers get behind such a deal and demonstrated that he was willing to put his own cash into the fund, people will jump in. Again, this is exactly what happened at UAB.

I can't argue with many of the points everyone has raised but I know if we don't continue on an upward trajectory with a full stadium, increased giving and a fan sponsored plan for FBS, we will not position ourselves well for a move. The coaches and players are doing their part and I want to make sure we reward that effort by being there and getting others there as well.

There have been very public statements by the leadership that we want to move to FBS with the right offer. We are not going to be Liberty and do a full court public push but JMU is having discussions with FBS conferences and they have been having discussions for quite sometime. Is it frustrating that we have not moved, yes? The transparency has increased in the last 6 months.

I'm trying to figure out how we can position ourselves to be a program that wins consistently, sells out every game, has the cash in Duke Club donations that are as good if not better than many mid major FBS programs and is a no brainier for a compatible FBS program to add to their other good schools.

Also, review the MOU that Coach Withers signed. The attractive clause is the re-negotiation clause if JMU moves to a new conference. That's pretty good evidence that JMU is planning to move and the contingency is covered in an agreement for a coach that could have gone to a number of other schools but he chose JMU.

http://www.dnronline.com/uploads/files/S...550(1).pdf

(07-25-2015 07:21 PM)HotHamandCheese84 Wrote:  I can't argue with many of the points everyone has raised but I know if we don't continue on an upward trajectory with a full stadium, increased giving and a fan sponsored plan for FBS, we will not position ourselves well for a move. The coaches and players are doing their part and I want to make sure we reward that effort by being there and getting others there as well.

There have been very public statements by the leadership that we want to move to FBS with the right offer. We are not going to be Liberty and do a full court public push but JMU is having discussions with FBS conferences and they have been having discussions for quite sometime. Is it frustrating that we have not moved, yes. The transparency has increased in the last 6 months.

I'm trying to figure out how we can position ourselves to be a program that wins consistently, sells out every game, has the cash in Duke Club donations that are as good if not better than many mid major FBS programs and is a no brainier for a compatible FBS program to add to their other good schools.

The last part will not happen as long as we remain fcs and play the likes of Morehead, Albany, CCSU, etc. People have watched our peers move up while we keep falling further and further behind and are tired of the admin's lack of foresight and leadership.

You want to achieve this goal? Convince the admin that they need to swallow their pride and go to the Sunbelt and demonstrate there that other conferences would be lucky to have us. It really is that simple.

(07-25-2015 07:36 PM)HotHamandCheese84 Wrote:  Also, review the MOU that Coach Withers signed. The attractive clause is the re-negotiation clause if JMU moves to a new conference. That's pretty good evidence that JMU is planning to move and the contingency is covered in an agreement for a coach that could have gone to a number of other schools but he chose JMU.

http://www.dnronline.com/uploads/files/S...550(1).pdf

I really appreciate all you do for the university, but come on man. I'm not sure what you are reaching for with this, but if this is the transparency that our leadership is doing everything they can to get us to FBS, then it's far from sufficient evidence. This could have been put in there to try an lure Withers to accept the position, or could have been done when they thought we had a solid chance of moving to the MAC or CUSA, but circumstances changed and those options are no longer there! Not to mention, the ONLY people that are aware of that contractual clause are the diehards on here. That does nothing to try and drum up interest and support from the masses.

(07-25-2015 07:21 PM)HotHamandCheese84 Wrote:  I can't argue with many of the points everyone has raised but I know if we don't continue on an upward trajectory with a full stadium, increased giving and a fan sponsored plan for FBS, we will not position ourselves well for a move. The coaches and players are doing their part and I want to make sure we reward that effort by being there and getting others there as well.

There have been very public statements by the leadership that we want to move to FBS with the right offer. We are not going to be Liberty and do a full court public push but JMU is having discussions with FBS conferences and they have been having discussions for quite sometime. Is it frustrating that we have not moved, yes. The transparency has increased in the last 6 months.

I'm trying to figure out how we can position ourselves to be a program that wins consistently, sells out every game, has the cash in Duke Club donations that are as good if not better than many mid major FBS programs and is a no brainier for a compatible FBS program to add to their other good schools.

First, win. Second, win against good opposition including some FBS teams (we need to win against SMU). Third, never play an OOC game against competition who never reaches the top 25 in FCS nor has any name recognition, examples to choose from Lehigh, Lafayette, Furman, and Wofford. Forth, always be the team considered most likely to be the conference champion. Fifth, never not make the playoffs and occasionally make it to the championship game.

Say I am being unrealistic if you want, but these five goals are possible and will put people in the stands even when Elon and URI come to BFS as those will be the only games with available tickets. We need to dominate and you, HH&C, will not have to do a lot of "figuring".

I tried to stay away but Ham's post solicited a response...

Ham, we all appreciate what you do for JMU but there is nothing we as alumni and fans can do to better position JMU to the MAC or CUSA compared to what App State or ODU bring to the table during the next round of conference realignment. Both schools have finished transitioning to FBS and are developing a resume of football success at this level. We will always be behind current FBS schools on the short list of replacements for conferences because it would take us two years to transition to FBS not to mention we currently not offering stipends to student athletes.

I will add one thing. No matter what we do, JMU must have a invite to an FBS conference to move to FBS.

We had one. We passed.

We decided FCS and the CAA were better than the FBS and SBC. That decision was the ONLY thing we controlled.

The MAC and CUSA are full. We control NOTHING now in the FBS pursuit. We must hope for circumstances to fall in our favor. That is the opposite of controlling your destiny. What JMU is doing now is called gambling...to the tune of 36mm/year.

You tell me which is irresponsible. A known dead end, or exit 1a.

Throwing money at the degenerates who run JMU athletics would only fuel the dumpster fire. What we need is new leadership. Not giving money and speaking our disgust will change the culture. Glad you have some optimism about our future but with our current leadership it will fall further into obscurity.

I will echo others in this thread by saying that I appreciate your contributions to JMU athletics and your opinions and and passion expressed on this board. However, until the administration removes "right" from their description of FBS conferences that they will join, I have a difficult time taking them seriously or giving additional support to their athletic endeavors.

(07-26-2015 01:02 AM)Purple Pilgrim Wrote:  I will echo others in this thread by saying that I appreciate your contributions to JMU athletics and your opinions and and passion expressed on this board. However, until the administration removes "right" from their description of FBS conferences that they will join, I have a difficult time taking them seriously or giving additional support to their athletic endeavors.

A little sarcasm here, but "RIGHT" fits if and only if used in conjunction with the MWC and that is for obvious reasons.

I know how JMU alum would hit H&C's #3 out of the park. Include this stipulations signed off by the BOV: If JMU alum achieve #3, JMU alum will have 51% of the votes during the subsequent interview and hire process for the next JMU president and JMU Athletic Director.

I'm going to do some research on an initiative to gather pledges for an FBS move. I do not want it to be JMU sponsored plan right now because the university has other things they need to raise money for during the campaign. This should be a private donor driven campaign that can be moved to the Duke Club at the right time (when we announce a move). Would the folks on this Board support such a plan and make pledges for FBS? This can be a very powerful avenue to show everyone we are ready to fund.

(07-26-2015 08:56 AM)HotHamandCheese84 Wrote:  I'm going to do some research on an initiative to gather pledges for an FBS move. I do not want it to be JMU sponsored plan right now because the university has other things they need to raise money for during the campaign. This should be a private donor driven campaign that can be moved to the Duke Club at the right time (when we announce a move). Would the folks on this Board support such a plan and make pledges for FBS? This can be a very powerful avenue to show everyone we are ready to fund.

Certainly, I would. Just need to make sure that the pledges only convert to donations ONCE an FBS move has been made.