How is it that Liberty is paying $6,000 per athlete in COA? That is close to the national lead right? I don't see how these costs are figured. They seem so random.

Each school comes up with the cost of attendance. There is a formula that everyone uses so each school is using the same formula. I've heard that some schools are asking their financial departments (or whoever comes up with the numbers) to encourage overstating them so they can offer more money and entice better recruits.

The $6k number comes from a student in Minnesota and likely included airfare that might have adjusted his total up just a bit. But that is strictly speculation on my behalf.

ODU says it's to expensive to offer even partial COA support.

http://hamptonroads.com/2015/08/unlike-m...g-stipends

This is going to be a huge recruiting advantage, and I hope a notice that we mean business to CUSA.

(08-02-2015 12:56 PM)knucklehead Wrote:  This is going to be a huge recruiting advantage, and I hope a notice that we mean business to CUSA.

Article in News & Advance stated that COA was a hot topic at the recent Big South Meeting in Atlanta, and that only LU was offering it to all athletes with a few schools offering it to basketball and several not at all.

I am cautiously hopeful that LU is in the future mix of C-USA as a member. We would fit much better with that conference than the SBC. I would take a SBC invite today, and be thrilled, and enjoy the conference. LU would be a great member as it has been for the BSC. And begin tomorrow seeking a better fit for LU as the upside of LU is much greater than the entry level SBC is as a progressive FBS conference.

I've always thought we were a better fit for CUSA and that we were selling ourselves short with the SBC. Even if our admin preferred the geography of the SBC.

Hopefully, FCOA will be the the factor that gets us an invite. I didn't think FCOA would be as big of a factor with the G-5 schools as it is beginning to appear to be. With the reported difficulty of the UAB revival, the supposed financial difficulties of Akron, and now ODU having some issues with funding FCOA, maybe our invite is closer than expected. That said, I don't want to get our pleasure from their pain, but I do want LU to succeed.

I do get that FCOA will give us advantages over other schools, especially 1-AA schools. But location, tradition, and prominence will still rule the day, especially given that we aren't public or secular. Coastal can counter our FCOA with the beach (so they tell me), NDSU and Montana because of their history, and William & Mary because it's William & Mary. What FCOA should do is put us into the upper tier (athletically) of 1-AA. It would do the same for us in the G-5.

My point is that FCOA's biggest help to us is that it may turn our financial success into a positive thing vs. the negatives that the SBC fears.

Did we start FCOA this fall, or is it going into effect next year?