Curious as to why Stony Brook just within the last month or so announced a $120 million facilities plan to go FBS if they thought the MAC has shut the door on them. The MAC is their only realistic option. JMU also turning down Sun Belt bid despite having FBS aspirations.

I could see maybe keeping UMass for all sports and adding JMU, at least that''s only 2 new teams and doesn't stretch the travel budget as much. But that wouldn't have been enough for UMass to want to stay, I'm sure.

(09-22-2015 02:03 PM)D.A. Wrote:  

(09-22-2015 12:04 PM)perimeterpost Wrote:  if that's true then let me say thank you to the western MAC teams for killing that deal.. A 16 team conference with a full 1/4 of them being marginal FCS call ups is a disaster.

A MAC East with UMass, James Madison, Delaware, Stony Brook, Buffalo, Akron, Kent and Ohio?

I believe a primary driver was making additions that fit the academic standards of the MAC, not necessarily the athletic standards, so that is why the schools were what they were. Plus it was at a time that it was en vogue for conferences to be looking at getting to 16 schools. I agree that the best long term situation for all involved was for it not to happen.

As a JMU alum, I say "speak for yourself". ;-)

(09-22-2015 10:55 AM)D.A. Wrote:  -Parallel to that, the MAC had an agreement in principle, supported by the MAC senior member's Presidents, to add Delaware, Stony Brook and James Madison as full sports members in order to convince UMASS' Chancellor/AD to come in for all sports, which they were seriously considering.
-Before the expansion proposal could come to a formal vote, NIU, Ball State and the Michigan's blackballed the plan, citing increased travel costs for Olympic sports and not wanting to split the pending ESPN and Playoff money increases.

I'm willing to believe that such an idea was floated, but seriously doubt that this was all signed up and Delaware and Stony Brook were ready to pull the trigger. Delaware in particular moves like a glacier.

That said, such travel concerns from the MAC West would have been silly. In the olympic sports, there's wide latitude to ignore scheduling the teams in the opposite division, especially in a 16 member conference. Case in point: The New England-based America East conference has 4 California-based members in field hockey, making 9 teams overall. How do they make it work? The New England and California sides simply never play each other prior to the conference tournament. Many other sports only have one conference meet per year. People in the conference realignment threads have an incredible lack of imagination when it comes to geography and single-sport arrangements. Everyone wants to duplicate the Big Ten model. The G5s are never going to gain ground on the Big Ten by doing the exact same thing as them, only worse. It's like trying to beat them in football using the exact same gameplan but worse players. If you can't out-recruit them, you've got to beat them with unexpected tactics.

Regardless, I think UMass still would have declined this MAC-16 concept even if it got off the ground.

If true, i'm glad MAC West teams shuttered it.

Seriously, we'd become a water-downed conference with four recent 1-AA call ups. That's far too many all at once. Maybe one every 3-4 years. That way once another is called up the current one has had time to possibly bring itself up to the level of play in FBS. But all four likely would have been in the dredges for a good amount of time before possibly turning their programs into something positive for the MAC.

(09-23-2015 04:44 PM)epasnoopy Wrote:  If true, i'm glad MAC West teams shuttered it.

Seriously, we'd become a water-downed conference with four recent 1-AA call ups. That's far too many all at once. Maybe one every 3-4 years. That way once another is called up the current one has had time to possibly bring itself up to the level of play in FBS. But all four likely would have been in the dredges for a good amount of time before possibly turning their programs into something positive for the MAC.

Agreed with this.

I also agree that this was just a consideration and never really put into motion.

The more I think about it the more I think the MAC is good the way it is too. Bringing in UMass and Temple full-on would've helped if only for their names, but I've liked the way things have progressed since UMass said 'no' to basketball.

You can forget JMU for good. Their president just signed a pact with a bunch of small-time schools condemning cost-of-attendance. It speaks louder than all their winks and nudges about maybe going FBS. JMU is done as a candidate, and not only will their football suffer, every sport will decline. Their great WBB program will go down the tubes when they can't out-recruit anybody.

(09-24-2015 02:13 PM)uakronkid Wrote:  You can forget JMU for good. Their president just signed a pact with a bunch of small-time schools condemning cost-of-attendance. It speaks louder than all their winks and nudges about maybe going FBS. JMU is done as a candidate, and not only will their football suffer, every sport will decline. Their great WBB program will go down the tubes when they can't out-recruit anybody.

The conventional wisdom is that JMU's position has long been that if we got a call up from the MAC (or CUSA) we would take it. Our admin just doesn't like the Sun Belt.

But, given the COA news, you can argue that JMU might just turn any invite down. However, I doubt our alumni would let that happen to a MAC invite, especially if UMass and/or Delaware were involved, too.

Quote:Bringing in UMass and Temple full-on would've helped if only for their names

Temple would have been good for the long-term if they brought in basketball, no doubt. Their name would help -- being the "Cosbys". :)

(09-22-2015 03:11 PM)NIU007 Wrote:  I could see maybe keeping UMass for all sports and adding JMU, at least that''s only 2 new teams and doesn't stretch the travel budget as much. But that wouldn't have been enough for UMass to want to stay, I'm sure.

What do you mean "wouldn't have been"? That seems like what they were probably looking at when they made their final decision not to exercise their right to join the MAC all-sports.

And then they decided not to exercise that right, so we know for sure that whatever was lined up in case they exercised that option was not enough to make UMass wish to stay.

(09-26-2015 09:39 PM)BruceMcF Wrote:  

(09-22-2015 03:11 PM)NIU007 Wrote:  I could see maybe keeping UMass for all sports and adding JMU, at least that''s only 2 new teams and doesn't stretch the travel budget as much. But that wouldn't have been enough for UMass to want to stay, I'm sure.

What do you mean "wouldn't have been"? That seems like what they were probably looking at when they made their final decision not to exercise their right to join the MAC all-sports.

And then they decided not to exercise that right, so we know for sure that whatever was lined up in case they exercised that option was not enough to make UMass wish to stay.

How do you know they would have stayed in the MAC if JMU was invited?

(09-26-2015 11:37 PM)NIU007 Wrote:  How do you know they would have stayed in the MAC if JMU was invited?

You've turned my statement around ... it was widely speculated that JMU was the school that was going to get the invite if UMass exercised its option to join all-sports, but whether it was JMU or somebody else, it seems highly likely that UMass knew what the 14th school would have been if they had decided to exercise their option to stay.

And whomever it was, we know that they "wouldn't have stayed", because they decided not to stay. The decision to not exercise the option is not something open to speculation, its a known fact in all of this.

(09-26-2015 11:49 PM)BruceMcF Wrote:  

(09-26-2015 11:37 PM)NIU007 Wrote:  How do you know they would have stayed in the MAC if JMU was invited?

You've turned my statement around ... it was widely speculated that JMU was the school that was going to get the invite if UMass exercised its option to join all-sports, but whether it was JMU or somebody else, it seems highly likely that UMass knew what the 14th school would have been if they had decided to exercise their option to stay.

And whomever it was, we know that they "wouldn't have stayed", because they decided not to stay. The decision to not exercise the option is not something open to speculation, its a known fact in all of this.

That's obvious, but we don't know what might have happened that would have made them accept the all-sports invite. That's what I'm saying.