(02-05-2023 07:07 PM)DavidSt Wrote:  There are interests in University of Toronto and British Columbia since they are like top 30 in academics comparing to US schools. They are better than some AAU schools in that prospects. I do think there are interests in Canacdian schools to join because you do add more tv markets.

This might have some relevance IF D1 changes their policy on not allowing international members. And that includes single-sport members.

Nobody is adding a Canadian school for a *TV market* in the year of our Lord 2023. C'mon.

(02-05-2023 09:41 AM)MattBrownEP Wrote:  A few quick thoughts..

* I don't think it's completely fair to say that SFU doesn't want to support football. They just spent a lot of money remodeling that stadium just two years ago, adding stuff like VIP seating and broadcast facilities, and the stadium can easily expand to seat more than 1,800. Is it a small facility? Sure, but this is D-II football. There are like, three schools that make real money from tickets and popcorn. This board is way more obsessed over ticket sales and reported attendance than any administrator these days.

* A significant issue here for any conference home is immigration. The biggest reason the Lone Star partnership fell apart wasn't money, but COVID. I wrote about it back in August (https://www.extrapointsmb.com/canada-cov...ne-star/). But even without COVID, a dirty little secret in D-II and NAIA football is that a lot of schools have coaches whose DUIs will prevent them from getting a visa into Canada. That's not a joke.

For some reason your link does not work. This does.

https://www.extrapointsmb.com/canada-cov...lone-star/

* I don't know of a great solution for their football problem. They *might* be able to cobble together an independent schedule, since it's not like they need to worry about competing for playoff spots, but getting enough home games even against NAIA competition will be tricky. I know the school is very committed to the NCAA (a Simon Fraser student was just named the head of the entire D-II SAAC, FWIW), but if there's an easy answer out there, I don't know about it. I'll keep asking around. Maybe those pivot to hockey conversations heat up a bit.

Two of the later LSC contests were moved from Blaine, Washington, USA back to Burnaby, as COVID restrictions were relaxed.

Division II requires 10-member conferences. Ideally, a conference would like schools close together so that air travel is not required, and perhaps road trips can be made without overnight stays, and they might like some affinity between the schools. If Division I had a10-school requirement the PAC would be at risk of losing its AQ if it lost one more school. The Ivy League would be scrambling to find at least two more schools.

So DII conferences may be huge agglomerations of nearby schools. The Lone Star Conference has 17 schools, and is adding an 18th, but only seven, soon to be eight, play football. The Great Northwest Athlectic Conference has 10-members but only three football schools.

The Northern Sun has 16 schools, with 14 football schools. The Great American Conference has 12 schools all who play football. These larger football conferences have little need to play OOC games. With a limit of 11 regular season games, they may have 10 or 11 conference games simply so they can play each other on a regular basis.

This means that there are not nearby schools to play OOC games against the LSC. With only seven football schools, a single round-robin is six games. That requires scrambling for OOC games. The Lone Star has lost Tarleton State and TAMU-Commerce to Division I. They are lucky that Sul Ross has decided to move up to DII since it means offering scholarships including in football. A private DIII school may be reluctant to jump to DII since that means a loss of a significant amount of tuition revenue, as well as possibly upgrading facilities, coaching staffs, etc.

DII would be better off organizing football like is done in high school (at least in Texas). Assign football schools to districts. With 160 football schools, that could be 16 10-member districts. If two from each advance to the playoffs that would be 32 schools.

DII might use some creativity to hand the northwest schools. Place them in different districts every two years, so that one biennium, schools in the Dakota have three trips to the Northwest. The next two seasons it might be schools in Colorado, and then schools in Texas.

Perhaps the northwest schools can be split up for district play, reducing the travel requirements for the "other" schools. The three GNAC schools could still play OOD games against each other.

(02-05-2023 07:07 PM)DavidSt Wrote:  There are interests in University of Toronto and British Columbia since they are like top 30 in academics comparing to US schools. They are better than some AAU schools in that prospects. I do think there are interests in Canacdian schools to join because you do add more tv markets.

DavidSt,

Do you foresee a conference adding Simon Fraser and capturing the pre-HNIC slot across Canada?

(02-06-2023 01:07 AM)IWokeUpLikeThis Wrote:  

(02-05-2023 07:07 PM)DavidSt Wrote:  There are interests in University of Toronto and British Columbia since they are like top 30 in academics comparing to US schools. They are better than some AAU schools in that prospects. I do think there are interests in Canacdian schools to join because you do add more tv markets.

DavidSt,

Do you foresee a conference adding Simon Fraser and capturing the pre-HNIC slot across Canada?

Gotta be the Big West. Only the bold

(02-06-2023 12:52 AM)jimrtex Wrote:  Two of the later LSC contests were moved from Blaine, Washington, USA back to Burnaby, as COVID restrictions were relaxed.

Division II requires 10-member conferences. Ideally, a conference would like schools close together so that air travel is not required, and perhaps road trips can be made without overnight stays, and they might like some affinity between the schools. If Division I had a10-school requirement the PAC would be at risk of losing its AQ if it lost one more school. The Ivy League would be scrambling to find at least two more schools.

So DII conferences may be huge agglomerations of nearby schools. The Lone Star Conference has 17 schools, and is adding an 18th, but only seven, soon to be eight, play football. The Great Northwest Athlectic Conference has 10-members but only three football schools.

The Northern Sun has 16 schools, with 14 football schools. The Great American Conference has 12 schools all who play football. These larger football conferences have little need to play OOC games. With a limit of 11 regular season games, they may have 10 or 11 conference games simply so they can play each other on a regular basis.

This means that there are not nearby schools to play OOC games against the LSC. With only seven football schools, a single round-robin is six games. That requires scrambling for OOC games. The Lone Star has lost Tarleton State and TAMU-Commerce to Division I. They are lucky that Sul Ross has decided to move up to DII since it means offering scholarships including in football. A private DIII school may be reluctant to jump to DII since that means a loss of a significant amount of tuition revenue, as well as possibly upgrading facilities, coaching staffs, etc.

DII would be better off organizing football like is done in high school (at least in Texas). Assign football schools to districts. With 160 football schools, that could be 16 10-member districts. If two from each advance to the playoffs that would be 32 schools.

DII might use some creativity to hand the northwest schools. Place them in different districts every two years, so that one biennium, schools in the Dakota have three trips to the Northwest. The next two seasons it might be schools in Colorado, and then schools in Texas.

Perhaps the northwest schools can be split up for district play, reducing the travel requirements for the "other" schools. The three GNAC schools could still play OOD games against each other.

Simon Fraser played on their own field in week 1 (Central Washington), the others played in Canada were weeks 6 and 9 while weeks 3 and 7 were at Blaine.

You keep saying 10-member conference but that is wrong. D2 conference membership minimum is 8; the minimum is 10 for a new conference. See article 7.3.6 of the current D2 manual.

Nearby is subjective. The west is spread out. There are 24 states west of the Mississippi and 17 of them are larger than New England including 3 states (AZ, NV, WY) that do not have a D2 member along with Louisiana. From April to October in 2022, I commuted 100 miles one-way for work in Colorado and that's considered a short trip.

The Northern Sun will have 15 full and 13 football members in 2023-24 while in the Mid-America Lincoln (MO) football is playing an Independent schedule in 2023-24 before they move all sports to the Great Lakes Valley in 2024. Although those conferences are large, every week someone in each conference has an opening for an OOC game because of the odd number of football playing members. The Rocky Mountain schools have two weeks to schedule an OOC game.

There are 4 private football-playing schools currently reclassifying to D2. Emory & Henry College is coming directly from D3 and Thomas More was D3 before spending the last three years in NAIA. And 2 more who are potentially moving from D3 to D2. Mississippi College returned to D2 after 18 years in D3.

This is college, not high school. Colleges spend money to be a member of a conference and the NCAA has rules on what defines a conference. None of that mess is going to happen.

(02-05-2023 06:27 PM)jimrtex Wrote:  

(02-05-2023 08:20 AM)IM Snug Wrote:  Even if Simon Fraser wanted to move to D1 they can't, because as of now, Canadian schools are barred from the NCAA from being D1. They're only allowed to join D2.

The NCAA has delegated determination of whether schools from other countries could join the NCAA to each Division.

Simon Fraser is not DII because the NCAA as a whole said that they must play in Division II, but rather DII said Canadian schools could join Division II. In 2018, Division II extended this privilege to Mexican schools.

At that time, CETYS a school with campuses in Tijuana and Mexicali was seriously contemplating joining NCAA Division II. CETYS is a private school that particularly focuses on STEM education to American standards (it is accredited by a regional accreditation agency based in the US). Significant number of students commute daily from California.

Incidentally, the DII rules for football contests gives an exemption for games in Hawaii, Alaska, Canada, and Mexico. A Lone Star Conference school that played in Canada would be permitted a 12th regular season game.

All that it would take for Simon Fraser to join DI would be:

(1) SFU desiring to join DI;
(2) A Division I conference wanting SFU (e.g. WAC, WCC, Big Sky, or PAC) to join their conference;
(3) And Division I changing its rule.

If the PAC wanted SFU, they would sponsor the rule change. SFU clearly fits the PAC footprint better than SMU, ad infinitum.

So PAC adds SFU, UBC, Hawaii and UNAM from Mexico, all funded by everyone getting extra game

(02-06-2023 04:28 AM)AZcats Wrote:  

(02-06-2023 12:52 AM)jimrtex Wrote:  Two of the later LSC contests were moved from Blaine, Washington, USA back to Burnaby, as COVID restrictions were relaxed.

Division II requires 10-member conferences. Ideally, a conference would like schools close together so that air travel is not required, and perhaps road trips can be made without overnight stays, and they might like some affinity between the schools. If Division I had a10-school requirement the PAC would be at risk of losing its AQ if it lost one more school. The Ivy League would be scrambling to find at least two more schools.

So DII conferences may be huge agglomerations of nearby schools. The Lone Star Conference has 17 schools, and is adding an 18th, but only seven, soon to be eight, play football. The Great Northwest Athlectic Conference has 10-members but only three football schools.

The Northern Sun has 16 schools, with 14 football schools. The Great American Conference has 12 schools all who play football. These larger football conferences have little need to play OOC games. With a limit of 11 regular season games, they may have 10 or 11 conference games simply so they can play each other on a regular basis.

This means that there are not nearby schools to play OOC games against the LSC. With only seven football schools, a single round-robin is six games. That requires scrambling for OOC games. The Lone Star has lost Tarleton State and TAMU-Commerce to Division I. They are lucky that Sul Ross has decided to move up to DII since it means offering scholarships including in football. A private DIII school may be reluctant to jump to DII since that means a loss of a significant amount of tuition revenue, as well as possibly upgrading facilities, coaching staffs, etc.

DII would be better off organizing football like is done in high school (at least in Texas). Assign football schools to districts. With 160 football schools, that could be 16 10-member districts. If two from each advance to the playoffs that would be 32 schools.

DII might use some creativity to hand the northwest schools. Place them in different districts every two years, so that one biennium, schools in the Dakota have three trips to the Northwest. The next two seasons it might be schools in Colorado, and then schools in Texas.

Perhaps the northwest schools can be split up for district play, reducing the travel requirements for the "other" schools. The three GNAC schools could still play OOD games against each other.

Simon Fraser played on their own field in week 1 (Central Washington), the others played in Canada were weeks 6 and 9 while weeks 3 and 7 were at Blaine.

You keep saying 10-member conference but that is wrong. D2 conference membership minimum is 8; the minimum is 10 for a new conference. See article 7.3.6 of the current D2 manual.

Nearby is subjective. The west is spread out. There are 24 states west of the Mississippi and 17 of them are larger than New England including 3 states (AZ, NV, WY) that do not have a D2 member along with Louisiana. From April to October in 2022, I commuted 100 miles one-way for work in Colorado and that's considered a short trip.

The Northern Sun will have 15 full and 13 football members in 2023-24 while in the Mid-America Lincoln (MO) football is playing an Independent schedule in 2023-24 before they move all sports to the Great Lakes Valley in 2024. Although those conferences are large, every week someone in each conference has an opening for an OOC game because of the odd number of football playing members. The Rocky Mountain schools have two weeks to schedule an OOC game.

There are 4 private football-playing schools currently reclassifying to D2. Emory & Henry College is coming directly from D3 and Thomas More was D3 before spending the last three years in NAIA. And 2 more who are potentially moving from D3 to D2. Mississippi College returned to D2 after 18 years in D3.

This is college, not high school. Colleges spend money to be a member of a conference and the NCAA has rules on what defines a conference. None of that mess is going to happen.

Thanks for the info on the number of members. I must have read the rule for new conferences. Nonetheless, all 23 DII conferences have 10 or more members, and the average is 13.3.

With the loss of Abilene Christian, Tarleton State, and TAMU-Commerce the LSC would have been down to 7 members - except for the addition of the 10 schools in the last few years. Moving of those 10 members caused the collapse of the Heartland Conference. The Lone Star Conference now has 7 (8 with Sul Ross) public schools sponsoring football, and 10 mostly private, and smaller schools not sponsoring football. Are you familiar with the expression of a product trying to be a floor wax and mouth wash at the same time?

I'm not sure what you are getting at with "nearby". We might consider the NSIC, GAC, MIAA, and RMAC as "nearby". In 2022, the NSIC, MIAA, and GAC all played 11-game regular-season schedules, which meant zero OOC games. The RMAC had a 9-game regular season, so each school had two OOC games at the start of the season.

With the three GNAC affiliates, the LSC had 10-schools playing 9 regular season games. The 7 full-time LSC schools had 14 OOC games. 8 of those were against the RMAC. Two were against DI/FCS schools (Abilene Christian and Tarleton State). Two were against distant DII schools (Michigan Tech and Southwest Baptist). Houghton, Michigan is not close to anywhere except Canada. The final two were against DIII Sul Ross, and non-NCAA/NAIA North American.

Had they not had the GNAC opponents, the LSC would have had to secure three additional OOC games each (21 total).

Lincoln (MO) is not moving to the GLVC until 2024. In their announcement they pointed out they were joining schools with which they had greater affinity. Lincoln is the second smallest MIAA school, but are mid-range in the MIAA.

If the NSIC and MIAA do end up with an odd-number of teams, they might end up with the odd teams playing each other during their off-week from conference play. They might even coordinate their schedules.

Many more schools are moving from DII to DI, than DIII to DII. Most of the new DII schools are coming from NAIA, where they were likely offering scholarships. In DII they may have had to add a few sports and some more scholarships, and perhaps gain more stability.

A public DIII school, such as Sul Ross, likely has cheaper tuition than a private school, particularly for in-state students. They may need to recruit students to keep their doors open. The cost of tuition may not be a real cost, if they just have to move an extra desk into a classroom.

(02-07-2023 04:50 AM)jimrtex Wrote:  

(02-06-2023 04:28 AM)AZcats Wrote:  

(02-06-2023 12:52 AM)jimrtex Wrote:  Two of the later LSC contests were moved from Blaine, Washington, USA back to Burnaby, as COVID restrictions were relaxed.

Division II requires 10-member conferences. Ideally, a conference would like schools close together so that air travel is not required, and perhaps road trips can be made without overnight stays, and they might like some affinity between the schools. If Division I had a10-school requirement the PAC would be at risk of losing its AQ if it lost one more school. The Ivy League would be scrambling to find at least two more schools.

So DII conferences may be huge agglomerations of nearby schools. The Lone Star Conference has 17 schools, and is adding an 18th, but only seven, soon to be eight, play football. The Great Northwest Athlectic Conference has 10-members but only three football schools.

The Northern Sun has 16 schools, with 14 football schools. The Great American Conference has 12 schools all who play football. These larger football conferences have little need to play OOC games. With a limit of 11 regular season games, they may have 10 or 11 conference games simply so they can play each other on a regular basis.

This means that there are not nearby schools to play OOC games against the LSC. With only seven football schools, a single round-robin is six games. That requires scrambling for OOC games. The Lone Star has lost Tarleton State and TAMU-Commerce to Division I. They are lucky that Sul Ross has decided to move up to DII since it means offering scholarships including in football. A private DIII school may be reluctant to jump to DII since that means a loss of a significant amount of tuition revenue, as well as possibly upgrading facilities, coaching staffs, etc.

DII would be better off organizing football like is done in high school (at least in Texas). Assign football schools to districts. With 160 football schools, that could be 16 10-member districts. If two from each advance to the playoffs that would be 32 schools.

DII might use some creativity to hand the northwest schools. Place them in different districts every two years, so that one biennium, schools in the Dakota have three trips to the Northwest. The next two seasons it might be schools in Colorado, and then schools in Texas.

Perhaps the northwest schools can be split up for district play, reducing the travel requirements for the "other" schools. The three GNAC schools could still play OOD games against each other.

Simon Fraser played on their own field in week 1 (Central Washington), the others played in Canada were weeks 6 and 9 while weeks 3 and 7 were at Blaine.

You keep saying 10-member conference but that is wrong. D2 conference membership minimum is 8; the minimum is 10 for a new conference. See article 7.3.6 of the current D2 manual.

Nearby is subjective. The west is spread out. There are 24 states west of the Mississippi and 17 of them are larger than New England including 3 states (AZ, NV, WY) that do not have a D2 member along with Louisiana. From April to October in 2022, I commuted 100 miles one-way for work in Colorado and that's considered a short trip.

The Northern Sun will have 15 full and 13 football members in 2023-24 while in the Mid-America Lincoln (MO) football is playing an Independent schedule in 2023-24 before they move all sports to the Great Lakes Valley in 2024. Although those conferences are large, every week someone in each conference has an opening for an OOC game because of the odd number of football playing members. The Rocky Mountain schools have two weeks to schedule an OOC game.

There are 4 private football-playing schools currently reclassifying to D2. Emory & Henry College is coming directly from D3 and Thomas More was D3 before spending the last three years in NAIA. And 2 more who are potentially moving from D3 to D2. Mississippi College returned to D2 after 18 years in D3.

This is college, not high school. Colleges spend money to be a member of a conference and the NCAA has rules on what defines a conference. None of that mess is going to happen.

Thanks for the info on the number of members. I must have read the rule for new conferences. Nonetheless, all 23 DII conferences have 10 or more members, and the average is 13.3.

With the loss of Abilene Christian, Tarleton State, and TAMU-Commerce the LSC would have been down to 7 members - except for the addition of the 10 schools in the last few years. Moving of those 10 members caused the collapse of the Heartland Conference. The Lone Star Conference now has 7 (8 with Sul Ross) public schools sponsoring football, and 10 mostly private, and smaller schools not sponsoring football. Are you familiar with the expression of a product trying to be a floor wax and mouth wash at the same time?

I'm not sure what you are getting at with "nearby". We might consider the NSIC, GAC, MIAA, and RMAC as "nearby". In 2022, the NSIC, MIAA, and GAC all played 11-game regular-season schedules, which meant zero OOC games. The RMAC had a 9-game regular season, so each school had two OOC games at the start of the season.

With the three GNAC affiliates, the LSC had 10-schools playing 9 regular season games. The 7 full-time LSC schools had 14 OOC games. 8 of those were against the RMAC. Two were against DI/FCS schools (Abilene Christian and Tarleton State). Two were against distant DII schools (Michigan Tech and Southwest Baptist). Houghton, Michigan is not close to anywhere except Canada. The final two were against DIII Sul Ross, and non-NCAA/NAIA North American.

Had they not had the GNAC opponents, the LSC would have had to secure three additional OOC games each (21 total).

Lincoln (MO) is not moving to the GLVC until 2024. In their announcement they pointed out they were joining schools with which they had greater affinity. Lincoln is the second smallest MIAA school, but are mid-range in the MIAA.

If the NSIC and MIAA do end up with an odd-number of teams, they might end up with the odd teams playing each other during their off-week from conference play. They might even coordinate their schedules.

Many more schools are moving from DII to DI, than DIII to DII. Most of the new DII schools are coming from NAIA, where they were likely offering scholarships. In DII they may have had to add a few sports and some more scholarships, and perhaps gain more stability.

A public DIII school, such as Sul Ross, likely has cheaper tuition than a private school, particularly for in-state students. They may need to recruit students to keep their doors open. The cost of tuition may not be a real cost, if they just have to move an extra desk into a classroom.

The East Coast Conference has 9 members and the average is less than 13 this year.

Yes, Lincoln (MO) is not going to the GLVC until 2024 but their football team is also not playing a MIAA schedule in 2023. The MIAA and the NSIC WILL (not if) have an odd number of teams in 2023 and unless something big happens soon it will remain that way in 2024. Schools are already scheduling 2023 OOC games, one game is Sioux Falls at Pittsburg State. The conferences are not coordinating their schedules; other OOC opponents are against GLIAC, GLVC, RMAC, and FCS.

There hasn't been much D3-to-D2 movement but it is happening a little more frequently and that will continue.

(02-05-2023 09:08 PM)MattBrownEP Wrote:  Nobody is adding a Canadian school for a *TV market* in the year of our Lord 2023. C'mon.

Are you telling me that UToronto @ Penn West Edinboro wouldn't have 5 million Canadians absolutely riveted to their television?

(02-05-2023 09:08 PM)MattBrownEP Wrote:  Nobody is adding a Canadian school for a *TV market* in the year of our Lord 2023. C'mon.

For football. They would probably get a decent number of games on TSN in hockey, though, and that would help for schools looking to recruit Canadian talent. TSN already airs some games and a Canadian school would increase interest. https://collegehockeyinc.com/canadian-nc...hedule.php

(02-07-2023 12:50 PM)nodak651 Wrote:  

(02-05-2023 09:08 PM)MattBrownEP Wrote:  Nobody is adding a Canadian school for a *TV market* in the year of our Lord 2023. C'mon.

For football. They would probably get a decent number of games on TSN in hockey, though, and that would help for schools looking to recruit Canadian talent. TSN already airs some games and a Canadian school would increase interest. https://collegehockeyinc.com/canadian-nc...hedule.php

UToronto is averaging about 300 fans a game for their hockey matches, I can't imagine there's any demand to watch them on TV.

(02-07-2023 01:15 PM)TDenverFan Wrote:  

(02-07-2023 12:50 PM)nodak651 Wrote:  

(02-05-2023 09:08 PM)MattBrownEP Wrote:  Nobody is adding a Canadian school for a *TV market* in the year of our Lord 2023. C'mon.

For football. They would probably get a decent number of games on TSN in hockey, though, and that would help for schools looking to recruit Canadian talent. TSN already airs some games and a Canadian school would increase interest. https://collegehockeyinc.com/canadian-nc...hedule.php

UToronto is averaging about 300 fans a game for their hockey matches, I can't imagine there's any demand to watch them on TV.

Does UToronto have big name NHL prospects? For the record, I'm not saying there would be big money involved or anything. But schools in CUSA have shown what they are willing to sacrifice for linear TV coverage.

(02-07-2023 03:43 PM)nodak651 Wrote:  

(02-07-2023 01:15 PM)TDenverFan Wrote:  

(02-07-2023 12:50 PM)nodak651 Wrote:  

(02-05-2023 09:08 PM)MattBrownEP Wrote:  Nobody is adding a Canadian school for a *TV market* in the year of our Lord 2023. C'mon.

For football. They would probably get a decent number of games on TSN in hockey, though, and that would help for schools looking to recruit Canadian talent. TSN already airs some games and a Canadian school would increase interest. https://collegehockeyinc.com/canadian-nc...hedule.php

UToronto is averaging about 300 fans a game for their hockey matches, I can't imagine there's any demand to watch them on TV.

Does UToronto have big name NHL prospects? For the record, I'm not saying there would be big money involved or anything. But schools in CUSA have shown what they are willing to sacrifice for linear TV coverage.

UToronto averages 300 fans a game because of the quality of hockey. Below the NHL, Ontarians are watching the OHL because that's where the local NHL prospects are playing. The guys playing university hockey in Canada are the guys who didn't make it professionally, so no one's interested other than parents.

If the Varsity Blues are playing NCAA hockey, that's an entirely different quality of hockey than what they're playing.

(02-07-2023 09:23 AM)AZcats Wrote:  

(02-07-2023 04:50 AM)jimrtex Wrote:  

(02-06-2023 04:28 AM)AZcats Wrote:  

(02-06-2023 12:52 AM)jimrtex Wrote:  Two of the later LSC contests were moved from Blaine, Washington, USA back to Burnaby, as COVID restrictions were relaxed.

Division II requires 10-member conferences. Ideally, a conference would like schools close together so that air travel is not required, and perhaps road trips can be made without overnight stays, and they might like some affinity between the schools. If Division I had a10-school requirement the PAC would be at risk of losing its AQ if it lost one more school. The Ivy League would be scrambling to find at least two more schools.

So DII conferences may be huge agglomerations of nearby schools. The Lone Star Conference has 17 schools, and is adding an 18th, but only seven, soon to be eight, play football. The Great Northwest Athlectic Conference has 10-members but only three football schools.

The Northern Sun has 16 schools, with 14 football schools. The Great American Conference has 12 schools all who play football. These larger football conferences have little need to play OOC games. With a limit of 11 regular season games, they may have 10 or 11 conference games simply so they can play each other on a regular basis.

This means that there are not nearby schools to play OOC games against the LSC. With only seven football schools, a single round-robin is six games. That requires scrambling for OOC games. The Lone Star has lost Tarleton State and TAMU-Commerce to Division I. They are lucky that Sul Ross has decided to move up to DII since it means offering scholarships including in football. A private DIII school may be reluctant to jump to DII since that means a loss of a significant amount of tuition revenue, as well as possibly upgrading facilities, coaching staffs, etc.

DII would be better off organizing football like is done in high school (at least in Texas). Assign football schools to districts. With 160 football schools, that could be 16 10-member districts. If two from each advance to the playoffs that would be 32 schools.

DII might use some creativity to hand the northwest schools. Place them in different districts every two years, so that one biennium, schools in the Dakota have three trips to the Northwest. The next two seasons it might be schools in Colorado, and then schools in Texas.

Perhaps the northwest schools can be split up for district play, reducing the travel requirements for the "other" schools. The three GNAC schools could still play OOD games against each other.

Simon Fraser played on their own field in week 1 (Central Washington), the others played in Canada were weeks 6 and 9 while weeks 3 and 7 were at Blaine.

You keep saying 10-member conference but that is wrong. D2 conference membership minimum is 8; the minimum is 10 for a new conference. See article 7.3.6 of the current D2 manual.

Nearby is subjective. The west is spread out. There are 24 states west of the Mississippi and 17 of them are larger than New England including 3 states (AZ, NV, WY) that do not have a D2 member along with Louisiana. From April to October in 2022, I commuted 100 miles one-way for work in Colorado and that's considered a short trip.

The Northern Sun will have 15 full and 13 football members in 2023-24 while in the Mid-America Lincoln (MO) football is playing an Independent schedule in 2023-24 before they move all sports to the Great Lakes Valley in 2024. Although those conferences are large, every week someone in each conference has an opening for an OOC game because of the odd number of football playing members. The Rocky Mountain schools have two weeks to schedule an OOC game.

There are 4 private football-playing schools currently reclassifying to D2. Emory & Henry College is coming directly from D3 and Thomas More was D3 before spending the last three years in NAIA. And 2 more who are potentially moving from D3 to D2. Mississippi College returned to D2 after 18 years in D3.

This is college, not high school. Colleges spend money to be a member of a conference and the NCAA has rules on what defines a conference. None of that mess is going to happen.

Thanks for the info on the number of members. I must have read the rule for new conferences. Nonetheless, all 23 DII conferences have 10 or more members, and the average is 13.3.

With the loss of Abilene Christian, Tarleton State, and TAMU-Commerce the LSC would have been down to 7 members - except for the addition of the 10 schools in the last few years. Moving of those 10 members caused the collapse of the Heartland Conference. The Lone Star Conference now has 7 (8 with Sul Ross) public schools sponsoring football, and 10 mostly private, and smaller schools not sponsoring football. Are you familiar with the expression of a product trying to be a floor wax and mouth wash at the same time?

I'm not sure what you are getting at with "nearby". We might consider the NSIC, GAC, MIAA, and RMAC as "nearby". In 2022, the NSIC, MIAA, and GAC all played 11-game regular-season schedules, which meant zero OOC games. The RMAC had a 9-game regular season, so each school had two OOC games at the start of the season.

With the three GNAC affiliates, the LSC had 10-schools playing 9 regular season games. The 7 full-time LSC schools had 14 OOC games. 8 of those were against the RMAC. Two were against DI/FCS schools (Abilene Christian and Tarleton State). Two were against distant DII schools (Michigan Tech and Southwest Baptist). Houghton, Michigan is not close to anywhere except Canada. The final two were against DIII Sul Ross, and non-NCAA/NAIA North American.

Had they not had the GNAC opponents, the LSC would have had to secure three additional OOC games each (21 total).

Lincoln (MO) is not moving to the GLVC until 2024. In their announcement they pointed out they were joining schools with which they had greater affinity. Lincoln is the second smallest MIAA school, but are mid-range in the MIAA.

If the NSIC and MIAA do end up with an odd-number of teams, they might end up with the odd teams playing each other during their off-week from conference play. They might even coordinate their schedules.

Many more schools are moving from DII to DI, than DIII to DII. Most of the new DII schools are coming from NAIA, where they were likely offering scholarships. In DII they may have had to add a few sports and some more scholarships, and perhaps gain more stability.

A public DIII school, such as Sul Ross, likely has cheaper tuition than a private school, particularly for in-state students. They may need to recruit students to keep their doors open. The cost of tuition may not be a real cost, if they just have to move an extra desk into a classroom.

The East Coast Conference has 9 members and the average is less than 13 this year.

Yes, Lincoln (MO) is not going to the GLVC until 2024 but their football team is also not playing a MIAA schedule in 2023. The MIAA and the NSIC WILL (not if) have an odd number of teams in 2023 and unless something big happens soon it will remain that way in 2024. Schools are already scheduling 2023 OOC games, one game is Sioux Falls at Pittsburg State. The conferences are not coordinating their schedules; other OOC opponents are against GLIAC, GLVC, RMAC, and FCS.

There hasn't been much D3-to-D2 movement but it is happening a little more frequently and that will continue.

Are the numbers for DII conferences other than the ECC correct except for the ECC? List of NCAA conferences

Did someone miss the effect of the LIU-Post merger, where the combined school kept the DII football program, but shifted it to the DI classification?

I mis-added the number of DII conference members. The average for 2022 was 12.87 For 2023 it will be 13.04 (+Bluefield State, +Roosevelt, +Westmont. +Thomas More, -Holy Names). Bluefield gets a + since it is moving from Independent conference). The shifts of Young Harris and Upper Iowa have no effect on the total conference count.

There must be something more about the move of Lincoln (back) to the GLVC other than just a conference change. Will Lincoln be playing football this fall? They are 16-127 (0.112) since 2009.

How did Pittsburg State know that Sioux Falls would have an open date on the day that Pittsburg State would have been playing Lincoln? Concurrent with the announcement that Lincoln would be leaving, the MIAA announced a search committee to find new members. They likely prefer an even number of schools.

So back to the LSC. With 7 schools (through 2023) they would have to come up with 7x5 (35) OOC games. In 2022, the RMAC had 14 available the first two weeks of the season, and nobody else in the western US had open dates during the season. That is 21 dates to be filled, including at least 7 when no DII schools west of the Mississippi would be needed.

Add in the three GNAC schools and the LSC has 10 schools, playing 9 regular season games. They (Texas/NM) schools can have two OOC games, mostly the first two weeks of the season. Hunting up OOC games in the latter part of the season is not a feature.

When Sul Ross joins there will be 8 Tex/NM schools. That would be 7 regular season games, but require 8x4 (32) OOC games. So it is convenient to have two extra teams (Central Washington, Western Oregon) but not three (bye, bye Simon Fraser). Hoping the MIAA or NSIC will have some extra games during the season is not a good long time strategy.

What Central Washington and Western Oregon should do is tell the LSC to forget about the affiliate relationship. But they can't because that would leave them trying to fill out a schedule.

So they should go back to my original suggestion of more of a scheduling alliance. The LSC could play 16 games against GNAC, one far away and one at home. They would still need two other OOC games each, with most against the RMAC, perhaps some against the MIAA and NSIC, and others against DI, odd DII, DIII, and NAIA.

The LSC games could be distributed 5, 5, and 6 among the GNAC schools, with SFU playing two at home, and three away. There could be discreet inquiries about which schools would have visa problems before the schedule is made.

The GNAC schools could play a double-round robin, and they would only need 5 other OOC games.

Since DII does not give AQ to the football playoffs it does not matter whether the LSC counts the GNAC games in their standings or not.

Roosevelt isn't yet in the membership process, which they declared their intention to pursue only in August. I've not seen confirmation that they actually applied on Feb 1.

https://www.roosevelt.edu/stories/news/r...membership

(02-07-2023 05:46 PM)teamvsn Wrote:  Roosevelt isn't yet in the membership process, which they declared their intention to pursue only in August. I've not seen confirmation that they actually applied on Feb 1.

https://www.roosevelt.edu/stories/news/r...membership

I would prefer a release from the school but this is all there is.

https://www.collegiateconsulting.com/new...membership

(02-07-2023 04:17 PM)IWokeUpLikeThis Wrote:  If the Varsity Blues are playing NCAA hockey, that's an entirely different quality of hockey than what they're playing.

Exactly. My sense (and I'll stand corrected here; I'm not an expert) is that NCAA Division I hockey is roughly equivalent to Canadian major junior leagues like the Ontario Hockey League. One path is for players who want to earn a degree as they learn if they have what it takes to go pro. The other is for potential pro hockey players who don't see college as for them.

The top Canadian athletic intercollegiate programs are more like NCAA Division III.

(02-07-2023 05:36 PM)jimrtex Wrote:  

(02-07-2023 09:23 AM)AZcats Wrote:  

(02-07-2023 04:50 AM)jimrtex Wrote:  

(02-06-2023 04:28 AM)AZcats Wrote:  

(02-06-2023 12:52 AM)jimrtex Wrote:  Two of the later LSC contests were moved from Blaine, Washington, USA back to Burnaby, as COVID restrictions were relaxed.

Division II requires 10-member conferences. Ideally, a conference would like schools close together so that air travel is not required, and perhaps road trips can be made without overnight stays, and they might like some affinity between the schools. If Division I had a10-school requirement the PAC would be at risk of losing its AQ if it lost one more school. The Ivy League would be scrambling to find at least two more schools.

So DII conferences may be huge agglomerations of nearby schools. The Lone Star Conference has 17 schools, and is adding an 18th, but only seven, soon to be eight, play football. The Great Northwest Athlectic Conference has 10-members but only three football schools.

The Northern Sun has 16 schools, with 14 football schools. The Great American Conference has 12 schools all who play football. These larger football conferences have little need to play OOC games. With a limit of 11 regular season games, they may have 10 or 11 conference games simply so they can play each other on a regular basis.

This means that there are not nearby schools to play OOC games against the LSC. With only seven football schools, a single round-robin is six games. That requires scrambling for OOC games. The Lone Star has lost Tarleton State and TAMU-Commerce to Division I. They are lucky that Sul Ross has decided to move up to DII since it means offering scholarships including in football. A private DIII school may be reluctant to jump to DII since that means a loss of a significant amount of tuition revenue, as well as possibly upgrading facilities, coaching staffs, etc.

DII would be better off organizing football like is done in high school (at least in Texas). Assign football schools to districts. With 160 football schools, that could be 16 10-member districts. If two from each advance to the playoffs that would be 32 schools.

DII might use some creativity to hand the northwest schools. Place them in different districts every two years, so that one biennium, schools in the Dakota have three trips to the Northwest. The next two seasons it might be schools in Colorado, and then schools in Texas.

Perhaps the northwest schools can be split up for district play, reducing the travel requirements for the "other" schools. The three GNAC schools could still play OOD games against each other.

Simon Fraser played on their own field in week 1 (Central Washington), the others played in Canada were weeks 6 and 9 while weeks 3 and 7 were at Blaine.

You keep saying 10-member conference but that is wrong. D2 conference membership minimum is 8; the minimum is 10 for a new conference. See article 7.3.6 of the current D2 manual.

Nearby is subjective. The west is spread out. There are 24 states west of the Mississippi and 17 of them are larger than New England including 3 states (AZ, NV, WY) that do not have a D2 member along with Louisiana. From April to October in 2022, I commuted 100 miles one-way for work in Colorado and that's considered a short trip.

The Northern Sun will have 15 full and 13 football members in 2023-24 while in the Mid-America Lincoln (MO) football is playing an Independent schedule in 2023-24 before they move all sports to the Great Lakes Valley in 2024. Although those conferences are large, every week someone in each conference has an opening for an OOC game because of the odd number of football playing members. The Rocky Mountain schools have two weeks to schedule an OOC game.

There are 4 private football-playing schools currently reclassifying to D2. Emory & Henry College is coming directly from D3 and Thomas More was D3 before spending the last three years in NAIA. And 2 more who are potentially moving from D3 to D2. Mississippi College returned to D2 after 18 years in D3.

This is college, not high school. Colleges spend money to be a member of a conference and the NCAA has rules on what defines a conference. None of that mess is going to happen.

Thanks for the info on the number of members. I must have read the rule for new conferences. Nonetheless, all 23 DII conferences have 10 or more members, and the average is 13.3.

With the loss of Abilene Christian, Tarleton State, and TAMU-Commerce the LSC would have been down to 7 members - except for the addition of the 10 schools in the last few years. Moving of those 10 members caused the collapse of the Heartland Conference. The Lone Star Conference now has 7 (8 with Sul Ross) public schools sponsoring football, and 10 mostly private, and smaller schools not sponsoring football. Are you familiar with the expression of a product trying to be a floor wax and mouth wash at the same time?

I'm not sure what you are getting at with "nearby". We might consider the NSIC, GAC, MIAA, and RMAC as "nearby". In 2022, the NSIC, MIAA, and GAC all played 11-game regular-season schedules, which meant zero OOC games. The RMAC had a 9-game regular season, so each school had two OOC games at the start of the season.

With the three GNAC affiliates, the LSC had 10-schools playing 9 regular season games. The 7 full-time LSC schools had 14 OOC games. 8 of those were against the RMAC. Two were against DI/FCS schools (Abilene Christian and Tarleton State). Two were against distant DII schools (Michigan Tech and Southwest Baptist). Houghton, Michigan is not close to anywhere except Canada. The final two were against DIII Sul Ross, and non-NCAA/NAIA North American.

Had they not had the GNAC opponents, the LSC would have had to secure three additional OOC games each (21 total).

Lincoln (MO) is not moving to the GLVC until 2024. In their announcement they pointed out they were joining schools with which they had greater affinity. Lincoln is the second smallest MIAA school, but are mid-range in the MIAA.

If the NSIC and MIAA do end up with an odd-number of teams, they might end up with the odd teams playing each other during their off-week from conference play. They might even coordinate their schedules.

Many more schools are moving from DII to DI, than DIII to DII. Most of the new DII schools are coming from NAIA, where they were likely offering scholarships. In DII they may have had to add a few sports and some more scholarships, and perhaps gain more stability.

A public DIII school, such as Sul Ross, likely has cheaper tuition than a private school, particularly for in-state students. They may need to recruit students to keep their doors open. The cost of tuition may not be a real cost, if they just have to move an extra desk into a classroom.

The East Coast Conference has 9 members and the average is less than 13 this year.

Yes, Lincoln (MO) is not going to the GLVC until 2024 but their football team is also not playing a MIAA schedule in 2023. The MIAA and the NSIC WILL (not if) have an odd number of teams in 2023 and unless something big happens soon it will remain that way in 2024. Schools are already scheduling 2023 OOC games, one game is Sioux Falls at Pittsburg State. The conferences are not coordinating their schedules; other OOC opponents are against GLIAC, GLVC, RMAC, and FCS.

There hasn't been much D3-to-D2 movement but it is happening a little more frequently and that will continue.

Are the numbers for DII conferences other than the ECC correct except for the ECC? List of NCAA conferences

Did someone miss the effect of the LIU-Post merger, where the combined school kept the DII football program, but shifted it to the DI classification?

I mis-added the number of DII conference members. The average for 2022 was 12.87 For 2023 it will be 13.04 (+Bluefield State, +Roosevelt, +Westmont. +Thomas More, -Holy Names). Bluefield gets a + since it is moving from Independent conference). The shifts of Young Harris and Upper Iowa have no effect on the total conference count.

There must be something more about the move of Lincoln (back) to the GLVC other than just a conference change. Will Lincoln be playing football this fall? They are 16-127 (0.112) since 2009.

How did Pittsburg State know that Sioux Falls would have an open date on the day that Pittsburg State would have been playing Lincoln? Concurrent with the announcement that Lincoln would be leaving, the MIAA announced a search committee to find new members. They likely prefer an even number of schools.

So back to the LSC. With 7 schools (through 2023) they would have to come up with 7x5 (35) OOC games. In 2022, the RMAC had 14 available the first two weeks of the season, and nobody else in the western US had open dates during the season. That is 21 dates to be filled, including at least 7 when no DII schools west of the Mississippi would be needed.

Add in the three GNAC schools and the LSC has 10 schools, playing 9 regular season games. They (Texas/NM) schools can have two OOC games, mostly the first two weeks of the season. Hunting up OOC games in the latter part of the season is not a feature.

When Sul Ross joins there will be 8 Tex/NM schools. That would be 7 regular season games, but require 8x4 (32) OOC games. So it is convenient to have two extra teams (Central Washington, Western Oregon) but not three (bye, bye Simon Fraser). Hoping the MIAA or NSIC will have some extra games during the season is not a good long time strategy.

What Central Washington and Western Oregon should do is tell the LSC to forget about the affiliate relationship. But they can't because that would leave them trying to fill out a schedule.

So they should go back to my original suggestion of more of a scheduling alliance. The LSC could play 16 games against GNAC, one far away and one at home. They would still need two other OOC games each, with most against the RMAC, perhaps some against the MIAA and NSIC, and others against DI, odd DII, DIII, and NAIA.

The LSC games could be distributed 5, 5, and 6 among the GNAC schools, with SFU playing two at home, and three away. There could be discreet inquiries about which schools would have visa problems before the schedule is made.

The GNAC schools could play a double-round robin, and they would only need 5 other OOC games.

Since DII does not give AQ to the football playoffs it does not matter whether the LSC counts the GNAC games in their standings or not.

Never trust Wiki for information on D2 but, yeah, it is correct except for the ECC. They failed to update the ECC info on that page when they updated the conference page. LIU has nothing to do with it, Bridgeport went from the ECC to the CACC taking the ECC from 10 to 9.

Roosevelt does not begin D2 and GLIAC competition until 2024-25.

For some reason it was not included in the official Lincoln (MO) release but at the announcement it was stated that football would play an independent schedule in 2023. https://www.newstribune.com/news/2023/ja...n-2024-25/

Quote:It was also announced Lincoln will not play an MIAA football schedule this fall, but may play MIAA teams as a non-conference opponent. Lincoln is in the process of finalizing its revised football schedule, with an eye toward adding fellow Historically Black Colleges and Universities.

The NSIC had already released their revised 2023 conference schedule after the Upper Iowa departure.

(02-08-2023 12:03 PM)AZcats Wrote:  

(02-07-2023 05:36 PM)jimrtex Wrote:  Are the numbers for DII conferences other than the ECC correct except for the ECC? List of NCAA conferences

Did someone miss the effect of the LIU-Post merger, where the combined school kept the DII football program, but shifted it to the DI classification?

There must be something more about the move of Lincoln (back) to the GLVC other than just a conference change. Will Lincoln be playing football this fall? They are 16-127 (0.112) since 2009.

How did Pittsburg State know that Sioux Falls would have an open date on the day that Pittsburg State would have been playing Lincoln? Concurrent with the announcement that Lincoln would be leaving, the MIAA announced a search committee to find new members. They likely prefer an even number of schools.

Never trust Wiki for information on D2 but, yeah, it is correct except for the ECC. They failed to update the ECC info on that page when they updated the conference page. LIU has nothing to do with it, Bridgeport went from the ECC to the CACC taking the ECC from 10 to 9.

Roosevelt does not begin D2 and GLIAC competition until 2024-25.

For some reason it was not included in the official Lincoln (MO) release but at the announcement it was stated that football would play an independent schedule in 2023. https://www.newstribune.com/news/2023/ja...n-2024-25/

Quote:It was also announced Lincoln will not play an MIAA football schedule this fall, but may play MIAA teams as a non-conference opponent. Lincoln is in the process of finalizing its revised football schedule, with an eye toward adding fellow Historically Black Colleges and Universities.

The NSIC had already released their revised 2023 conference schedule after the Upper Iowa departure.

Thanks on the ECC. When I come across things like that, I tend to edit them.

Does the ECC(DII) seem like the reincarnation of the ECC(DI) - the conference of last resort? If Chicago State were to drop to DII, I'd bet they would join.

The few games that Lincoln has won over the past several years were against HBCU such as Lane. Playing 11 conference games in the MIAA didn't give them the chance to play any such games.

The press release from the MIAA was just worded oddly (maybe they were glad to see Lincoln leave, but didn't want to say so). It was unclear whether the MIAA schools might hold Lincoln to contracts if they couldn't come up with other games. The press release says that such games would not count for conference standings, which suggests some might still be played.

If the NSIC and MIAA had some more warning about the loss of teams, it would make sense to be to find out which schools were interested in playing each other (e.g. UNK and Wayne State) when drawing up their respective schedules.