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Franklin Pierce University competed in Sprint football against Army, Navy, Cornell and Penn. Columbia, Princeton and other Ivy and Patriot League schools used to play sprint football. Franklin Pierce announced that they will move their team from Sprint to Varsity football starting in 2019. I am wondering if that is a move that they are preparing to move to D1 Patriot League? They do fit the profile of the conference, and they already have played Army, Navy and others as rivals before in the Sprint. Upgrading them to the Patriot League would let Army and Navy to play them in all sports without penalty. What do you all think about Franklin Pierce to be moving to the Patriot League and D1 in the future? Remember, this is a question. Not a rumor thread.

No. Upper Iowa, U of Chicago, and Southern New Hampshire are all better candidates.

Just as a general rule of thumb, if you have 1700 undergraduates... you're probably not a good candidate for Division 1. Just my two cents. The smallest Patriot League school is still 35% larger than Franklin Pierce.

Also Franklin Pierce has had severe financial issues. Just a few years ago Moody's gave them a credit rating of Caa3: “speculative of poor standing and are subject to very high credit risk.” http://www.sentinelsource.com/news/local...7a936.html

Contrast this with the Patriot League where the smallest endowment of a private university is nearly half a billion dollars.

Patriot League schools are also typically older small colleges. The youngest member was founded in 1893, 69 years prior to the founding of Franklin Pierce.

I went on a tour with my sister at Franklin Pierce when she was looking at colleges. They had offered her a spot on the track team I believe so she was shown the athletics facilities. I don't have much knowledge of the Patriot League's facilities outside of Army, Navy, Holy Cross, and BU.... but I think there'd be quite a bit of work to do facility wise. I don't think their gym holds more than 500 people, less than a third of even the smallest Patriot League gym. Plus they share locker rooms with the soccer teams.

They do have a bubble indoor practice facility with a 50 yard field inside, which frankly is nice especially for a school their size, but that's about it.

(04-08-2018 10:34 AM)DoubleRSU Wrote: [ -> ]No. Upper Iowa, U of Chicago, and Southern New Hampshire are all better candidates.

I don't see UChicago leaving the elite DIII conference for a northeast based DI conference.

(04-08-2018 12:30 PM)McKinney Wrote: [ -> ]

(04-08-2018 10:34 AM)DoubleRSU Wrote: [ -> ]No. Upper Iowa, U of Chicago, and Southern New Hampshire are all better candidates.

I don't see UChicago leaving the elite DIII conference for a northeast based DI conference.

I could see them rejoin the Big 10 and park their football in the Pioneer League for some time like Johns Hopkins can do the same as well as MIT. All three could be good candidate for the Big 10 in the future.

(04-08-2018 02:44 PM)DavidSt Wrote: [ -> ]

(04-08-2018 12:30 PM)McKinney Wrote: [ -> ]

(04-08-2018 10:34 AM)DoubleRSU Wrote: [ -> ]No. Upper Iowa, U of Chicago, and Southern New Hampshire are all better candidates.

I don't see UChicago leaving the elite DIII conference for a northeast based DI conference.

I could see them rejoin the Big 10 and park their football in the Pioneer League for some time like Johns Hopkins can do the same as well as MIT. All three could be good candidate for the Big 10 in the future.

No they aren't.

Franklin Pierce football screams DII outfit to me.

Chicago, Case Western, John's Hopkins, etc are not launching DI programs.

If the Patriot League adds another member my money is on William & Mary.

Ok, let's see if I get this right. A school announces they are starting a NCAA D2 football team and that makes them a target for D1 only because their sprint football team competed against D1 schools.

(04-08-2018 02:44 PM)DavidSt Wrote: [ -> ]I could see them rejoin the Big 10 and park their football in the Pioneer League for some time like Johns Hopkins can do the same as well as MIT. All three could be good candidate for the Big 10 in the future.

Let's be clear: MIT never has and never will have an interest in offering DI athletics, let alone join the Big Ten conference. It has no place in the culture of their institution.

(04-08-2018 02:57 PM)Fighting Muskie Wrote: [ -> ]Franklin Pierce football screams DII outfit to me.

Chicago, Case Western, John's Hopkins, etc are not launching DI programs.

If the Patriot League adds another member my money is on William & Mary.

Eh, the CAA would have to implode before we'd do that. Worse conference in terms of sports, and we'd leave our rivals. Plus, WM is a state school, IDK if the patriot league would want to expand in that way.

Would be nice to be the big fish, even in a pretty small pond, that said...

Ahhhhhh the DavidSt everyone to D1 threads are back........

The schools that play football in the Patriot league report average athletics revenues that rank #8 among the 23 D-I conferences.

I don't know who Franklin Pierce is, but I doubt they are in that league.