(01-24-2020 11:15 PM)Scoochpooch1 Wrote:  

(01-24-2020 04:25 PM)Stugray2 Wrote:  On NCAA AQ, I suspect what would happen is the NCAA would expand the first four to the first 8, adding 2 more conferences and 2 more at-large bids.

I was thinking the same thing. But that does mean that those games would have to start Monday and there would have to be 3 games on 2 days.

Really, no more AQ spots will be added...

The big South folds, gets absorbed by the ASUN and UAC. That's still the same amount of spots... nothing changes in terms of AQ spots.

(01-24-2020 11:22 PM)lion1983 Wrote:  

(01-24-2020 11:15 PM)Scoochpooch1 Wrote:  

(01-24-2020 04:25 PM)Stugray2 Wrote:  On NCAA AQ, I suspect what would happen is the NCAA would expand the first four to the first 8, adding 2 more conferences and 2 more at-large bids.

I was thinking the same thing. But that does mean that those games would have to start Monday and there would have to be 3 games on 2 days.

Really, no more AQ spots will be added...

The big South folds, gets absorbed by the ASUN and UAC. That's still the same amount of spots... nothing changes in terms of AQ spots.

They’ll consider options like adding play-in games

Looking at things from the FCS angle:

The combined 21 schools of the Big South and A-Sun can only count 6 FCS scholarship football teams among them and neither conference’s non-fb components are willing to expand to help out the football playing minority.

The plan for the UAC is that they will recruit a block of at least 3 schools that will play scholarship FCS football. The UAC will then let at a minimum, Kenn St, but possibly Charleston Southern, Gardner-Webb, Hampton, and Campbell as well, be admitted as fb affiliates.

(01-24-2020 02:58 PM)solohawks Wrote:  

(01-24-2020 02:18 PM)lion1983 Wrote:  So after more digging with a different UNA person, there seems to be some confusion among officials about how this is going to happen (if it even does).

Someone directly involved in this said this

"The 20 member ASUN membship is misleading. There will be 10 UAC (United Athletic Conference) members, that come from several different conferences, to form a all sport FCS conference. Liberty (non football member), Bellarmine (non football member) and North Alabama will be the 3 from the ASUN. Kennesaw State will be a football only member and Stetson can be if they add scholarships to their program. The ASUN will be a non football conference consisting of the 7 mentioned as the ASUN or (core) 7, and 3 more. The UAC will be under the umbrella of the ASUN, and will have scheduling partnerships in all sports excluding football."

He said he could not reveal who the other schools would be out of respect of the schools. But said they are D1 schools and have agreed to move forward with this setup.

I dont pretend to understand the dynamics behind this, and we can waist time speculating all we want, but it really doesn't matter in the long run.

It's not an all sports FCS conference if Liberty and Belleramine dont play football and Keenesaw is football only.

It can be ... a whole lot of "ors" in the multi-sport conference bylaw.

Quote: 20.02.5.2 Sports Sponsorship. A multisport conference shall satisfy the following requirements: (Adopted: 1/15/11, effective 8/1/11)
(a) The conference shall sponsor a minimum of 12 Division I sports;
(b) The conference shall sponsor a minimum of six men's sports, one of which shall be men's basketball. In addition to men's basketball, the conference shall sponsor football or two other men's team sports. A minimum of seven members shall sponsor men's basketball. A minimum of six members shall sponsor five other sports, including football or two
additional men's team sports; and
c) The conference shall sponsor a minimum of six women's sports, ...

So if they sponsor basketball, football AND two other team sports, the "six members shall sponsor five other sports, including ... two additional team sports" can apply, even if FCS falls short of six full members and is made up with affiliates. I presume those two sports would be baseball and soccer (noting that meeting the women's team sports requirement isn't going to be a constraint).

Quote: For Kennesaw this amounts to moving their football team from Big South to UAC while doing a whole lotta mess to play with the same schools under the same name for Olympic sports

Yeah, seems a lot of wheel spinning and very little benefit to Kennesaw. More like trying to set it up so they don't fight hard against it.

(01-24-2020 11:31 PM)BruceMcF Wrote:  

(01-24-2020 02:58 PM)solohawks Wrote:  

(01-24-2020 02:18 PM)lion1983 Wrote:  So after more digging with a different UNA person, there seems to be some confusion among officials about how this is going to happen (if it even does).

Someone directly involved in this said this

"The 20 member ASUN membship is misleading. There will be 10 UAC (United Athletic Conference) members, that come from several different conferences, to form a all sport FCS conference. Liberty (non football member), Bellarmine (non football member) and North Alabama will be the 3 from the ASUN. Kennesaw State will be a football only member and Stetson can be if they add scholarships to their program. The ASUN will be a non football conference consisting of the 7 mentioned as the ASUN or (core) 7, and 3 more. The UAC will be under the umbrella of the ASUN, and will have scheduling partnerships in all sports excluding football."

He said he could not reveal who the other schools would be out of respect of the schools. But said they are D1 schools and have agreed to move forward with this setup.

I dont pretend to understand the dynamics behind this, and we can waist time speculating all we want, but it really doesn't matter in the long run.

It's not an all sports FCS conference if Liberty and Belleramine dont play football and Keenesaw is football only.

It can be ... a whole lot of "ors" in the multi-sport conference bylaw.

Quote: 20.02.5.2 Sports Sponsorship. A multisport conference shall satisfy the following requirements: (Adopted: 1/15/11, effective 8/1/11)
(a) The conference shall sponsor a minimum of 12 Division I sports;
(b) The conference shall sponsor a minimum of six men's sports, one of which shall be men's basketball. In addition to men's basketball, the conference shall sponsor football or two other men's team sports. A minimum of seven members shall sponsor men's basketball. A minimum of six members shall sponsor five other sports, including football or two
additional men's team sports; and
c) The conference shall sponsor a minimum of six women's sports, ...

So if they sponsor basketball, football AND two other team sports, the "six members shall sponsor five other sports, including ... two additional team sports" can apply, even if FCS falls short of six full members and is made up with affiliates. I presume those two sports would be baseball and soccer (noting that meeting the women's team sports requirement isn't going to be a constraint).

Quote: For Kennesaw this amounts to moving their football team from Big South to UAC while doing a whole lotta mess to play with the same schools under the same name for Olympic sports

Yeah, seems a lot of wheel spinning and very little benefit to Kennesaw. More like trying to set it up so they don't fight hard against it.

For Kennesaw, they have to be part of the Core 7 for this to work. They may very well move to the UAC as a full member once everything is done. That would be a bet I would take.

(01-24-2020 11:15 PM)Scoochpooch1 Wrote:  

(01-24-2020 04:25 PM)Stugray2 Wrote:  On NCAA AQ, I suspect what would happen is the NCAA would expand the first four to the first 8, adding 2 more conferences and 2 more at-large bids.

I was thinking the same thing. But that does mean that those games would have to start Monday and there would have to be 3 games on 2 days.

They will take up the ACC proposal creating a 2nd Dayton site.

So it’ll be something like:
Tuesday & Wednesday
6:40pm Dayton TruTV
7:40pm Albuquerque CBSSN
9:10pm Dayton TruTV
10:10pm Albuquerque CBSSN

It should be in the Palestra but it’ll be a western clone of Dayton.

Here is the problem here.
1.No one from the Big South will leave.
2.No school from OVC will downgrade to this new conference.
3.No FBS schools will join.
4.Monmouth and Robert Morris will not join the southern schools.
5.Southland nor Tarleton State will join this mess.
6.Only schools that may jump would be MEAC schools which would not make 20.
7.No one from the MAAC will join.
8.For Stetson to go scholarship football? They need more football schools in the Southeast.
9.No Southern Conference schools will join.
10.Gulf South Conference, Peach Belt and Sunshine D2 conferences will be the ones filling up the 20 schools. The D2 football schools among the MEAC would get Stetson, UNF and FCGU to have scholarship football.

(01-24-2020 11:24 PM)BePcr07 Wrote:  

(01-24-2020 11:22 PM)lion1983 Wrote:  Really, no more AQ spots will be added...

They’ll consider options like adding play-in games

And that consideration will persuade them to make sure that no more AQ spots are added.

(01-25-2020 04:36 AM)DavidSt Wrote:  Here is the problem here.
1.No one from the Big South will leave.
2.No school from OVC will downgrade to this new conference.
3.No FBS schools will join.
4.Monmouth and Robert Morris will not join the southern schools.
5.Southland nor Tarleton State will join this mess.
6.Only schools that may jump would be MEAC schools which would not make 20.
7.No one from the MAAC will join.
8.For Stetson to go scholarship football? They need more football schools in the Southeast.
9.No Southern Conference schools will join.
10.Gulf South Conference, Peach Belt and Sunshine D2 conferences will be the ones filling up the 20 schools. The D2 football schools among the MEAC would get Stetson, UNF and FCGU to have scholarship football.

I agree with David 100% that no Big South school will join

Also, the Big South, as a conference, has zero incentive to drop football, like I said on page 1/2.

(01-25-2020 09:54 AM)Yosef Himself Wrote:  

(01-25-2020 04:36 AM)DavidSt Wrote:  Here is the problem here.
1.No one from the Big South will leave.
2.No school from OVC will downgrade to this new conference.
3.No FBS schools will join.
4.Monmouth and Robert Morris will not join the southern schools.
5.Southland nor Tarleton State will join this mess.
6.Only schools that may jump would be MEAC schools which would not make 20.
7.No one from the MAAC will join.
8.For Stetson to go scholarship football? They need more football schools in the Southeast.
9.No Southern Conference schools will join.
10.Gulf South Conference, Peach Belt and Sunshine D2 conferences will be the ones filling up the 20 schools. The D2 football schools among the MEAC would get Stetson, UNF and FCGU to have scholarship football.

I agree with David 100% that no Big South school will join

Also, the Big South, as a conference, has zero incentive to drop football, like I said on page 1/2.

Except for the fact that the Big South is already planning to shut down. There will be no more Big South....

(01-25-2020 10:01 AM)lion1983 Wrote:  

(01-25-2020 09:54 AM)Yosef Himself Wrote:  

(01-25-2020 04:36 AM)DavidSt Wrote:  Here is the problem here.
1.No one from the Big South will leave.
2.No school from OVC will downgrade to this new conference.
3.No FBS schools will join.
4.Monmouth and Robert Morris will not join the southern schools.
5.Southland nor Tarleton State will join this mess.
6.Only schools that may jump would be MEAC schools which would not make 20.
7.No one from the MAAC will join.
8.For Stetson to go scholarship football? They need more football schools in the Southeast.
9.No Southern Conference schools will join.
10.Gulf South Conference, Peach Belt and Sunshine D2 conferences will be the ones filling up the 20 schools. The D2 football schools among the MEAC would get Stetson, UNF and FCGU to have scholarship football.

I agree with David 100% that no Big South school will join

Also, the Big South, as a conference, has zero incentive to drop football, like I said on page 1/2.

Except for the fact that the Big South is already planning to shut down. There will be no more Big South....

And why exactly are they going to shut down?

EDIT: And if, for some reason, the Big South is going to shut down, why not just use the existing Big South--which already has an autobid--as the shell conference, rather than try to get an autobid for the "United Athletic Conference"?

Lol. Okay

(01-25-2020 12:30 AM)IWokeUpLikeThis Wrote:  

(01-24-2020 11:15 PM)Scoochpooch1 Wrote:  

(01-24-2020 04:25 PM)Stugray2 Wrote:  On NCAA AQ, I suspect what would happen is the NCAA would expand the first four to the first 8, adding 2 more conferences and 2 more at-large bids.

I was thinking the same thing. But that does mean that those games would have to start Monday and there would have to be 3 games on 2 days.

They will take up the ACC proposal creating a 2nd Dayton site.

So it’ll be something like:
Tuesday & Wednesday
6:40pm Dayton TruTV
7:40pm Albuquerque CBSSN
9:10pm Dayton TruTV
10:10pm Albuquerque CBSSN

It should be in the Palestra but it’ll be a western clone of Dayton.

Oh, I hadn't heard this. Do you have a link per chance?

Yes, very confusing!

I’m looking and waiting for an Announcement from the Big South.

From posting on this forum and the North Alabama forum its seems that it could be a merger of the two conferences.

The ASUN currently will have 10 schools, and wants 20 by 2023. By adding the Big South that would be 21 not 20.

In both Conferences there are now a total of 13
non -playing scholarship football schools. What are the options of the 3 schools that will not be included? Southern Conference, Colonial Athletic Association, Ohio Valley.

Does the Big South football playing schools have an option to go elsewhere? What would be the chances of them getting an invite from another conference? (Personally, I prefer that North Alabama not be in a Conference with those schools for football or any sport.)

I’m listing 9 FCS below of which I would like to see at least 6 invited.

UT - Chattanooga, James Madison, Eastern Kentucky, Murray State, Jacksonville State, Delaware, Stoney Brook, Albany, Youngstown State.

Those schools would be beneficial to Liberty and Bellarmine.

Then after it becomes a multi sport’s division of the ASUN, why would they want to be a division of the ASUN. Why not a completely New Conference with a Commissioner and staff.

(01-23-2020 09:50 AM)lion1983 Wrote:  

(01-23-2020 08:14 AM)Yosef Himself Wrote:  There's no incentive for the five Big South schools to go along with that.

They are already doing it, just with the Big South name. The ASUN and Big South already have an agreement for football together.

So who gains anything by the change?

Quote:If the ASUN pulls out, the Big South losses any power and an AQ spot in the FCS playoffs.

And so do North Alabama and Kennesaw State, along with the 4 Big South football schools (And Monmouth).

Quote:This just changes the name, and puts any votes on equal terms. Most of the Big South does not play football.

Most of the ASUN does not play football. And only 2 ASUN 2020-21 schools play scholarship FCS football.

Quote:Monmouth is just a football only member. The Big South would then just concentrate on non football sports and everyone is happy. How is that so hard to understand?

What's hard to understand is what the point of all this is. Who gains anything out of all this movement?

If the end goal is for the Atlantic Sun to bring up a few Division II football schools and create an FCS football league replacing the Big South FCS conference, under NCAA rules you can just do that with a 2 year waiting period. (You might not even have the 2 year waiting period--I think the old continuity-by-school rules still apply for single-sport conferences.)

Bring up University of West Oklabama and Panhandle State College with their football teams, pull out of the ASUN-Big South agreement, start football under the ASUN banner and invite the 4 Big South football schools (with or without Monmouth). ASUN has 12 teams for basketball. Simple.

"Invite 10 schools into the ASUN so that 7-10 of the existing ASUN schools can leave and form a new conference" is not simple. It's unnecessarily complicated. Unnecessary complication is usually a cover for an ulterior motive.

I think you are seeing a deal where the ASUN and Big South are tired of losing members for football reasons. This gives those leagues a viable all-sports league for their membership and where their members would be fairly stable.

Big South should invite North Greenville and UNC-Pembroke. Those two and either West Chester or Indiana PA could get the Big South to 6 football members. UNC-Pembroke have more students enrolled UNC-Ashville.

A-Sun should go after Florida Tech, West Florida, Bethune-Cookman, Florida A&M, South Carolina State, Valdosta State, West Alabama and Delta State. They could grab Union Tenn. who is looking at football. Augusta and Columbus State along with Lincoln Memorial and Francis Marion for non-football.

Big South football:
Monmouth
UNC-Pembroke
Campbell
Gardner-Webb
North Greenville
Hampton
Charleston Southern
North Carolina A&T
UNC Central
Howard
West Chester/Indiana PA.
You could actually invite Monmouth full member then.
You could split the conference north/south with 9 schools a piece.

North Carolina A&T could go FBS, and some private football schools could join Southern Conference in the future.

A-Sun's new 20 team conference that splits into two:
A-Sun:
Liberty
NJIT
Bellarmine
Union, Tenn.
UAH
FGCU
Jacksonville
N. Florida
Stetson
Augusta
Columbus State
Tampa
Nova Southeaster
North Georgia

UAC all sports football:
SOUTH Carolina State
Kennesaw State
North Alabama
West Georgia
Valdosta State
Bethune-Cookman
Florida A&M
Florida Tech
Delta State (could go to the Southland Conference split.)
Mississippi College (could go with Delta State.)
West Alabama
West Florida

FGCU, North Florida, Union and Columbus State could join UAC as full member if they add football.
There are some more non-football schools in Florida and Georgia that could go to the ASun.
Kennesaw State would be a temp to established the new conference and go back to the football schools.

(01-25-2020 11:22 AM)johnbragg Wrote:  ... If the end goal is for the Atlantic Sun to bring up a few Division II football schools and create an FCS football league replacing the Big South FCS conference, under NCAA rules you can just do that with a 2 year waiting period. (You might not even have the 2 year waiting period--I think the old continuity-by-school rules still apply for single-sport conferences.)

It's two years by school for single sport conferences sponsored by less than 50% of Division 1 members:

Quote: 31.3.4.4.2 Single-Sport Conference.
To be considered for automatic qualification in a particular sport, a single sport member conference for a sport sponsored by less than 50 percent of the Division I membership must include six institutions that have conducted conference competition together the preceding two years in the sport in question at the Division I level. (Adopted: 8/5/04, Revised: 4/27/06 effective 8/1/06)

FCS Football is obviously under the 50% bar.

It looks like the "ASUN Loophole" was imagined by someone who read the automatic qualification terms in Article 31 and never bothered to read what it takes to be considered a multi-sports conference. In non-basketball:

Quote: 31.3.4.4.1 Multisport Conference.
To be considered eligible for automatic qualification in a particular sport, a multisport conference (see Bylaw 20.02.5) must be a core conference (see Bylaw 31.02.3) and must include six institutions that sponsor the sport and conduct conference competition together. (Revised: 4/27/00 10/00, 4/29/04 effective 8/1/04, 8/5/04, 1/15/11 effective 8/1/11)
...
31.3.4.5 Additional Requirements -- Basketball.
To be considered eligible for automatic qualification in basketball, a member conference must be a core conference (see Bylaw 31.02.3) and must meet the requirements of Bylaw 20.02.5. (Revised: 8/14/90, 12/3/90, 4/27/00, 4/29/04 effective 8/1/04, 1/15/11 effective 8/1/11)

If you read that and don't follow up on what 20.02.5 says, you might get the idea that it works the way that allows the imagined ASUN Loophole.

The 4 FCS scholarship Big South schools have a great geographic set up for Olympic sports. I see them as only wanting to be football affiliates to the UAC if at all possible. If push came to shove and they could the right combination of schools in the UAC then perhaps they’d leave that security for this experiment but I see them taking a conservative approach and staying put unless it becomes absolutely necessary.

(01-25-2020 11:01 PM)Fighting Muskie Wrote:  The 4 FCS scholarship Big South schools have a great geographic set up for Olympic sports. I see them as only wanting to be football affiliates to the UAC if at all possible. If push came to shove and they could the right combination of schools in the UAC then perhaps they’d leave that security for this experiment but I see them taking a conservative approach and staying put unless it becomes absolutely necessary.

Makes sense...