I've been thinking about the ASUN/CCSA/"United Athletic Conference" scheme, and on its face it makes no sense and cries out for "the rest of the story."

Life is generally simpler than conspiracy theories would indicate. So I have a suggestion for a simple explanation. It's a power play by the ASUN commissioner, who feels under-employed and a little bored.

Ted Gumbart is the ASUN commissioner, and also the President and former Executive Director of the CCSA (the boutique-sports shell conference that the ASUN-7 are supposed to move to and upgrade to a big-boy multisport Core Conference with an autobid).

He's been the ASUN commissioner for 12 years, and worked in the ASUN/"Trans America Athletic Conference" office since 1991 as an Assistant Commissioner, an Associate Commissioner and a Senior Associate Commissioner. He's been the Executive Director and then President of the CCSA since its founding in 2007, seems to have been a force in getting the CCSA organized.

So he seems to have been a successful ASUN commissioner. But it doesn't look like anybody higher on the food chain is looking to hire him--if he were going to get an ACC Associate Commissioner for Low-Interest Sports spot or an FBS AD job or G5 Commissioner spot or a job in the NCAA head office, he would have by now.

Maybe he sees himself as underemployed, and this is a big project that engages his attention, and the Assistant and Associate Commissioners of the ASUN can run the day to day operations of the ASUN well enough. Lobbying the ASUN presidents, working the NCAA rules committees, recruiting up to 10 schools for this zany scheme, managing relationships with the Big South office (and whatever other conferences would be poaching targets)--gives the guy something to do.

It makes as much sense as "Liberty-centric FBS conference" or "the ASUN-7 are fed up with Liberty after only 18 months" or "they don't know that they can just create an FCS conference and get a playoff autobid in 2 years without all this rigamarole"

It’s a vanity project

Here's a wilder and more likely to be true theory: Liberty is the driving force behind the new conference.

This makes more sense. The ASUN 7 already have a 10 school conference and an automatic qualifier for the NCAA, plus a contractual tie-in with the Big South for football. There really isn't any great gain in moving. In fact they would leave behind the NCAA Basketball credits, which while only about $150K per school for a couple years is still a loss of some cash. So who is bankrolling this? You gotta think Liberty.

The addition of Bellarmine really doesn't match the type of school the ASUN 7 would add, but it does match who Liberty would want, a private faith based school and Jesuit at that. Liberty left the Big South because they had to when they moved football to FBS, not because they thought the ASUN was any better. Quite the contrary. But the Big South includes schools who are not happy with the current line up, and also who want to leave behind Presbyterian and who are maybe less than thrilled with recent additions such as Hampton (not sure HBCU is a factor, but it might be).

I suspect Liberty is looking at pulling the 5 private schools in the Big South into it's new conference, reuniting with schools it feels it has more in common with. A lineup that might look something like:

Liberty, Bellarmine, High Point, Gardner-Webb, Charleston Southern, Campbell, Longwood

I'm not sure where public schools like Winthrop, Radford, USCU and UNCA would lean. But if I'm correct in my thinking Liberty will be rebuilding the Big South in it's vision. Presbyterian and Hampton could be left hung out to dry.

McCaw called the idea stupid in an interview he gave. Liberty is definitely not the brains of this and in fact totally against it.

(01-26-2020 05:26 PM)Stugray2 Wrote:  Here's a wilder and more likely to be true theory: Liberty is the driving force behind the new conference.

This makes more sense. The ASUN 7 already have a 10 school conference and an automatic qualifier for the NCAA, plus a contractual tie-in with the Big South for football. There really isn't any great gain in moving. In fact they would leave behind the NCAA Basketball credits, which while only about $150K per school for a couple years is still a loss of some cash. So who is bankrolling this? You gotta think Liberty.

The addition of Bellarmine really doesn't match the type of school the ASUN 7 would add, but it does match who Liberty would want, a private faith based school and Jesuit at that. Liberty left the Big South because they had to when they moved football to FBS, not because they thought the ASUN was any better. Quite the contrary. But the Big South includes schools who are not happy with the current line up, and also who want to leave behind Presbyterian and who are maybe less than thrilled with recent additions such as Hampton (not sure HBCU is a factor, but it might be).

I suspect Liberty is looking at pulling the 5 private schools in the Big South into it's new conference, reuniting with schools it feels it has more in common with. A lineup that might look something like:

Liberty, Bellarmine, High Point, Gardner-Webb, Charleston Southern, Campbell, Longwood

I'm not sure where public schools like Winthrop, Radford, USCU and UNCA would lean. But if I'm correct in my thinking Liberty will be rebuilding the Big South in it's vision. Presbyterian and Hampton could be left hung out to dry.

Where do you get the idea that Big South schools don't want Presbyterian or Hampton?

I've been trying to make sense of this. It doesn't seem like reshuffling ASun/Big South/Southern is the goal. That could be done easily.

The conference with the most public disagreement the last expansion was the Colonial.

Could JMU, Delaware, William & Mary and possibly others want to add Stoney Brook and Albany? Then possibly ETSU or Youngstown St? I guess they could keep Richmond and Villanova football.

Not sure of the exact mix but there are some public FCS schools that would be on par with MAC/Sunbelt/ CUSA that are stuck in conferences with small privates.

(01-25-2020 10:06 AM)johnbragg Wrote:  I've been thinking about the ASUN/CCSA/"United Athletic Conference" scheme, and on its face it makes no sense and cries out for "the rest of the story."

Life is generally simpler than conspiracy theories would indicate. So I have a suggestion for a simple explanation. It's a power play by the ASUN commissioner, who feels under-employed and a little bored.

Ted Gumbart is the ASUN commissioner, and also the President and former Executive Director of the CCSA (the boutique-sports shell conference that the ASUN-7 are supposed to move to and upgrade to a big-boy multisport Core Conference with an autobid).

He's been the ASUN commissioner for 12 years, and worked in the ASUN/"Trans America Athletic Conference" office since 1991 as an Assistant Commissioner, an Associate Commissioner and a Senior Associate Commissioner. He's been the Executive Director and then President of the CCSA since its founding in 2007, seems to have been a force in getting the CCSA organized.

So he seems to have been a successful ASUN commissioner. But it doesn't look like anybody higher on the food chain is looking to hire him--if he were going to get an ACC Associate Commissioner for Low-Interest Sports spot or an FBS AD job or G5 Commissioner spot or a job in the NCAA head office, he would have by now.

Maybe he sees himself as underemployed, and this is a big project that engages his attention, and the Assistant and Associate Commissioners of the ASUN can run the day to day operations of the ASUN well enough. Lobbying the ASUN presidents, working the NCAA rules committees, recruiting up to 10 schools for this zany scheme, managing relationships with the Big South office (and whatever other conferences would be poaching targets)--gives the guy something to do.

It makes as much sense as "Liberty-centric FBS conference" or "the ASUN-7 are fed up with Liberty after only 18 months" or "they don't know that they can just create an FCS conference and get a playoff autobid in 2 years without all this rigamarole"

I applaud the ASUN commissioner and ADs for being willing to rock the boat. As a fan of a college that is committed to amateurism and playing by the rules and competes in a league that will in all likelihood never receive another at large bid, I confess to being suspicious that our commissioner and ADs are so passive about a competitive structure that leaves them at a disadvantage because they’re afraid of what activism will do to their future job prospects. I naively thought they would seize on the Rice Commission findings that college basketball scholarships were supposed to lead to college degrees and make some noise.

NCAA regulations are not and should not be cast in stone. And there is no doubt in my mind that if Power 5/Big East institutions can use a loophole to avoid sanctions or gain an advantage they will do so in a heartbeat. The NCAA tournament generates sufficient revenue that the Power 5/Big East could afford a few more autobids in an era when conferences are going to 20 game schedules and are reluctant to schedule games they might lose and allow Jay Bilas to say was that dreaded resume deflating loss.

BZ ASUN.

To flesh that idea out a little more...

The highest athletic budgets I can find go something like:

JMU $51mil
Delaware $44
New Hamshire $32
Stoney Brook $32
William & Mary $29
Kennesaw St $26
Towson $25
ETSU $25
Albany $24
Vermont $21
Maine $21
C of Charleston $21

I may have missed some but these are the teams that are spending money. I'd guess ASun isn't abandoning their shell for free. Who has a motivation to separate from their conference mates?

I think what you are seeing is ASUN, Big South want stability among their ranks. They are going to be essentially pure I-AAA leagues. The new league allows all of the football schools with their moving and going in one league. That is what it looks like to me.

This is just a theory..

What if, someone in the ASUN got wind, that Gardner Webb and Charlston Southern are about to drop scholarship football and join the Pioneer like Presbyterian is doing?

If that is the case, the ASUN is trying to protect UNA and KSU by creating a solution with the shell conference.

Without naming schools, because I dont want to leave any out or add any that may not be, there have been talk of several Southeastern schools that have either wanted to start a new conference or change conferences in the recent past. The announcement said the UAC would be a FCS conference primarily in the Southeast.

They said that Liberty, Bellarmine and UNA would go to that conference. So 7 more FCS schools would have to be willing to join.

After it gets established, it would be in KSUs best interests to move to the UAC as a full member instead of an associate for football. So I suspect they would make a trade for Bellarmine. Then everyone in the UAC would have football, even if Liberty is FBS.

(01-26-2020 07:43 PM)LUbball23 Wrote:  McCaw called the idea stupid in an interview he gave. Liberty is definitely not the brains of this and in fact totally against it.

If Liberty is not behind it, then it means the ASUN 7 want to separate from Liberty, they realize they are not a good fit, not a school they want to be associated with going forward. In short adding Liberty a mistake they want to undo (they voted unanimously for this).

We need to first look at the level we are talking about, single bid basketball conferences. All these "level of athletic department" evaluations are relatively meaningless. The FCS football is equally meaningless, as Big South football is simply the schools left over without a conference banding together to get one playoff spot and fill the schedule. The idea the Gardner-Webb and Kennesaw State have anything in common is as ridiculous as saying Campbell and Hampton or North Alabama have anything in common beyond the need to have opponents for a schedule. A list of school names make no sense.

We find ourselves circling back to only one basic motive, the desire to shed Liberty. (My own take is North Alabama will stay with the ASUN 7 in the end, as they have something in common with North Florida, Kennesaw State and Florida Gulf Coast as directional schools, whom excepting FGCU play football -- and it wouldn't surprise me if FGCU eventually adds football as the campus grows.)

As far as the breakaway ASUN 7 goes, they don't need to add anyone until they actually form the new conference around 2023. They do need to add about 4 members for the Liberty (and Bellarmine) group before then and have another one or two lined up. They need to be already D-I and not transitioning by this time -- so we're talking about current D-I schools. There may be some D-II move ups beyond the first 4 on the list, but they come after, so look for the others.

Anyway the only motive if Liberty is not the driver is the other schools want to ditch Liberty. Nothing else makes sense. The extreme length they have to go to to separate is a cautionary tale about expansion - unless you have language in the contract that let's you divorce from a new addition, be very very careful about adding any school that is not compatible. Most contracts are essentially business partnerships, meaning separation needs to be mutually agreed, only dissolving the conference can one part. The ASUN finds itself exactly in that bind.

(01-26-2020 07:43 PM)LUbball23 Wrote:  McCaw called the idea stupid in an interview he gave. Liberty is definitely not the brains of this and in fact totally against it.

https://www.facebook.com/909FM/videos/1462934303874422/

(01-27-2020 02:51 PM)Stugray2 Wrote:  

(01-26-2020 07:43 PM)LUbball23 Wrote:  McCaw called the idea stupid in an interview he gave. Liberty is definitely not the brains of this and in fact totally against it.

If Liberty is not behind it, then it means the ASUN 7 want to separate from Liberty, they realize they are not a good fit, not a school they want to be associated with going forward. In short adding Liberty a mistake they want to undo (they voted unanimously for this).

We need to first look at the level we are talking about, single bid basketball conferences. All these "level of athletic department" evaluations are relatively meaningless. The FCS football is equally meaningless, as Big South football is simply the schools left over without a conference banding together to get one playoff spot and fill the schedule. The idea the Gardner-Webb and Kennesaw State have anything in common is as ridiculous as saying Campbell and Hampton or North Alabama have anything in common beyond the need to have opponents for a schedule. A list of school names make no sense.

We find ourselves circling back to only one basic motive, the desire to shed Liberty. (My own take is North Alabama will stay with the ASUN 7 in the end, as they have something in common with North Florida, Kennesaw State and Florida Gulf Coast as directional schools, whom excepting FGCU play football -- and it wouldn't surprise me if FGCU eventually adds football as the campus grows.)

As far as the breakaway ASUN 7 goes, they don't need to add anyone until they actually form the new conference around 2023. They do need to add about 4 members for the Liberty (and Bellarmine) group before then and have another one or two lined up. They need to be already D-I and not transitioning by this time -- so we're talking about current D-I schools. There may be some D-II move ups beyond the first 4 on the list, but they come after, so look for the others.

Anyway the only motive if Liberty is not the driver is the other schools want to ditch Liberty. Nothing else makes sense. The extreme length they have to go to to separate is a cautionary tale about expansion - unless you have language in the contract that let's you divorce from a new addition, be very very careful about adding any school that is not compatible. Most contracts are essentially business partnerships, meaning separation needs to be mutually agreed, only dissolving the conference can one part. The ASUN finds itself exactly in that bind.

If the ASun commissioner and school presidents didn't know what Liberty was two years ago when they extended the invitation, then they shouldn't be trusted to manage adding a bathroom to their homes, much less adding 10 schools and creating a second conference. This isn't a case of a first adapter rolling the dice on an untested but promising technology and getting burned. As a wise man would have put it, Liberty is who they thought they were. A highly ambitious school with money to burn and expectations well beyond what their conference contemporaries could ever imagine. They have no business being in a conference with schools that have a fraction of their budget.

Also, to an earlier point you brought up: The Big South effectively turfed Liberty. I cannot imagine any of its schools champing at the bit to be yoked with them again. I know a few people at Big South schools and they were happy, for various reasons, to no longer have Liberty in the conference.

Another possibility, the ASUN 7 are leaving whether they find schools for Liberty or not. UNA probably goes with them. That is the easiest way to shed Liberty.

It'll be up to Liberty to find conference mates. Note, by Summer 2023 Bellarmine will be done with their D-I transition and can move to another conference like the Horizon.

Don't forget the unrest in the SoCon as well. I can see UTC, ETSU, WCU wanting to leave behind the rest of the SoCon. Possible landing place for Liberty??

(01-28-2020 04:16 AM)DawgNBama Wrote:  Don't forget the unrest in the SoCon as well. I can see UTC, ETSU, WCU wanting to leave behind the rest of the SoCon. Possible landing place for Liberty??

CAA, MVC, MEAC, SWAC and Southland schools are not happy either. Like I said that I do think football schools should break away from the none football schools to form an all sports conferences to be able to have 11 to 12 football members.

Everyone: This ASun thing is the wildest expansion news we've heard in years!
Jerry Falwell Jr.: Hold my sweet tea

https://wset.com/news/local/vexit-west-v...join-state

Quote:At a press conference Tuesday with West Virginia Governor Jim Justice and Liberty University President Jerry Falwell, they announced that legislation has been passed to reiterate the 158-year-old invitation stands for any locality in Virginia.

Now he doesn't say "college athletics" explicitly but reading between the lines with my David St-brand reading glasses, it's pretty obvious the long game is to invite 9 to 11 schools and their surrounding communities to West Virginia, then merge its constitution with the ASun charter to create the nation's first conference-state. Presumably WVU and Morgantown move to Pennsylvania in this scenario.

This might also open the door to the Great Northern State, but that's getting ahead of ourselves.

(01-28-2020 03:47 PM)Cyniclone Wrote:  Everyone: This ASun thing is the wildest expansion news we've heard in years!
Jerry Falwell Jr.: Hold my sweet tea

https://wset.com/news/local/vexit-west-v...join-state

Quote:At a press conference Tuesday with West Virginia Governor Jim Justice and Liberty University President Jerry Falwell, they announced that legislation has been passed to reiterate the 158-year-old invitation stands for any locality in Virginia.

Now he doesn't say "college athletics" explicitly but reading between the lines with my David St-brand reading glasses, it's pretty obvious the long game is to invite 9 to 11 schools and their surrounding communities to West Virginia, then merge its constitution with the ASun charter to create the nation's first conference-state. Presumably WVU and Morgantown move to Pennsylvania in this scenario.

This might also open the door to the Great Northern State, but that's getting ahead of ourselves.

I watched that press conference. And wow LOL.

If such a thing happened Virginia Tech, James Madison and Liberty could end up in West Virginia.

(01-28-2020 04:08 PM)MUsince96 Wrote:  

(01-28-2020 03:47 PM)Cyniclone Wrote:  Everyone: This ASun thing is the wildest expansion news we've heard in years!
Jerry Falwell Jr.: Hold my sweet tea

https://wset.com/news/local/vexit-west-v...join-state

Quote:At a press conference Tuesday with West Virginia Governor Jim Justice and Liberty University President Jerry Falwell, they announced that legislation has been passed to reiterate the 158-year-old invitation stands for any locality in Virginia.

Now he doesn't say "college athletics" explicitly but reading between the lines with my David St-brand reading glasses, it's pretty obvious the long game is to invite 9 to 11 schools and their surrounding communities to West Virginia, then merge its constitution with the ASun charter to create the nation's first conference-state. Presumably WVU and Morgantown move to Pennsylvania in this scenario.

This might also open the door to the Great Northern State, but that's getting ahead of ourselves.

I watched that press conference. And wow LOL.

If such a thing happened Virginia Tech, James Madison and Liberty could end up in West Virginia.

Not gonna happen. Falwell is doing this because of Virginia TAX payers' money is going towards Liberty's online courses which the money being used on out of state students that do not benefit the people that lives in the state. This could be bad news for red states as well. The people of Fayetteville, Fort Smith, Jonesboro, Jacksonville, Pine Bluff and other places in Arkansas that have a stronghold of Democrats could vote to break away from the state. Same thing in Oklahoma, Florida, Texas, Missouri, Kansas, and so fourth.

This idea of rural counties seeking to seceed from Virginia is not gonna happen. Not federally, not in Virginia, not in the mind of anyone thinking rationally.