Greetings JMU Nation.
I've been enjoying retirement more and more as I get older. Some of the fondest moments are when my colleagues and friends take the next big step in their journey. While your leader, Jon Boy Alger, has rejected my offers of partnership many times over the years, I still am proud to see James Madison University finally take its rightful place in Division 1 FBS collegiate tackle football. I did not take his slights personally as I knew that he was out of his element and knew not what he was doing. Everybody has strengths and weaknesses and his shortcomings just happen to be in the arena of athletics. Hats off to the alumni and the persistence of Jeffrey Bourne for constantly pressuring Jon Boy to do the right thing. Your will to overturn Jon Boy's wrong thinking and have him concede to the will of JMU Nation is impressive from afar. You did it!

Selfishly, I would have loved to welcome you to the AAC along with Marshall, ODU, and Southern Miss. That would have been the premier G5 conference ongoing and it would have been everything ECU could ask for. in terms of regional, like-minded programs mixed with national, highly invested programs. Unfortunately, our 8 university Presidents and Chancellors voted to protect our existing revenue by finding 6 schools willing to accept much lower annual payouts of $2 MM while the original members kept our annual payouts much higher than that. While none of the 6 new programs raise the profile of the AAC, I do have to be thankful that they are allowing us to maintain the highest level of media revenue outside of the P5 conferences. Sometimes, money just matters more than anything else in business decisions.

Going forward, perhaps the JMU Nation can lead your decision makers to the next big step of your journey. If you are interested, I will do my very best to bring you into the fold with the next iteration of the AAC which could have a lot of similarities to our shared affiliations of the past. Think about our years together in the ECAC South and what that would look like on the gridiron - ECU, JMU, ODU, Navy. Mix in a few former Southern Conference schools like Appalachian State, Georgia Southern, Marshall and you have what we all want with a close kinship off the field and a heated rivalry on the field every week.
Greater things are yet to come and greater things are still to be done in this cityyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy.
Enjoy and celebrate today as you embark on a fantastic voyage into division 1 FBS collegiate tackle football.
p.s. if you need a home and home series, we are now willing to listen to your offers.

Your Buddy,
Terry Holland

This thread will soon be archived with it's brother Conference Rumor thread.

Now that GOTH has spoken, we just need a Dukeman17 comment to put the capstone on it.

(11-05-2021 08:31 AM)Dukester Wrote:  This thread will soon be archived with it's brother Conference Rumor thread.

Indeed, maybe a day after the press conference....needs to be done anyway, because replying is super slow.

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How about an appearance by FBS Dave and an absolutely unrealistic FBS conference?

H-burg where is the link to the 10:30 meeting you posted yesterday

(11-05-2021 07:28 AM)AssyrianDuke Wrote:  Posting this here so the link is easily accessible:

https://virginiageneralassembly.gov/hous...hedule.php

Meeting starts at 1030... just two more hours to go!

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It's live! Go Dukes!

HERE COMES THE SUN!

"Agler" Good start...lol

President Agler?

Alger is speaking and making the case for the move.

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JMU would be full FBS by June 2024.

Charlie King now speaking.

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Apparently ODU is also there in support of this.

Alger did well. Key points:

No increase of student fees
Year one to meet Cox bill will start 7/1/2024 and the five year rule to meet compliance will end 6/30/2029

ha, King saying he reached out the Alpha Dogs....and sounds like they stepped up.

According to the rule, FCS schools limit to student fees to athletics is 70%. JMU is currently at 64%. (may have said 65%).
He believes this shows that they have been preparing this for a while.
At G5 limit, the % JMU needs to get to is 55%.
He is breaking it down year by year and doing a good job of explaining things.

Charlie being very tight lipped with the actual amounts that are on the "pro forma" but did mention that we are expecting $600k from Sun Belt distributions in '24, which goes up to $2.5M in '27/28.

Confirmed the HCCC is getting a $255k raise to the median Sun Belt salary over 3 years and that the total assistant coach raises is another $375k (not counting 3 new hires).

I missed what he said the median salary for Sun Belt football HCs is - you guys remember?