(06-08-2020 09:05 AM)SlyFox Wrote:  In football our spending hasn't mattered as much. Where our spending typically makes a difference is in every other sport. I would be curious why anyone would want us in a football-only role with this proposed league. Our greatest value outside of quorums for football would be in the other sports particularly mens basketball.

Honestly unless the paradigm changes sooner rather than later in bowl access and payouts (and it very likely will), there is nearly no incentive for us in the Liberty camp to give up our indy status for football-only membership in a proposed league. We already are booked in the next few years with games with everyone on that list outside of Delaware & Navy. What would be the upside? Full membership would be much more attractive as a more regionalized upgrade from the A-Sun. Everyone would love a bus league where your school sits at the epicenter. That rarely occurs.

Frankly none of the indies listed above would likely be even remotely interested. UConn & UMass love their non-football situations so much that they prefer football independence to maintain their Big East/A10 situations. The USMA would see their football schedule downgraded by this league just as enough regional indies have arrived to flesh out the last corners of their schedule. olddawg is on (west) point with his insights.

So ditch Liberty too along with Army and Navy. Liberty doesn’t fit in Olympic sports- good basketball team but we already have enough Virginia members with VCU Richmond, Mason and ODU rejoining.
You can sponsor an FBS football conference with As little as 8 members.

Umass *
UConn *
Delaware
JMU
ODU
Ecu
App state
Charlotte
Coastal Carolina

*Football only

Sure it isn’t ideal but JMU is FBS ready- get a waiver from the NCAA to allow the conference to have 8 initial members as Delaware (if they need more time) works through a more conventional transition.

So what’s in it for Ecu will probably be the question because they are giving up the most.

Well for starters they would be in a more efficient all sports league And apparently their athletics program is struggling and losing money under the current setup.

They would rejoin a league with all sports members that they used to be a part of and here’s the one I’d like if I was them:

They would actually have a chance to regain some of their past football glory by being in a league of peers where they could legitimately be one of the better football programs in the conference every year.

As long as Cincy Memphis Houston UCF and I’d argue even some others are in the AAC Ecu is not getting to the top of the league. Once those schools leave for the Big 12 the league isn’t worth being a part of.

Be one of the flagships in a regional league instead of fooling yourself into believing you can compete nationally.

Asking ECU to move to the proposed conference would be like asking JMU to move football to the Big South, or *maybe* the SoCon.

It’s a very unlikely thing unless circumstances get substantially worse than they already are, and they have no choice. For now, they have other plans which include cutting some sports and regionalizing their non-revenue sports. They don’t seem to be exploring a new conference alignment.