We have high hopes for the UMass basketball program. I think we'll make a run at the tourney again this year. Kellogg was a critical hire. It will be huge for UMass's psyche if one of our own leads us to victory. The football team looks good too, but has a brutal schedule. Obviously, both major programs making the playoffs at the same time plus an economic upturn would put Massachusetts in the best mindset to invest more in athletics. Some sort of championship would be nice too. In the past couple years we've had the soccer team in the final four, the hockey team in the quarterfinals, the lacrosse team in the finals, the football team in the FCS finals, and the basketball team in the NIT finals, but none of them have been able to close the deal.

As for Holy Cross, they're way too small. Enrollment is about 3000 tops. They're overachieving just remaining where they are. Big time football simply isn't within their means. The only other program in New England besides UMass with even a glimmer of a chance of moving up is UNH. Great program, they've beaten 3 straight FBS opponents: Marshall, Northwestern and Rutgers (good chance Army will be the 4th straight this year). They also have a larger in-state population than Delaware and URI, and New Hampshire is the only state in the Northeast that's growing. The problem for them is that their games are not well-attended and their state is full of notorious cheap skates who will not pay taxes for anything. I wish the fans would show up, their team deserves better. They still have more than twice the attendance of URI or Northeastern though.

I know nothing about Coastal Carolina except that they have a cool nickname and that the physical location of their campus is in the smallest Nielsen market of the schools named. Their average attendance at 7500 is only a couple hundred higher than New Hampshire's, but in their case they're selling out their stadium, so who knows what their real potential is. I would think App St. or Georgia Southern would have the edge on them though, they're selling out too but putting 24k and 19k in the seats respectively, plus they're playing better ball.

The problem is the Southern schools are going to keep talking CUSA, and the Northern schools are going to keep waiting for a Big East invite that's never going to come, and nothing's ever going to get done. Someone needs to want to blaze a new trail.