gosports1 Wrote:if a10 sponsored fb Richmond would either have to be in for fb or leave a10 altogether due to ncaa regualations.The same for Duquesne, dayton etc

I don't believe that's true, there just aren't as many examples of schools that play outside their "home" conference anymore. Most conferences with any ambition will forbid their members from doing it, but it isn't a NCAA rule. When the CAA made its hostile takeover of the A10's football conference, it was Richmond switching sides that tipped the balance and dissolved the A10, because then we were down to only 5 members and would have lost our AQ to the FCS playoffs. Also, Dayton, Duquesne and Fordham would have been forced to join the A10 back in 1997 when the A10 first sponsored football, if that was the rule. Off the top of my head, the only two football programs I can think of that play out of conference even though their "home" conferences sponsor football are Davidson and Drake, which are both Pioneer Football League members. Davidson is otherwise in the SoCon, and Drake is in the MVC, which this year took over the old Gateway Conference in football. So it's still legal,and Richmond could still flake on us like they did in 2005. Of course, what SHOULD have happened is they should have been kicked out of the A10 for doing that, but the A10 is run by a bunch of <censored> who don't care about football or that UMass got screwed out a conference that we basically created and carried for most of its existence, since we're not a Catholic school like most of the A10. I'd stab the A10 in the back in a second if there was a better place for UMass to go.

As for Marist, the problem is they're not willing to put money into their football program. If they were willing to have scholarship players, they could easily have gotten into the Big South with Stony Brook. Just 30 scholarship players would have been enough to get into the NEC. The fact that they're not willing to do that but are willing to play in a non-scholarship conference that stretches from Jacksonville to Indianapolis to San Diego tells you all you need to know about them. The A10 would need to be a full 63 scholarship league, otherwise UMass would have to downgrade its program, and that's not happening.

To provide more perspective on the disparities involved, here's what the current A10 members' football programs look like in terms of average attendance, stadium capacity and scholarship numbers:

Temple: 17,194/68,532/85
UMass: 15,112/17,000/63
Richmond: 5,525/22,000*/63
URI: 3,667/6,580/60
Fordham: 4,365/7,000/50**
Duquesne: 2,104/4,500/30
Dayton: 3,348/11,000/0**
(Charlotte: ?/15,000/63)

* Richmond is replacing its 22k capacity off-campus stadium with a 9k capacity on-campus stadium.

** Fordham does not offer scholarships, but is believed to offer financial aid to football players equivalent to roughly 50 scholarships. Dayton probably provides aid too, but nobody knows how much.

Delaware and Marist, for the record:

Delaware: 22,029/22,000/63
Marist: 853/3,500/0

If you could get them to agree on scholarship numbers, URI, Fordham, Duquesne, Dayton and Richmond could form the core of a competitive A10 conference, except that Richmond absolutely wouldn't join it under any circumstance. Temple, UMass, Delaware and probably Charlotte belong in a different conference, notwithstanding that Richmond has a very good team that would be favored against any of us right now.