(03-09-2012 04:15 PM)MTPiKapp Wrote:  

(03-09-2012 04:11 PM)BLEEDITRED Wrote:  Georgia St has not announced FBS aspirations.

App St has reviewed it several times now, and has not announced FBS aspirations.

Georgia Southern has never announced FBS aspirations.

All three would be ok to good choices IF they ever decide to go FBS, but some schools stay FCS by choice, and for legitimate reasons. The conference is not in the position, at least yet, to need to help make a decision for a FCS school to make the move.

Would seem to reason that the schools that the conference should look at first are those that either 1) are already FBS or 2) have clearly announced intentions. Not doing so means waiting even longer for them to get their ducks in a row, and therefore not being a positive early addition.

Either one of Georgia State or App State could announce this spring/summer with invite in hand. I just don't see the point of publicly announcing "we're going FBS...as soon as we have an invite" I might as well make a public announcement that I intend to date Emmanuelle Chriqui. Why make a public announcement and then let your fans twist in the wind and perhaps ultimately have the face the harsh reality that no one wants them? Any school could tell us behind closed doors that they're ready to go FBS and then make the public announcement with invite in hand, I'm pretty sure that's what UMASS did with the MAC and I'm pretty sure Georgia State has said all along that their ultimate goal is to be FBS sooner rather than later.

I would think there would be value in it. Likely instantaneous increase in alumni support and sponsorships. Increased program recognition just off of the announcement. Little more PR for the school. You're keeping them more "twisting in the wind" by not announcing and letting speculation run rampant.

Granted, we already had an invite in hand, but it's helped us tremendously in knowing from the get that we were going FBS. Even if we didn't have that conference invite, the announcement alone would've created buzz that otherwise would have been absent had we known that we were solely destined for FCS play for the forseeable future.