(08-16-2018 12:48 PM)brock20 Wrote:  

(08-16-2018 12:39 PM)Buc66 Wrote:  Not too long ago I envied App State, Ga Southern and the like. But, even when they’re winning on the football field at the “level” they have reached, it does not appear, at this juncture, to make much difference. Attendance at App State home games has not really grown from their SoCon days. Ga Southern’s home attendance, of recent seasons, seems to be down or stalled. This Sun Belt Conference looks more like a no man’s land for aspiring football programs, similar to the A-Sun for aspiring DI basketball programs. Does their increased athletic budgets justify the return in this era of college athletics?

That is a good question. I for sure dont have an answer. Thing is we are not even at the level those guys were when they were winning SoCon titles, much less trying to get to FBS. Our facilities are middle of the road in the SoCon.

As you said, it is looking more and more like the Sun Belt is the no man's land of FBS. At some point these schools are going to take a step back and try to realign more geographically by merging and splitting off with other conferences. If the group of 5 would get real with themselves, they would stop trying to compete with the power 5 and combine with FCS. I just hope when all this shuffling comes about that ETSU is in a good spot to land with some of our former peers in a new conference. I think we have the administration and people in place that want to do it.

brock20, you lost some credibility with me on this thread. I'm not sure what justifies top facilities in the Socon, but I'm going to tell you we have top facilities in the socon. If you're using mere seating capacity alone to decide that, fine. I think there's much more to it than that. Let's look at them:

Football: Tell me who, other than Mercer and maybe Chattanooga (but they're off campus), has better facilities than us?

Basketball: Wofford has a new arena but much smaller, G and Chatt play in outdated and way over-built arenas, so tell me who has the right size with modern updates like video boards? We certainly aren't at the bottom and not the middle 3 either, so I would say we would be near the top.