(06-29-2020 11:57 AM)Michael in Raleigh Wrote:  Man, CAA fans sure hate Elon.

My wife went to Elon, and I think it's a great school. Gorgeous campus. What's the beef with them?

To me, they just don't add much.

The CAA started out as a mid atlantic/VA centric conference, and it kinda lost that along the way. Most of the "recent" adds (Starting in like 2001) are in major cities instead, such as Hofstra/Long Island, Northeastern/Boston, Drexel/Philly, Towson/Baltimore, College of Charleston. This helps the schools in the conference get their names out, and W&M has large alumni groups in all of those cities (A lot of our general student body also comes from those cities), so we like playing games there.

The only adds that aren't from large metros are Delaware and Elon. Delaware is a state flagship, and was in the same football conference as a lot of CAA members, so they were a natural rivalry and a great addition.

Elon is maybe 40 minutes from Greensboro, so it isn't the middle of nowhere, but it's not really a city most CAA teams care about. They've started to invest in facilities, which is nice, but really don't have much of a fanbase, or much success.

Since joining the CAA, in football they have a 18-29 conference football record, with 1 playoff appearance, and have posted 1 winning season in men's basketball - both conference and overall (18-14, with a 10-8 CAA record).

To me, it's just unclear what the CAA saw in Elon. Maybe some of their athletic programs are trending upwards? It's a fine academic school, but it's not some Ivy league powerhouse that bumps up the conference's prestige as a whole. And I have friends who go there, I agree, nice campus, but as a conference mate, I don't really care about their architecture.

From what I know, the CAA wanted Davidson, but the A10 swooped in with an invite, so Elon felt like a reach/backfill.