(06-29-2020 12:35 PM)TDenverFan Wrote:  

(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.

Interesting. I suppose part of the reason Elon was invited was that the CAA had to invite someone. They had lost ODU, Ga. State, VCU, and George Mason. In football, they also lost UMass. Davidson wasn't a willing partner. App State and Ga. Southern bypassed the CAA for the first FBS league they could get at the time, so who else were they supposed to get? Coastal Carolina, who's an inferior school to Elon? EKU, who'd be way out of place in an east coast league?

I guess from Elon's perspective, they wanted out of a SoCon that was also bleeding membership. Just as significantly, Elon wanted to be in a league where they recruit students. The Elon student parking lot is littered with tags from Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, Massachusetts, and of course North Carolina. Not so much South Carolina, Tennessee, or Georgia. The CAA is where Elon students and alumni are much more than the SoCon was, even though the SoCon makes more geographic sense for travel.

I get your point that Burlington/Greensboro isn't a big, desirable market. Greensboro isn't exactly Boston or Philly or Baltimore (don't even get me started with how silly it is for the ACC to still hold tournaments there). But the bigger picture for the CAA is that Elon is a North Carolina school. NC is a state with now over 10 million people, good for ninth most in population. Elon is right in the middle of what geography nerds like me call the "Urban Crescent" series of smallish to large cities that goes along I-85 and I-40 from Gastonia northeast through Charlotte, High Point, Winston/Greensboro, Burlington, Chapel Hill, Durham, and finally Raleigh/Cary... I guess the CAA may have felt it would be good to double-down in NC with Elon and UNCW.

Academically, of course Elon is no Ivy League type of school. I do know the school they chomp at the bit to emulate is Richmond. They may not carry the academic reputation of the CAA, but they are not analogous to what Louisville is to the ACC, either.

As far as athletic success, I agree. They just can't get it together.