Should ETSU ever get the sense to bring football back, we should try to go to the next level by going the South Ala route by going straight to the Sun Belt or some other 1-A conference. I know we would have to have better facilities, but hey, we could show them our new soccer stadium. I know this is never going to happen with the backward thinking administration we have, but my Dad always said. "If you gonna be bear, be a grizzly." We need to think bigger and better for this university.

You're right, I think that would REALLY get people in the area excited about ETSU. Playing for a bowl, home games against BCS schools, you can't go wrong.

This has always been my hope and dream for ETSU athletics.

This is a metro area of more than 400,000 people. A metro area of 400,000 people DESERVES to have a major team sport entity. Bristol Motor Speedway is nice, but it really doesn't provide the identity and the "rally around the community" feel a team sport does.

Obviously, Major League Baseball is not going to put a franchise in Kingsport. The best way to do this, then, is to have the local college strive to Division I-A status.

That was the point of my fictional piece on ETSU football beating West Virginia. Sure, ETSU joining the BCS would have been a tremendous longshot. But they don't have to settle for the Atlantic Sun or even the Southern Conference.

In addition to greater administrative leadership, it will have to take the local populous thinking ETSU first and UT (or VPI) second for ETSU to grow.

Now, that's not out of the realm of possibility. It requires marketing and some help from the local media, but it CAN be done.

Major team sports do so much for a metro area's perception. How many of you realize that Pittsburgh only has 300,000 people? I'm sure most of you think it's much larger than that- and the reason is because you hear about the city every day on sportscasts.

In population- Pittsburgh is not even one of the Top 50 cities in America. In perception, however, it is much more relevant than that.

The reason why is the sports teams.

If, let us say, UTC was in the SEC and UT was in the Southern Conference, there is no question that Chattanooga would have more national relevance than Knoxville.

The Tri-Cities could have more relevance than Chattanooga on a national scale as well if ETSU took steps to follow the footsteps of the South Floridas, Marshalls, and MTSUs.

stategradsmoke Wrote:Should ETSU ever get the sense to bring football back, we should try to go to the next level by going the South Ala route by going straight to the Sun Belt or some other 1-A conference. I know we would have to have better facilities, but hey, we could show them our new soccer stadium. I know this is never going to happen with the backward thinking administration we have, but my Dad always said. "If you gonna be bear, be a grizzly." We need to think bigger and better for this university.

Not sure how you get there (1A/fbs) from here (no FB). First, you've got to get FB rolling at the 1aa level. The reason South Alabama can do it is they already had membership in a conference offering 1A football, the moment USA goes 1A in FB they have a home, the Sun Belt has to take them as a league rule. You play a sport in a conference (Sun Belt) sponsored championship sport, you have to play that sport in the conference. The SBC commish has indicated the conference will not take in any school not playing 1A football. That's problematic. It's just about impossible to go 1A without a conference for scheduling purposes (required 1A home games). UNO, UALR, and Denver (the remaining non-FB programs in the SBC) could do it, but none of them have indicated the desire or have the resources to do it.

With South Alabama moving up, the Sun Belt will have ten FB playing members which will cause headaches in scheduling (uneven home and away conf. games). If at the time USA becomes a full FB member (2013) there is a desire to go to 12 members, two divisions, and a championship game, I suspect the conference would look to App State and Georgia Southern to make it 12. A lot of things can change in six years and there may be yet some realignment, but I'm a skeptic on that. I certainly don't see any 1A newbies leapfrogging the Sun Belt to C-USA or elsewhere. If there is realignment , I think it may be miniscule, affecting one or two teams only. If that happens, and ETSU has football up and running and the support to go 1A, there may be your chance to slide into a slot, but you'll have a lot of competition (ODU, UNCC, Jax State, Tx State, etc...) with a head start.

South Florida was Division I-AA for four years before going D-I-A.

Florida Atlantic and Florida International also started small before landing in the big time, so to speak.

Didn't UConn play I-AA for a short time? We all know Boise State was, that should be the model of what ETSU should want to accomplish, either them or USF.

Boise State was a Division I-AA power less than 20 years ago.