The Socon was a step up around 10-20 years ago. It just isn't anymore unless you play football, and that may be changing soon as well.

The Big South won the head to head record against the Socon this year. It has off and on for years in basketball. The leagues are pretty much the same in basketball and have been for 5-10 years.

The problem with the whole football scholarships thing is the money. We have an athletics budget of around $4-5 million a year. It would cost an additional $2 million a year to give out a full roster of football scholarships. The money simply isn't there, especially since every dime the university has right now is going towards the new medical school. One day we will become full scholarship but that is probably still at least 10 years away at best.

(03-15-2013 11:09 AM)fightingcamels2014 Wrote:  The problem with the whole football scholarships thing is the money. We have an athletics budget of around $4-5 million a year. It would cost an additional $2 million a year to give out a full roster of football scholarships. The money simply isn't there, especially since every dime the university has right now is going towards the new medical school. One day we will become full scholarship but that is probably still at least 10 years away at best.

Do you mean athletics scholarship budget around $4-5 million a year? The total budget is a little over $12 million a year with the scholarship budget making up $4.5 million of that right now. Football is a revenue generator right now, which benefits the university since it's a tuition driven school.

I don't see Campbell going scholarship, mainly because it's not going to really add value at this moment for the university. FCS football is generally operated at a financial loss. The benefits are generally related to enhancing the university's image as well as access into better conferences or division (FCS/FBS). That wouldn't really be the case for Campbell. There isn't a conference that Campbell could move to with scholarship football that would really generate enough additional revenue to offset the additional cost of football. Campbell is in the right place right now in the Big South in my opinion.

Link to budget numbers - http://ope.ed.gov/athletics/InstDetails....333420504d

(03-15-2013 11:50 AM)Camel2004 Wrote:  

(03-15-2013 11:09 AM)fightingcamels2014 Wrote:  The problem with the whole football scholarships thing is the money. We have an athletics budget of around $4-5 million a year. It would cost an additional $2 million a year to give out a full roster of football scholarships. The money simply isn't there, especially since every dime the university has right now is going towards the new medical school. One day we will become full scholarship but that is probably still at least 10 years away at best.

Do you mean athletics scholarship budget around $4-5 million a year? The total budget is a little over $12 million a year with the scholarship budget making up $4.5 million of that right now. Football is a revenue generator right now, which benefits the university since it's a tuition driven school.

I don't see Campbell going scholarship, mainly because it's not going to really add value at this moment for the university. FCS football is generally operated at a financial loss. The benefits are generally related to enhancing the university's image as well as access into better conferences or division (FCS/FBS). That wouldn't really be the case for Campbell. There isn't a conference that Campbell could move to with scholarship football that would really generate enough additional revenue to offset the additional cost of football. Campbell is in the right place right now in the Big South in my opinion.

Link to budget numbers - http://ope.ed.gov/athletics/InstDetails....333420504d

I concur. CU also wouldn't have to PAY for those scholarships. The school would just have to decide to eat the loss of tuition money. That number is still in the millions and probably not worth it.

As far as football goes right now, I'm content we're in a league with the opportunity for the auto bid to the FCS playoffs. Since we can do that without spending all that $$ and be associated with the fine institutions that are in the PFL, that's just icing on the cake. Schedule 1-2 Big South and/or Southern teams as non-conference games.

If we made the FCS playoffs 9 of the next 10 years and lost every 1st Round game by 50+ points, I might start wanting a better product with scholarships. But for now, I'm good.

(03-14-2013 03:46 PM)Statman101 Wrote:  

(03-14-2013 03:31 PM)oldcamel Wrote:  I don't think the SoCon will really be a step up when all this is over. Charleston has already committed to the CAA. Georgia Southern and Appalachian are headed to the Sun Belt, more than likely this spring. Davidson turned down the CAA, with their eye on what has developed now (A-10 will lose as many as 4 teams to new Big East, Davidson is a natural fit in that league with Charlotte already in). That means the SoCon is going to have to fill spots with A-Sun or Big South teams. Rumor is that VMI could go back and ETSU could add football and go back. The only thing separating them from the Big South now is a higher quality of I-AA football.

And a higher basketball RPI? Right now the Big South is sandwiched at 30 between two HBCU conferences.

Also, Charlotte is headed to back CUSA and won't be in the A10 much longer.

Yeah, I didn't type that very well. Davidson gives them the market. That sounds better. As far as the RPI, take CofC and Davidson out, their RPI looks more like the Big South. Having said that, the BSC was pretty bad this year. Which sucks even more that our year went the way it did, since UNCA and CCU were abnormally average.

(03-15-2013 02:44 PM)OrangeCamel Wrote:  As far as football goes right now, I'm content we're in a league with the opportunity for the auto bid to the FCS playoffs. Since we can do that without spending all that $$ and be associated with the fine institutions that are in the PFL, that's just icing on the cake. Schedule 1-2 Big South and/or Southern teams as non-conference games.

If we made the FCS playoffs 9 of the next 10 years and lost every 1st Round game by 50+ points, I might start wanting a better product with scholarships. But for now, I'm good.

Couldn't agree more

Now that George Mason has announced its leaving the CAA, and App State and Georgia Southern are definitely leaving the SoCon, it's really getting interesting to watch what happens with the Big South/A-Sun/SoCon/CAA in the next few months.

Here are two blogs examining potential SoCon replacements (Campbell included in both):

http://thesportsarsenal.com/2013/03/26/c...-time-now/

http://thesportsarsenal.com/2013/03/28/c...e-schools/

Unca and coastal are always average (actually coastal is usually bad). To get the rpi back up the conference needs Winthrop to get back to mid 50s to low 100s rips again ( or someone else, though no one else seems to have that high of a ceiling).

Article on possible SoCon replacements in today's Greensboro News&Record (Campbell is one of the 5 schools suggested)......

http://www.news-record.com/home/1003758-...t#continue

It's great seeing CU recognized and mentioned by others as a worthy possibility.