(02-01-2020 04:53 PM)MercerFan Wrote: NoDak.. I agree with your thoughts on this. It makes sense that they're swinging for the fences with FBS if they are making this move. Here's my main follow up question though: How many schools within the current ASUN would actually be ready for FBS in the next few years? Obviously Liberty is already there. I'll assume Kennesaw State could get ready. Beyond those two, I don't see anyone else. North Alabama maybe as a longshot. Stetson highly unlikely to ever go that route. The rest of the ASUN doesn't even have football teams at all! So 2 teams in the ASUN would be FBS ready within 5 years (1 for sure). Why do I bring this up? Because if high prestige teams like JMU are looking to create a new FBS league, why in the world do they need the Atlantic Sun to do it for them? Why would you attach your high level brand to a conference that can't keep members and is consistently bottom ranked? Why wouldn't they form a league on their own and hire their own leaders to guide them into FBS? That's my main question. Is there really so much red tape that they needed to go through these crazy hoops with the CCSA conference to make this happen? Very interesting stuff!
And another question I'd have... Who is the leader of this idea? Is the Atlantic Sun creating a new league in hopes of attracting high level teams? Or are high level teams quietly instructing the A-Sun to create a new league for them?
Kennesaw St, UNF and FGCU are probably the leaders. The FL public’s obviously can’t go now, but the next decade if they start FCS, they would want the opportunity to go FBS, just like South Alabama did as it was a non fb member of the Belt and UT-Arlington can now. Stetson and Jacksonville worry if the other Florida schools go.
Any FBS related conference always gets a major upgrade in status.
In the CAA, a number of schools want FBS, but they are forbidden by internal CAA vote to go. The CAA has been nasty to schools that leave, as Ga State and ODU were forbidden even in the conference tournament for an NCAA bid to enter.
The CAA schools can just leave, but it would take eight years to qualify as a new conference, without any kind of NCAA recognition. This is the quickest way, as seven schools with eight years of continuity in the ASun just split off, leaving the other new schools as a new conference. It’s a deal where both the new new schools will enormously benefit, plus the old schools do as well.
JMU values relationships like Delaware and Stony Brook much more than the Sun Belt, so they refused to go there for FBS.
North Alabama and Jacksonville St want to be like Troy, which has greatly expanded enrollment since going FBS. West Alabama, another sister teacher’s college school, is almost beyond recovery because they haven’t even gone FCS. Football is such an cultural institution for Alabama college and probably Texas and zflorida ones too.
Said this was going to happen two years ago, but posters on the realignment board just laughed and mocked me. FCS won’t look the same as so many schools will reclassify. The FBS CFP payment will more than double in 2025, changing the financial risks associated with FBS vs after FCS. The WAC will get FCS schools from Texas and California and go FBS agin. The Summit will get the Montanas, Idaho, Weber St, and EWU, start FCS for the first time and go FBS.
Think NJIT will go to the America East, Bellarmine to the Horizon, and Lipscomb will go OVC all post split.
