Its not necessarily that they would lose in court. JMU / the state has waited until the last minute to try to force this. JMU was originally denied the waiver back in April.

So, will another party be injured due to this? Yes. The team left out of the CCG.

Are you asking a court to issue a ruling that will cause injury to another entity, in which you want a ruling where you get a waiver for something you knew was the rule, in the next 9 days? There's not a judge who would or should take that on. They may allow it to go forward, but there will be too much case prep for it to happen that quickly. Could a judge order a stay? I suppose, but that would be disastrous and the CFP would likely not consider a team who could end up being deemed ineligible prior to the game.

In short, you cant wait until the last second, when you have a good end of season football record, to do this. They could have approached the courts at any time after April, but they didnt. Now they want to force a ruling in just mere days. I dont see that happening.

(11-16-2023 04:19 PM)UofMstateU Wrote:  Its not necessarily that they would lose in court. JMU / the state has waited until the last minute to try to force this. JMU was originally denied the waiver back in April.

So, will another party be injured due to this? Yes. The team left out of the CCG.

Are you asking a court to issue a ruling that will cause injury to another entity, in which you want a ruling where you get a waiver for something you knew was the rule, in the next 9 days? There's not a judge who would or should take that on. They may allow it to go forward, but there will be too much case prep for it to happen that quickly. Could a judge order a stay? I suppose, but that would be disastrous and the CFP would likely not consider a team who could end up being deemed ineligible prior to the game.

In short, you cant wait until the last second, when you have a good end of season football record, to do this. They could have approached the courts at any time after April, but they didnt. Now they want to force a ruling in just mere days. I dont see that happening.

We will see...this is just such a dumb hill for the NCAA to die on.

Even if they end up keeping JMU out, you've now made an enemy with the VA state government, who has the time, resources, motivation, and political clout to make the NCAA regret this.

So congrats on that NCAA

(11-16-2023 04:05 PM)solohawks Wrote:  The rule exists solely to deter FCS upgrades. Thats it

I think it's less about deterring any upgrade, but eliminating TEMPORARY upgrades.

They don't want someone winning the FCS title with a bunch of juniors and saying "Let's go FBS for a season!" and then when those kids graduate, drop back down to FCS.

Sactown and I talk about the water polo coach who redshirts players every other season and has loaded teams alternate years -- so he can compete with the depth of USC, UCLA, Stanford and Cal.

Northern Kentucky MBB redshirted guys strategically so the first year they were eligible for the NCAA Tournament... they won the Horizon.

If you could pick your FBS/FCS classification year-to-year based on your roster, schools absolutely would do that. It would be "We don't have the resources to be FBS every year.... but we've got a great team now, so let's play a season! Worst case scenario, we just go right back down.

(11-16-2023 04:33 PM)JSchmack Wrote:  

(11-16-2023 04:05 PM)solohawks Wrote:  The rule exists solely to deter FCS upgrades. Thats it

I think it's less about deterring any upgrade, but eliminating TEMPORARY upgrades.

They don't want someone winning the FCS title with a bunch of juniors and saying "Let's go FBS for a season!" and then when those kids graduate, drop back down to FCS.

Sactown and I talk about the water polo coach who redshirts players every other season and has loaded teams alternate years -- so he can compete with the depth of USC, UCLA, Stanford and Cal.

Northern Kentucky MBB redshirted guys strategically so the first year they were eligible for the NCAA Tournament... they won the Horizon.

If you could pick your FBS/FCS classification year-to-year based on your roster, schools absolutely would do that. It would be "We don't have the resources to be FBS every year.... but we've got a great team now, so let's play a season! Worst case scenario, we just go right back down.

But the invite rule is in place to upgrade.
You cannot just jump up and down anymore as an independent

There's tons of rules that make the NCAA look absolutely terrible when they're viewed from a PLAYER perspective: How can they do that to those kids?

But almost every single one of them makes sense when you look at them from the standpoint of what college sports started as (and SHOULD BE) -- kids pick a school for education and play sports against other schools because that's fun; but we need rules to keep schools from prioritizing the sports over the education, so everything's gotta be as close to the same as possible in terms of what kids are doing for sports, what they can get for sports, etc, etc.


It's not that boosters couldn't buy a student-athlete a pizza because they want the players to starve, it's because BOOSTERS would absolutely turn that into "you can eat anywhere for free if you come to our school!" and not be a level playing field among the schools.

On another message board, when making money off NIL came up for the first time, I said "they should... but they can't. It will INSTANTLY turn into nothing but a recruiting slush fund. It won't have anything to do with 'Jeremy Bloom is such an amazing skiier that the skiing equipment companies want to sponsor him.' (Which is true NIL). It will instantly become "we pay the LSU QB (big sum) just because he's the LSU QB." Which is exactly what happened.


The rules are in place to KEEP SCHOOLS having a level playing field. It's not a level playing field for schools to have committed to being FBS or FCS to suddenly have to deal with a half-dozen programs flip-flopping between levels every year for a competitive advantage.

The waiver JMU and Jax St SHOULD be asking for is the permission to PLAY EACH OTHER during bowl week.

(11-16-2023 04:39 PM)solohawks Wrote:  But the invite rule is in place to upgrade.
You cannot just jump up and down anymore as an independent

Yeah, but what prevents two commishes from just straight swapping every season?

I'm expecting an answer back of "Come on, who's gonna want to go down?" But there's tons of examples in college sports administrative stuff like this of "come on, who'd ever do THAT?" where we suddenly have to think about it.

Like the Pac-12 fighting in court over the process of what happens when someone leaves the conference. That was "Come on, who's ever leaving the Pac-12?" until someone left, then everyone left. Anyone saying in 2015 that Pac-12 would be down to 2 members for 2024 would have been laughed out of the room (and probably WAS, do we have archives that far back to go look?).


The idea of the bowl ban for transitioning was just moot like that. When Marshall came up, there were 22 bowls for 112 teams (39%). You didn't "need" a bowl ban because the idea of going from FCS to Top 38% of FBS in a season was crazy.

But now there's 42 bowls for 133 teams, so being one of the top 63% of FBS from FCS isn't that much of a stretch considering the very bottom of 14+ team P5s can't all win enough games to all be bowl eligible, and you could be in a division with 5 teams from the bottom 37% and just beat them out.

Pump the brakes I guess?
https://www-espn-co-uk.cdn.ampproject.or...n-football

(11-15-2023 09:16 PM)oliveandblue Wrote:  As much as I hate the idea of a G5 national championship, JMU have been trash talking just enough to make a JMU vs. Tulane NY(7) bowl game slap. Just move the Liberty Bowl or the Fenway Bowl into primetime - we all know it would be hilarious entertainment.

PS: On a serious note, I prefer the Fiesta Bowl - but I'm not oblivious to good entertainment.

You guys would destroy JMU.

(11-16-2023 04:23 PM)solohawks Wrote:  

(11-16-2023 04:19 PM)UofMstateU Wrote:  Its not necessarily that they would lose in court. JMU / the state has waited until the last minute to try to force this. JMU was originally denied the waiver back in April.

So, will another party be injured due to this? Yes. The team left out of the CCG.

Are you asking a court to issue a ruling that will cause injury to another entity, in which you want a ruling where you get a waiver for something you knew was the rule, in the next 9 days? There's not a judge who would or should take that on. They may allow it to go forward, but there will be too much case prep for it to happen that quickly. Could a judge order a stay? I suppose, but that would be disastrous and the CFP would likely not consider a team who could end up being deemed ineligible prior to the game.

In short, you cant wait until the last second, when you have a good end of season football record, to do this. They could have approached the courts at any time after April, but they didnt. Now they want to force a ruling in just mere days. I dont see that happening.

We will see...this is just such a dumb hill for the NCAA to die on.

Even if they end up keeping JMU out, you've now made an enemy with the VA state government, who has the time, resources, motivation, and political clout to make the NCAA regret this.

So congrats on that NCAA

The NCAA policies and rules are voted on and passed by the conferences and member institutions.

(11-16-2023 04:33 PM)JSchmack Wrote:  

(11-16-2023 04:05 PM)solohawks Wrote:  The rule exists solely to deter FCS upgrades. Thats it

I think it's less about deterring any upgrade, but eliminating TEMPORARY upgrades.

They don't want someone winning the FCS title with a bunch of juniors and saying "Let's go FBS for a season!" and then when those kids graduate, drop back down to FCS.

Sactown and I talk about the water polo coach who redshirts players every other season and has loaded teams alternate years -- so he can compete with the depth of USC, UCLA, Stanford and Cal.

Northern Kentucky MBB redshirted guys strategically so the first year they were eligible for the NCAA Tournament... they won the Horizon.

If you could pick your FBS/FCS classification year-to-year based on your roster, schools absolutely would do that. It would be "We don't have the resources to be FBS every year.... but we've got a great team now, so let's play a season! Worst case scenario, we just go right back down.

The rule did not exist until Marshall made the seamless move to FBS. At that time, 1-A players had to sit out if transferring to another 1-A school, but could play immediately at a 1-AA school. So a 1-AA school could load up on 1-A players and move up immediately if they had an invite from an FBS conference. Marshall exploited that loop hole and went on to dominate the MAC for nearly a decade.

The two year transition was put in place to stop schools from being able to poach transfers that wanted to stay 1-A, but not sit out a year. Any team transitioning to 1-A would have a MASSIVE advantage over existing 1-A schools in regards to transfers, and thus the 2 year transition and bowl ban was established.

Of course, now the supposed spirit of the rule is "readiness". That is 100% BS. The rule makes no sense with the current transfer portal and NIL.

Nobody is going to move back and forth between levels every year. FCS has 22 fewer scholarships than FBS so you’d be dumping 22 guys after one year and making a bowl. I imagine the NCAA would clamp down on that pretty quickly. And I doubt a conference would be happy if they invited you in and then left.

I also don’t see how the rule stops schools from moving up. If they’re an AD out there saying “Well, we have the money, the facilities, and fan support. The Sun Belt is asking us to join. But I said no because we can’t go to a bowl for two years”?

(11-16-2023 04:23 PM)solohawks Wrote:  

(11-16-2023 04:19 PM)UofMstateU Wrote:  Its not necessarily that they would lose in court. JMU / the state has waited until the last minute to try to force this. JMU was originally denied the waiver back in April.

So, will another party be injured due to this? Yes. The team left out of the CCG.

Are you asking a court to issue a ruling that will cause injury to another entity, in which you want a ruling where you get a waiver for something you knew was the rule, in the next 9 days? There's not a judge who would or should take that on. They may allow it to go forward, but there will be too much case prep for it to happen that quickly. Could a judge order a stay? I suppose, but that would be disastrous and the CFP would likely not consider a team who could end up being deemed ineligible prior to the game.

In short, you cant wait until the last second, when you have a good end of season football record, to do this. They could have approached the courts at any time after April, but they didnt. Now they want to force a ruling in just mere days. I dont see that happening.

We will see...this is just such a dumb hill for the NCAA to die on.

Even if they end up keeping JMU out, you've now made an enemy with the VA state government, who has the time, resources, motivation, and political clout to make the NCAA regret this.

So congrats on that NCAA

Even if the NCAA was blatantly wrong here, the primary issue is one of timing. We are 9 days from the end of the season. Of that, you literally only have 2-3 court days in which to get in front of a judge because of the holidays.

So the odds of this affecting the CCG are out the window, whether the NCAA is right or wrong. They literally waited too late to take action.

What could happen after the sunbelt ccg teams are set, the NCAA could come back and say, ok, we'll give you a waiver. You are eligible for any bowl. That way JMU gets their wish, and noone was harmed in the process of sorting this out due to the very extreme late nature of the court filing.

(11-16-2023 04:23 PM)solohawks Wrote:  

(11-16-2023 04:19 PM)UofMstateU Wrote:  Its not necessarily that they would lose in court. JMU / the state has waited until the last minute to try to force this. JMU was originally denied the waiver back in April.

So, will another party be injured due to this? Yes. The team left out of the CCG.

Are you asking a court to issue a ruling that will cause injury to another entity, in which you want a ruling where you get a waiver for something you knew was the rule, in the next 9 days? There's not a judge who would or should take that on. They may allow it to go forward, but there will be too much case prep for it to happen that quickly. Could a judge order a stay? I suppose, but that would be disastrous and the CFP would likely not consider a team who could end up being deemed ineligible prior to the game.

In short, you cant wait until the last second, when you have a good end of season football record, to do this. They could have approached the courts at any time after April, but they didnt. Now they want to force a ruling in just mere days. I dont see that happening.

We will see...this is just such a dumb hill for the NCAA to die on.

Even if they end up keeping JMU out, you've now made an enemy with the VA state government, who has the time, resources, motivation, and political clout to make the NCAA regret this.

So congrats on that NCAA

Glad to hear things are going so well in Virginia they can focus all their attention on attacking the NCAA.

(11-16-2023 06:13 PM)UofMstateU Wrote:  

(11-16-2023 04:23 PM)solohawks Wrote:  

(11-16-2023 04:19 PM)UofMstateU Wrote:  Its not necessarily that they would lose in court. JMU / the state has waited until the last minute to try to force this. JMU was originally denied the waiver back in April.

So, will another party be injured due to this? Yes. The team left out of the CCG.

Are you asking a court to issue a ruling that will cause injury to another entity, in which you want a ruling where you get a waiver for something you knew was the rule, in the next 9 days? There's not a judge who would or should take that on. They may allow it to go forward, but there will be too much case prep for it to happen that quickly. Could a judge order a stay? I suppose, but that would be disastrous and the CFP would likely not consider a team who could end up being deemed ineligible prior to the game.

In short, you cant wait until the last second, when you have a good end of season football record, to do this. They could have approached the courts at any time after April, but they didnt. Now they want to force a ruling in just mere days. I dont see that happening.

We will see...this is just such a dumb hill for the NCAA to die on.

Even if they end up keeping JMU out, you've now made an enemy with the VA state government, who has the time, resources, motivation, and political clout to make the NCAA regret this.

So congrats on that NCAA

Even if the NCAA was blatantly wrong here, the primary issue is one of timing. We are 9 days from the end of the season. Of that, you literally only have 2-3 court days in which to get in front of a judge because of the holidays.

So the odds of this affecting the CCG are out the window, whether the NCAA is right or wrong. They literally waited too late to take action.

What could happen after the sunbelt ccg teams are set, the NCAA could come back and say, ok, we'll give you a waiver. You are eligible for any bowl. That way JMU gets their wish, and noone was harmed in the process of sorting this out due to the very extreme late nature of the court filing.

The issue isn't bowl eligibility per say its NY6 eligibility.

As I've said if JMU was 7-3 this wouldn't be an issue. JMU would gets its bowl due to not having enough eligible teams and all would be fine.

But the NCAA is potentially shutting JMU out of millions of dollars for no good reason other than that's the rule. That rule could be argued as anti competitive and anti trust. No one saw this situation occurring which is why it wasn't brought up sooner

And again, it's such a stupid can of worms to open. Why make an enemy with a big state like Virginia over something stupid. Give them a waiver and pass the buck to the CFP who can then exclude them with no justification needed

(11-16-2023 06:43 PM)AssKickingChicken Wrote:  

(11-16-2023 04:23 PM)solohawks Wrote:  

(11-16-2023 04:19 PM)UofMstateU Wrote:  Its not necessarily that they would lose in court. JMU / the state has waited until the last minute to try to force this. JMU was originally denied the waiver back in April.

So, will another party be injured due to this? Yes. The team left out of the CCG.

Are you asking a court to issue a ruling that will cause injury to another entity, in which you want a ruling where you get a waiver for something you knew was the rule, in the next 9 days? There's not a judge who would or should take that on. They may allow it to go forward, but there will be too much case prep for it to happen that quickly. Could a judge order a stay? I suppose, but that would be disastrous and the CFP would likely not consider a team who could end up being deemed ineligible prior to the game.

In short, you cant wait until the last second, when you have a good end of season football record, to do this. They could have approached the courts at any time after April, but they didnt. Now they want to force a ruling in just mere days. I dont see that happening.

We will see...this is just such a dumb hill for the NCAA to die on.

Even if they end up keeping JMU out, you've now made an enemy with the VA state government, who has the time, resources, motivation, and political clout to make the NCAA regret this.

So congrats on that NCAA

Glad to hear things are going so well in Virginia they can focus all their attention on attacking the NCAA.

Easy target. You don't pass up an open lay-up

The NCAA is overly strict with non power conferences and lenient with power conference teams.

Covid had a lot of unusual circumstance. Covid allowed teams as JMU to carry more than 63 players and all players were eligible for an extra year. This has to be an unusual factor, which added in JMU's FBS transition.

That success was earned, but the NCAA has never been kind to non power conference teams. UMass had appearances stripped from the women's lacrosse program for an administrational error in the cost difference between on campus cable rates and off campus.

(11-16-2023 06:45 PM)Steve1981 Wrote:  The NCAA is overly strict with non power conferences and lenient with power conference teams.

Covid had a lot of unusual circumstance. Covid allowed teams as JMU to carry more than 63 players and all players were eligible for an extra year. This has to be an unusual factor, which added in JMU's FBS transition.

That success was earned, but the NCAA has never been kind to non power conference teams. UMass had appearances stripped from the women's lacrosse program for an administrational error in the cost difference between on campus cable rates and off campus.

UNC had taught us not once but twice...never work with the NCAA. Fight back and you eventually win

I used to think David St was the lowest IQ person on these boards, but this solohawks cat is really making me wonder if his grandparents were siblings

(11-16-2023 08:00 PM)UNT15 Wrote:  I used to think David St was the lowest IQ person on these boards, but this solohawks cat is really making me wonder if his grandparents were siblings

What have I said that's inaccurate

It's dumb to make an enemy of the state of VA

It's dumb to hold fast on a rule when the buck of exclusion could have been passed to the CFP selection committee

The NCAA constantly caves when you don't back down...see Liberty and UNC

(11-16-2023 04:05 PM)solohawks Wrote:  

(11-16-2023 03:57 PM)bullet Wrote:  

(11-16-2023 03:16 PM)solohawks Wrote:  Such an easy thing to avoid...now they are going to lost in court again and look worse than they would have if they had just given them the darn waiver

Why would they lose in court?

There is no reason.

Im sure a western VA court will be sympathetic to JMU's antitrust claims

The rule exists solely to deter FCS upgrades. Thats it

Even local courts have to pay some attention to laws. There is zero basis for a lawsuit. None. Its just politicians stealing taxpayers money to make a name for themselves. The politicians making it happen should have to pay the legal fees.