(10-05-2016 05:28 PM)MWC Tex Wrote:  

(10-05-2016 01:05 PM)Fresno St. Alum Wrote:  

(10-04-2016 07:10 AM)MWC Tex Wrote:  

(10-04-2016 02:14 AM)Fresno St. Alum Wrote:  

(10-03-2016 12:45 PM)MWC Tex Wrote:  Interesting. However, move from D2 to NAIA is not 'dropping' down. NAIA and D2 are pretty much the same. While some D2 school get some NCAA $$, the annual fees wipe most of that out. NAIA fees are much cheaper.
In addition, I found that the most schools in the NAIA and D2 are the same level of competition. NAIA also lets you focus on 6 sports rather than 10.

They only difference in scholarships between the D2 and NAIA is that D2 allow 36 equivalent for football and NAIA allows 24 equivalent

The top 25 schools in D-II would disagree w/ you. GVSU (25k) is bigger than Fresno St.(22k). Wayne St., San Francisco St. have around 30K students.

Enrollment doesn't matter, competitively both are quite equal.

No they're not, NAIA top schools have little chance against top D-II schools. bottom feeding D-II school can be beat by top NAIA schools. It's like saying FBS and FCS are equal because Michigan lost to App St. and EMU lost to"enter name fcs school". No, the good FCS teams can beat bottom feeding FBS, and NDSU can beat lots of teams but still are not even close to Bama or anyone else high up. Iowa already lost again, they were exposed and not a real top 25 team. Hell the NAIA doesn't even have a NDSU type. Look at Sioux Falls and Lindenwood who were dominant in the NAIA, they've had rough times in D-II they didn't come in and destroy D-II like NDSU did when moving to FCS. NW Mo St. Minn St. GVSU UNA Valdosta Sts. of the world are the big time programs not the recent move ups from NAIA.

I just checked the current top 25 of D-II. Only 2 schools are former NAIA from 2000 on. APU(2011 move up) and Sioux Falls(2009 move up)

I totally disagree. Top 25 naia and top 25 d2 will be quite competitve against each other. In addition, the other sports are competitive also. Take track and field, the records are just the same. Basketball has quite a bit of crossover games and naia teams regularly beat d2 teams.

It really depends on the sport. D2 has an advantage in football because it's 36 schollies vs. NAIA's 24. As I mentioned, check Marian vs U Indy last year. You don't see many head to head in football because it hurts D2 team's ratings to play a game against NAIA. And it's a stretch to compare the same team in NAIA vs recent move to D2; the process basically cripples your program and you have to start over, plus there tends to be HUGE turnover by the coaches during the transition. In basketball, the NAIA DI has the advantage with 11 schollies vs 10 in D2, and indeed there's a recent string of top NAIA DI's beating top D2's. FSU Alum, don't judge the NAIA by Fresno Pacific. Lastly, look at who won the women's D2 basketball championship last year: Lubbock Christian, who just transitioned to D2. Note that their starters were all NAIA recruits, with the same coach. Basically an NAIA team.

After the transition, schools are basically on 1 of 2 trajectories: If they leave the NAIA "stocked" with young talent (Azusa, Lubbock) they red shirt them so they will have a year or two of post season eligibility left, and they make a big splash in D2, and hopefully build from there. If not, it's a long slog to adapt to all the recruiting restrictions and higher expenses. There are many teams who make a big splash with their NAIA recruits and then trail off or never even get a good launch.