We have discussed this before, a new Eastern league that is around the same level as MAC and Sun Belt:

East Coast Conference

UMass Great hoops, can make noise in Boston. This league would give them a conference to upgrade football into.

Temple Great market and hoops

Delaware Can def afford the move to FBS. Solid football

James Madison Big plans there, solid athletic programs

Old Dominion Solid hoops, nice market potential.

Charlotte Great hoops and market. Has tradition with ODU, maybe more southern schools with help attract them. If not then the league should look to Appalachian St.

Georgia State Great market. Looks like they have the desire to improve athletics

Florida A&M Football has attendance requirements. FAMU was going to move up into the Sun Belt, but got red flagged. Sun Belt is full now, so they missed the boat. Not if this league looks to them.

I prefer Charlotte over App State. They are all around better. A few non-football schools in this footprint should then be added depending on how the Charlotte situaton unfolds. The pickings:

George Washington League HQ could be in the District

Rhode Island

Virginia Commonwealth

George Mason

Davidson

Jacksonville

I believe the league should strive to be in between the Sun Belt/MAC and C-USA to start:

UMass
Rhode Island (non-football)
Buffalo
Temple
Delaware
George Washinigton (non-football)
Old Dominion (or James Madison)
Western Kentucky
Appalachian State (or James Madison)
Georgia State
Florida Atlantic

With Jarvis at FAU I believe they may jump at the idea to be aligned with some solid basketball programs.

*VCU should be looked at for non-football too.

I think the no brainers are:
UMass
Temple
Old Dominion
Charlotte (assuming they follow through on starting football in 2013)
Georgia State

Grab the service academies if you can to fill in the missing east coast markets, but they may reject their invitations. For Florida, personally I'd hold out for the day that UCF could possibly be attracted rather than commit to FAU or FIU, even though they're in the Miami market as opposed to Orlando. Buffalo, Marshall, Delaware and James Madison could also be in play if numbers are needed.

Non-football members are a dime a dozen, there aren't any that are particularly important to grab. GW is nice because it's private and brings a different market, but VCU and George Mason are starting to buzz about football. There was even a student article at GW, but I don't think it's remotely realistic for them.

I've only been through DC once so I don't know where GWU is within the city, but I do know they played the first game at RFK.

I don't know about Charlotte anymore. It seems like any new conference would have to wait a while for them.

I am starting to think the CAA (with UMass and Temple) could somehow transform into a FBS conference, but I don't know what needs to happen for that to get done.

The CAA has 12 members: 6 currently play football, 2 are adding football, and 4 are non-football. Only 2 of the ones currently playing, Delaware and James Madison, are realistic FBS candidates. The 2 adding football, Old Dominion and Georgia State, have big aspirations and the profiles of FBS candidates, but they haven't played a single down yet and won't be eligible for FBS moves until 2013 and 2014 respectively. You could tack on UMass and Temple for 6 at the FBS level, but you'd still have 8 CAA members whose interests are probably going to be harmed by the others going to FBS. They don't have enough room to keep adding members. The 4 non-footballs have to worry about being kicked out, and the 4 FCS members have to worry about preserving their automatic bid to the FCS playoffs and/or losing control of their football conference. 5 of the current CAA Football members (6 including UMass) are not full CAA members. In short, 8 of the 12 CAA members have a reason to vote down FBS football.

I think 1 of 2 things has to happen: either the 4 FBS-capable CAA members need to break away from the conference, or VCU and George Mason (the two largest universities in Virginia) need to add football. In the latter case though, you're going to end up with a Virginia-MAC with half the conference based in one state. I don't know how excited people are going to be about that. But I also don't see any of the 4 CAA members mentioned breaking away from the conference, except for Georgia State. They'll probably just move to the Sun Belt on their own if they want to go FBS.

So what is the possibility of UMass joining the MAC for football-only and playing MAC schools OOC (they kind of do now) in hoops like Temple?

Third hand information tells me that the MAC is "out of the question" for UMass. I don't have the details on why. It could be that they won't take UMass as a football-only, or that UMass is afraid that, once they get to the FBS level, they'll be trapped and the MAC can just force them into all-sports membership. Or it could be that there's no support for spending tens of millions of dollars to upgrade our 17k stadium to play in a conference that averages less than 20k attendance. Depending on what the reasoning is, maybe Ball State's season could change some minds. I'm open to it, we already spend as much per season on football as a MAC program, but I don't want UMass to be a MAC all-sports member and I don't want to spend much on the stadium until we get a better conference situation. It's a stepping stone for us, we don't really want to be in the MAC, and the MAC knows that. That's why they probably wouldn't take us as a football-only. Nothing in it for them to help build our program for the benefit of someone else's conference.

That's a crappy position you guys are in. You think anything would have been better had you jumped to 1-A right after your title?

I understand trying to swing UCF, but they would have to see it as a step above C-USA. Did you ever think about FAMU?

WKU has owned the Sun Belt for a long time. I don't know if I could see them jump ship. Maybe to be in a more prestigious hoops league that included UMass, Temple, and Old Dominion.

I forget what the conference landscape looked like in 1998. The problem is that the championship came out of nowhere, I think we only won 3 games the previous season and didn't even win our conference when we won the championship. Then shortly thereafter our coach Mark Whipple left and we had a couple losing seasons. The CUSA pre-BE raid may have looked more inviting, and might have even put on us the BE's shopping list when they did raid, but I don't think we were ready to make the move back then.

Re: luring UCF, my thinking is that we could eventually get a better TV deal than the CUSA due to market representation, and that might bring UCF over. Also, since this new conference is more of a direct threat to the Big East than the CUSA, they might think it improves their chances of a BE invitation if the BE thought inviting UCF would hurt this new conference in their backyard. Whereas the BE doesn't care what happens in the CUSA since it's outside their markets, excluding maybe USF's.

The problem with FAMU can be summed up in one word: money. The FAMU athletic department has an annual budget of only $5 million. Not for football, for all sports combined. I believe it's the 5th smallest athletic budget of any eastern US university currently sponsoring football. To put that in perspective, UMass spends $3.5 million on football alone and $22 million total, while UCF and Memphis are at the $30 million mark, UConn is at $52 million, and Ohio State is $100+ million. FAMU could triple their budget and it wouldn't be anywhere near enough.

How the Hell was FAMU going to move up a few years ago? They were all set to go (pre FAU and FIU) but were busted by the NCAA. I didn't realize their budget situation.

Buffalo-Boston-Philly-Norfolk-Charlotte-Atlanta-Orlando

That looks great on paper. I am sure if UCF wanted to go, ECU and Marshall would follow. I also like Delaware, and RIU and GW for non-football.

LastMinuteman Wrote:I forget what the conference landscape looked like in 1998. The problem is that the championship came out of nowhere, I think we only won 3 games the previous season and didn't even win our conference when we won the championship. Then shortly thereafter our coach Mark Whipple left and we had a couple losing seasons. The CUSA pre-BE raid may have looked more inviting, and might have even put on us the BE's shopping list when they did raid, but I don't think we were ready to make the move back then.

Re: luring UCF, my thinking is that we could eventually get a better TV deal than the CUSA due to market representation, and that might bring UCF over. Also, since this new conference is more of a direct threat to the Big East than the CUSA, they might think it improves their chances of a BE invitation if the BE thought inviting UCF would hurt this new conference in their backyard. Whereas the BE doesn't care what happens in the CUSA since it's outside their markets, excluding maybe USF's.

The problem with FAMU can be summed up in one word: money. The FAMU athletic department has an annual budget of only $5 million. Not for football, for all sports combined. I believe it's the 5th smallest athletic budget of any eastern US university currently sponsoring football. To put that in perspective, UMass spends $3.5 million on football alone and $22 million total, while UCF and Memphis are at the $30 million mark, UConn is at $52 million, and Ohio State is $100+ million. FAMU could triple their budget and it wouldn't be anywhere near enough.

FAMU has a great band though!

I think UMASS needs to take a chance and announce they're upgrading to 1A in "X" years. It will be a risk with no conference affiliation but it would cause the BE and others to realize that UMASS was serious. They would bring the enitre Massachusetts market since many alumi live in boston area, very attractive fit for the BE. Even if they're indy for a year a two, should a BE split occur(or a 9th FB added) UMASS would become a terrific option. I think it would be the best option