Quote:
Originally Posted by wade moore
The northern defections are different for me. They're easily replaceable from a W&M perspective since we don't have the travel issues that the Northern teams do. The CAA has been, outside of UNH and UMass some, a CAA South dominated conference for a few years now. ODU is going to be a strong program and doesn't have IMMEDIATE sites on FBS and GSU is delusional with their thoughts of FBS.
This level of sports is going to see flux. As long as the CAA has UD/UR/JMU/W&M/Nova they will have a strong core for quality programs. UMass is an odd duck, but I think they do everything they can to stay. If we lost Maine or even UNH, I don't see that as a big loss for the conference overall.
Now what I do worry about is JMU and UD's expansions and what they could mean long term. If JMU and UD decide to go FBS, I think that causes serious problems for the CAA.
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Maine or UNH may not mean much to you, but while losing Hofstra and N'Eastern (and BU) is bad, as soon as one state U drops it it's not a long stretch to see all 4 doing so. Like you said, UMass is such an odd school I just don't see any conference we match up well with for all sports. We're bigger and should be better than UNH/Maine/URI/UVM, and our past rivals/best matchups are scattered across the Big 10 (Penn St) Big East (WV, UConn, Pitt, Rutgers) CAA (Delaware) ACC (VT, BC) A10 (Charlotte, Temple, GW). Ideally we'd get into the Big East for all sports, particularly if they split into 2 conferences along catholic lines, but if not I wonder if we'll end up going CAA for all sports - it doesn't make sense intuitively, but it's no worse than the A-10 geographically or in terms of the catholic/public small/large perspective.
Sorry for getting the thread off topic. The Hofstra news got me riled up
. I'll definitely be rooting for W&M, but I'll be going against your wishes and supporting Nova in the all-CAA matchup. I love that 3 CAA teams are top 48 in all of D1 in the Sagarin ratings. (EDIT - I forgot to say they announced the CAA will supposedly be going 8 game schedule, no divisions next year.)