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Post by troysux on Jul 19, 2021 14:40:37 GMT -6
Gumball said the ASUN wasn’t going to destroy another conference’s autobid. The SLC is down to six football members (eight overall) so they can’t take anymore without breaking that policy.
The OVC is down to seven, so one more could come from them.
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Post by troysux on Jul 19, 2021 14:41:49 GMT -6
This seems very workable/acceptable. I wish we had more concrete info on where the other potential additions stood. (Chatty, wcu, etsu,. Are they definite No's. I would think these SLC schools and AP would be an easy get. I'm sure if McNeese and or SLU were interested in the wac or were wanted by the wac they would have left with the 4 tx schools. I don't think they were wanted. It looks like the ASUN would have these three or a few more begging to be let in to get out of their current falling conferences. Does this mean were thinking someone bigger is on the way. It just doesn't seem it would be that hard to fill up. More info would be nice but we're not going to know anything until there's either a membership announcement or a credible leak from someone in the know. Personally, I think we're about to get screwed and they're going to bring in some nobody. My big worry making the switch was that it wasn’t going to work out as promised. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
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ASUN
Jul 19, 2021 15:00:54 GMT -6
via mobile
Post by JSUSoutherner on Jul 19, 2021 15:00:54 GMT -6
More info would be nice but we're not going to know anything until there's either a membership announcement or a credible leak from someone in the know. Personally, I think we're about to get screwed and they're going to bring in some nobody. My big worry making the switch was that it wasn’t going to work out as promised. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Truth be told, the conference is already better than the OVC by virtue of having Kennesaw and UNA. It just may not end up being as good as it could be.
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Post by Whup Em All on Jul 19, 2021 15:39:49 GMT -6
Not in favor of football only members. It's not my first choice by a longshot, but when you're limited by numbers (both in the football conference and in the full ASUN) and by available schools, having 1-2 football-only affiliates seems like a good option. I would NOT want a Big South/Monmouth type situation, where we took a team geographically and philosophically out of our footprint just to make the numbers work. And along those lines, I'd want to reserve any affiliate invitations for teams which would actually help the ASUN achieve its goal of becoming the strongest FCS conference in the South. I think McNeese and SLU would both help meet that goal. As a bonus, football-only affiliation would mean those teams' weakness in basketball and other OLY sports wouldn't prove detrimental to the rest of the conference.
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ASUN
Jul 19, 2021 16:09:44 GMT -6
Post by Whup Em All on Jul 19, 2021 16:09:44 GMT -6
My big worry making the switch was that it wasn’t going to work out as promised. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Truth be told, the conference is already better than the OVC by virtue of having Kennesaw and UNA. It just may not end up being as good as it could be. *Yet. The ASUN is better than the OVC already, and not just in football. In other sports, while the ASUN as a whole may be ranked lower in some sports than the OVC, look at the trajectory of those low-ranked teams. The ASUN's cellar-dwellers are largely recent move-ups with a definite upward trajectory. The OVC's cellar-dwellers appear to be content. Don't believe me? Check the hoops rankings of UNA, Bellarmine, and Lipscomb in 5 years versus those of TTU, SIUE, and EIU, and get back with me. At the top of the conference, with rare exceptions, the ASUN is already far superior to the OVC. The ASUN is still dealing with a reputation as a "move-up/transient" conference. The place where desperate D-II teams go to get a D-I conference home, where they bide their time only until invited to go somewhere else. Despite the number of move-ups in the past few years, and despite the fact (er, rumor) UWF may be joining soon, that label is about to be left behind. In years past, when a conference like the OVC or SoCon came knocking, schools would jump ship in a hurry to get into the more prestigious conference. That's no longer the case. It's possible a non-football school might move to the SoCon if invited, but among the football schools, the ASUN is a far better fit than the SoCon. Reasonably tight footprint. Lots of regional rivalries. Everyone's a public school with similar goals. It just wouldn't make sense for anyone to jump ship to be with the Woffords, Furmans, Samfords and Mercers of the world. As for those aforementioned non-football schools, the SoCon is awfully attractive in hoops, but the ASUN will be right there with it in a few years. Lipscomb and Bellarmine live for hoops. EKU has turned their program around. It appears UNA is on the right track. FGCU may be rebuilding Dunk City. Liberty is strong at everything. JSU is no slouch. You get the idea. Add the extra incentive of rivalries to this mix, and you've got the ingredients for a solid/high-end mid-major conference. And it's like this in multiple sports, not just football. Basketball, baseball, softball, volleyball, tennis, golf... It's like everyone in the ASUN is either contending or making concrete plans to contend. The ASUN has a lot to prove. If you take me up on that "come back in 5 years" offer, it's possible Liberty may have moved on, Bellarmine and Lipscomb could be indifferent 20-loss teams, and Ted Gumbart is being burned in effigy nightly on the JSU Quad. But if I'm right, watch how quickly some of these other schools who currently "aren't interested" in the ASUN suddenly begin to fill Mr. Gumbart's inbox with syrupy voicemails detailing everything they could bring to the conference.
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