Tell me what comes to mind when I mention the Atlantic 10: Xavier’s run to the Elite Eight. St. Joe’s near miss at an undefeated season in ’04. John Chaney. John Calipari and his 1996 Massachusetts Minutemen going all the way to the Final Four.
I’ll reckon you didn’t answer FBS football.
The time is ripe for the Atlantic 10 to lay a foundation for a Division I-A football league. Teams like Temple, SUNY-Buffalo, and East Carolina would love a new Eastern Division I conference. UNC-Charlotte and Massachusetts have legitimate Division I aspirations.
How can a 14-team Division I conference where only three schools are considering I-A football sponsor the sport at that level? A little bit of compromise—and one monster plan.
The Atlantic 10 currently has three schools that are/will (eventually) sponsor FBS football: UNC-Charlotte, Temple, and UMass.
UNC-CHARLOTTE
NC-Charlotte is likely starting up a football program, preferably at the FBS level. The board of directors will vote on officially adding a football program in September, which would likely start play in the 2013 season without conference affiliation. Charlotte will likely also break ground on a shiny new football stadium as part of the project.
TEMPLE
The Owls are the only A-10 team to currently sponsor Division I football. They play at Lincoln Financial field, home of the NFL’s Eagles, a stadium that seats 60,000. Though the Temple football program has fallen on hard times, they did average 30k attendance in 2007-08. Temple currently plays football in the MAC.
UMASS
The Minutemen are the least likely of the three schools to sponsor D-I football. They would need to make major upgrades to Warren P. McGuirk Alumni Stadium to meet FBS attendance minimums.
16 comments Last one added 9 months ago — Leave a Comment
Chris Morgan 10 months ago
A Buffalo fan's P.O.V.
First, SUNY-Buffalo is not an acceptable nomenclature option. "UB", "University at Buffalo", and "University at Buffalo, The State University of New York", and "Buffalo" (for athletic purposes) are designated as acceptable by the University.
Second, UB is a near perfect fit for the MAC at this point in time. It is a large, public institution in the Great Lakes region, just as the other schools in the conference. The school's leadership has always patterned the University's change and growth after the great Mid-Western state universities. The school does not look east, it looks west.
The only issues are Buffalo's academic standing compared to the other MAC schools, and UB's plan to grow as part of the UB2020 plan, to a school of 40,000 students. UB is a member of the AAU, a group of the top research universities in North America. It is the only MAC school in this association. And it would be the only AAU university in your proposed league. There is more to this than football. UB's administration would never choose to make a move between leagues unless it places UB with comparable AAU universities, i.e. the Big Ten and Big East schools. We all admit UB's athletic programs must improve greatly to reach that point, which will be years. Whether it happens or not, the best place for UB in the MAC.
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Ernest Weeks 10 months ago
Point well taken...
As a follower of northeast football, I would counter with the fact that you actually are with more like-minded universities in our new northeastern conference than the MAC.
Our new A-10 (or public side, atleast) is mainly made up of universities with 20k+ enrollment, and all of the public members (sans James Madison and affiliate member Appalacian State, but George Washington and Fordham are also DR/U's) are DR/U.
(unlike many MAC members, who are mostly master's universities see: http://www.carnegiefoundation.org/ for more details).
Also, my A16 has two universities classified as very high research activity by the carnigie foundation, UMASS and UDelware, who also represent our two state flagship universities. The MAC has no institutions in either category. Oh, and my A16 also has two universities that clear one billion in endowment (George Washington and Delaware)
Well, that's my case. To be honest, I think that the A-10's reputation as a solid basketball conference would be able to woo the Bulls. Even if you're dividing revenues among 15 other teams, the A16 still would probably beat the MAC in exposure, at-large bids, and tv contracts. Buffalo would still probably stand to make more in the A16 than the MAC.
Buffalo was the one university which I was a little hesitant about adding to the conference. If Buffalo doesn't fit with our plan, Stony Brook is probably the next best fit.
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Chris Morgan 10 months ago
I am aware of the Carnegie report rankings, but these schools are still not AAU members, and they are still in the east, and half are private. UB entered the old East Coast Conference upon moving up to D-1, then moved to the Mid-Con before the all-public MAC. We had our (brief) time in an eastern league with low-major publics and privates forced together for convenience, and have moved on to mid-western affiliations which better fit our aspirations, and geography (Akron and Kent State are under a 4 hour drive from Buffalo). The like-minded publics you note as flagships are atop small-state systems, other schools are 1000 miles from Buffalo, and a few private schools are soon-to-be 1/20th the enrollment of UB (Bona and Richmond). Endowment means little here. Some small, private D-III liberal arts colleges have larger endowment numbers than some BCS schools.
You assert that UB and ECU would "love a new Eastern Division I conference", but in both schools' cases that conference would have to be the public Big East. The idea that the A-10's basketball reputation would woo UB and ECU is not representative of a knowledge of these schools' intentions. An A-10 without 3 of it's top (mid-western schools no less) programs is not as attractive to some schools as you may believe, and would not guarantee benefits that would trump UB's remaining in the MAC, and definitely not ECU leaving Conference USA. All the talk from ECU's athletic department concerning any move from Conference USA involves the Big East. Central Florida is no lock, and ECU realizes there is still time to lobby.
Kudos to you though, your idea is making the rounds on the message boards like wildfire:
http://ncaabbs.com/showthread.php?tid=310702
http://www.anygivensaturday.com/forum/showthread.php?t=45966
http://umasshoops.com/board/index.htm
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spa padwick 10 months ago
Every Northeastern school with any FBS intentions says they want to be in the BE, so I am going to call that criticism a bit bogus. I think eventually the reality will dawn on them that until they can build a 45K stadium and draw 35K, they are not going to even be acknowledged as a potential candidate for the BE, and even then, they sure better have an enticing DMA and reasonable travel.
UB wants to be the UT of the New York. They want to be the acknowledged #1 state university. Stony Brook wants that too. Does UB being a member of the MAC help them towards that goal? Does it put them on the BE radar? I don't think so. I doubt it ever will. Buffalo had 1 offer for conference membership and took it. Don't read more into that.
ECU is bleeding money flying to Texas over and over. Marshall and ECU want out of CUSA as it is configured today. The cold hard facts seem to suggest that ECU just doesn't have the academics or the market to interest the BE. I suspect the western half of CUSA might break away in 2011 or 2012. Will it be a 6/6 split that leaves a conference for ECU and UCF? Or will tempers flair and will CUSA take more than 6, potentially stranding CUSA east schools. If the BE look down their noses on both schools in a stable conference, how would they view them in a very precarious conference or a defunct conference?
Ernest is dead on target here. This is the time for UMASS to get off it's ass and make it's own destiny. It would not a huge suprise to see mechanisms behind the scenes make UCF and ECU suddenly become more than willing to join a brand new FBS A10.
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Chris B 10 months ago
One more thing I would like to point out. UNC Charlotte has no hyphen. Great article btw. Also when referring to the atheltic teams, we are simply known as Charlotte. I know it's quite confusing, but we here are trying to push for a name change along with Football, but it's hard to get everything at one time.
Football is #1 priority.
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Chris B 10 months ago
One more thing I would like to point out is UNC Charlotte has no hyphen. Also, when referring to athletic teams at Charlotte, we are simply known as the Charlotte 49ers.
I know it's quite confusing and it's quite aggrivating down here, but we are making a push for the name change and football at the same time. Unfortunately asking for both is a lot at one time, so our #1 priority is football, and even if don't get the name change, as long as we have football here, I'll be happy :).
Ninerballin
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Jack M. 10 months ago
Oddly, the least sensible part of this proposal may be associating it with the Atlantic 10 in the first place. The current powers that be there aren't interested in football, as demonstrated by their allowing the CAA to pirate the A10's FCS football conference wholesale. If Xavier, Dayton and St. Louis left, that might shift the balance of power a bit, but there'd still be only 3 members out of 11 in the conference with reasonable prospects of fielding a FBS team.
Why not just create a new conference? St. Bonaventure, La Salle, Duquesne, and Fordham don't pull their weight, so leave them behind (there aren't enough votes to kick them out). Richmond does better, but they're replacing their current stadium with an even smaller one. They've hit their ceiling, so replace them with Old Dominion, a better basketball school in a larger Virginia market with FBS potential. A new conference would be more attractive to new FBS members without all the A10's dead weight at the bottom. The A10 has barely been on TV in years, so I question the value of the brand name.
A few other notes: First, I'm not going to argue with the Buffalo fan, but I'm going to point out that the MAC hasn't had a single at large bid in basketball this millennium, that any new eastern FBS conference would have larger television markets and generate more revenue than the MAC, and that in the unlikely event UB ever gets the call from the Big East or Big Ten, nothing says they can't conference hop again. In the meantime, the proposed conference would be an upgrade, minus the dead weight.
Second, don't assume UCF to the Big East is a given. USF will protest that move. The other Big East footballers will be put in the position of overruling and upsetting a conference member to get UCF in. How bad do they want/need UCF? If not badly enough, UCF is in play for other conference scenarios.
Lastly, keep in mind that even if Charlotte votes to add football, their earliest timetable for starting play is 2012, and they're required to play at the FCS level for at least 4 seasons before starting FBS. Ergo, 2016 is the absolute earliest that they could be involved in a FBS conference, and more likely they'll need more time than that. ODU can be there in 2013, Georgia St. in 2014.
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Ernest Weeks 10 months ago
Actually, my original idea was for the football schools to split into thier own conference, but I wanted to experiment and see if I could find a way to keep the Atlantic Ten together. After reading over my article a couple times, I have to agree with you my original idea was probably the best. I had the following two conferences:
Our new all-sports league: SUNY-Stony Brook, Delaware, Georgia State, Old Dominion, Massachusetts, Rhode Island,Temple, SUNY-Buffalo, UNC-Charlotte
Our new "Atlantic Ten": George Washington, Duquenese, Saint Bonaventure, Saint Joeseph's, Richmond, La Salle, Fordham , Boston University, Northeastern, Hofstra
The intent goal of the project was to try to create a conference academically and athletically powerful enough to lure either UCF or ECU from the mostly western C-USA (whichever one was not Big East bound). I think this flows alot better than my 16 team guargantuan conference.
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spa padwick 10 months ago
I'd like to second Jack's comment on UCF. I think the BE schools are not eager to add ANY schools, usually ever. Adding another mouth to feed from their TV contract is like pulling teeth for them. I think USF would fight to exclude UCF as USF can use their affiliation with a BCS conference to aid recruiting and allow them to be a national power and the Northern schools would not want to add another florida flight. Additionally, UCF's endowment is very small for a large public, 1/3 of USF's. That seems to matter a lot to BE schools that do a lot on "esteem".
If the BE football schools were more farsighted it would be very smart to add UCF and use the two schools as travel partners to minimize costs. But they usually are very conservative, only doing the bare minimum needed for survival.
USF is in the Bucaneers killzone. Adding a well matched nearby rival could really help when the Bucs do better. (The USF counter arguement is that when that occurs, UCF in conference could allow UCF to become the florida power in the conference and force USF into the league basement. By blocking UCF they are protecting themselves --- a very Big East arguement.). UCF is not in an NFL killzone so they are likely going to be able to continue to grow their attendance. UCF could have the better athletic future...but for now being in a lesser conference quashes that.
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B Spar 10 months ago
The solution I prefer is for the CAA to also sponsor a IA (FBS) conference.
The CAA could/should also sponsor a FBS conference. They wouldn't be the only conference that sposored a IA (FBS) and IAA (FCS). This would be the best option as there would be no or minimal start up costs for the schools. Multimillion dollar start up costs from each school to start up a new conference wouldn't be necessary. A few staff members and a football associate director wouldn't require a major contribution by each school. The schools will be investing considerable sums to upgrade their facilities, increased scholarships, larger and higher paying coaching staff, etc.
Agree that Buffalo belongs in the MAC. Not even an issue. Also doubt Temple would leave the MAC as they become a power there. I think Temple will end up back in the BE as they finally get their football program in order. There is no advantage whatsoever for Temple.
UMass is the weak link. With a small campus population of less than 20K and opposition from the athletic department and an alienated alumni I doubt they will ever join a IA (FBS).
All the other I-AA (FCS) teams would probably be interested as a stepping stone to a better conference. All the Sun Belt schools aspire to higher ranking conferences. If a school was willing to pay the transportation costs, associate Football membership in the Sun Belt is probably available. This option will be especially attractive to Delaware, Georgia State, Old Dominion, UNC-Charlotte, and Richmond.
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Jack M. 10 months ago
UMass's enrollment is roughly 26,000 and growing. The study the athletic department did supports a move to FBS. UMass loses about $2.5 million per season on FCS football. While few FBS programs make money, few lose much more than that too. If you're going to pay most of the costs associated with football anyway, you may as well play FBS. What's stopping UMass is conference affiliation. The Big East isn't going to call, and there's no support for going to the MAC. Independent is too expensive. Only a new eastern conference would work.
And Temple would be out of the MAC like a gunshot if a new east coast FBS conference with at least 6 other members emerged. That situation hangs over their heads like a guillotine.
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spa padwick 10 months ago
There is no advantage in Temple playing FBS football in an FBS A10 vs. playing football in the MAC? I blew coffee out of my nose after reading that.
Now maybe I can cut you some slack on that as to be fair the initial post only mentioned 2 A10 members. I still question whether Temple would see the MAC as worth the travel costs as you imply.
Temple's rivals are the A10 schools. Temple vs. UMASS, and even Charlotte will draw a ton better than Temple vs. Kent State and the rest of the MAC. Temple PROBABLY would draw better against the other eastern FCS upgrades than they would the MAC. They would definitely draw better against ECU than anyone in the MAC. People in Buffalo and Philadelphia don't give a rat's ass about the MAC. It is simply semi-reasonable travel and a very low competition level. Those are the ONLY benefits of the MAC.
The issue with UMASS is simply readjusting their focus. Every one of these NE schools dreams of the Big East. They are living in the past. The Big East today is a shadow of what it was. And frankly they aren't all that academically either anymore. Building a good academic conference at CUSA levels in the NE region could end up being a lot more stable and academically impressive than the Big East and frankly pretty darned profitable.
UMASS, UB, ECU and others need to stop holding their breath on the BE as their programs run out of air.
I also strongly disagree with your sunbelt statement, too. Richmond is going to a new on campus stadium that seats less than 10K. An FBS dreams there are gone. UNC-Charlotte isn't adding football to play in the Sunbelt. They too are dreaming of the BE, although I think they might be OK with a return to CUSA. Delaware would NEVER join the Sunbelt. Like Montana, they think they should jump to a MWC/CUSA level conference at worst, otherwise they will stay in FCS. Georgia State, I can agree on. A lot of 12-14 member conferences could split for travel cost reductions in the next 5 years. The Sunbelt is one of a few that could. They could lose schools on the west and on the east. If that occurred Georgia State could be an attractive target with the Atlanta DMA. GS could also end up in CUSA East too though as Atlanta is large, their coach is an upper tier FBS name coach, and they play in Atlanta's pro stadium. Georgia Southern, James Madison, The Citadel, Old Dominion and a few others hit me as more likely Sunbelt candidates...
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spa padwick 10 months ago
If you want to create a new conference it would behoove you to take 6 A10 members with you to qualify for an NCAA autobid.
Assuming you have lost Dayton, St. Louis, and Xavier, that leaves you 11 to chose from. (That means you better hope St. Louis hangs around, otherwise any exodus will cost the schools you leave behind their automatic tourney bid ---- which even at the A10 level means a lot.) Lets say the A10 makes a deal to keep St. Louis in the fold --- they get the tourney every other year and the conference pays half of the travel for them?
Attendance is the easiest identifier of the health of a university's sports program, but TV Market size does a lot to ID the right conference members as well. Academics as well.
School - Location - Enrollment - Basketball arena - Capacity - 5 season average
Saint Louis - St. Louis, Missouri - 10633 - Chaifetz Arena - 10600 - 9036
Charlotte - Charlotte, North Carolina - 22388 - Dale F. Halton Arena - 9105 - 6794
Temple - Philadelphia, Pennsylvania - 31600 - Liacouras Center - 10206 - 5143
Rhode Island - Kingston, Rhode Island - 15650 - Ryan Center - 7657 - 5111
Richmond - Richmond, Virginia - 2962 - Robins Center - 9171 - 5068
St. Bonaventure - Olean, New York - 2700 - Reilly Center - 6000 - 4537
Saint Joseph's - Philadelphia, Pennsylvania - 4998 - Alumni Memorial Fieldhouse - 4,200 - 4295
Massachusetts - Amherst, Massachusetts - 25873 - Mullins Center - 9349 - 4227
George Washington - Washington, D.C. - 22710 - Smith Center - 5000 - 3469
Duquesne - Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania - 9617 - A. J. Palumbo Center - 6200 - 2995
La Salle - Philadelphia, Pennsylvania - 6012 - Tom Gola Arena - 4000 - 2525
Fordham - New York City, New York - 12932 - Rose Hill Gymnasium - 3470 - 2404
So lets say St. Louis (St. Louis DMA), Charlotte (Charlotte DMA), Temple (Philadelphia DMA), Rhode Island (Providence DMA), UMASS (Springfield DMA and the state flagship also the Boston DMA), and George Washington (DC). That would leave Fordham, La Salle, Duquesne, Saint Joseph's, St. Bonaventure, and Richmond --- solid privates with a toehold in the NYC, Pitt, and Philadelphia Markets and an autobid to rebuild the A10. No conference likes killing it's conference mates.
(I am using this logic to assume that St. Louis didn't join the A10 to play Fordham and Lasalle --- they joined to play the bigger name programs who would be theoretically breaking away.)
Now this FBS A10 would be essentially a higher profile A10, with pretty good academics accross the board. As most schools would be moving up, Temple would have a competitive advantage in football that would be bigger than any they debatably have in the MAC. UMASS's stadium issues are a touch overblown as well. True, they don't have the funding to build the 40K stadium they would need to get into the Big East, but they could just add some end zone seats to their 17K stadium and get it up to the 22K level they would need for this conference, make the jump, and likely safely hit the NCAA minimums.
Delaware would probably want in, are close by in the Philly DMA, a good academic school and a state flagship, and they have the resume in football. I'd cheat a bit and pull in Army and Navy as football only members. It would work for them as they could be competitive and would minimize travel costs. I'd add Buffalo as 7th. I don't buy the "The MAC is our ideal home" hooey. Usually schools don't pass on a chance to move up (academics, athletics, and revenue) unless the travel costs are brutal (UNT/WAC). This is not. That gives 7 for FBS football.
You could try to land Miami (Oxford) and Ohio U. for 8 & 9. They seem pretty content in the MAC, but this would be step up by any measure. They have great academics and are in good markets. (To prevent the arguement from the MAC advocate, we will just pretend they wouldn't consider it.) You could go for ECU to give the conference a little more football cred. They aren't much academically, have a small market, but draw 36K to football, 5 K to BB and would really help Charlotte. They are bleeding travel costs and would likely welcome being affiliated with a smaller footprint, good academic schools, and great TV markets.... Assuming the BE doesn't suddenly fall in love with them after years of blowing them off. :p Old Dominion is just starting football. They are in a reasonable market and are considered one of Virginia's state flagships. Stonybrook would have a very hard time raising the money for an FBS stadium upgrade, but Army on the West side of the NYC DMA and Stonybrook on the East side might be a nice eventual plan. They are a good academic school, quite large, and like Buffalo a SUNY Flagship only beginning to tap their potential. New Hampshire is a strong Football/weak Basketball FCS flagship. If they had reasonable BB numbers they would be a fine choice for the 12th slot. They would be a decent long range plan as they give a school actually in the Boston DMA to help UMASS pull that DMA. A top private school like Northeastern in Boston --- good academic, large, and occassionally solid in BB --- might fit the bill pretty well too as a non-football member.
Lets say:
UMASS
Army
Buffalo
Temple
Delaware
Navy
Charlotte
ECU
(+non-football)
Rhode Island
George Washington
St. Louis
Northeastern
giving you:
NYC, Boston, (+Springfeild,), Providence, Philadelphia, Baltimore, DC, Buffalo, St. Louis, Charlotte. That is pretty salty TV. With Temple, Army, Navy, and ECU dragging up the average attendance, it is not unreasonable to think that football could quickly average 25K conference wide, putting it ahead of the MAC, Sunbelt, and WAC in football (and likely tied with CUSA as they would be losing ECU). Basketball would be at today's A10 level, putting this conference ahead of CUSA. Academically they would be better than most of those conferences.
So... Do it already, lol!
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spa padwick 10 months ago
The Carnegie ratings are a measure of how much resources a university commits to research.
RU/VH: Research Universities (very high research activity)
Buffalo
UMASS
Delaware
Northeastern
RU/H: Research Universities (high research activity)
St. Louis
Temple
Rhode Island
George Washington
Miami (Oxford)
Ohio University
DRU: Doctoral/Research Universities
Charlotte
ECU
Army and Navy are academically well respected alhough they don't fall into the same rating system.
Stonybrook is RU/VH, and Old Dominion and New Hampshire are RU/H.
Other posible long term candidates:
The athletically challenged Boston University is RU/VH
New Jersey Tech, Maine, and Vermont are RU/H.
semi-recent US Today rankings:
(They may be imperfect but they do incorporate a ton of measurements that universities DO use to compare themseleves to other universities and certainly do realistically reflect general perception on how these universities rank. They are a much broader evaluation of a university, but I will certainly concede that they are the most hated of all university rankings --- and do probably skew the rankings for the New England/Ivy league Schools --- because of the "peer evaluation" element.)
George Washington (54 - Tier I)
Boston University (57 - Tier I)
Miami (Oxford) (67 - Tier II)
Delaware (71T - Tier II)
St. Louis (82T - Tier II)
UMASS (96T - Tier II)
Stonybrook (96T - Tier II)
Northeastern (96T - Tier II)
Vermont (96T - Tier II)
New Hampshire (108T - Tier II)
Ohio University (112T - Tier II)
Buffalo (118T - Tier II)
New Jersey Tech (124T - Tier II)
Temple (Tier III)
Old Dominion (Tier III)
Rhode Island (Tier III)
Maine (Tier III)
Charlotte (Tier IV)
ECU (Tier IV)
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mike moran 9 months ago
if the A10 was to sponsor FB it wouldnt make sense to have 8 fb and 8bb members if b4 doing so they wait for the BE to split. Why would they follow the current BE plan if the BE abandons it?Any FB plans would cause ripple effects in the colonial, patriot and other conferences. Best bet for fb, A10 splits.FB schools umass,fordham, uri, charlotte(?) temple, duquesne(in ne league) richmond. They could then get marist and iona from maac., giving them 9 fb members, good for fb but no champioship game. To keep a10 name get delaware or james madison. The maac could then add nj tech to replace marist. For sake of arguement lets say BE does split. St LOUIS, Xavier, dayton go to BE BB schools with Butler(or someone similar) St bonaventure, GW,STJOES AND lasalle head to the patriot league(they now have 12 (6 fb and 6bb, army and navy r fb indy's).Of course the bigger question is why would the A10 want to sponsor FB again?
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B Spar 9 months ago
If a program decided it wanted to change to FBS - What are the issues that need to be addressed?
Up front Costs:
(1) What would it cost to upgrade the support facilities? (Field House, weight room, offices, meeting rooms, academic support center, Training facilities, and practice fields). We are starting to see an indoor 100-yard facility by schools, Connecticut, or a bubble, Boston College.
(2) Stadium upgrade or new construction:
Connecticut – Big East - built a 40K stadium for $100M, Buffalo - MAC - increased its stadium from 17K to 30K.
UMass would require a new football stadium, probably in Springfield were other events could be held increasing the stadium revenue.
Higher Recurring Costs:
Some of the recurring costs that aren't discussed. Hiring experienced competent people in the athletic department. Probably an athletic director who knows how to run a FBS football program. More scholarships, Larger Coaching Staff, Probably a New Head Coach -all with higher base salaries. Increased recruiting costs.
Some FCS, CAA schools are constantly upgrading their facilities annually. (UMass is spending money on its stadium grudgingly with the active opposition of its athletic director).
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