SoCon Football Realignment

[The Jackal]

I tried to see if this was posted elsewhere, but it's football related.

[Furmanoid]

It would be so cool if this happened. I could maybe do without Elon but Bill&Mary and Richmond are old time SoCon schools similar to Furman. And CofC is pretty cool too. My daughter goes there, and I’ve been pretty impressed with the place. Great b’ball venue.

[Thorny]

I'm all for this.

[FUBeAR]

Football-wise, OL Coach Loaf speaks the truth on this matter…

[youwouldno]

This is just something a random guy made up, it's not legit at all.

And besides that, the SoCon has no obvious reason to expand. It has the optimal number of football schools, and for basketball, NCAA money is split fewer ways. Adding schools from inconvenient locations would increase travel costs in perpetuity.

The SoCon would presumably consider expansion nonetheless if it would sufficiently strengthen the conference. But it's hard to see how that could happen. W&M is prestigious academically but mediocre athletically and not in the most convenient location. They would always be a flight risk. The SoCon is definitely not eager to reunite with Elon or Charleston, nor would a random affiliate football member make sense (Richmond).

Nor is the CAA about to collapse just because of JMU leaving. It's no different than when App St left the SoCon. The CAA will just add Monmouth or whatever and life goes on.

I guess it's possible the northern CAA schools could wind up moving elsewhere to save on travel, but that doesn't appear imminent. Down the road almost anything can happen, especially with some of the changes taking place in college athletics.

[Roundball]

It would be great for the SoCon and Furman to get CofC back in the conference.

[The Jackal]

This is just something a random guy made up, it's not legit at all.

And besides that, the SoCon has no obvious reason to expand. It has the optimal number of football schools, and for basketball, NCAA money is split fewer ways. Adding schools from inconvenient locations would increase travel costs in perpetuity.

The SoCon would presumably consider expansion nonetheless if it would sufficiently strengthen the conference. But it's hard to see how that could happen. W&M is prestigious academically but mediocre athletically and not in the most convenient location. They would always be a flight risk. The SoCon is definitely not eager to reunite with Elon or Charleston, nor would a random affiliate football member make sense (Richmond).

Nor is the CAA about to collapse just because of JMU leaving. It's no different than when App St left the SoCon. The CAA will just add Monmouth or whatever and life goes on.

I guess it's possible the northern CAA schools could wind up moving elsewhere to save on travel, but that doesn't appear imminent. Down the road almost anything can happen, especially with some of the changes taking place in college athletics.

I don't know if a "random guy" made this up. It's an account with 125k followers and if someone was really into driving traffic by making up rumors, he wouldn't be tweeting about the SoCon.

What's been obvious during this period of realignment is that if you aren't actively trying to strengthen your conference, you are at risk. I do not necessarily like it, but that's what the reality is. It is in Furman's interest to strengthen the SoCon.

Sure, having 9 football schools is mathematically nice, but what if UTC leaves? We target Campbell? How exciting is that for the future of the conference?

To me, this makes complete sense for the SoCon. The CAA is a massive geographic conference, stretching from SC to Maine. They are losing one of their powerhouse programs. They make geographic sense for the SoCon in terms of interest.

I know our conference works with 8 conference football games, but 12 football teams with two six team divisions and two rotating crossover games works for me too.

[FUBeAR]

Though FUBeAR has 0 Twitter followers (account permanently suspended for repeated TOS violations), now that this info is ‘on the wire,’ FUBeAR can share that not-to-be-named, but high-level & well-placed SoCon sources have confirmed that the SoCon & Richmond (at least Richmond…perhaps others, as well) have been ‘in conversations’ for at least a few weeks. Sources did not specify if these discussions were Football-only (now in CAA), Football & all sports except M&W hoops (now in A10), or all sports (mostly A10) . One would presume, those 3 ‘options’ would be a major topic of the reported ‘conversations.’

[The Jackal]

This makes sense to me for Furman. Elon, Richmond, W&M, and CofC would largely fit the conferences academic profile and would geographically work. They make a lot more sense than continuing to push west where there's no obvious SoCon fit.

I imagine it makes sense for those schools as well. JMU is the big football bell cow in the conference and may have been the glue holding the southern schools together with the northern schools. At the moment, the SoCon is a much better basketball conference than the CAA, so it would make sense for schools in that regard as well.

Divide the conference into two divisions. 5 divisional contests and 3 cross over contests every season.

SoCon West/South
Samford
UTC
Furman
Wofford
Citadel
Mercer
(Charleston)

SoCon North/East
ETSU
WCU
Richmond
W&M
Elon
VMI
(UNCG)

Furman would still play 8 SoCon games - 4 home, 4 road. They'd play all of their own division. They'd then play 3 cross over games against a rotating combination of ETSU/WCU/VMI/Richmond/W&M/Elon

In that format, the SoCon could still keep some "cross over" rivalry games as "permanent" such as ETSU/UTC and VMI/Citadel. The SEC does something similar with Georgia and Auburn, who play every year.

[tim]

Play scholarship football and Basketball or pound sand, that goes to UNCG also. We have been down this road with
them, Davidson and Charleston.

[youwouldno]

I don't know if a "random guy" made this up. It's an account with 125k followers and if someone was really into driving traffic by making up rumors, he wouldn't be tweeting about the SoCon.

What's been obvious during this period of realignment is that if you aren't actively trying to strengthen your conference, you are at risk. I do not necessarily like it, but that's what the reality is. It is in Furman's interest to strengthen the SoCon.

Sure, having 9 football schools is mathematically nice, but what if UTC leaves? We target Campbell? How exciting is that for the future of the conference?

To me, this makes complete sense for the SoCon. The CAA is a massive geographic conference, stretching from SC to Maine. They are losing one of their powerhouse programs. They make geographic sense for the SoCon in terms of interest.

I know our conference works with 8 conference football games, but 12 football teams with two six team divisions and two rotating crossover games works for me too.

I hate to break it to you Jackal, but having followers doesn't guarantee accurate reporting. Even the top publications often can't manage it. Anyway, this particular report obviously got attention from CAA fans, who dug into the story more. That twitter feed has a lot of speculative, thinly-if-at-all sourced 'rumors'.

Now, these days I'm sure conversations happen all the time between programs and conferences. CAA schools certainly have reason to look into back-up plans. But there is no legitimate reason to think anything could actually happen in the near-term.

By the way, Campbell is pretty much the same as Elon at this point, so I'm not sure why we would be excited about Elon and disappointed in Campbell.

Richmond won't leave the A10 for basketball reasons, and affiliate members do nothing for a conference except plug a scheduling hole. Few A10 programs play football, which tends to reduce volatility since they aren't expansion options for the power conferences that play football.

[The Jackal]

What you say may be true, but it's not equivalent of a "random guy" making things up.

In fact, Bear just said he'd heard the same thing. So, it may not play out that way, but it also doesn't mean it's fabricated.

[FUBeAR]

What you say may be true, but it's not equivalent of a "random guy" making things up.

In fact, Bear just said he'd heard the same thing. So, it may not play out that way, but it also doesn't mean it's fabricated.

Hold on a minute.

FUBeAR rejects any allusions or assertions that his reportage may be more credible than that of any “random guy.”

C’mon man. That’s WAY too much responsibility for a Bear of Little Brain to, um, bear.

[youwouldno]

If someone from the CAA calls Jason Donnelly, and he picks up the phone to have a general conversation, would that mean Furman was exploring leaving the SoCon?

I guess you could say that claim wouldn't be "fabricated" since it's loosely based on a real event. But the bottom line is, there is no real indication that SoCon membership could change under the current circumstances.

If a bunch of wacky stuff happens in other conferences, certainly the picture could change.

[Furmanoid]

I can see Richmond wanting to do this just because being in 4 different conferences might be kind of a pain. I can see Cof C wanting to do it because their geography just doesn’t fit their current affiliation. Don’t see much reason for William and Mary to switch.

I think forward looking programs are going to focus more and more on travel in deciding which conference to join. There is no reason to believe travel costs are going anywhere but up: way up. And admins will also be under pressure to show how green they are. Jetting halfway across the country to play games isn’t green. P5’s don’t care because they make money regardless and they can afford to buy bogus carbon credits if they need cover. But for everybody else I think travel is going to be a big deal pretty much from now on.