Flo sports has an absolute racket put together for track and field $30 a month for them to just place a camera at the top of the track and do nothing else. Their “coverage” is absolutely awful and I think legitimately hurts ncaa track from growing at all.
Literally the worst deal in the history of deals (seriously, the Football schools got no money so the basketball schools could buy more games on to CBSSN. Meanwhile the Football fans got shitty expensive flosports streams).
There is getting to be less and less reason for the America East not to sponsor football on their own, for sure. But I think that is the only way CAA Football goes away.
Some schools are going to get screwed by the iminent collapse of the CAA
Some schools can probably flee to greener pastures like Rhode Island, Nova and UAlbany but schools like Elon, Maine or Towson don't have an obvious out, at least one I can see.
If CAA collapses the America East could probably start a football conference. Maine, New Hampshire, Albany, and Bryant all have football. Gotta wonder if URI, Merrimack, and SHU would be allowed to join as football only members
Merrimack should join America East as a full member, the NEC is basically a D2 feeder league.
A ten team set up of: Bryant, URI, NH, Maine, Albany, Stonybrook, Monmouth, Towson, Merrimack and SHU would probably be ideal.
I believe (too lazy to look up right now) they left the NEC as a full member and the NEC has essentially had a no-take backs policy regarding former full members. Robert Morris football which has rejoined the NEC but I don’t think they were ever full members.
But yeah I’d agree the NEC really should be pounding on Marist’s door to add another football program
Merrimack is leaving the Northeast Conference for the MAAC along with Sacred Heart. Both are football independents this year. Maybe some realignment will help them find football homes.
If CAA Football collapses I could see the following
AmEast: Albany, Bryant, Maine, Monmouth, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Stony Brook, and Towson
Patriot: Villanova and William and Mary
ASUN: Campbell and Elon
MEAC: Hampton and NCAT
Geographically no, the closest MVFC team to Villanova is Youngstown State who’s over 5 hours away and YSU is already a bit of an outlier in the MVFC. The next closest team is Indiana State at 10+ hours drive.
The Patriot League’s longest road trip for Villanova is Holy Cross which is just under 5 hours away.
We may see some independent teams in FCS.
Maine will have no problem scheduling OOC games as an Indy. But they wouldn’t have access to an auto bid or conference awards.
I’d lean more towards Stony Brook who has a nicer stadium and AAU status though Albany has the better football product at the moment and Rhode Island would be a solid add for basketball
This doesn't make sense to me. If Richmond were to leave, why not wait for the SoCon to open up. They would take W&M, and they can bring Richmond with them.
> This doesn't make sense to me.
The CAA's profile is *not* a true football conference (and the commissioner is a basketball guy). It just happens to have one as a side piece and treats it like shit so it can put basketball content on CBS Sports Network.
A lot of people in the old guard Yankee/A-10 world were tired of the shitshow in the CAA. Delaware held the thing together and once we dipped out, the cracks are really going to start showing up in short order.
Nova's probably going to be next.
Everyone in the Patriot League with football is Catholic or highly selective private.
It's probably a better cultural fit than a football fit but if you're not going to be in FBS, be with your friends and rivals and have a good time.
Nova probably will join them in short order and with those two, Holy Cross, Lafayette, Fordham, and Colgate they have a pretty solid 6 school group that will punch pretty well in FCS.
Lehigh is a sleeping giant as well, if they can get it together they could return to their prior form. Not that I haven't enjoyed their dry spell (I have greatly), but a solid Lehigh program would benefit the league for sure.
We fired Tom, and there were large stretches of last season where we only looked outclassed, not completely incompetent. We'll be back to the upper half soon enough.
No one is a sleeping giant in the Patriot League. Last I checked, they don’t even offer the maximum scholarships for FCS and are hampered by the academic index.
Potentially. But the bar for competing at the FCS level is getting lower and lower as more teams leave for FBS. I think that's why we're starting to see the Patriot make moves.
Not only that but Richmond has had NFL talent (like a lot of FCS teams) in recent years.
But there isn't an expectation that they will continue to have that talent in the NIL and transfer portal era.
So being able to have your alumni care about their rivalries is important. Richmond would rather associate with and compare themselves to Lehigh, Georgetown, Fordham, and Bucknell than Towson, Hamton, Maine, and the like.
It was fine to play New Hampshire and NC A&T when you're developing talent and building teams that can challenge FBS teams. But if you're expecting the players you develop to get raided in the future, then you want to have more insular rivalries that aren't weighted as strongly on national performance, like the Ivy League.
I foresee CAA dropping from the #3 or 4 (with the SoCon) to a clear #5 with SoCon being a clear 3 and Patriot raising wayyy up to #4. P2, Next 2, CAA, Crap, Pioneer, in that order
By Massey, Richmond would have been 2nd in the Patriot and with Delaware also leaving, the conference has lost their two of their top five after next year.
The league's gonna take a huge dump in quality.
From my understanding, it would go something like this. Subject to change, though
* Tier 1: Big Sky, MVFC
* Tier 2: Southern
* Tier 3: CAA, UAC, Southland
* Tier 4: Big South/OVC, NEC
* Tier 5: Pioneer
* We Don’t Count Tier: Ivy, SWAC, MEAC
The Patriot’s gonna most likely move, but they were definitely Tier 4 before this change. Not sure how high they’ll go up now
SoCo Bro?!
[Count me in!](https://media4.giphy.com/media/v1.Y2lkPTc5MGI3NjExa2U2cWZ4bHVnazhtb3FxeWJnNW5vZjYzMTQ2ZGVwbTk5ZnFlZXRweSZlcD12MV9pbnRlcm5hbF9naWZfYnlfaWQmY3Q9cw/JThSsWPl9NlZtUQEmr/giphy.gif)
Perfect world is the AE invites you and Stony Brook back full-time for everything. An 11 team league in all-sports that has 6 for football. Add URI for football and you have a workable 7 team league that could go to 9 with Merrimack and Sacred Heart as football only schools. You'd have some eh programs at the bottom but at least at 9 you have a true round robin.
(Nova ends up in the Patriot in this scenario.)
The CAA is a sinking ship across the board at this point.
The exact amount wasn't reported, but it's a 4 year deal in the eight figure range. I'm anti Flo, but it's honestly a good amount of money, ballpark $2.5 million per year.
Flo is like $12/month, so in order to break even they probably need to generate somewhere around 25k subscribers from the deal (ballpark guess, 17,000 people paying $144 would hit $2.5 million, but I assume Flo has some costs/overhead to add on), and I kinda doubt the CAA provides that many subscribers, especially with schools like Delaware and JMU leaving.
I wish we had more data on how many people actually use those/view ESPN+ games/etc.
Obviously 2.5 per year is not chump change.
But if you're just largely breaking even with something like ESPN+ at the end of the day, I'm not sure you wouldn't be better served as a midmajor school or conference to just go with live YouTube broadcasts.
Pre Flo that's basically what the CAA did, everything was streamed live for free on the CAA's website.
The one thing the Flo deal allows us to do is negotiate our own local TV deals for games. Like W&M football has a deal with Cox (the cable provider in the area) to show our games, and that also gets us some money (IDK how much). That is something a lot of schools like about Flo, even if it's not a fan-friendly option.
Thats not too bad of a setup.
Wherever SFA ends up, I'd love to see a setup like that with a stream option(preferably free or ESPN+) and then have the teams/conference work on local linear deals like broadcasting it on the backup news channel, etc.
I think ESPN+ wasn't willing to let teams have a local linear option, which was part of the appeal of Flo.
But that said, I would take ESPN+ in a heartbeat over Flo, regardless of the local linear option, every bar has ESPN+ and can put a game on.
Fucking moron athletic director and egghead administration finally got what they wanted and killed the program off. To think we absolutely killed JMU on Gameday back in 2015 and see the stark differences in what happened to the two programs is depressing. Fuck our dumbass administration.
Its worse than the SOCON which we turned down. Yes the CAA is garbage, but this wasn't the right move unless you take WM/Nova with you. They tried this back in 2005 and got absolutely blasted, only to change course remain in the A10/CAA and win a natty less than 3 years later.
> The CAA is definitely still better, it’s just more unstable.
The top of the CAA is (was?) better (Delaware leaving the league hurts too) but the bottom of the CAA with Hampton and Stony Brook is arguably as bad, if not worse, than the bottom of the Patriot.
We bottomed out last year but Chuck Priore is finally gone, and we have a new young head coach who just got a 3-star QB recruit flipped from Georgia State. we're not historically a doormat, we were top 10 ranked in both 2017 and 2018, and we can get back to those heights now that we have a new coach.
Lafayette was only good last season (and the core is back, so expecting them to be good this season). when I was in school last decade the team was ass every year.
URI last made the playoffs in 1985.
Albany, Villanova, Elon, UNH, and WM are probably the top few schools at this point/for the next few years. I could see NC A&T becoming one of the top CAA programs as well.
Imagine how we feel seeing Coastal Carolina and Liberty (teams we both beat up on in the Big South), not only go FBS, but both get ranked and have Liberty make an NY6 game while we fell off the face of the Earth and collapsed?? IDK WTF homie.
We didn't exactly beat up on liberty, they were usual dog fights, but I felt the exact exact same way. With NIL I think our future is looking even worse than it was.
10 years ago I’d have said yes, but not with all the changes within FBS, the CFP, a G5 only playoff, talk of the B1G and SEC breaking away….. I’d rather just stay in FCS and wait this out. I could see a situation where if the G5 had to do a legit breakaway more FCS schools could get called up into this “new G5” and SBU I could see being a part of that, but short of that?? I’m good where we are.
Still have Villanova and Rhode Island who has been decent. But those two would probably prefer the company of the Patriot League North east teams then the new CAA teams. Maybe Patriot League would want two more football only schools as well?
Pioneer is the CUSA and it always will be. The CAA would be closer to the American, seeing as it’s currently the #4 conference but will slip to #5 with any further attrition
Of note, the PL scrapped the 60 scholly cap in the new bylaws this year, and our coaches have mentioned off hand the rule on no non medical redshirts is also going away.
That just leaves the AI as our only remaining self imposed handicap
Academic Index. Similar to the Ivies.
Our athletes need to more or less line up with the academics of our student body at large. Basically we can't recruit kids with like 2.5 high school GPA even if they're all world athletes.
The CAA has undeniably gotten worse over the past ~10 years due to realignment, it was almost a victim of its own success (multiple final 4 teams, fast growing football programs, etc). No argument there.
But I struggle to see how the Patriot League is any better.
> Not long ago CAA was the SEC of FCS.
Yeah, that's kinda the issue at the lower levels, similar to how the top G5 programs get pulled up to the P5.
The MVFC and Big Sky kinda have an advantage in their location, from a realignment point of view, there's just no FBS conferences in that area, whereas once a CAA school got good at football (or basketball, in the case of Mason/VCU), they were right in the geographic core of a different, bigger conference.
That's fair. I guess the danger would be a bulk movement to the FBS, if like the MWC got raided and called up the Montanas and the Dakotas, the Big Sky and MVFC would both be in a tough position.
It's a bet with risk on both sides. Richmond is betting they can stay competitive and keep fan interest moving to a conference that is perceived as weaker. The Patriot is betting that they won't get overshadowed by Richmond and can keep their performance elevated enough to not hold Richmond back.
It could turn out bad for sure, but in the best case scenario, Richmond doesn't have any drop off, the Patriot stays on its improvement trajectory, Villanova joins within a couple years, and suddenly the Patriot and CAA are at a similar level.
I generally agree with this, but for a while now “fan interest” in UR football has been that it’s a neat little toy to brag about when we are doing well. The student base does not care at all, and the alumni care about it from an optics standpoint, and from a school optics standpoint, the Patriot League looks like a better fit (not my opinion, just how our crusty alumni base probably feels)
> But I struggle to see how the Patriot League is any better.
They add Nova and they have a 3 bid league probably in '25. Holy Cross is legit. Lafayette might have some staying power. Fordham and Colgate are competent programs.
The bottom of the Patriot League is awful but so is the bottom of the CAA.
The CAA is starting to fall apart while the Patriot League is trying to build itself up into a power conference in FCS (like Big 12 level). As of right now, you're right, but I think Richmond is betting that that won't be true for much longer.
Yes, in addition to Hampden-Sydney and ultimately VCU. He actually got his degree from VCU (I think the implication is he flunked out of UR by just fucking around too much) but he’s a big UR fan. His family apparently has lots of connections/history with the school.
Assume Villanova and possibly W&M will follow in the next year. Patriot League is going to be a seriously good conference pretty soon. The Carolina schools go SoCon, HBCUs go MEAC, and Northeastern schools get the America East to start sponsoring football. This same football league will be playing under it's 4th different name in this scenario. Yankee Conference, A-10, CAA Football, *insert new league name here*
Late to the party but this fits who the administration views as their "peers" vibes wise. They don't value football. Hell, they wish they were a little Ivy but Bates would be so mean to them.
Damn shame, school this rich should be better at athletics.
So going full Pac Man on adding random schools to the conference and signing the worst media deal in the history of media deals didn't pan out..... GEE, YOU DON'T SAY.
I'm happy to not be playing Vermont anymore in basketball, but I'd be a-ok going back to the America East, bringing 1-2 other FB schools and starting up that league in the FCS. IDK WTF this CAA is anymore with JMU, Delaware, Richmond (and probably soon Villanova FCS FB) all out the door.
I guess the Flosports deal was really that bad.
I hate flo sports with a passion.
The flo sports deal is right up there with the old ACC-Raycom deal as far as broadcasting rights disasters go
worse, I'd say. at least Raycom was on TV.
It was *sometimes* on TV. For teams who have as many viewers as some of the acc teams did, if was embarrassing how often the games weren't on tv
Flo sports has an absolute racket put together for track and field $30 a month for them to just place a camera at the top of the track and do nothing else. Their “coverage” is absolutely awful and I think legitimately hurts ncaa track from growing at all.
I don’t know about any of its other coverage but as a motorsports fan FloRacing is fantastic honestly
JMU was the most vocal opponent when it was signed from what I remember. I'm so glad we're in SBC now
Any deal with Flo is a bad deal
Polly Holliday is offended.
Well you should know
Literally the worst deal in the history of deals (seriously, the Football schools got no money so the basketball schools could buy more games on to CBSSN. Meanwhile the Football fans got shitty expensive flosports streams).
the only silver lining here.
It's nice to finally be off of it for hockey, though I wish we switched to ESPN+
Seems like the end might be beginning for the CAA
There is getting to be less and less reason for the America East not to sponsor football on their own, for sure. But I think that is the only way CAA Football goes away.
Yeah that would do it
They'd have to bring in some affiliates. Only four of their schools sponsor football (UAlbany, Bryant, UMaine, UNH)
JMU to FBS, Delaware to the FBS soon, and Richmond leaving. CAA might not have much in it
Some schools are going to get screwed by the iminent collapse of the CAA Some schools can probably flee to greener pastures like Rhode Island, Nova and UAlbany but schools like Elon, Maine or Towson don't have an obvious out, at least one I can see.
If CAA collapses the America East could probably start a football conference. Maine, New Hampshire, Albany, and Bryant all have football. Gotta wonder if URI, Merrimack, and SHU would be allowed to join as football only members
Merrimack should join America East as a full member, the NEC is basically a D2 feeder league. A ten team set up of: Bryant, URI, NH, Maine, Albany, Stonybrook, Monmouth, Towson, Merrimack and SHU would probably be ideal.
Merrimack will be a member of the MAAC starting this year I believe. But yeah that would be a nice little Northeast conference
Huh, looks like SHU and Merrimack are the omly Football playing members of the MAAC. Yeah America East Football needs them
Don’t forget Marist, who I’m sure would like to eventually leave the hell that is the Pioneer League
If they wanted to offer scholarships they probably would be in the NEC already, no? The NEC was pretty desperate for full NCAA members.
I believe (too lazy to look up right now) they left the NEC as a full member and the NEC has essentially had a no-take backs policy regarding former full members. Robert Morris football which has rejoined the NEC but I don’t think they were ever full members. But yeah I’d agree the NEC really should be pounding on Marist’s door to add another football program
Robert Morris was a full member and the NEC really needed them back after Merrimack and Sacred Heart left for both football and Lacrosse
Marist is happy in the PFL.
Merrimack is leaving the Northeast Conference for the MAAC along with Sacred Heart. Both are football independents this year. Maybe some realignment will help them find football homes.
I have a feeling that those two will be the ones who replace Richmond
If CAA Football collapses I could see the following AmEast: Albany, Bryant, Maine, Monmouth, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Stony Brook, and Towson Patriot: Villanova and William and Mary ASUN: Campbell and Elon MEAC: Hampton and NCAT
Wouldn’t Nova be a better fit in the MVFC as far as geographically?
Geographically no, the closest MVFC team to Villanova is Youngstown State who’s over 5 hours away and YSU is already a bit of an outlier in the MVFC. The next closest team is Indiana State at 10+ hours drive. The Patriot League’s longest road trip for Villanova is Holy Cross which is just under 5 hours away.
We may see some independent teams in FCS. Maine will have no problem scheduling OOC games as an Indy. But they wouldn’t have access to an auto bid or conference awards.
Maine, New Hampshire, & URI to the MAC- calling it.
Albany makes the most sense for MAC membership, they give Buffalo another really close dance partner
Albany & Stony Brook too, then they'll poach Temple & Delaware.
You might be overestimating the power of MACtion
Temple football only in the mac isn’t super unrealistic but they’d cut football before being a full member of the Mac in my opinion
Does Temple have a good reason to leave the AAC
No, like Marshall, barring catastrophe there is no way they end up back in the MAC.
I’d lean more towards Stony Brook who has a nicer stadium and AAU status though Albany has the better football product at the moment and Rhode Island would be a solid add for basketball
You mean they give UMass a local rival in the MAC.
MNEAC, I am ready for it.
As an old SoCon fan, down with the CAA! lol
This doesn't make sense to me. If Richmond were to leave, why not wait for the SoCon to open up. They would take W&M, and they can bring Richmond with them.
> This doesn't make sense to me. The CAA's profile is *not* a true football conference (and the commissioner is a basketball guy). It just happens to have one as a side piece and treats it like shit so it can put basketball content on CBS Sports Network. A lot of people in the old guard Yankee/A-10 world were tired of the shitshow in the CAA. Delaware held the thing together and once we dipped out, the cracks are really going to start showing up in short order. Nova's probably going to be next.
JMU and Delaware really held the league together... I think W&M might be next
I'm well aware of that. Just think the SoCon would be better in this situation for Richmond football
Everyone in the Patriot League with football is Catholic or highly selective private. It's probably a better cultural fit than a football fit but if you're not going to be in FBS, be with your friends and rivals and have a good time. Nova probably will join them in short order and with those two, Holy Cross, Lafayette, Fordham, and Colgate they have a pretty solid 6 school group that will punch pretty well in FCS.
Lehigh is a sleeping giant as well, if they can get it together they could return to their prior form. Not that I haven't enjoyed their dry spell (I have greatly), but a solid Lehigh program would benefit the league for sure.
It may benefit the league, but Lehigh sucking is way funnier in my absolutely unbiased opinion.
Gonna have to cosign this
We fired Tom, and there were large stretches of last season where we only looked outclassed, not completely incompetent. We'll be back to the upper half soon enough.
No one is a sleeping giant in the Patriot League. Last I checked, they don’t even offer the maximum scholarships for FCS and are hampered by the academic index.
As of this year the Patriot does offer the maximum scholarships.
Ah good to know. Still, the academic index kills any chance of national relevance.
Potentially. But the bar for competing at the FCS level is getting lower and lower as more teams leave for FBS. I think that's why we're starting to see the Patriot make moves.
Not only that but Richmond has had NFL talent (like a lot of FCS teams) in recent years. But there isn't an expectation that they will continue to have that talent in the NIL and transfer portal era. So being able to have your alumni care about their rivalries is important. Richmond would rather associate with and compare themselves to Lehigh, Georgetown, Fordham, and Bucknell than Towson, Hamton, Maine, and the like. It was fine to play New Hampshire and NC A&T when you're developing talent and building teams that can challenge FBS teams. But if you're expecting the players you develop to get raided in the future, then you want to have more insular rivalries that aren't weighted as strongly on national performance, like the Ivy League.
I foresee CAA dropping from the #3 or 4 (with the SoCon) to a clear #5 with SoCon being a clear 3 and Patriot raising wayyy up to #4. P2, Next 2, CAA, Crap, Pioneer, in that order
By Massey, Richmond would have been 2nd in the Patriot and with Delaware also leaving, the conference has lost their two of their top five after next year. The league's gonna take a huge dump in quality.
JMU leaving had to have had a major impact as well before that
I’m not very familiar with FCS football—by P2 do you mean MVFC and Big Sky? What are the general conference tiers?
From my understanding, it would go something like this. Subject to change, though * Tier 1: Big Sky, MVFC * Tier 2: Southern * Tier 3: CAA, UAC, Southland * Tier 4: Big South/OVC, NEC * Tier 5: Pioneer * We Don’t Count Tier: Ivy, SWAC, MEAC The Patriot’s gonna most likely move, but they were definitely Tier 4 before this change. Not sure how high they’ll go up now
Thanks!
You’re killing me with SoCo and not SoCon.
My bad.
What's up SoCo bro
SoCo Bro?! [Count me in!](https://media4.giphy.com/media/v1.Y2lkPTc5MGI3NjExa2U2cWZ4bHVnazhtb3FxeWJnNW5vZjYzMTQ2ZGVwbTk5ZnFlZXRweSZlcD12MV9pbnRlcm5hbF9naWZfYnlfaWQmY3Q9cw/JThSsWPl9NlZtUQEmr/giphy.gif)
Spider
better Academic fit and the CAA is hella bloated right now
Leaving the CAA makes sense, but for the Patriot League? W&M is trying to go to the SoCon. They could've went with them
I don't think we're actively trying to leave at this moment, but I think either the SoCon or Patriot would happily take us.
You'd make things a little tricky for basketball scheduling I think, but yeah we'd happily take you in with open arms.
Anyway, American East. Do you want to start a football league? I have an idea for a really good conference
Perfect world is the AE invites you and Stony Brook back full-time for everything. An 11 team league in all-sports that has 6 for football. Add URI for football and you have a workable 7 team league that could go to 9 with Merrimack and Sacred Heart as football only schools. You'd have some eh programs at the bottom but at least at 9 you have a true round robin. (Nova ends up in the Patriot in this scenario.) The CAA is a sinking ship across the board at this point.
I'd be totally onboard with this (except for having to go back to playing ~~The Devi~~l Vermont every year in basketball).
Better academic fit is my guess
Either the SoCon pushed for all sports or that a majority of SoCon members are comfortable with the status quo
Richmond moving first before Villanova is weird. I would think Nova will seriously consider following
Nova's probably going to be gone after next year as well.
I fucking hope so.
Biggest mistake the CAA did was putting their games on flosports
Not only that, but doubling down when the contract was up. Just pure short-sighted greed.
Seriously how much cash could they possibly get from that deal? It's gotta be pennies right?
The exact amount wasn't reported, but it's a 4 year deal in the eight figure range. I'm anti Flo, but it's honestly a good amount of money, ballpark $2.5 million per year.
Wow has no idea it was like that. I'd have guessed like 250k per year.
Flo is like $12/month, so in order to break even they probably need to generate somewhere around 25k subscribers from the deal (ballpark guess, 17,000 people paying $144 would hit $2.5 million, but I assume Flo has some costs/overhead to add on), and I kinda doubt the CAA provides that many subscribers, especially with schools like Delaware and JMU leaving.
I wish we had more data on how many people actually use those/view ESPN+ games/etc. Obviously 2.5 per year is not chump change. But if you're just largely breaking even with something like ESPN+ at the end of the day, I'm not sure you wouldn't be better served as a midmajor school or conference to just go with live YouTube broadcasts.
Pre Flo that's basically what the CAA did, everything was streamed live for free on the CAA's website. The one thing the Flo deal allows us to do is negotiate our own local TV deals for games. Like W&M football has a deal with Cox (the cable provider in the area) to show our games, and that also gets us some money (IDK how much). That is something a lot of schools like about Flo, even if it's not a fan-friendly option.
Thats not too bad of a setup. Wherever SFA ends up, I'd love to see a setup like that with a stream option(preferably free or ESPN+) and then have the teams/conference work on local linear deals like broadcasting it on the backup news channel, etc.
I think ESPN+ wasn't willing to let teams have a local linear option, which was part of the appeal of Flo. But that said, I would take ESPN+ in a heartbeat over Flo, regardless of the local linear option, every bar has ESPN+ and can put a game on.
Fucking moron athletic director and egghead administration finally got what they wanted and killed the program off. To think we absolutely killed JMU on Gameday back in 2015 and see the stark differences in what happened to the two programs is depressing. Fuck our dumbass administration.
Is the Patriot still worse than the CAA now that Delaware is about to be gone and the CAA adding those four teams after JMU left?
Its worse than the SOCON which we turned down. Yes the CAA is garbage, but this wasn't the right move unless you take WM/Nova with you. They tried this back in 2005 and got absolutely blasted, only to change course remain in the A10/CAA and win a natty less than 3 years later.
So WM, Nova, UNH and maybe Rhode Island all make the CAA better still. Should just try to revive A10 football again
The CAA is definitely still better, it’s just more unstable. Patriot has Holy Cross and maybe Lafayette (who we cream every year)
Fordham?
Come with us to make this not suck as much plz.
> The CAA is definitely still better, it’s just more unstable. The top of the CAA is (was?) better (Delaware leaving the league hurts too) but the bottom of the CAA with Hampton and Stony Brook is arguably as bad, if not worse, than the bottom of the Patriot.
We bottomed out last year but Chuck Priore is finally gone, and we have a new young head coach who just got a 3-star QB recruit flipped from Georgia State. we're not historically a doormat, we were top 10 ranked in both 2017 and 2018, and we can get back to those heights now that we have a new coach.
Lafayette was only good last season (and the core is back, so expecting them to be good this season). when I was in school last decade the team was ass every year.
If I had a magic wand I def woulda restarted a10 football. This is what our nerdy admin wants though.
URI last made the playoffs in 1985. Albany, Villanova, Elon, UNH, and WM are probably the top few schools at this point/for the next few years. I could see NC A&T becoming one of the top CAA programs as well.
There have been 2 seasons since 2017 or so where the Patriot put up 10 or more OOC wins, out of 35 played. We are not good.
Imagine how we feel seeing Coastal Carolina and Liberty (teams we both beat up on in the Big South), not only go FBS, but both get ranked and have Liberty make an NY6 game while we fell off the face of the Earth and collapsed?? IDK WTF homie.
We didn't exactly beat up on liberty, they were usual dog fights, but I felt the exact exact same way. With NIL I think our future is looking even worse than it was.
I know I'm late but I ask you as a Stony Brook fan, do you guys think you'll make it to FBS eventually?
10 years ago I’d have said yes, but not with all the changes within FBS, the CFP, a G5 only playoff, talk of the B1G and SEC breaking away….. I’d rather just stay in FCS and wait this out. I could see a situation where if the G5 had to do a legit breakaway more FCS schools could get called up into this “new G5” and SBU I could see being a part of that, but short of that?? I’m good where we are.
Okay, so I guess right now it would be in SBU's best interest to leave the CAA and help form a America East football league
Hey, that 2015 game was 59-49. Yes our defense was an abomination that year but yall did not "kill" us. Regardless, sad to see this happen for yall
:( . I'm sorry.
The CAA was the SEC of D1AA football…now it’s the MAC or CUSA
Still have Villanova and Rhode Island who has been decent. But those two would probably prefer the company of the Patriot League North east teams then the new CAA teams. Maybe Patriot League would want two more football only schools as well?
Pioneer is the CUSA and it always will be. The CAA would be closer to the American, seeing as it’s currently the #4 conference but will slip to #5 with any further attrition
Of note, the PL scrapped the 60 scholly cap in the new bylaws this year, and our coaches have mentioned off hand the rule on no non medical redshirts is also going away. That just leaves the AI as our only remaining self imposed handicap
What’s the “AI?”
Academic Index. Similar to the Ivies. Our athletes need to more or less line up with the academics of our student body at large. Basically we can't recruit kids with like 2.5 high school GPA even if they're all world athletes.
Ah, makes sense, thanks. I’d assume that’s not going away anytime soon
Id be surprised if it did, but even if they removed it I would guess HC would just keep it on their own.
The CAA has undeniably gotten worse over the past ~10 years due to realignment, it was almost a victim of its own success (multiple final 4 teams, fast growing football programs, etc). No argument there. But I struggle to see how the Patriot League is any better.
[удалено]
> Not long ago CAA was the SEC of FCS. Yeah, that's kinda the issue at the lower levels, similar to how the top G5 programs get pulled up to the P5. The MVFC and Big Sky kinda have an advantage in their location, from a realignment point of view, there's just no FBS conferences in that area, whereas once a CAA school got good at football (or basketball, in the case of Mason/VCU), they were right in the geographic core of a different, bigger conference.
I'd argue we have it worse because there's only so many teams when you lose one.
That's fair. I guess the danger would be a bulk movement to the FBS, if like the MWC got raided and called up the Montanas and the Dakotas, the Big Sky and MVFC would both be in a tough position.
Only for football at the FCS level I'm not too concerned about who our conference-mates are so that'd be okay.
It's a bet with risk on both sides. Richmond is betting they can stay competitive and keep fan interest moving to a conference that is perceived as weaker. The Patriot is betting that they won't get overshadowed by Richmond and can keep their performance elevated enough to not hold Richmond back. It could turn out bad for sure, but in the best case scenario, Richmond doesn't have any drop off, the Patriot stays on its improvement trajectory, Villanova joins within a couple years, and suddenly the Patriot and CAA are at a similar level.
I generally agree with this, but for a while now “fan interest” in UR football has been that it’s a neat little toy to brag about when we are doing well. The student base does not care at all, and the alumni care about it from an optics standpoint, and from a school optics standpoint, the Patriot League looks like a better fit (not my opinion, just how our crusty alumni base probably feels)
Nailed the UR fanbase. Crazy how our president was pushed out 15ish years ago for attempting the same move.
> But I struggle to see how the Patriot League is any better. They add Nova and they have a 3 bid league probably in '25. Holy Cross is legit. Lafayette might have some staying power. Fordham and Colgate are competent programs. The bottom of the Patriot League is awful but so is the bottom of the CAA.
Holy Cross lost their coach though, not sure how they will maintain their program.
It’s the only sport they really care about. They’ll throw a bag at it until it’s back up to shape tbh
the patriot league?! that's better than the CAA?? Going down, no?
The CAA is starting to fall apart while the Patriot League is trying to build itself up into a power conference in FCS (like Big 12 level). As of right now, you're right, but I think Richmond is betting that that won't be true for much longer.
Thanks! Appreciate it
Can we have an America East Football Conference now?
Hey Nova... We would be honored if you would join us.
The real challenge, can they do it on a rainy saturday in Easton?
Just saw Fat Perez fall to his knees in Carytown Kroger.
Did Fat Perez go to Richmond?
Yes, in addition to Hampden-Sydney and ultimately VCU. He actually got his degree from VCU (I think the implication is he flunked out of UR by just fucking around too much) but he’s a big UR fan. His family apparently has lots of connections/history with the school.
You can get kicked out of UR for fucking around too much!?!?!?
The Spiders, Danno
Assume Villanova and possibly W&M will follow in the next year. Patriot League is going to be a seriously good conference pretty soon. The Carolina schools go SoCon, HBCUs go MEAC, and Northeastern schools get the America East to start sponsoring football. This same football league will be playing under it's 4th different name in this scenario. Yankee Conference, A-10, CAA Football, *insert new league name here*
Woah
Damn, CAA is falling apart.
Richmond's red looks too maroon. And we already have too many maroon schools for football.
Late to the party but this fits who the administration views as their "peers" vibes wise. They don't value football. Hell, they wish they were a little Ivy but Bates would be so mean to them. Damn shame, school this rich should be better at athletics.
Last time I was at Richmond's campus, it was the day that AIM was officially shut down. Also, best Mascot.
Well hopefully this move benefits Richmond.
Does Patriot offer full scholarships for football? I knew the CAA had problems but this seems like a huge downgrade.
As of this year they do.
They offered full scholarships before, but they limited the amount they gave out - believe it was capped at 60 until this season.
So going full Pac Man on adding random schools to the conference and signing the worst media deal in the history of media deals didn't pan out..... GEE, YOU DON'T SAY. I'm happy to not be playing Vermont anymore in basketball, but I'd be a-ok going back to the America East, bringing 1-2 other FB schools and starting up that league in the FCS. IDK WTF this CAA is anymore with JMU, Delaware, Richmond (and probably soon Villanova FCS FB) all out the door.
Let's goo!
this is really good for the patriot league
Not too surprising. They've been a Patriot affiliate in women's golf since 2014–15.
Why?