Conference changes

[Ralph Turner]

It makes sense to me for whole conferences to move from D2 to D3.

[Ryan Scott (Hoops Fan)]

The PSAC is huge.  I wonder what d3 would do with a request to bring 17 schools into the division all at once?

I'm not sure the procedure for a whole conference changing affiliation.  Would they be considered individually?

Certainly a conference of this size joining en masse is unprecedented.

[Ralph Turner]

The PSAC is huge.  I wonder what d3 would do with a request to bring 17 schools into the division all at once? I think that 8-12 might move out of this group.

I'm not sure the procedure for a whole conference changing affiliation.  Would they be considered individually? Yes

Certainly a conference of this size joining en masse is unprecedented.

Is there a possibility that D3 can prohibit NIL amongst its athletes? That athlete can compete in other organizations of a sport, either amateur or pro. If D3 decides that NIL is not part of its structure, I would hope that the government would not compel D3 to adopt something it did not wish to have.

[Ryan Scott (Hoops Fan)]

The PSAC is huge.  I wonder what d3 would do with a request to bring 17 schools into the division all at once? I think that 8-12 might move out of this group.

I'm not sure the procedure for a whole conference changing affiliation.  Would they be considered individually? Yes

Certainly a conference of this size joining en masse is unprecedented.

Is there a possibility that D3 can prohibit NIL amongst its athletes? That athlete can compete in other organizations of a sport, either amateur or pro. If D3 decides that NIL is not part of its structure, I would hope that the government would not compel D3 to adopt something it did not wish to have.

There's no chance to keep students from making money on their NIL - that's a legal right.  D1 is moving to straight out paying players.  I suspect D3 could legislate a model the way D1 originally tried to do it - with the schools staying out of it.  Is there really a scenario where even a big school NIL collective is ever going to pay a d3 star more than a couple hundred bucks a month?

The big problem at the d1 level is how many rich folks are willing to throw money away to win games for their school.  That's not going to last forever and it's just unlikely to have a big impact at our level.

I think it's great that the Hampden-Sydney guys can get a free couch and wings on Thursday for tweeting about and showing up at local businesses.  That feels completely in line with the d3 ethic.

I'd love to find a way to make sure the athletes are actually doing something for their money (autograph signing, local commercial, whatever) rather than just collecting checks, but that might be hard to legislate.

[Gray Fox]

There is even NIL at the high school level.

[Jake Feldman]

IF we had most of the D2 schools move down to D3, that may necessitate a split to maintain competitive balance in the division.

[Gregory Sager]

IF we had most of the D2 schools move down to D3, that may necessitate a split to maintain competitive balance in the division.

To which I gently reply, "What competitive balance?" Have you ever looked at the Learfield Directors' Cup standings, perchance? The Directors' Cup is a measurement of all-sports athletics success at each of the three NCAA levels of intercollegiate competition, plus the NAIA and each of the three juco levels. Points are awarded for appearances in the national tournaments and meets of various sports, with point totals increasing the deeper that a team gets in its national tournament or meet.

Check it out sometime. It's not a 100% perfect indicator of across-the-board success in D3 athletics, but it's by far the best measuring stick we have.

It is always dominated by the same handful of D3 schools. Always. The three leagues that perennially produce the most successful schools are the UAA, the NESCAC, and the WIAC -- and their members make up the bulk of those two-to-three dozen schools that have the most all-sports D3 postseason success every school year. You'll see the occasional Centennial or CCIW or OAC or ODAC or MIAA or MIAC school represented as well in that mix of schools, but even there it's always the same schools within those leagues.

So, again, what "competitive balance" is there to maintain? This is a division of haves and have-nots, sports-wise, no different than D1 in that regard. That isn't going to change, no matter who comes in or out of the division.

D3 is a melange of 400+ institutions: private, public; richer than Croesus, poorer than a churchmouse; large, small; zealous and all-in for athletics success, institutionally indifferent to athletics success; academically elite, academically meh; ideally located, geographically isolated; generally broad student constituency, narrowly-tailored or missionally-restrictive student constituency; etc., etc. It is inevitable that such a vast array of institutions that are collectively unalike in all but one way -- none of them give out athletic scholarships -- will have inherent competitive imbalances on the field or in the arena or on the track.

The influx of a handful of D2 schools might alter which schools populate the elite end of the bell curve of competitiveness within D3. Then again, it might not. But, either way, it won't change the bell curve itself one bit.

[Gregory Sager]

I'm not sure if anybody here follows the PSAC in PA (Kutztown has built a national football powerhouse) but there are very quiet conversations taking place about most, if not all of the schools, making the D2 to D3 move. This would be very interesting........PA's version of the WIAC (where many of the schools have larger enrollments and larger/nice facilities than most schools in the PSAC).

History would be repeating itself, then, because a bunch of PSAC schools were in D3 back in the division's early days. For example, Lock Haven won the D3 men's soccer national title in 1977 and 1978. Slippery Rock was in the D3 football playoffs in 1974 and Millersville was in it in 1979. Mansfield was in the D3 men's basketball tourney in 1975 and 1976 and Slippery Rock was in it in 1978; and Mansfield was in the D3 baseball tourney in 1976, 1979, and 1980. It wasn't until 1980 that the league's members voted to put the entire league under the D2 umbrella.

Aside from the two Lock Haven titles in soccer (which was a club sport on most college campuses back in those days; there were only 16 teams in the D3 soccer tourneys of the late '70s) and a hoops regional won by Mansfield in '75, none of the PSAC reps in those early-era D3 postseason competitions had much success.

[Gregory Sager]

My friends at SNHU are quite nervous about the future of the conference (and D2 as a whole), as is Franklin Pierce. I don't think that there would be room for all of these schools if they decide to make the move to D3, unless to form a separate conference.

I think there will be plenty of room for them. Unfortunately, small schools seem to be dropping like flies in New England, so my guess is that the existing conferences (aside from the NESCAC) will be willing to take on more members to act as insurance policies against further shrinkage by closure attrition.