FB: Middle Atlantic Conference

[PBR...]

well i am glad they have several qb's to choose from with what 18 returning starters they dont need a qb to win the game for them just dont lose it. a decent punter would be a huge addition that was a area lacking last year.

[gordonmann]

Here's an awesome story about a very inspirational kid who's at Widener.  Check it out.

[HANGTIME]

GREAT STORY ABOUT THE KID AT WIDENER BUT DOES HE PLAY FOOTBALL AND WHAT POSITION??

UPBRMEASAP......Happy Spring and how many days to the new season?

[jb]

he runs track, 5,000 & 10,000.  Very nice story.  Good luck to that young man with the Penn Relays, MAC championships, and NCAA's.

[Snake Parlor]

hey had a question. does anyone know where to get the DIII spring practice rules? or does anyone know what they are for DIII?

[PBR...]

a link to an article about the new field being put down at del val....sounds very nice with a new drainage system and a new practice field as well....its finally a start in the upgrade to facilities now a little investment in the stadium as well as the training facilities and we will be all set... http://www.phillyburbs.com/pb-dyn/news/42-04302006-649533.html

[HANGTIME]

uPBRmeASAP

Thanks for the heads up regarding the article...sounds like it will be a very nice field now

[PBR...]

here is the colleges link for the work about to begin on the football stadium and practice fields. http://www.devalcol.edu/athletics/football/news_47.htm

[gordonmann]

Check out today's Daily Dose for more rumblings on possible additions to the MAC.

[PBR...]

my guess would be tcnj or wesley....both would be nice additions to the mac.

[Lyco80]

The MAC, and other D III conferences, will likely continue to struggle to maintain membership as more and more small colleges face economic choices regarding the viability of fielding a football program.  Let's face it, the sport is very costly and tuition and fees can add up to 30 K a year for an average family seeking to send junior or missy to school.  It does not appear that costs will slow down either as fuel prices rocket ever higher and white-collar payrolls increase.  In other words, something will have to give.

Granted, the current MAC crisis is due to a shift of schools from one conference to another.  However, I am going on record as saying that it is only a matter of time before schools with marginal win-loss results begin to think that a football program may be a luxury they can no longer afford.  If you truly look around you will see that there are more D-III schools than there are D-III schools with football programs. 

While I wish it were not true, particularly given the opportunity for an excellent calibre of play for many high school athletes in college, the D-III experience may be at its zenith and already beginning its descent.

Other poster's thoughts?

ATB

[gordonmann]

Lyco80:

Thanks for the thoughtful post.  This tends to be a quiet time of year.

While my affiliation with this site biases me, I think Division III is very strong.  During the past couple years a variety of schools -- LaGrange, SUNY-Maritime, Becker, Huntingdon, St. Vincent, Husson -- added the sport at the Division III level.  Only a few have dropped it in the past few seasons (Swarthmore, NJCU).  And there are a host of other teams working their way through "provisional status" to full membership in Division III.

Schools find football attractive because of the interest it generates among alumni and, in some cases, the ability to draw men into schools with a disproportionate share of female students.  The Portland (Maine) Press Herald offers anecdotal evidence that this was the case at Division III Husson.

That's not to say some schools aren't facing budgetary pressures.  I worry mostly about the public schools (a la NJCU), not the private ones.  Swarthmore dropped football, but the school is not hurting financially to my knowledge.

What worries me more is the possibility that Division III could split between small, liberal arts schools (NESCAC, Centennial, MIAC, NCAC) and the rest of Division III.  That strikes me as a much bigger concern than Division III withering because of costs.

[Ralph Turner]

Lyco80:

Thanks for the thoughtful post.  This tends to be a quiet time of year.

While my affiliation with this site biases me, I think Division III is very strong.  During the past couple years a variety of schools -- LaGrange, SUNY-Maritime, Becker, Huntingdon, St. Vincent, Husson -- added the sport at the Division III level.  Only a few have dropped it in the past few seasons (Swarthmore, NJCU).  And there are a host of other teams working their way through "provisional status" to full membership in Division III.

Schools find football attractive because of the interest it generates among alumni and, in some cases, the ability to draw men into schools with a disproportionate share of female students.  The Portland (Maine) Press Herald offers anecdotal evidence that this was the case at Division III Husson.

That's not to say some schools aren't facing budgetary pressures.  I worry mostly about the public schools (a la NJCU), not the private ones.  Swarthmore dropped football, but the school is not hurting financially to my knowledge.

What worries me more is the possibility that Division III could split between small, liberal arts schools (NESCAC, Centennial, MIAC, NCAC) and the rest of Division III.  That strikes me as a much bigger concern than Division III withering because of costs.

The advantage to the split for the "academic" schools is the chance to win the national championship with athletes that they admit.

Also, if there were just 7 conferences invited, plus an at large, then they could shorten the season by 2 weeks!  That is the sound bite that I would expect to hear!

Gordon, would you care to guess who would be invited to go with the split?

NESCAC, NCAC, UAA, MWC, Centennial, SCIAC?

Of the participants in the new D3-Elite, would they name the trophy after Coach Gagliardi after he won the first 3 titles?

[hoopandtheharm]

I don't think we are on the cusp of a dmeise of DIII Football at all. Most DIII institutions are small and tuition driven. Many institutions give their athletic department recrutiment goals. That football team that brings in 35-50 kids a year is vital to instituional recrutiment goals. Take away football and you have to work much harder to make up the difference.

Pat Coleman's thought of a breakout is valid. Unless the division does somehting to curb growth such a change may be ineveitable. Unless they decrease the amount of access to championships and do something about the growth of the division, it will take veen longer to conduct championships and they may be the pre-text (lenght of NCAA CHampionships) needed to split the division. Hate to see it happen.

Is MAC doing anything to add football playing members?   

[Warren Thompson]

In recent months, there was some talk of football-playing Shenandoah entering the MAC. However, this may have been just idle speculation. (And I don't envision any current MAC venues initiating football.)