FB: American Southwest Conference

[Ron Boerger]

Yes, but in regards to the "most likely" UTD has more of an endowment for that sort of thing. CTX and LeTourneau will never add football. As you said, and I noted as well, it is highly unlikely we ever see any one of those three add football. I just can't see ASC football continuing once all the SCAC schools leave...there aren't enough options...it's going to be near impossible trying to get an NAIA to give up athletic scholarships...and that seems to be the only available option at this point.

While I agree with the assertion, nobody had Centenary(LA) and Schreiner on their "Next D3 schools to add football" cards, either (tho Centenary has a larger-than-I-expected endowment over $100M, as does Schreiner around $75M; neither are NACUBO study participants).  That said, CTX and LeTu have endowments in the $25M range (only LeTU is a NACUBO participant) which makes me more concerned about the schools' immediate survival than worrying about football. 

[Ron Boerger]

Corey Hogue of Dave Campbell's Texas Football reports Sul Ross will indeed apply for the D2 route and the Lone Star Conference.   No surprise to anyone here but I still wonder who is coming up with the money to make this all work. 

[Etchglow]

Corey Hogue of Dave Campbell's Texas Football reports Sul Ross will indeed apply for the D2 route and the Lone Star Conference.   No surprise to anyone here but I still wonder who is coming up with the money to make this all work.

Yeah, I'm not sure where the money is going to come from either.  It looks like they had 125 kids on the football roster (out of ~1600 total) last season with fewer than 10 coming from out of state.  They're going from a conference of 9-10 schools (not just football) to one of 17 schools (20 if you count the football only affiliates).  I know their president said that the difference in travel costs would make up for giving scholarships... But, when I look at the NCAA travel calculator is is a 70-90 mile savings on average.  That doesn't take into account the greater number of trips.  That isn't even counting the 3 football only affiliates in the PNW that are all 1800+ miles away...

[Pat Coleman]

There are other sports beside football where perhaps that may be more accurate.

[Etchglow]

There are other sports beside football where perhaps that may be more accurate.

Even counting the other sports, you're going from an 8-10 member conference with an average travel distance of ~510 miles to a 17 member conference with an average travel distance of 430 miles.

[Pat Coleman]

I pay literally zero attention to the LSC, but I assume that a conference that large would have divisions, which means your average doesn't really apply since you wouldn't play all teams equally.

[Etchglow]

I pay literally zero attention to the LSC, but I assume that a conference that large would have divisions, which means your average doesn't really apply since you wouldn't play all teams equally.

True, they do have divisions.  Taking those into account for Basketball (easiest to look at), you're only really saving ~110 miles a trip.  ASC average would be ~490 and LSC ~380.  Difference is you only have 9 road games in the ASC and 11 in the LSC.  So you save a whole... 227 miles worth of travel total.  I guess the trip average is better.

[Riley Zayas]

Yes, but in regards to the "most likely" UTD has more of an endowment for that sort of thing. CTX and LeTourneau will never add football. As you said, and I noted as well, it is highly unlikely we ever see any one of those three add football. I just can't see ASC football continuing once all the SCAC schools leave...there aren't enough options...it's going to be near impossible trying to get an NAIA to give up athletic scholarships...and that seems to be the only available option at this point.

While I agree with the assertion, nobody had Centenary(LA) and Schreiner on their "Next D3 schools to add football" cards, either (tho Centenary has a larger-than-I-expected endowment over $100M, as does Schreiner around $75M; neither are NACUBO study participants).  That said, CTX and LeTu have endowments in the $25M range (only LeTU is a NACUBO participant) which makes me more concerned about the schools' immediate survival than worrying about football.

This was my line of thinking...obviously don't know that for a fact, and I was fairly surprised about Centenary and Schreiner, but the endowments just don't seem to be there right now.

[Riley Zayas]

I pay literally zero attention to the LSC, but I assume that a conference that large would have divisions, which means your average doesn't really apply since you wouldn't play all teams equally.

True, they do have divisions.  Taking those into account for Basketball (easiest to look at), you're only really saving ~110 miles a trip.  ASC average would be ~490 and LSC ~380.  Difference is you only have 9 road games in the ASC and 11 in the LSC.  So you save a whole... 227 miles worth of travel total.  I guess the trip average is better.

Still won't change the fact that they have to now offer athletic aid...SMH...saving gas money on travel will pale in comparison to the amount they'll have to spent on scholarships.  And what sucks for the other sports at SRSU is most of that money will go towards football, leaving other programs barely able to compete in recruiting battles with their LSC counterparts. Not to mention all the other aspects of D2 that we don't have in D3...such as the fact that there are NO automatic NCAA tournament bids...

[BSCpanthers]

When does the ASC lose their auto bid for football? 

If BSC shuts down, could we see a merge of the SAA and ASC football teams?

[Etchglow]

When does the ASC lose their auto bid for football? 

If BSC shuts down, could we see a merge of the SAA and ASC football teams?

The date I've seen was 2026?  I think the SAA would be safe unless they lost another team, but I don't follow who is coming/going from the SAA very closely.  Are any of Berry, Centre, Rhodes, Hendrix, Sewanee or Millsaps planning on leaving the conference?

[Ralph Turner]

There are other sports beside football where perhaps that may be more accurate.

Even counting the other sports, you're going from an 8-10 member conference with an average travel distance of ~510 miles to a 17 member conference with an average travel distance of 430 miles.

Respectively, IMHO, SRSU and D-2 is mission/vision thing, a branding thing. In some circles, D-2 is a move up in prestige. That was part of the reason that UT-Tyler, which was a very successful D-3 program, was moved up to D-2 by the powers that be. The school has not added football, yet. I think that there may be resistance by the students to additional expense to fund football, in Texas no less. (After all, you can watch UT, A&M, LSU, etc. all you want on Saturday.)

[Riley Zayas]

There are other sports beside football where perhaps that may be more accurate.

Even counting the other sports, you're going from an 8-10 member conference with an average travel distance of ~510 miles to a 17 member conference with an average travel distance of 430 miles.

Respectively, IMHO, SRSU and D-2 is mission/vision thing, a branding thing. In some circles, D-2 is a move up in prestige. That was part of the reason that UT-Tyler, which was a very successful D-3 program, was moved up to D-2 by the powers that be. The school has not added football, yet. I think that there may be resistance by the students to additional expense to fund football, in Texas no less. (After all, you can watch UT, A&M, LSU, etc. all you want on Saturday.)

I agree that the perception is D2 is a move up in prestige. But when you look at it, why is that? Bc athletic aid can be offered? Name a "prestigious" school in D2 right now...I'm hard pressed to think of one...in D3, you've got more teams, more conferences, elite academic schools like Emory, NYU, Chicago, Amherst, etc. that give it a great deal of validity, and you have an actual national tournament. Folks need to understand D2 is a "higher" level according to the NCAA, but much more regional. There is a lot of "regional" postseason stuff, so you don't have a school going from, say, California, to play Wheaton like we do in D3...plus, no automatic bids? C'mon. I just don't get why so many are pushing for a move up. It's not like bc you go D2 all of a sudden your attendance at games is going to jump, and you'll have recruits knocking down your door...just my opinion.

[Ron Boerger]

IMO going to D2 only makes sense from D3 if you're eventually thinking about going D1 (or if you have delusions about offering partial athletic scholarships suddenly making your school more attractive).  I don't know if there are any schools in D2 that fall into your "elite" categorization.

Fun fact:  D2 has fewer schools than D3 (265+5 in progress to 433+5) to but gets more money from the NCAA to run the division (4.37% to 3.18%).  Plus the average D2 school supports fewer sports (4987 teams to 8436 teams; 18.8 sports/D2 school, 19.5 sports/D3 school).  So that might be a factor (do a higher percentage of D2 schools get into the playoffs?).

[Pat Coleman]

I don't know if there's a ratio in D-II but it looks like there are 152 schools playing Division II football and 24 make the field so that's one spot for every 6.33 schools. D-III's ratio is one for every 6.5 but of course in football, it was one for every 7.2 last year.