FB: USA South Athletic Conference

[Wild Horse Rider]

The season is upon us.  Highschool football opened up in NC this past week and D1 will have their week zero slate this week.  Two weeks until the USAC gets started.  I believe the coaches will vote on a pre-season poll in the next few days.  I will be interested to see where the coaches rank things.  We will have new coaches at both SVU and LaGrange.  The top 5 finishers from last year were Huntingdon, Belhaven, Maryville, Brevard, and Methodist.  I would think most coaches will vote the Hawks number one but they need to find a replacement for their stellar QB that finally graduated.  Belhaven is returning a ton of talent on both sides of the ball including Johnson at QB.  The team I think can make a ton of noise is Maryville with the OROTY QB coming back for his SO season.  Brevard was hit hard by graduation but that coaching staff has the Tornadoes ready to play and will do their best to grind games to their pace of play.  Methodist loses their all-world weapon on offense/ST but return a 4 year starting QB.  If I was to guess how the coaches will wind up voting it would be:

1. Huntingdon
2. Belhaven
3. Maryville
4. Methodist
5. Brevard
6. NCWC
7. LaGrange
8. SVU
9. Greensboro

Huntingdon will be the most battle tested coming from their non-conference slate which includes Berry and BSU.  Belhaven should be fine in their OOC but they do play every conference opponent.  Maryville plays Center and Shenandoah in OOC and do not play Methodist in conference play.  Methodist gets both W&L and Shenandoah in OOC and both on the road.  Brevard will get a test with Hampden-Sydney in OOC which will be intensified as it is Coach Favrett's last season.  I hope all teams come out of camp/pre-season ready to get the season started off with early success.

[Ralph Turner]

How soon can we expect to see the USAS teams play a complete round robin schedule?

[Hawks88]

How soon can we expect to see the USAS teams play a complete round robin schedule?

I think Roanoke is planning to start playing in the ODAC in 2025 so with both conferences at 9 teams there would be no reason for the week 3 deal at that point. I really hope this is the final season of the deal.

[Wild Horse Rider]

I hope at some point the round robin scheduling will work but I just don't know how these programs can swing it financially.  In a previous life I was in charge of the football programs team travel at one of the member institutions and budgets were tight.  We accounted for 5 road games.  Of those 5 if the travel was going to be greater than 3 hours we would typically go the day before and get a hotel.  If money was no object I would object I would really only want my players in a bus for 1-2 hours tops on a game day.  But if we use the 3 hour as a cutoff then realistically you don't have a ton of games that would not be overnight trips.  For an overnight road game you typically accounted for 5 meals.  Lunch on travel day, dinner on travel day, pregame breakfast/meal, pregame snack, and a post game meal.  I would work with the cafeteria on campus and they would provide boxed lunches for the travel day and the pregame snack.  If the player, support staff, or coach had a meal plan we would not be charged but if they did not we would pay.  I would typically find a hotel that could provide the pregame breakfast and negotiate it into the room cost if possible.  The meal on Friday night would be at a Golden Corral or a similar restaurant that would provide multiple options for the players and could handle feeding a large number.  The post game meal usually consisted of pizza, subs, or something along those lines that could be delivered to the visiting locker room post game and easily distributed as we got back on the bus.  Then you also need to account for 2 charter busses and hotel rooms for anywhere from 70-100 players, coaches, and support staff.

If that is the case or something similar at all of the USAC programs you are looking at 4 home and 4 away conference games each year.  The outliers geographically are NCWC to the east, Belhaven to the south and west, and SVU to the north.  NCWC would only have day trips to Methodist and Greensboro so they would be looking at 3 overnighters if they alternate MU and GC home/away.  Belhaven would have all 4 games as overnight trips.  SVU could get to Greensboro in 2:30 if the driver floors it so they might be looking at 4 overnight trips in conference each year.  All of the other schools would likely average 2-3 overnight trips in conference annually.  To top it off NCWC to Belhaven and SVU to Belhaven are over 12 hour bus trips.

The last time I did any of this was over a decade ago so I am sure a lot has changed since then but if memory serves me correctly our overnight trips were anywhere from $12-$15K.  Given inflation and everything else go ahead and consider the low end $20K now.  With the state of some of these universities/colleges financially $80K in team travel (which does not account for the one OOC away game which even if it is a day trip will be a few thousand dollars) is a pretty large chunk of the budget I would imagine. 

With all that being said I don't have a better solution.  I know it is a matter of survival of the fittest when it comes to conference alignments and not all decisions are made from a football standpoint.  From what I understand the schools need to fit academically as well but I have honestly never understood that one.  We don't have the debate teams competing from member institutions.

[Ralph Turner]

I hope at some point the round robin scheduling will work but I just don't know how these programs can swing it financially.  In a previous life I was in charge of the football programs team travel at one of the member institutions and budgets were tight.  We accounted for 5 road games.  Of those 5 if the travel was going to be greater than 3 hours we would typically go the day before and get a hotel.  If money was no object I would object I would really only want my players in a bus for 1-2 hours tops on a game day.  But if we use the 3 hour as a cutoff then realistically you don't have a ton of games that would not be overnight trips.  For an overnight road game you typically accounted for 5 meals.  Lunch on travel day, dinner on travel day, pregame breakfast/meal, pregame snack, and a post game meal.  I would work with the cafeteria on campus and they would provide boxed lunches for the travel day and the pregame snack.  If the player, support staff, or coach had a meal plan we would not be charged but if they did not we would pay.  I would typically find a hotel that could provide the pregame breakfast and negotiate it into the room cost if possible.  The meal on Friday night would be at a Golden Corral or a similar restaurant that would provide multiple options for the players and could handle feeding a large number.  The post game meal usually consisted of pizza, subs, or something along those lines that could be delivered to the visiting locker room post game and easily distributed as we got back on the bus.  Then you also need to account for 2 charter busses and hotel rooms for anywhere from 70-100 players, coaches, and support staff.

If that is the case or something similar at all of the USAC programs you are looking at 4 home and 4 away conference games each year.  The outliers geographically are NCWC to the east, Belhaven to the south and west, and SVU to the north.  NCWC would only have day trips to Methodist and Greensboro so they would be looking at 3 overnighters if they alternate MU and GC home/away.  Belhaven would have all 4 games as overnight trips.  SVU could get to Greensboro in 2:30 if the driver floors it so they might be looking at 4 overnight trips in conference each year.  All of the other schools would likely average 2-3 overnight trips in conference annually.  To top it off NCWC to Belhaven and SVU to Belhaven are over 12 hour bus trips.

The last time I did any of this was over a decade ago so I am sure a lot has changed since then but if memory serves me correctly our overnight trips were anywhere from $12-$15K.  Given inflation and everything else go ahead and consider the low end $20K now.  With the state of some of these universities/colleges financially $80K in team travel (which does not account for the one OOC away game which even if it is a day trip will be a few thousand dollars) is a pretty large chunk of the budget I would imagine. 

With all that being said I don't have a better solution.  I know it is a matter of survival of the fittest when it comes to conference alignments and not all decisions are made from a football standpoint.  From what I understand the schools need to fit academically as well but I have honestly never understood that one.  We don't have the debate teams competing from member institutions.

High quality post!  Much good information to help readers understand the real dynamics of the USAS!
Your geographic footprint is similar to the ASC. +1!

[Hawks88]

The way Huntingdon has handled the longer trips(Methodist, NC Wesleyan, VA schools, maybe Greensboro?) is that they will leave on Thursday after dinner and get into South Carolina to spend the first night then finish the drive after breakfast on Friday. Of course, after the game they will drive straight home with a stop for dinner somewhere in the middle.
The only day trips we've had recently are Birmingham-Southern and LaGrange. I'm not sure how we will do the Berry game. I've assumed it will be a day trip since it's going to be a night game but at around a 3 1/2 hour drive I'm not sure.

[Hawks88]

With talks of travel I was looking at our schedule this season and was thinking it might be the least amount of travelling we've done. Games at Berry, LaGrange, Belhaven, Greensboro and Brevard come to 1381 miles. Checking old schedules, however, shows that 2012 was less with only 4 road games - LaGrange, Hampden-Sydney, Millsaps, and Point University comes to 1046 miles.

On the other end, the most miles travelled in a season would be 2006, by far, with 6 road games at Ithaca, Millsaps, Rhodes, Colorado College, Thomas More, and SAGU coming to 4272 miles. Next closest is 2004 with only 4 games at Louisiana College, Wittenburg, Colorado College, and Maryville at 2817 miles. 2007 gets an honorable mention with back-to-back weeks with trips to Adrian and Wesley.

[Ron Boerger]

With talks of travel I was looking at our schedule this season and was thinking it might be the least amount of travelling we've done. Games at Berry, LaGrange, Belhaven, Greensboro and Brevard come to 1381 miles. Checking old schedules, however, shows that 2012 was less with only 4 road games - LaGrange, Hampden-Sydney, Millsaps, and Point University comes to 1046 miles.

On the other end, the most miles travelled in a season would be 2006, by far, with 6 road games at Ithaca, Millsaps, Rhodes, Colorado College, Thomas More, and SAGU coming to 4272 miles. Next closest is 2004 with only 4 games at Louisiana College, Wittenburg, Colorado College, and Maryville at 2817 miles. 2007 gets an honorable mention with back-to-back weeks with trips to Adrian and Wesley.

Just for fun I looked at Trinity's for this year:  a cool 8600 (St. Johns MN, Birmingham-Southern, Berry, Southwestern, Sewanee)

[Ralph Turner]

With talks of travel I was looking at our schedule this season and was thinking it might be the least amount of travelling we've done. Games at Berry, LaGrange, Belhaven, Greensboro and Brevard come to 1381 miles. Checking old schedules, however, shows that 2012 was less with only 4 road games - LaGrange, Hampden-Sydney, Millsaps, and Point University comes to 1046 miles.

On the other end, the most miles travelled in a season would be 2006, by far, with 6 road games at Ithaca, Millsaps, Rhodes, Colorado College, Thomas More, and SAGU coming to 4272 miles. Next closest is 2004 with only 4 games at Louisiana College, Wittenburg, Colorado College, and Maryville at 2817 miles. 2007 gets an honorable mention with back-to-back weeks with trips to Adrian and Wesley.

Just for fun I looked at Trinity's for this year:  a cool 8600 (St. Johns MN, Birmingham-Southern, Berry, Southwestern, Sewanee)

Hmmm... Is there a direct flight between San Antonio & Georgetown?

[Ron Boerger]

They can "fly" down the 130 tollway at 85mph ...

[Wild Horse Rider]

Week one.  Here we go.  As usual we will have a lot of the southern teams play the SAA and the northern teams play the ODAC.  Ill take:

On Thursday night Belhaven over Millsaps.  Darkhorse conference champ per 20 questions on D3 site.
Greensboro Pride takes the Soup Bowl over the Quakers of Guilford.  I am basing this on the photos of the players on Greensboro's website.  They look the part
Shenandoah beats Methodist in Winchester.  The Monarchs are breaking in about 3-4 new starting OL. 
Brevard hopefully beats Warner but honestly I am guessing here.  First one to 17 wins.
Maryville over Sewanee with the Scotts QB lighting up the scoreboard
Randy Mac scores a bunch and NCWC scores a little.  From what I saw on the ODAC board Randy Mac has about 100 SRs on the roster.
CNU handles SVU.  It is always a bit of a mystery with SVU since you can have some grown men come back off of their Mormon Mission.  I usually like 22 YR old vs 18 YR old.
Game of the week in the USAC Berry wins a close game over Huntingdon.  The Hawks are breaking in a new QB.
Sadly it appears that LaGrange will only have 9 regular season games and they open and close with a BYE.

USAC vs SAA 2-1
USAC vs ODAC 1-2

[Cowboy2]

They can "fly" down the 130 tollway at 85mph ...

+1 

[HansenRatings]

Playoff projections for the season using my model's preseason ratings:



You can look at other conferences on my website: https://hansenratings.github.io/.

[Hawks88]

This one ranks near the BSC game two years ago. We were doing okay and were at a good spot in the 2nd quarter where if the offense could get something going then we might get some momentum. Then a turnover and then the mistakes started snowballing(3 blocked punts in a row?) and got ugly.

A lot of stuff to fix this week to get ready for BSC. Let's go Hawks!

[BSCpanthers]

This one ranks near the BSC game two years ago. We were doing okay and were at a good spot in the 2nd quarter where if the offense could get something going then we might get some momentum. Then a turnover and then the mistakes started snowballing(3 blocked punts in a row?) and got ugly.

A lot of stuff to fix this week to get ready for BSC. Let's go Hawks!

Didn't watch the game but looked at the stats.  What a weird game by the numbers.  Hopefully you guys fix all your problems, in 7 days.  You guys have something that belongs to us, we're coming Saturday to get it.