7 SCAC teams plus Berry to form new conference

[scottiedoug]

Well it is the anniversary of the War of Secession.

[108 Stitches]

Any news on the SCAC front? My son will be playing SCAC baseball next year and I am curious what, if anything, is going on.

[Ron Boerger]

Nothing as far as new schools.  SCAC play in '11-'12 will be unchanged (except for DPU leaving, but the schools have known about that for some while and had already adjusted their schedules accordingly. 

[roocru]

Any news on the SCAC front? My son will be playing SCAC baseball next year and I am curious what, if anything, is going on.

108,
Please see my post from yesterday on the SCAC board.

[K-Mack]

Head to head in Pool B with the likes of the UAA, Huntingdon and Wesley, it might be tough earning a bid.  I am only counting on 1 Pool B bid for several years into the future.

Makes me wonder if there isn't some discussion going on to try to convince one or more of the ODAC schools to switch conferences.   We have a history at Sewanee with both W&L and H-SC and I think that's true with many of the other schools in the new conference.     I suspect the long trip to Hendrix would be a deal-breaker there.  Another alternative would be poaching from the USASouth but I wouldn't think any of those schools beyond Maryville would be of interest to the new conference.

Re: the ODAC, my ties there aren't as close as they once were, but I'd guess W&L would leave under the right circumstances. H-SC would never go. I think H-SC, R-MC, Bridgewater, E&H are always going to be ODAC schools. And now that Shenandoah is in, them too.

[108 Stitches]

Any updates on the SCAC potential adds?

[Ron Boerger]

Read this week's Around the South football column.   I'm pretty sure your son will have a conference for baseball, but things are still up in the air and especially where football is concerned.

[litig8r187]

I'm new to DIII and the SCAC.  My daughter is a freshman playing soccer in the SCAC.  this weekend, I kept hearing mentions of west coast schools joining the conference including UC Santa Cruz and some Washington/Oregon schools.  Anyone got any insight to those possibilities?

[smedindy]

Could that be the SCIAC instead of the SCAC?

[Ron Boerger]

Welcome to the boards, lit.  I hope you and your daughter are enjoying the SCAC experience. 

While some of the west coast teams do occasionally make the trek to TX (like UCSC who played the Trinity (TX) women in soccer this weekend), the logistics of adding teams from the West Coast would be pretty dreadful.    Longer, more expensive flights, two hour time difference, not many direct flights from SA/Austin for SW and TU.   Would make for some VERY long weekends for cross-sectional events.

Now watch them announce this next week. 

[litig8r187]

No, it wasn't The SCIAC.  I was at the UCSC V. SU game Friday and heard that UCSC and some other
west coast schools may be joining the conference.  I know UCSC has been making the trek to Texas for several years now.  I was also told that Centenary may jump from ASC although that seems odd since they just joined the ASC this year.  As a parent, before the season began, we were told that SCAC schools will INTENTIONALLY try and join with "like minded" schools out of the Texas region to maintain a more "national" presence.  They wanted to keep that experience for the players and they were not really worrying about reducing travel. 

Again, I'm new to this and don't know if the folks talking about the West coast schools knew what they were talking about.  The other information came from the school. 

[litig8r187]

Oh, and thanks Ron.  We are enjoying the experience.  My daughter is loving the school and playing soccer there.  She scored her first collegiate goal this weekend.

[Ron Boerger]

Centenary makes sense, and we had tossed them around at one point here as a prospective member.  When they announced they were going D3 there weren't really any openings in the SCAC ... but obviously the situation has changed.      Their academic profile seems more like the average SCAC school than ASC school, plus they are tiny (895, according to US News).   That would put them at somewhat of a disadvantage in the SCAC, but in the ASC, with state schools like UT-Tyler (6,476) and UT-Dallas (17,128, tho much of that is graduate), they're really going to struggle.   It was the only port in the storm, though, when they decided to go non-scholarship. 

The SCAC did say they were going to try for a wide geographic footprint; given the location of schools that are left, they don't have much of a choice.  California schools might work, but it's just an awful long way to the Pacific Northwest.   At some point the beauty of travel as an advantage for recruiting pales to the scholastic workload these kids have.   I guess Colorado College would be happy to go west for a change.   

If you haven't already, go to d3football.com and read Jason's Around the South column from last week.  He talked to some of the SCAC football coaches about this and it seems that some of the options, such as recruiting ASC schools, are largely out the window.     ASC schools like Texas Lutheran or Concordia were discussed as possibilities earlier this year. 

Southwestern's a fine school - your daughter made a great choice.   It's close enough to Austin to be convenient, but far enough away that's it's not too convenient.   

[Ralph Turner]

Losing Centenary in a major shuffle, including McMurry's move to D2, may not be that difficult for the ASC.

Now that any prospect of being a symmetrical 16-team 2-division conference is gone, then restructuring to a 12 team conference might be easier. I know that makes it more expensive for 12 teams to support the conference overhead than 16, but if the SCAC and ASC schools will co-operate in non-conference games, then there may not be much difference.

How "Texas" maintains the football AQ is the critical question.  TU and AC need games. Adding football-Centenary won't help much.

Also, if McMurry's move to D2 looks good from an academic, financial aid, student recruitment perspective ( and I think that I might be able to report that in 2014), then we may not have seen the end of the migration to D2 in this part of the state.

Who might move to D2?  My conjecture, but TLU?  Weren't the Bulldogs in D-2 in the mid 1990's?

Mississippi College?  Also came to the ASC from D-2.

One other thing that works better at ASC schools than SCAC schools is the D-II partial scholarship model.  With the loss of funding for Texas schools from the Tuition Equalization Grant (TEG), monies that were previously FASFA granted as monies ending up in the aid package for D-3 student-athletes may now be replaced with "Athletic Scholarships" under the D-2 model, especially in private schools that have discount rates in the 25-40% range.

I know that is a complex discussion that is beyond the scope of these boards at this time, but we will be seeing more of that in the next few years.

[Warren Thompson]

Ralph: If my memory serves, TLU was never in NCAA D2, though in the 1970s they won two consecutive national championships in NAIA D2. And I think they moved to NAIA D1 before dropping the sport.