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Post by blackandgold on Oct 27, 2010 13:44:10 GMT -5
Great thoughts all-around. The core eight teams or so seem like long-time Summit schools. The big thing for me is that schools will make decisions ONLY based on football. If USD sees the Big Sky as a better chance to have solid football, I can see them bolting (since there is no guarantee they'd be added to the MVC for football-only like NDSU, SDSU, and WIU). I agree that NDSU and SDSU probably have a strong connection to TSL and would not leave, but USD and UND owe nothing to the league. And perhaps they don't care about the in-state rivalries, instead opting to blaze their own path? An eight team Summit League would work it just wouldn't be incredibly ideal (two more games to schedule in the non-conference portion which can be difficult). It would get rid of those odd early-December games though. But I agree with you guys that ORU is not going to leave for Southland, and the Missouri Valley adding SDSU/NDSU would be pretty incredible. St. Louis has been open about its desire to join, but the MVC has a really good thing going and can not see them messing with that. Overall, I just really want to see UND and USD as our 9th and 10th members (assuming SUU were to leave at some point). There are no other programs out there right now that have the ability to bring in the fanbase of an entire state like the Dakotas can. If we add a marginal directional school, the fanbase will be much like the long-acronym schools in the Summit League...which is to say not much. I'm glad to have those schools, it's just incredible what a step up it is to have THE flagships universities of a state in our league. Also, for what it's worth, ORU fans seem to all be on-board for a Southland bid: forum.orusports.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=8088&start=0
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Post by virginian on Oct 29, 2010 10:17:17 GMT -5
What is not mentioned in the article is the fact that the West Coast members of the BSC (Portland St., EWU, Sacramento St.) are not happy about the prospect of the adding the Dakotas. The increase in travel costs for them is an issue.
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Post by blackandgold on Oct 29, 2010 16:41:17 GMT -5
It looks like the first major domino has "officially" fallen, several reports coming out of ND that UND has canceled the Summit League visit for next week. One ND TV station has this in its latest update: According to Big Sky Media Relations Director Jon Kasper, the Big Sky Conference will be making an announcement on Monday and it is "very likely" they will be announcing "additions" to the D-I (FCS) Conference.
On Friday afternoon, University of North Dakota Director of Athletics Brian Faison announced that the site visit by The Summit League, scheduled for next Monday and Tuesday, has been canceled by UND. Faison said the decision to cancel the site visit will be addressed on Monday. It's going to be a long weekend....
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Post by Germane on Oct 29, 2010 16:47:38 GMT -5
You'd have to assume now that USD is also headed for the Big Sky, regardless of whatever money they've already paid the Summit. If so, the Summit is down to 8 teams and suddenly looking pretty unstable.
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Post by Germane on Oct 29, 2010 16:52:14 GMT -5
As speculated elsewhere, with UTSA and Texas State possibly leaving the Southland, and if ORU finds the Southland more enticing, this really could be the first domino to fall in a much bigger and uglier chain reaction for the Summit.
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Post by blackandgold on Oct 29, 2010 17:21:15 GMT -5
The eight programs in the Summit League that would remain need to pull a Big 12 and stick together in the face of this stuff. We saw earlier this summer that these gigantic schools with huge institutional egos were able to come together (no doubt because of restructuring of money distribution, but still) to keep the Big 12 alive instead of taking the easy route to what would appear to be a more attractive league.
I hope one day that Oral Roberts has a chance to change leagues, but PLEASE do not go to the Southland. That is not the answer in terms of increasing the school's profile. It's better for travel but without Southern Utah, the Summit is already a bit better. If they go to the Southland, leaving the Summit League at 7 schools, my initial assumption would be that everything the current commissioner has been doing these last few years (bringing in Dakotas, getting rid of Chi State, etc) will be in jeopardy because short of enticing some other schools that are already affiliated with conferences to join, the only answer would be DII transition schools...yet again.
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Post by blackandgold on Oct 29, 2010 22:05:31 GMT -5
Here is the latest from a paper covering Southern Utah: bit.ly/9g5hHzThe Spectrum & Daily News has learned that Southern Utah will be receiving an invitation to join the Big Sky Conference.
A press conference is schedule for 2 p.m. Monday at the Sterling Church Auditorium, in which it is expected that the university will accept the invitation.
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Post by virginian on Oct 30, 2010 8:18:44 GMT -5
If replacements are needed there is not much to choose from. With the exception of Chicago State, the remaining members of the Great West Conference are not geographically attractive. I suppose if CSU has cleaned house and is running a reputable operation, they are the logical choice for expansion. If not CSU, that pretty much leaves NJIT and Longwood. LU is unaffiliated but bring no market to the conference. Farmville, VA only has about 7,000 people and no media. NJIT is in the Great West and may find a more compact conference attractive.
I have heard that both Northern Kentucky and Southern Indiana have flirted with moving to D-I but there appears to be no movement on either front.
I was disappointed that SIU-E moved to the OVC without any thought of or, apparently, contact with the Summit about joining. The conference does not have the luxury of allowing the few D-II move ups to join other conferences.
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Post by blackandgold on Oct 30, 2010 10:23:49 GMT -5
Well we couldn't think about adding new DII transitionals until after August 9, 2011 when the four-year moratorium on moving up is over. Teams can not even begin the process of thinking about moving up, officially, until June of 2011. Northern Kentucky has a sweet arena but my desire would be to add schools that are already in DI, as hard as that might be. Anyway, a slight glimmer of hope today from Sioux Falls newspaper, where the USD athletic director has come out and said that just because UND has decided to join the Big Sky doesn't mean that the Coyotes will follow. Said they need time to think about it. bit.ly/cow2XcThe main thing there is that USD is kind of in a tough spot, because even if they wanted to stay in the Summit League, they would have nowhere for their football program to play because it doesn't look like the MVFC is going to extend an offer. So what are they to do? I think they HAVE to go Big Sky or drop the football program. Other big news coming from late last night was official word of some WAC invites. www.sanmarcosrecord.com/sports/x603540177/College-Athletics-Sources-say-Texas-State-is-headed-to-the-WACTexas State and UTSA were both in the Southland conference, which had 12 members up until this point. Now they will stand at 10. IF the Southland is content with that number, it looks like everything will be okay. However fans on other boards keep bringing up the University of Arkansas-Little Rock which is the only non-football school in the Sunbelt now that Denver is gone. The Sunbelt would have 11 football and 12 all-sports at this juncture, but many think the Sunbelt would be eager to get rid of UALR to make it an all-football conference. Now this is where things get tricky. The Summit League could jump on UALR to get a ninth member and a travel partner for ORU (four hour drive between the two cities) and be left pretty safe. OR the Southland conference could reach out to both UALR AND ORU in an attempt to get back to 12 members, and no one will say that the Southland isn't a better geographic fit for both of those schools. As far as other options go, I'm glad virginian brought up SIU-e. Definitely strange that they'll be the 11th team in the OVC, though I can't really blame them for going OVC - that is a solid conference and all the schools are fairly close geographically. I think Summit would have a hard time poaching them or even a team like Eastern Illinois for that matter (some of the older Mid-Con fans might know more about this area, cause I know EIU was in this conference once but left so are the odds small of them joining back? this is operating under assumption they are already an affiliate in one sport so have some sort of current connection).
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Post by virginian on Oct 30, 2010 15:57:49 GMT -5
As far as other options go, I'm glad virginian brought up SIU-e. Definitely strange that they'll be the 11th team in the OVC, though I can't really blame them for going OVC - that is a solid conference and all the schools are fairly close geographically. I think Summit would have a hard time poaching them or even a team like Eastern Illinois for that matter (some of the older Mid-Con fans might know more about this area, cause I know EIU was in this conference once but left so are the odds small of them joining back? this is operating under assumption they are already an affiliate in one sport so have some sort of current connection). EIU is the prime example of the problem the Summit has with football playing schools. The OVC gives EIU a home for all sports, the Summit can't. The Summit has to rely on schools without football or hope that the MVFC or other conferences can accommodate that sport. With the demise of the Great West Football Conference, there is no other home for the Dakota schools. In many ways, the Summit's future is in the hands of the MVFC. SIU-E was an opportunity to snag a school whose main sport was soccer and had no football program.
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