A Sea Of Red

http://www.ncaa.org/wps/portal/ncaahome ... _ncaa_news

Membership standards

In addition to the cost-savings discussion, the Council put the finishing touches on recommendations for new Division I membership standards. The group generally concluded its discussion on the topic in January but tweaked a few things at the recent meeting, including:

* Football Championship Subdivision members who wish to join the Football Bowl Subdivision should have a bona fide offer of membership from an FBS conference to be considered for FBS membership. FCS members suggested this change as a way of being consistent – the Council is also recommending that new Division I members have a bona fide offer of membership from a Division I conference before beginning the reclassification process.

* The reclassification process will be four, rather than five years, with election to active membership in the fifth year. Reclassifying members must meet Division I requirements upon beginning the process to become Division I members.

* The application fee will be commensurate with either the estimated annual average value of direct benefits through distributions and championships made available to Division I members ($1.3 million) or the median annual value of direct benefits through distributions and championships ($900,000).

So basically, if LU wants to go FBS, there should be an offer from an FBS conference. The question now is, can LU, JMU, Charlotte, Ga. Southern, Ga. State, ODU/others form a conference and move up together as FBS, or will they need to have offers from an existing FBS conference? The point of the question isn't to discuss possible conference affiliation as hashed out time and again on other threads, but rather can a bunch of FCS schools get together and move up collectively as a conference?

are these the new standards or are these in addition to the old ones? I'm getting at stadium capacity and attendance requirements.

LUconn wrote:are these the new standards or are these in addition to the old ones? I'm getting at stadium capacity and attendance requirements.

in addition

Interesting that they have that same requirement now for teams moving up to D1..so there won't be any more Longwood situations I guess (moving up and then living as an independent). I'm sure PC wishes the reduction in the reclassification timeline would've been around for them.

These new standards really would have no bearing on our situation. We never have planned to move up as an independent. The language left out the word "existing FBS conference" so I would have to assume a newly formed FBS league would be good to go. But as mentioned in prior threads, that is still a challenge to create.

If this is so, I'm sure interested FCS teams are all talking to each other about forming a new FBS conference. While it may be difficult, it might be the only option for Liberty.

What other conferences are left to join? The Big East? The BE may not even have a football conference after the Big 10 gets finished expanding. Who knows, the ACC and/or the SEC may counteract by expanding with 2 more teams to get to 14 teams. The Sun Belt conference is another option, but I doubt if they want a whole bunch of new teams jumping into their conference.

What's left? FCS teams coming together to form a new league. If the NCAA doesn't allow that, then they may have a thing against aspiring FBS teams. lol.

The only existing FBS leagues that are even a remote possibility are the MAC, Sunbelt & C-USA. Since none of those in their present form make sense, that is why the discussion has been so strong about the possibility of a new league (or splinter off C-USA) involving the stronger FCS schools. IMHO that is the most likely scenario to carry us up to the next level. But I'd be lying if I thought any scenario were likely in the next couple of years ... possible ... but not likely.

BTW its been a long time Blessed1. Good to have you back posting.