[Cider Jim]

It'd be easy to find a mascot for the league ...

Sly, I don't know what that is, but it looks like most of the people who live in Morgantown.

[jbock13]

It'd be easy to find a mascot for the league ...

Sly, I don't know what that is, but it looks like most of the people who live in Morgantown.

Watch it!

[flamesfilmguy]

I threw that in there for my own benefit. But I appreciate you catching that aspect. The Christmas lights along the Riverwalk would be a great time for a WAC Championship Game in the Alamo City.



Frankly I believe the WAC may be desperate enough to agree to this type of scheme. And if it were a football only deal it would make a great deal of sense for just about everyone involved.

I can't wait to visit there in october next year. never been to texas and I get Houston and San Antonio in the same semester.

[jbock13]

Ah, San Antonio, the fattest city in America. Great town, not so great women.

Texas women....

[bravo269er]

I'm curious why so many people want LU to move to the CAA. I know its a powerhouse conference, but if you dominate the Big South and can get the automatic bid to the playoffs does it really matter? You can always schedule tough non conference opponents at the FCS and FBS level. It just doesn't seem like a upgrade if a move to FBS is the ultimate goal. I'd rather see LU play lower tier FBS teams like they did this year with Ball State so you can consistently guage where you at in relation to other small FBS teams.

[Stevev]

The main reason for jumping over to the CAA is to help our recruiting locally. It is improving but this would help it even more.

[PAmedic]

not to mention:

CAA: multiple bids, (incl auto-bid) good team(s) with a conf loss or 2 still get in

BSC: (1) auto-bid, no chance even a good team with just one conf loss makes it in.

*NOT that I'm a proponent of going to the CAA, just a point as to why it would be better than where we're at

[jbock13]

Not only that, but you can be almost .500 in the CAA and still make the playoffs. Or, you could be like Georgia Southern, South Carolina State, and Western Illinois, who had no business even being in the playoffs except for being who they are.

[ToTheLeft]

Please, just stop.

Multiple issues with this train of thought.

1. Who's to say we'd be .500 or better in the CAA? We've lost to JMU and William and Mary recently, and CCU lost to Towson, then CCU beat us. There's nothing to say we belong as a competitor in that conference.

2. WIU and GSU did worlds more than we did last season. We beat an FBS team and a ton of cupcakes, and lost to some questionable opponents. Don't revise history to make your point, we didn't belong in over GSU (who beat APP) or WIU (second place in the MVFC). And no one put WIU in for "being who they are", since they're really a surprise team and no one could have expected them to do as well as they did.

3. .500 has nothing to do with it, anyways, it's 7 DI wins. Which means we'd have to win all our games OOC (something we've not done in recent memory) and then win 4-5 games in conference (so if we play Towson and Rhody, those are 2 less challenging games... although either could beat us at this point, and then we'd need 2-3 more wins from the good teams in the CAA, something we've yet to prove we can do.

Steve makes the best point. A move to the CAA helps recruiting. Recruiting would then help us compete in the CAA. But to think because we're a top 25 team now that we could hop into the CAA and take one of their "many playoff spots" that are apparently just up for grabs for any old team to take... just can't see it. Maybe if we'd beaten a CAA team since Rocco has been here, I'd be more willing to hear that kind of an argument. JMU hasn't made the playoffs the last two years, and we lost to them both years. We wouldn't make the playoffs in the CAA, and I'd say we wouldn't even have a winning record.

[RVAparks]

BuryYourDuke,

I'm trying to write you back but when I click on "Compose Message" all it says is No Messages. I don't know if I don't have privileges or something.

[Sly Fox]

You have to post a certain number of times before you are allowed to send PMs as part of our effort to control spammers. We know you are not a spambot but that is the system we have in place.

[RVAparks]

Just saw that Fox, thanks!

Sorry if this has been already discussed before. But what about Conference USA if UCF leaves, wouldn't that be an appealing spot and make a whole lot more sense than the WAC? for a number of reasons? They already have some "religious" schools and would need to stay at 12 for their championship game.

Or what about the Sun Belt, they only have 9 football schools? 3 of which got into bowls. This would seem to make more sense geographically also.

[Sly Fox]

Everything has been discussed on here but with the constant state of change regarding realignment there is merit in bringing these discussions back to the table.

I think most everyone agrees that the C-USA would be our best case scenario in the short term. It is much more appealing than the MAC, WAC or Sunbelt. Although an invitation from any of the latter three would likely be welcomed with open arms.

[jbock13]

Please, just stop.

Multiple issues with this train of thought.

1. Who's to say we'd be .500 or better in the CAA? We've lost to JMU and William and Mary recently, and CCU lost to Towson, then CCU beat us. There's nothing to say we belong as a competitor in that conference.

2. WIU and GSU did worlds more than we did last season. We beat an FBS team and a ton of cupcakes, and lost to some questionable opponents. Don't revise history to make your point, we didn't belong in over GSU (who beat APP) or WIU (second place in the MVFC). And no one put WIU in for "being who they are", since they're really a surprise team and no one could have expected them to do as well as they did.

3. .500 has nothing to do with it, anyways, it's 7 DI wins. Which means we'd have to win all our games OOC (something we've not done in recent memory) and then win 4-5 games in conference (so if we play Towson and Rhody, those are 2 less challenging games... although either could beat us at this point, and then we'd need 2-3 more wins from the good teams in the CAA, something we've yet to prove we can do.

Steve makes the best point. A move to the CAA helps recruiting. Recruiting would then help us compete in the CAA. But to think because we're a top 25 team now that we could hop into the CAA and take one of their "many playoff spots" that are apparently just up for grabs for any old team to take... just can't see it. Maybe if we'd beaten a CAA team since Rocco has been here, I'd be more willing to hear that kind of an argument. JMU hasn't made the playoffs the last two years, and we lost to them both years. We wouldn't make the playoffs in the CAA, and I'd say we wouldn't even have a winning record.

For one thing, GSU lost to samford at home. That's like us losing to chuck south, and still making the playoffs. The only reason they got in was that they beat appy state. They were barely even ranked. However I will say your point number 3 is a good point. This is where I think in regards to moving to CAA.

[ToTheLeft]

Please, just stop.

Multiple issues with this train of thought.

1. Who's to say we'd be .500 or better in the CAA? We've lost to JMU and William and Mary recently, and CCU lost to Towson, then CCU beat us. There's nothing to say we belong as a competitor in that conference.

2. WIU and GSU did worlds more than we did last season. We beat an FBS team and a ton of cupcakes, and lost to some questionable opponents. Don't revise history to make your point, we didn't belong in over GSU (who beat APP) or WIU (second place in the MVFC). And no one put WIU in for "being who they are", since they're really a surprise team and no one could have expected them to do as well as they did.

3. .500 has nothing to do with it, anyways, it's 7 DI wins. Which means we'd have to win all our games OOC (something we've not done in recent memory) and then win 4-5 games in conference (so if we play Towson and Rhody, those are 2 less challenging games... although either could beat us at this point, and then we'd need 2-3 more wins from the good teams in the CAA, something we've yet to prove we can do.

Steve makes the best point. A move to the CAA helps recruiting. Recruiting would then help us compete in the CAA. But to think because we're a top 25 team now that we could hop into the CAA and take one of their "many playoff spots" that are apparently just up for grabs for any old team to take... just can't see it. Maybe if we'd beaten a CAA team since Rocco has been here, I'd be more willing to hear that kind of an argument. JMU hasn't made the playoffs the last two years, and we lost to them both years. We wouldn't make the playoffs in the CAA, and I'd say we wouldn't even have a winning record.

For one thing, GSU lost to samford at home. That's like us losing to chuck south, and still making the playoffs. The only reason they got in was that they beat appy state. They were barely even ranked. However I will say your point number 3 is a good point. This is where I think in regards to moving to CAA.

Samford is nothing like Chuck South. At all. GSU BEAT APP. Which is nothing like anything we did. We had nothing even close to a win against App. Had we beat JMU, we'd have had something kinda close to a win against App, and we would have been in the playoffs.

Beating the number 1 overall seed, finishing in the top half of a good conference, beating another playoff team (Coastal), competing with Navy, all more than SCSU, or Liberty, could say they did. GSU didn't get in on name alone. "Rankings" don't matter to the committee, they rank teams their own way. GSU did a lot more than most of the bubble teams did, and they belonged in.

[LUGrad2000]

When all of the realigning goes down, it is going to be like a game of musical chairs. I am confident that Barber will have us positioned at the eddge of our seats and ready to pounce on the best FBS seat available. In the meantime, CAA would be a great step for us.

[logic]

I am impatient, cannot come soon enough.

[jbock13]

Let's join the Ivy Leauge!

[Sly Fox]

No scholarships and no access to either bowl system or the playoffs. They're beneath us.

[Cider Jim]

I'd love playing the Ivy schools in Quiz Bowl.

[Purple Haize]

Let's join the Ivy Leauge!

Then we would probably have to have admission standards!! (Did I just type that out loud?) Never mind, nothing to see here

[jbock13]

While the CAA is our ultimate goal, I wouldn't mind joining the SoCon either. Geographically we fit, plus we would play better competition.

[olldflame]

Discussions of the possibility of LU joining the Southern conference go way back to the days when we were transitioning into D1 and they were the best 1AA football conference out there. Back then there was as much or more philosophical opposition from the old school SoCon administors as there has been more recently from some of the CAA guys.

I have no idea if they are open to it now, but IMHO it would be a viable second option for us, although not now as attractive as the CAA. At this point, any FCS conference LU were to move to would be with the idea of going from there directly to a FBS league. No way we would want to go through 2 steps to get there.

[Sly Fox]

As Olldflame references, when we turned DI we put on a fullcourt press to join the SoCon. We even went as far as to produce a weekly Southern Conference TV show hosted by Mike Tilley to try and sway the SoCon presidents. But it was the supposedly Christian schools in the league that put up the greatest opposition (and the same schools today who would likely fight our entry). They didn't want to have any connection to Jerry Falwell under any circumstances. They didn't give us serious consideration then and frankly they have little to offer to us us now. Outside of football, what advantage does the SoCon offer us over the Big South. They are not significantly greater than the Big South in just about any other sport ... although mens hoops is clearly better. In every sport we have any easier path to an at-large where we are.

Now picture the SoCon after the Appy & Georgia Southern head to the FBS. If we were to somehow get left out of the shuffle when the move ups occur by not getting a conference invitation, would the SoCon be an upgrade over the Big South? I would argue that it wouldn't be even in football.

That's why it is CAA or FBS conference IMHO. If we were to be left out of the FBS move-up at least the CAA would be a better landing spot. There's a good chance VMI would also be invited into the depleted CAA and we would still have a better regional rivalries with W&M as well as UR in football as well as GMU & VCU in everything else. All that said, if the CAA isn't sponsoring FBS football (our favorite scenario) then I am all about any FBS option.

[jbock13]

Discussions of the possibility of LU joining the Southern conference go way back to the days when we were transitioning into D1 and they were the best 1AA football conference out there. Back then there was as much or more philosophical opposition from the old school SoCon administors as there has been more recently from some of the CAA guys.

I have no idea if they are open to it now, but IMHO it would be a viable second option for us, although not now as attractive as the CAA. At this point, any FCS conference LU were to move to would be with the idea of going from there directly to a FBS league. No way we would want to go through 2 steps to get there.

This is how I feel as well.