CUSA will not do anything until the end of basketball season, there is no rush.UMass'96 wrote: ↑Wed Dec 15, 2021 12:36 pmWasn't there supposed to be an early December announcement? Something about you had friends in the know and that UMass was going to be made an affiliate member of the NFL, with plans to re-establish NFL Europe and UMass as the crown jewel after playing a transition year in the Canadian football league? Or, am I confusing the grand dios plans here?stevemaz wrote: ↑Wed Dec 15, 2021 5:33 am Thinking about Conference USA as an all sports move..maybe they expand to 14 with a raid of the A10
Current (9): NM St, UTEP, Sam Houston, La Tech, Jax St, FIU, M Tenn, W Kent, and Liberty
Add: UMass all sports
Add: Saint Louis, Dayton, VCU, Rhode Island
Future targets: Temple, Marshall, Buffalo, Old Dom, James Mad, and then Army, Navy, UConn (FB only)
Changing gears from the quote a bit.
On very little sleep but will address some things and personal ideas to make MAC all sports happen with some comments.
Number one UMass continues to invest in Football. Raising the salary for our new head coach, which we are all excited with the assistants and recruiting. The salary pool has increased by 500k. You all know the move to FBS and then independence jig has been met with poor results. Despite this donations to the Gridiron Club continue to rise and currently over 1 Million and the current fund raiser ends at midnight with the current balance $1,005,460. Yes chicken feed to established programs but really good for us. The Tulane game should be exciting to open the season.
Fund raiser link
Wtf good is the A10 conference has the basketball team shown no rewards for the sacrifice of the football program and other sports. The advantage of being in the A10 for an at-large bid has only played out once in over 20 years in the peak year of A10 bids, 2014.
The A10 has 7 teams in the top 100 at last check, but the issue is with the lack in the Top 40 and being a 2 bid league. The last time the A10 had 3 bids was in 2018 and NONE of the teams advanced to the round of 32, while the last few years the MAC team has advanced.
The point being there's a threshold of strength that applies for a conference receiving more at-large bids and believe being a 3 bid conference is the border of that threshold. The MAC is not a bad conference, yearly seems to have a few strong teams and has some good basketball. Get it is not near the level of the A10. The A10 is dropping below that threshold, which believe helps with at-large bids. It's up to UMass to perform and not as important if we are in the A10 or the MAC.
Here is a thought that is slanted for a UMass basketball zealot. Remember a long time ago when Temple ruled the A10. Then UMass rose, challenged and surpassed Temple rising the rest of the conference.
The same thing can happen if we move to the MAC with Buffalo, Ohio etc. Well the gap may still exist between the MAC and A10, with WKU and UMass the gap will get smaller. If the Big East raids the A10 again even smaller and less likely the A10 will return to a regularly being at that 3 bid threshold.
As far as rivals, we only have 1 in the A10, URI. Thorr Bjorn is URI AD, a former UMass football player and acting AD. Believe we will always play URI no matter where we are. Ohio is almost a mirror of UMass, good university with a history of good basketball and football. Both land grant universities overshadowed by an instate University in a hilly non urban location. Buffalo is AAU and an academic peer also good in both main sports.
The point here is that if two teams are in a battling to be the top dog in the conference, a natural rivalry forms as one did with Temple.
A10 has and will be adding another Midwest university and the MAC is almost all there. Would have to adjust OOC scheduling for games up and down the eastern seaboard for our alumni, recruiting and fans with some local games. The local games will help offset losing regularly playing URI and Fordham and with the overall average of 2 extra hours in travel time. The A10 is not a bus league stretching from St. Louis, new Loyola Chicago, to 3 teams, Davidson, Richmond, and VCU in North Carolina or near it's border etc.
Once UMass exhausts its football only bid, will see if leadership statements are sincere for finding a football home, MAC all sports. The possibility of pairing with Western Kentucky is very excited for this guy as would help make it more reasonable to our leadership.