ESPN's Andy Katz is reporting that College of Charleston will be announcing that they have accepted a CAA invitation today. This would give the once 12 member league 10 members and C of C will be the southernmost member of a conference that extends north all the way to Boston. I am not going to discuss the impact this move will have on the Cougar's program because frankly I don't care. What I am more focused on is what it means for the CAA and SoCon and the rest of the conferences in the region that will feel the shock waves of this long awaited announcement.
Since Davidson and Appalachian St have rebuffed the CAA's advances I think what this means for the CAA is that they will be staying at 10 members and play double round robin schedules. Its going to mean a great deal of travel for members of this league but hopefully they can work out a plan for travel partners to ease that burden.
If CAA's full-time membership is indeed capped at 10 it means that the football conference will have 11 members. 11 can work for a football league--the Big Ten did it for twenty years--but what I think we are going to see is NEC member Central Connecticut St, the lone state school in a private school league, get an invitation to join the now 8 member America East and that the Blue Devils football team will become the 12th member of the CAA football conference with their new conference mates Albany, Stony Brook, New Hampshire, and Maine. The other New England member of CAA football, Rhode Island, will be the 6th member of the CAA's North Division for that sport. I think its a match made in heaven, pardon the pun blue devils.
Should Central Connecticut St depart the NEC for AmEast it creates an interesting imbalance between the 3 confererences in the region. AmEast would be at 9 members, a number they once rested at but in basketball 10 is ideal, particularly when it comes to creating travel partners. The NEC would be at 11 full members only 6 of whom play football (they also have Duquesne as a football affiliate so the fb league would be at 7) leaving that league in a somewhat weakened state particularly since Robert Morris, a football playing member has been flirting with the Horizon League. The MAAC, which consists entirely of private schools is sitting at 9 members right now because Loyola darted for the Patriot League. Will the more elite AmEast and MAAC try to return to the magic number of 10, thus leaving the NEC weakened and in need of a transfusion of DII teams to stay cogent?
As for the status of the SoCon and southern sports I think it ultimately depends on how the SoCon approaches its future. Since football drives the bus and there is the everpresent chance that league standard barers Appalachian St and Georgia Southern have FBS aspirations do they add a school with a football program? The best programs out there with football programs are public schools Coastal Carolina and Jacksonville St. However the private schools hold a great deal of sway in this league and they could be targeting a private school with less than stellar football because they want a better institutional fit. The SoCon could also preserve the delicate 9/12 fb/bb hybrid model and target a southern school without roundball in order to refill their ranks.
If Jacksonville St is picked to go to the SoCon then the fallout is minimal---the OVC replaces them with DII powerhouse North Alabama and while DII is left reeling DI is relatively unchanged. if Coastal Carolina goes then the Big South is left with 11 members, only 5 of whom play football. The league might have to consider merging with an also depleted NEC or restructure their football conference to include the plethora of southern schools who play non-scholarship football and/or are starting up programs. Davidson, Campbell, Mercer, Kennesaw St, Jacksonville, and Stetson could come in as a block and keep Big South football alive.
The conferences that will be hit the hardest will be the so called "Gateway Conferences" at the bottom of the pecking order who are the ones who will be forced to look to DII for new blood because as the conferences above them raid each other the impact trickles down to them. In the north it means the NEC will be left hurting--unless they are able to use the one trump card they hold--football sponsorship--to their advantage. While Big South football may become a causality (or at minimum the walking wounded) of this expansion round I think the A-Sun will be hurt more because the Big South can use football to lure away their membership which includes 4 schools who play or will soon be playing that sport.
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