Hopefully they will bring it back I hope all schools that use to have a football program bring it back whether it is in the NCAA or NAIA Division 1-A or 2. football is great its god favorite sport just ask him.

_________________
The Bear may be dead but he still hates Tennessee. Roll Damn Tide

E.Tenn.St.'s "recision" out of the SoCon is going to create minor realignment ripples in NCAA basketball and 1AA football.

The SoCon needs a football school (with all sports).
My bet is on one of the Big South schools coming up because this is a step up for these schools. This makes it increasingly difficult for the Big South to build its football conference because the schools keep leaving to "greener" pastures.

Gardner Webb looks like obvious choice because its a school split between Big South football and A-Sun all sports. I don't see Liberty because they would be way north for the SoCon. VMI just left to be closer to Va. schools. Second choices are the So.Carolina schools of Coastal Car. and CharlestonSo.

If Gardner Webb does join that will be 5 schools the A-Sun could be losing this past couple of years.
Samford and Jax St. to the Ohio Valley
Troy St. to the BELT
UCF to C-USA (if they are smart ;))
and maybe now Gardner-Webb to SoCon.

(They have picked up one in Lipscomb, which is BTW also in the state of Tenn. and this makes the A-Sun a good home for E.Tenn.St. They could be yearly favorite dominators in basketball in this conference!)

Although these spots could get filled by independant "new" D-1 basketball schools such as Savannah State.
More spots at the NCAA basketball party table! :D

8-)

excellent analysis daddywags. i agree with you and it looks as if, at least right now, that gardner webb will get the call up. that angers alot of the bigger public socon schools such as app. state and georgia southern who see this as diluting the conferences talent level. do you think that this dispute could cause a major effect in the i-aa level?

The turnover rate in the Arlantic Sun nee Trans America Athletic Conference is almost as bad, if not worse, historically, than that of the On-Continent Conference (I mean Mid-Continent Conference). It started off as a bunch of schools centered around Arkansas, Louisiana, and Texas, with a few more eastern outposts in Mercer and Samford. Now it is primarily based in Florida and Georgia, with North Carolina and Tennessee schools here and there. Does anyone know if Longwood (VA) will be fielding a D-I football team (or if they currently have a football program)? Also, what is the future status of Morris Brown for D-I athletics or athletics at all?

Morris Brown lost academic accreditation. That is the academic equivalent of the death penalty. :'(

They have bigger issues than D-I athletics right now. Couple that with the fact that they came up expecting an invite from one of the HBC conferences (can't remember if it was SWAC or MEAC), and they didn't get it. They were a floundering fish BEFORE they lost accreditation, what are they now...dead fish. :-[

Nice call on the Leftover Conference (I mean Mid-Continent ;D)
8-)

Yeah, what I heard is that former SWAC comissioner Rudy Washington (former head basketball coach at Drake and head of BCA) led Morris Brown to believe that if they went D-I, the SWAC invite would soon follow. Obviously the SWAC never extended such an invitation and MBC was "stuck." Similar circumstances for fellow Georgia HBCU Savannah State, except for the fact they were the ones assuming they would get a MEAC invitation despite any real expressed interest by that conference...

Out of respect towards the Mid-Con, let me state that its first decade or so was a fairly stable one...however, the only members still remaining in MCC from the AMCU (Association of Mid-Continent Universities) are Valparaiso (still don't know how they are not in the Horizon League yet) and Western Illinois (I-AA football power). In the late 80s/early 90s, the AMCU made big noise in the NCAAs, with Cleveland State making a Sweet 16 run (1986, as a 14 seed), Southwest Missouri State upending Clemson (1987 as a 13 seed), and Northern Iowa taking down Missouri (1990, as a 14 seed; incidentally enough, Northern Iowa was Mizzou coach Norm Stewart's alma mater).

First, the Missouri Valley Conference upgraded two of its Gateway Football Conference members (Northern Iowa and Southwest Missouri State) to full MVC membership. After that, a decimated Midwest Collegiate Conference (now Horizon), down to three members (Butler, Detroit Mercy, Loyola), raided the Mid-Con of its core membership (Cleveland State, Illinois-Chicago, Wisconsin-Green Bay, Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Wright State). After that the Mid-Con merged with a reborn East Coast Conference (members included Buffalo, Central Connecticut State, Chicago State, Northeastern Illinois, Troy State). Note that all of the ECC teams (with the exception of Chicago State) have since departed and that other defections (Eastern Illinois to Ohio Valley, Youngstown State to Horizon) have forced the Mid-Con to expand its frontiers in order to retain an automatic NCAA bid. The Mid-Con laid down a template that has been since copied by a Sun Belt Conference trying to establish a foothold in I-A football. Don't be surprised if Mid-Con tries to land D-II upgrades in the Dakotas and split into more managable (relatively speaking) divisions.

Morris Brown Athletics is dead and Longwood does not have and will not have a football program.

_________________
The Bear may be dead but he still hates Tennessee. Roll Damn Tide

Everyone talks about the new SoCon image, but I am not sure if that is going to be how it is going to be. I think the Southern wants an exact balance between the private-like schools (Furman, Wofford, Davidson, Elon, Citadel) and the public schools (UTC, GSU, WCU, App, CoC, UNCG).

Everyone is touting Gardner-Webb as the #1 pick here. However, after reading many newspaper articles, it would seem that the presidents of App, Elon, Davidson, Furman and Wofford are hard core against this. Not only does Gardner-Webb have recent NCAA scandals, but their facilities are really bad.

What I have heard from both realiable sources and from newspaper articles are that the following schools are either interested or the SoCon is showing interest:
Eastern Kentucky (OVC) public schools want them
Samford (OVC) apparently showing interest
Hampton (MEAC) has applied
NC A&T (MEAC) apparently showing interest
William & MaRY (CAA) Some schools want them
Gardner-Webb (ASun) showing interest, though the conference is not interested
Coastal Carolina (Big South) showing interest and the conference is showing interest in them.

I sort of think the conference will wait for A) to see if UTC goes to the OVC and CoC goes to the CAA, B) see what happens with I-A fallout, C) try to appease the publics and the privates at the same time by either taking a medium public school (Coastal or NC A&T) or a larger private school (Hampton).

the caa really wants charleston, but the holdup is for a football member, preferably in the northeastern region, to accompany them. last march, northeastern u and coc were almost invited, but too many schools were against northeastern and they didnt want 11 teams. the caa wants to start a division 1-aa football conference and needs one more to have the necessary 6.

Pub you need to History of conferences on here that would be a good subject

_________________
The Bear may be dead but he still hates Tennessee. Roll Damn Tide

That's something I have alot of interest in seeing happen. If anyone is interested in taking part in such a project, let me know.

Basically, we would seperate all the D1 schools, based on their present conferences, into groups that each interested individual would research. There would be some crossover, but it would still limit the amount of work that any 1 person needs to do.

What would have to be done? Simply figure out the history of a conference. It might mean checking a few online resources (there is a decent 1A football histroy link on th elinks page here) but it might also mean visiting a few message boards for the applicable schools, and ask those fans for some info.

What would you get in return? You'd get to show the other posters on the board here that you know your stuff. But you'd also be able to get a "Research
Associate" credit from CollegeSportsInfo.com should that be of any assistance in any aspiring professional life.

I'll copy/paste this message into an PM next week to guage interest. But feel free to email me at email@collegesportsinfo.com if you are interested, and I can start breaking down the conferences into smaller groups.

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I would love to part of the research. This is one of the most interesting subjects of college football. I hope others would Participate. So count me in. BTW which thread would we start it on or do you create a new thread just for it.

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The Bear may be dead but he still hates Tennessee. Roll Damn Tide

Yeah,

I am interested in the research too:
oldhamca@yahoo.com if you need me.

Publius, Blackgold and friend of ncaa do you all wish to join on this escapade too. Thanks go phoenix kingcal said he will send out an e-mail to know how and when we start.

_________________
The Bear may be dead but he still hates Tennessee. Roll Damn Tide

here is a link to an article about etsu to the a-sun.http://www.ajc.com/sports/content/sports/0903/11etsu.html