According to an article from the Watauga Democrat, Appalachian State Spokesman Mike Flynn said earlier today that:
“There are no new developments in Appalachian’s ongoing pursuit of a conference that sponsors FBS football,”
He could have said “no comment” but he said a little bit more than that. He basically said we’re not interested because they’re not FBS. I want to go FBS as much as anyone, but I hope they know something I don’t. We aren’t getting a C-USA invite unless we pick up our campus and physically move it. Whoever the C-USA does add, won’t be revealed for at least a year. We aren’t getting a Sun Belt invite, because they literally said they aren’t going to offer anyone else (unless they get raided again). And the WAC thing isn’t happening.
So where is this mythical FBS offer going to come from? The MAC? I doubt it. If Davidson, Charleston, Furman, and Elon do leave for the CAA, frankly, we would be stupid to stay put. We’ll be playing against powerhouses like Kennesaw State and Campbell before you know it. A 10-year moratorium banning FCS-FBS moves has been rumored for awhile. If we don’t get an invite before then, we’ll be stuck playing Western Carolina for 10 years when we could at least be playing Villanova or JMU.
The choice might not be between the CAA and FBS. The choice is probably between a stripped down SoCon or a reenergized CAA. Given those choices, do we still want to hang around here only to be left at the FBS altar?
There are risks either way. I think best case scenario is the status-quo. No one in the SoCon leaves and we stick it out for 1 to 10 years until we get an FBS invite. But if those teams leave and we don’t, it might just be time to hit the panic button.
The choice might not be between the CAA and FBS. The choice is probably between a stripped down SoCon or a reenergized CAA.
This is what it will likely boil down to. Do we want a SoCon that hast lost a good portion of its power players and stuck with pickups from the Big South and OVC? I sure would rather see App play JMU/UDel/Maine/NHU than WCU/Samford/GW/El Cid.
Also, I’d LOVE to see App in the FBS, but the media market is definitely to blame. The people who are calling for Peacock and CC’s head are being completely ridiculous. What App could bring to a conference competitively isn’t the concern of the FBS conferences. It’s our small Small SMALL media market.
I think the worst thing we could now is panic and jump for the CAA and end our pursuit of an FBS invite. I think next year at this time we will either be bound for the SBC or CUSA. Nothing is likely to happen within the next 6-9 months but I don’t believe either conference is done expanding. Travel costs, alumni support, and recruiting would all be, I believe, adversely affected by a move to the CAA.
Would it help if you started thinking of it as a safe move rather than as a panic move? It’s nice to think that an invite is going to come in 9-12 months. It’s also nice for me to think that I won’t be hospitalized in the next 9-12 months. I still pay for health insurance.
Joining the CAA won’t end FBS dreams. It just means that, if your prediction is accurate, App might participate in 3 conferences in 2 years. I’d imagine that there’d be just as much FBS discussion in either the Caa or socon.
There are less rosy future scenarios that most definitely would kill App’s FBS aspirations. And they all involve App rejecting the CAA and staying in the SmallCon.
To use a baseball analogy, it’s a sacrifice bunt and not a home run. But sometimes the circumstances call for a sacrifice bunt. Swinging hard for the fences and striking out would be a disaster.
or maybe…..just, maybe…..the people who are involved in this on a day to day basis know some shit we don’t know and they feel confident enough in an FBS invite that they would say that instead of “No Comment”.
Unlike many, I don’t think the people steering our ship are a bunch of Gilligans. Yeah, we don’t have an invite yet, but shit….this isn’t exactly an easy thing to come by for a school with our hand of cards. If it was clear to the them….CLEAR to the them that we were out of contention for CUSA or SB, we would jump at that CAA invite. (I’d love to be CAA….would be a great football schedule)
a JMU/APP series every year would be epic…come on over to the CAA, we’d love to have you guys.
I do believe a future with JMU as a yearly rival would be a good thing. I would hope it would be in an FBS capacity.
Best possible conferences to join in order (this is considering both benefits of the move to ASU and the likelihood of the conference being receptive to adding ASU):
Sunbelt, Sunbelt, Sunbelt, Sunbelt and Sunbelt.
I believe our admin will have a better feel for our CUSA chances by October or so. If things haven’t shown any movement in that direction, I believe we will become more serious in pursuit of the Sun Belt.