As promised, a quick Q and A as I clean out my email during the last quiet week of the basketball season.
I got a couple of questions I've been asked about URI joining the NEC in football beginning in 2013. I'll paraphrase the questions in the interest of time and space.
Q: Can this be the start of a bigger raid by the NEC of the likes of Maine and UNH?
A: I don't see this as the start of a raid per se, but I've been saying for a year (maybe more) now that the CAA as presently constituted won't last. The travel budgets are growing as the economy shrinks, which doesn't make sense. And as northern teams pull out of the football league, it makes less and less sense for the teams that haven't jumped yet to stay.
I can see those teams joining together to form some kind of northern league or, sadly, dropping the sport like NU and Hofstra have done of late. If enough of these teams can't find people to play, it might make more sense to drop the sport.
It's been a while since I've seen URI play so I'll have to research it this summer, but my first instinct is to worry that the Rams will dominate the league. If that happens, I'm not sure how long the marriage lasts.
Q: Could this lead the NEC to go full scholarship?
A: The conventional wisdom out there has been that URI is doing this in part to have an excuse to have fewer scholarships. But I'm not sure it's a permanent move. The NEC has worked hard on increasing its scholarship numbers, however, and I feel that at the very least they'll meet in the middle. The NEC clearly wants to become credible in football, so I can't see it trying to limit growth. Of course URI will have to come down on its number to meet the NEC teams, but I think they're all going back up eventually.
Q: Do I think Stony Brook will come back to the NEC in football?
A: We live in an era where conferences are just groups of teams with no logic to be applied (see TCU to the Big East) but that model doesn't seem sustainable at the lower levels. Stony Brook in the Big South makes less than no sense. The NEC getting a bid to the FCS tournament was a game-changer, and if the NEC can keep attracting bigger name teams like URI, then Stony Brook might want back in. I can't speak to the terms on which they left in the boardroom, but I have learned over the years that money trumps feelings in college athletics, so I wouldn't rule anything out. My only thought is this: How many is too many teams? URI would be 10 (Bryant will be in by then) and you don't want to play anymore league games than that.
The only other option would be to boot the western teams like SFPA (PURE SPECULATION ON MY PART) if you intend on trying to add another couple of teams from around here. But I don't see that happening. I think, in the end, URI is THE move, not the start of many moves.
I got a couple of questions I've been asked about URI joining the NEC in football beginning in 2013. I'll paraphrase the questions in the interest of time and space.
Q: Can this be the start of a bigger raid by the NEC of the likes of Maine and UNH?
A: I don't see this as the start of a raid per se, but I've been saying for a year (maybe more) now that the CAA as presently constituted won't last. The travel budgets are growing as the economy shrinks, which doesn't make sense. And as northern teams pull out of the football league, it makes less and less sense for the teams that haven't jumped yet to stay.
I can see those teams joining together to form some kind of northern league or, sadly, dropping the sport like NU and Hofstra have done of late. If enough of these teams can't find people to play, it might make more sense to drop the sport.
It's been a while since I've seen URI play so I'll have to research it this summer, but my first instinct is to worry that the Rams will dominate the league. If that happens, I'm not sure how long the marriage lasts.
Q: Could this lead the NEC to go full scholarship?
A: The conventional wisdom out there has been that URI is doing this in part to have an excuse to have fewer scholarships. But I'm not sure it's a permanent move. The NEC has worked hard on increasing its scholarship numbers, however, and I feel that at the very least they'll meet in the middle. The NEC clearly wants to become credible in football, so I can't see it trying to limit growth. Of course URI will have to come down on its number to meet the NEC teams, but I think they're all going back up eventually.
Q: Do I think Stony Brook will come back to the NEC in football?
A: We live in an era where conferences are just groups of teams with no logic to be applied (see TCU to the Big East) but that model doesn't seem sustainable at the lower levels. Stony Brook in the Big South makes less than no sense. The NEC getting a bid to the FCS tournament was a game-changer, and if the NEC can keep attracting bigger name teams like URI, then Stony Brook might want back in. I can't speak to the terms on which they left in the boardroom, but I have learned over the years that money trumps feelings in college athletics, so I wouldn't rule anything out. My only thought is this: How many is too many teams? URI would be 10 (Bryant will be in by then) and you don't want to play anymore league games than that.
The only other option would be to boot the western teams like SFPA (PURE SPECULATION ON MY PART) if you intend on trying to add another couple of teams from around here. But I don't see that happening. I think, in the end, URI is THE move, not the start of many moves.
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