Chicago State....football?

[ST_Lawson]

Chicago State to the OVC?   Absolutely unequivocally NO, a hundred times over no.

 

The only possible "yes" (for me) would be if the Big South left for...idk...the CAA or UAC or something and TN State leaves for a HBCU league and we have no other reasonable prospects and it's either dissolve the league or allow CSU in.

Personally, I'd much prefer the OVC do something like invite Indiana State and Youngstown State as football-only associate members (honestly, I'd prefer they just do that now and drop the Big South partnership).

EDIT - to reiterate my "dream scenario"...Dakota schools finally figure out their "Summit League Football" thing. YSU joins the CAA for football. The remaining members of the MVFC (the MVC teams, essentially) join the OVC as football-only affiliates and we cancel the Big South deal. MVC gets to stay together as the MVC for non-football sports.
OVC football looks like this: Eastern Illinois, Illinois State, Indiana State, Lindenwood, Murray State, Northern Iowa, Southeast Missouri, Southern Illinois, TN State, TN Tech, UT Martin, WIU.
12 teams, everyone plays 8 of them per season, maybe two protected matchups every year (ILSU and EIU, ILSU and WIU, WIU and EIU, SIU and SEMO, etc.) and the rest rotate.

[Western_101]

Chicago State to the OVC?   Absolutely unequivocally NO, a hundred times over no.


 

The only possible "yes" (for me) would be if the Big South left for...idk...the CAA or UAC or something and TN State leaves for a HBCU league and we have no other reasonable prospects and it's either dissolve the league or allow CSU in.

Personally, I'd much prefer the OVC do something like invite Indiana State and Youngstown State as football-only associate members (honestly, I'd prefer they just do that now and drop the Big South partnership).

EDIT - to reiterate my "dream scenario"...Dakota schools finally figure out their "Summit League Football" thing. YSU joins the CAA for football. The remaining members of the MVFC (the MVC teams, essentially) join the OVC as football-only affiliates and we cancel the Big South deal. MVC gets to stay together as the MVC for non-football sports.
OVC football looks like this: Eastern Illinois, Illinois State, Indiana State, Lindenwood, Murray State, Northern Iowa, Southeast Missouri, Southern Illinois, TN State, TN Tech, UT Martin, WIU.
12 teams, everyone plays 8 of them per season, maybe two protected matchups every year (ILSU and EIU, ILSU and WIU, WIU and EIU, SIU and SEMO, etc.) and the rest rotate.

 

I agree with you ST_L. I agree with the league you proposed.  I can't really see Illinois St or UNI getting onboard. I would be happy to drop G-W and Chuck S. and get Austin Peay back in the fold and add Indiana State as a football associate. Also, maybe get Murray State back as a football only, they are getting their brains beat in (as everyone knew they would) trying to compete in the MVFC.

[ST_Lawson]

I agree with you ST_L. I agree with the league you proposed.  I can't really see Illinois St or UNI getting onboard. I would be happy to drop G-W and Chuck S. and get Austin Peay back in the fold and add Indiana State as a football associate. Also, maybe get Murray State back as a football only, they are getting their brains beat in (as everyone knew they would) trying to compete in the MVFC.

 

I'm ok with that too (Indiana State, Austin Peay, and Murray State), but with ILSU and UNI, I was thinking that if they do Summit League football, the non-Summit teams would be off on their own, but minus the Dakotas, there's only 6 of them (ILSU, INSU, Murray, UNI, SIU, YSU) which is not enough for a football conference. They'd need to join up with someone or add a few teams. Since there's plenty of history between many of the old Gateway teams and the OVC teams (ILSU, EIU, and WIU; SIU and SEMO), that would make sense to form some sort of partnership.

[Western_101]

I agree with you ST_L. I agree with the league you proposed.  I can't really see Illinois St or UNI getting onboard. I would be happy to drop G-W and Chuck S. and get Austin Peay back in the fold and add Indiana State as a football associate. Also, maybe get Murray State back as a football only, they are getting their brains beat in (as everyone knew they would) trying to compete in the MVFC.


 

I'm ok with that too (Indiana State, Austin Peay, and Murray State), but with ILSU and UNI, I was thinking that if they do Summit League football, the non-Summit teams would be off on their own, but minus the Dakotas, there's only 6 of them (ILSU, INSU, Murray, UNI, SIU, YSU) which is not enough for a football conference. They'd need to join up with someone or add a few teams. Since there's plenty of history between many of the old Gateway teams and the OVC teams (ILSU, EIU, and WIU; SIU and SEMO), that would make sense to form some sort of partnership.

 

Ahhh yes Mr. Lawson. Good observation about the Dakotas doing their own thing (Maybe they add N.Colorado, Montana, Montana St, St. Thomas?).

I think the UNI situation is interesting. I think UNI is tired of continuing to lose to the Dakota schools and would probably love to wave a wand and recreate the old Gateway. ISU has to come to terms with reality. Are they better than the OVC programs? yeah, but where to go? No invite from a rather unattractive MAC seems forthcoming and no invite from the jumbled up mess of move-ups that is the C-USA.

Youngstown, MAC doesn't want 'em. NEC not competitive enough for the Penguins. Youngstown doesn't have the pedigree/academics for the privates of the Patriot. CAA doesn't need the bother of the travel they have plenty of members and YSU is not a "Marquee Brand".

So that might leave the OVC for YSU. Not unprecedented as Youngstown spent the 1980's in the OVC.

OVC was on life-support a couple years back, but who knows, If like Lawson says the Dakotas want to run their own league there are six teams that have some decisions to make. Who knows maybe if Coach Davis gets Leatherneck football turned around those six schools might look to Add WIU instead of looking to join the OVC. I know the OVC says it's all or nothing with sports and the MVC will not admit WIU for Olympic sports. 



 

[ST_Lawson]

Ahhh yes Mr. Lawson. Good observation about the Dakotas doing their own thing (Maybe they add N.Colorado, Montana, Montana St, St. Thomas?).

I think the UNI situation is interesting. I think UNI is tired of continuing to lose to the Dakota schools and would probably love to wave a wand and recreate the old Gateway. ISU has to come to terms with reality. Are they better than the OVC programs? yeah, but where to go? No invite from a rather unattractive MAC seems forthcoming and no invite from the jumbled up mess of move-ups that is the C-USA.

Youngstown, MAC doesn't want 'em. NEC not competitive enough for the Penguins. Youngstown doesn't have the pedigree/academics for the privates of the Patriot. CAA doesn't need the bother of the travel they have plenty of members and YSU is not a "Marquee Brand".

So that might leave the OVC for YSU. Not unprecedented as Youngstown spent the 1980's in the OVC.

OVC was on life-support a couple years back, but who knows, If like Lawson says the Dakotas want to run their own league there are six teams that have some decisions to make. Who knows maybe if Coach Davis gets Leatherneck football turned around those six schools might look to Add WIU instead of looking to join the OVC. I know the OVC says it's all or nothing with sports and the MVC will not admit WIU for Olympic sports. 

There's also been talk recently of the WAC falling apart (I haven't heard any updates since a few weeks ago), which sounded like it would start with Cal Baptist joining the WCC (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Coast_Conference) and would end with either the Texas WAC schools (UT Arlington and Tarleton State) or the Utah WAC schools (Utah Tech and Southern Utah...in this scenario, I think Utah Valley had other options) joining the Summit League. Tarleton State, Utah Tech, and SUU all have FCS football, so they could be possibilities for a Summit League Football.

While I think that the OVC really prioritizes teams that are in for all sports, I think they might be willing to make allowances for football-only members (as opposed to a situation like WIU where we might be in some kind of new Gateway for football and OVC for other sports). If the schools were on board with it, adding all the non-Summit League MVFC schools for football only would bring a great deal of stability to the conference. And they'd have to know that pretty much none of those schools are leaving the MVC without something like a FBS invite for their football team.

[ST_Lawson]

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