Leatherneck Nation

Hearing some rumors regarding ASun football that might impact our situation. Apparently Austin Peay (currently Ohio Valley) is planning on announcing soon (possibly as soon as Monday) that they will be moving to the ASun conference.
That would put the ASun at 6 FCS football playing members (and I've heard they plan on trying to bring in at least a couple more)
Austin Peay
Central Arkansas
Eastern Kentucky
Jacksonville State
Kennesaw State
North Alabama

They do also have Liberty (FBS Independent) and Stetson (Pioneer League), but neither of them are likely to move their football teams to the ASun at this point.

How does that impact us? Well, it means that in the last year, the Ohio Valley has lost Eastern Kentucky, Jacksonville State, and Austin Peay.
That puts the Ohio Valley at 6 FCS football playing members currently (Eastern Illinois, Murray State, SEMO, Tennessee State, Tennessee Tech, and UT Martin), which means they're going to be seriously looking at adding someone (or two). Both WIU and Indiana State (as football affiliate) have often been brought up as teams that could move to the OVC.

Stay tuned...
 

ASun also considering a few DII move-ups: Valdosta State (GA), West Georgia, Lincoln Memorial (TN), and Queens University (NC).
Kinda surprised they're not looking into West Florida (very good DII football team, ~13k students), but maybe they've already said they're not interested.

Austin Peay to the ASun is official.




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With a third football member leaving, OVC seeks new members.
From Prairie Sate Pigskin:
https://www.chicagonow.com/prairie-stat ... w-members/
 
 

Went ahead and renamed this thread from ASUN Football to FCS Conference Shuffling...seemed more appropriate considering...

It looks like Belmont is leaving the OVC to join the MVC.
https://www.extrapointsmb.com/conferenc ... lmont-ovc/

This doesn't have much to do with FCS football (since Belmont doesn't have football and the MVC is not a football-sponsoring conference), but it's another sign of teams leaving the OVC.
We are mentioned in one paragraph:

With the loss of Belmont, the OVC is down to just eight schools, and six FCS-football playing institutions. Industry sources have told me that they expect Western Illinois to eventually join the conference, but other potential expansion candidates are currently unknown. It is also possible that other schools, like Murray State, could decide to leave the league for other conferences.

But my hope is that enough other teams decide to bail that the OVC essentially just packs it up as a conference and the MVFC, MVC, and Summit end up picking up a few of the more northwestern members of the OVC.

leatherneckcountry wrote: ↑Fri Sep 24, 2021 9:16 pm


 

Don't know what you do fer a livin' but Breaking news is the holy grail in Journalism.

Keep it up!

 

Western_101 wrote:

leatherneckcountry wrote: ↑Fri Sep 24, 2021 9:16 pm


 

Don't know what you do fer a livin' but Breaking news is the holy grail in Journalism.

Keep it up!

 

Just gotta follow the right people on Twitter. Most of what I’ve seen come through lately popped up on Twitter a few days before it became public.

I just hope the rumors of us going to the OVC are premature. When rats are fleeing a sinking ship, you don’t want to be the one crazy one trying to climb back on.


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Ok, so there's a LOT going on right now. I'll try to give a rundown of everything, but I might miss things.

Today, the Southland is having a press conference at 11 AM today (streaming on ESPN+ if you have that) that seems likely to be an announcement of Texas A&M-Commerce moving up to the FCS and playing in the Southland. Also rumored is a couple of other DII teams possibly moving up, including Central Oklahoma and possibly even West Texas A&M. You can watch that here if you have ESPN+: https://www.espn.com/watch/player/_/id/ ... fbe6da5b81

Then we have the Ohio Valley. Today, Belmont is set to announce their move to the MVC (they don't have football). I've also seen rumors from multiple sources saying that Tennessee Tech is considering a move to the ASUN, Murray State with a bunch of options (including MVC/MVFC), and Tennessee State joining a bunch of other HBCUs in the SWAC. There's still, of course, the constant rumor of us going to the Ohio Valley, which hopefully won't happen, as you don't want to be the one trying to climb back on while all the rats are fleeing the sinking ship.

The Ohio valley is also looking at working with some DII teams in the region to bring them up and help shore up the conference. Specifically, the University of Southern Indiana (no football) is currently exploring a DI move.

Still up in the air is FBS Air Force and Colorado State joining the AAC, which could impact the Montana or Dakota schools if the Mountain West decides they want to backfill with a couple of solid FCS programs,
 

The $64K question is can we compete in the Summit/MVFC?  Yes, I know we can show up, sometimes pretty good, but can we compete, year in, year out, for conference championships in all sports? I dont see it happening given our current recruiting efforts which are impacted in a big way by the facilities we have.  If the administration is just happy to show up, so be it.  Most fans like me dont look at it quite that way, however.  Consistent losing drives them away.  Move to the OVC, you improve your championship chances in a huge way in all sports.  You also restore an instate rivalry in hoops.  I remember those days when 7K fans, mostly students, showed up in Western Hall for the annual WIU/EIU matchup because I was there, face painted and all, front row seat under the east bucket.  There was something on the line, as in a conference championship.