FCS Conference Shuffling

If you want to talk about Monmouth University Football, Quincy University Basketball, Notre Dame Men's Soccer, or whatever, this is the place.
User avatar
ST_Lawson
Site Admin
Posts: 8247
Joined: Wed Apr 16, 2014 1:15 pm
Location: Macomb, IL
Contact:

Western_101 wrote: Thu Feb 24, 2022 3:19 amWhy it is Important to stay in the MVFC and go OVC olympic. I am tempted to start, football recruiting, perception, rivalries, fan interest, If we can get former players that have money, or anyone to buy into/build what we need.....can't do it from the OVC. However, we desperately need to save money and these athletes don't want to be on these miserable forever bus rides. OVC adding USI and Lindenwood really makes me hope a deal can be negotiated to let us in/ save for football as we covered.

For those that would say "yeah but Belmont, and Murray State just left"  Yeah, they did, to kick the daylights out of the current MVC membership. This new lineup and geographic footprint I pray Western will be in.

Thoughts:

Take it away Mr. Lawson!
 
I think you covered it pretty well. If we have a hard time getting interest/attendance/donations when we're playing ISU, SIU, and UNI pretty much every year (teams we have a great deal of history with), how much more difficult is that going to be playing Tennessee Tech, UT-Martin, or SEMO every year (teams we do not have much of a history with)? And now that the OVC has partnered with the Big South to create what looks like it's going to be a football-only conference, we could count regular matchups with Campbell, Gardner-Webb, and Robert Morris in there as well. Is that what would be best for the program?

On the basketball side of things, I think the OVC minus Murray State and Belmont are not much worse than the Summit League in terms of quality. EIU, Morehead State, SEMO, SIUE, TN State, TN Tech, UT-Martin, plus new/future additions of UALR, Lindenwood, and Southern Indiana. The travel situation is much better, and really, the OVC and Summit League are both 1-bid leagues, so if we're trying to make it to the NCAA tournament, then it's not like one gives us a huge advantage over the other. If anything, having the OVC be a little worse than the Summit would help us get the autobid easier. In terms of who the teams are and fan interest...we don't have any rivalries in the Summit League anymore. Our biggest rivalry in basketball is EIU...which would become an annual conference matchup.

For all sports, with this new OVC, there are four teams (SIUE, Lindenwood, EIU, SEMO) that are closer than the closest Summit League team (KC) and four SL teams (SDSU, NDSU, UND, Denver) that are further away than the furthest OVC team (TN Tech). The average OVC team is 346 miles away from Macomb and the average SL team is 537 miles away.
Scott Lawson - Board Admin
Western Illinois University Alum/Fan/Employee
Member of the Marching Leathernecks - 1996-2000
User avatar
sealhall74
Posts: 5770
Joined: Fri Apr 18, 2014 1:18 pm
Location: Wherever, Windblows

OVC sitting at a nice even number of 10 schools right now.  We probably missed the boat on it for a year or two at least.  I am just damn tired of rooting for "one-off" sports programs at best and most are not even that.  Coaches cannot recruit for those programs and we dont have the resources to turn basically D2 athletes into true D1 competitors.  Don't see much changing without lowering the level of competition as the OVC would be IMHO.
 
Embrace the pace of the race.
User avatar
sealhall74
Posts: 5770
Joined: Fri Apr 18, 2014 1:18 pm
Location: Wherever, Windblows

sealhall74 wrote: Thu Feb 24, 2022 9:58 am OVC sitting at a nice even number of 10 schools right now.  We probably missed the boat on it for a year or two at least.  I am just damn tired of rooting for "one-off" sports programs at best and most are not even that.  Coaches cannot recruit for those programs and we dont have the resources to turn basically D2 athletes into true D1 competitors.  I would love to see the numbers of how many kids we bring in with no D1 offers others than ours.  Don't see much changing without lowering the level of competition quite a bit.  OVC would be a step in that direction. 

 
 
Embrace the pace of the race.
User avatar
ST_Lawson
Site Admin
Posts: 8247
Joined: Wed Apr 16, 2014 1:15 pm
Location: Macomb, IL
Contact:

Couple of more rumors floating around over the last day...
  • Missouri State in talks with the Sun Belt
  • Strong possibility of Tennessee State leaving the Ohio Valley
Scott Lawson - Board Admin
Western Illinois University Alum/Fan/Employee
Member of the Marching Leathernecks - 1996-2000
User avatar
ST_Lawson
Site Admin
Posts: 8247
Joined: Wed Apr 16, 2014 1:15 pm
Location: Macomb, IL
Contact:

Bryant University (currently in the NEC) has announced that they are moving to the Big South for football and the America East for all other sports.

Scott Lawson - Board Admin
Western Illinois University Alum/Fan/Employee
Member of the Marching Leathernecks - 1996-2000
leatherneckcountry
Posts: 2310
Joined: Mon May 09, 2016 4:55 pm

If this happened i would hope wiu would jump ship 
User avatar
ST_Lawson
Site Admin
Posts: 8247
Joined: Wed Apr 16, 2014 1:15 pm
Location: Macomb, IL
Contact:

This one I believe:




Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Scott Lawson - Board Admin
Western Illinois University Alum/Fan/Employee
Member of the Marching Leathernecks - 1996-2000
Mheller
Posts: 24
Joined: Sat Dec 25, 2021 3:45 pm

ST_Lawson wrote:This one I believe:




Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Is that a good thing for Western Illinois?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
User avatar
ST_Lawson
Site Admin
Posts: 8247
Joined: Wed Apr 16, 2014 1:15 pm
Location: Macomb, IL
Contact:

Mheller wrote:
ST_Lawson wrote:This one I believe:




Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Is that a good thing for Western Illinois?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Hard to know until we see how the MVFC puts together conference schedules starting in 2023.

On average, this is probably good for us, because Murray State has had 6 winning full seasons since 2000 (not counting the COVID “season”), and three of those were 6-5. They have had 1 playoff appearance in that time…and while playing in the OVC…a conference that has not been as tough as the MVFC for a long time.

So, we’re looking at the addition of a team that’s probably historically on par with Indiana State. The last few years, they’re probably a bit better than us, but that’s not saying much. We get back to being even a .500 team, then they’re likely to be one of our wins most years.

Again though, that only matters if we are playing them most years, and we won’t really know that until the MVFC release conference schedules going forward.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Scott Lawson - Board Admin
Western Illinois University Alum/Fan/Employee
Member of the Marching Leathernecks - 1996-2000
Mheller
Posts: 24
Joined: Sat Dec 25, 2021 3:45 pm

ST_Lawson wrote:
Mheller wrote:
ST_Lawson wrote:This one I believe:




Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Is that a good thing for Western Illinois?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Hard to know until we see how the MVFC puts together conference schedules starting in 2023.

On average, this is probably good for us, because Murray State has had 6 winning full seasons since 2000 (not counting the COVID “season”), and three of those were 6-5. They have had 1 playoff appearance in that time…and while playing in the OVC…a conference that has not been as tough as the MVFC for a long time.

So, we’re looking at the addition of a team that’s probably historically on par with Indiana State. The last few years, they’re probably a bit better than us, but that’s not saying much. We get back to being even a .500 team, then they’re likely to be one of our wins most years.

Again though, that only matters if we are playing them most years, and we won’t really know that until the MVFC release conference schedules going forward.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Thanks for the analysis. I hope we start playing them next year.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Post Reply