Fighting Hawks To Join Summit League

[JacksFTW]

Re: Fighting Hawks To Join Summit League

Youngstown State? A good program that would be missed, but kind of the odd-ball of the MVFC. They're not part of the Summit League or regular Missouri Valley for the rest of their sports.

This is my guess

[goon]

Re: Fighting Hawks To Join Summit League

Western has budget issues. Didn't they look into dropping down previously?

[thumper_76]

Re: Fighting Hawks To Join Summit League

Western has budget issues. Didn't they look into dropping down previously?

No, they just committed to renovating their stadium, and Indy St just got a new pres I believe who seems pretty committed to athletics. I don't see anybody dropping football. I could see maybe MSU or Indy St leaving to the OVC, but I doubt it. YSU would be my guess but I can't see them going anywhere but the CAA or the FBS. So I don't know who would be leaving.





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[West-River_Jack]

Re: Fighting Hawks To Join Summit League

"FCS programs are restricted to 11 regular-season games in most seasons - one game fewer than the FBS. They are permitted a 12th game only in years when there are 13 weekends between Labor Day weekend and the weekend prior to Thanksgiving. It last occurred in 2014, and will occur only four times over the next 15 seasons - in 2019, '24, '25 and '30."

Things have gone a little quiet on this discussion. Maybe it is time so see if I can revive it with one of my favorite things, thread drift?

Maybe it is time to have every season be a twelve game season, but with the full calendar, what is the best way to achieve that? Is it to get rid of the bye week, except in those occasional seasons when it would still fit (2019, 2024, 2025, and 2030 listed above)? There is one game each year which is played the week before everyone else starts. I know that NDSU hosted it this past season, and perhaps Montana hosted the year before (IIRC). Should everyone play that week?

How about this thought? How have the teams which have been chosen as the 17th through 24th teams fared in the playoffs since the playoffs were expanded from sixteen teams. Have any really proven that they belong there? Maybe the FCS should admit that they can choose a champion from a sixteen team field and shorten the playoffs by a week. That would allow the regular season to extend a week later into the calendar and a twelve game season could be played every year. If they did that, would a twelfth game help the playoff committee assure that all deserving teams would make it into a sixteen team playoff? Would northern teams that play outside and the teams that have to play them be willing to add Thanksgiving weekend as a regular season game?

I am actually not arguing in favor of any of these things, just promoting thread drift, and maybe a little legitimate discussion.

[thumper_76]

Re: Fighting Hawks To Join Summit League

Things have gone a little quiet on this discussion. Maybe it is time so see if I can revive it with one of my favorite things, thread drift?

Maybe it is time to have every season be a twelve game season, but with the full calendar, what is the best way to achieve that? Is it to get rid of the bye week, except in those occasional seasons when it would still fit (2019, 2024, 2025, and 2030 listed above)? There is one game each year which is played the week before everyone else starts. I know that NDSU hosted it this past season, and perhaps Montana hosted the year before (IIRC). Should everyone play that week?

How about this thought? How have the teams which have been chosen as the 17th through 24th teams fared in the playoffs since the playoffs were expanded from sixteen teams. Have any really proven that they belong there? Maybe the FCS should admit that they can choose a champion from a sixteen team field and shorten the playoffs by a week. That would allow the regular season to extend a week later into the calendar and a twelve game season could be played every year. If they did that, would a twelfth game help the playoff committee assure that all deserving teams would make it into a sixteen team playoff? Would northern teams that play outside and the teams that have to play them be willing to add Thanksgiving weekend as a regular season game?

I am actually not arguing in favor of any of these things, just promoting thread drift, and maybe a little legitimate discussion.

Well in the spirit of your thread drift (and its a fun discussion to have) heres my thoughts. TLR WARNING

The 12 game season has already been started to be discussed among leagues, specifically the Southern Conference pushing for it since they play a 9 game conference schedule, which has really hamstrung them in terms of perceived conference strength as well as OOC scheduling of FBS games and other power conference teams to test their teams. I believe that there has been some mixed reactions from the MVFC with Patty V coming out against it but Coach Farley at UNI being for it (I could have those switched around). Personally I like the idea of 12 game schedules, it adds opportunities for there to be more quality OOC games with teams having more flexibility to schedule H/H while still getting their 6 home games like most of the major FCS schools want and keeping a FBS game on the schedule. Also allows larger conferences to go to 9 game conference schedules to combat unbalanced numbers while keeping a legitimate OOC portion of the season. The idea of dropping a bye week from the schedule or dropping the number of teams in the playoffs is a non starter. You will never get coaches on board with dropping the bye week. The number of playoff spots is pretty set where it is. The reason is every conference that is large enough is allowed to have an automatic qualifier, hence why you see teams from weak conferences having teams in from the Pioneer League, Patriot League, etc. For every Auto bid there is a at large birth. Where it sits right now I believe they could hypothetically drop down to 20. It went to 24 because the Pioneer League got a Auto bid before the SWAC and MEAC decided to take their ball and go home to play the Celebration bowl. Some of the idea of keeping it at 24 is the idea that if those conferences change their mind and the Ivy decides to pull their heads out of their hypocritical hind quarters they won't need to expand the playoffs, its already set up to be able to handle it. That and Patty V was just asked about shrinking the size of the playoffs on the bison radio show during her interview about UND being added to the MVFC, and her answer was an emphatic not gunna happen. Also, when was the last time you've heard of a tournament shrinking its numbers if there's even a marginal opportunity for the NCAA to make money? So realistically what would happen is your third scenario of moving week one games to week zero when ESPN now has the FCS kickoff game. Personally I would be for that. The teams are already on campus as it is for fall camp, and its not exactly some titanic change to the landscape when there are teams already playing games that week.

The arguments against expanding to a 12 game season basically boil down to a few arguments. The first is player saftey. People who argue this are saying adding another game could add to more injuries to players due to fatigue over the season. This is a baloney argument if you ask me. I don't have the research available but from my involvement in national FCS boards I haven't noticed any teams that are regularly in the playoffs having more injury problems than teams that aren't or abstain from the playoffs. The Bison essentially played a full extra season compared to the rest of the FCS during their run, and this year was the first that they had major injury problems, mostly on defense, and it could be argued fairly easily that its was more attributable to their ridiculously difficult schedule more than it was the extra games they had played.

The second argument against it is that teams will abuse the extra OOC game by using their football team as a way to fund their athletic department by having them play in multiple money games they have no business playing. Unfortunately this already happens. I'm not referencing when teams like ours or NDSU or a Villanova go and play FBS games. I'm referring to when teams from the NEC or the SWAC that are barely FCS caliber teams play multiple games against FBS teams every year. I'm talking teams like Savannah State where they have running time in the second half. The counter point to that is that there are already teams that do that so not adding a extra game to the season isn't going to stop that from happening.

I'm fairly sure there is a third argument that I'm forgetting, I'll have to check the discussion that was had on AGS to remember it.

The short version, for me, is that I'm all for more football. Especially as a fan of the FCS. The ability to have more matchups like a Furman vs UCA or EWU vs SDSU or possibly even getting some of the CAA powers to get outside of the north east once in a while to play some Big Sky and MVFC schools would be great. I would personally love another series with a school like McNeese St. Move week One to when week Zero is. I think that randomly having 12 game schedules in a irregular fashion due to how the calendar falls is silly. To add to it, there have been rumblings, or at least the idea has been tossed out there, to add two more games to the FCS kickoff. The idea would be to have one on the East coast starting earlier in the day, then an afternoon game in the Midwest/South, and a night game on the West coast. Would give everyone a full day of football and give the FCS a great opportunity to showcase itself nation wide.

As for the 24 team playoff, its not going away and if it did at best it would drop down to 20 teams due to the amount of conferences with Auto Bids.

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[The Sports Block]

Re: Fighting Hawks To Join Summit League

Commissioner claims nickname had nothing to do with it. His past words show different.


http://sportsloungeblog.tumblr.com/p...-summit-league