Sunbelt Expansion... additions?

[AppStateNews]

I don't know if they will be completely irrelevant but they certainly won't have the same cache. Honestly, they have built their team the right way and did have success in FCS so I can see them maintaining a good G5 program, just consistently top 25 good.

Built it the right way? Please tell me what you think the right way is.

They hired a coach with NCAA sanctions, brought it multiple transfers, bring in multiple recruits not eligible that require an exception, and are extremely dirty. Nothing Coastal has done has been the right way.

There's a reason Chadwell hasn't been poached yet. He's dirty and everyone in college football knows it. The expectation is within 5 years Costal and Chadwell will be hit with sanctions. He won't be at Coastal any more though -- same thing he did at Charleston Southern -- cheat and run.

[AppSt94]

Those are some bold words about Chadwell. How is he dirty? If I am reading correctly, the sanctions were related to the entire athletic department and involved incidents across multiple programs. Sounds like he is guilty by association. Does that make him dirty? Really?

[Captain Morgan]

I went to the Coastal game last year, there was limited seating, but all the Coastal people I know said previously, most of the stadium was App fans...every year.

So this year, Coastal is ranked and their first home game against at P5 team (albeit Kansas, probably the worst P5) drew less than 18 000 fans. I think it's fair to say with that attendance for a home game, they don't travel well, and as I said earlier this week they'll lose their QB this year or next, and when that happens their coach will bolt for a paycheck, and the Chants will most likely be irrelevant again.

But I do like having App come to town every two years.

I agree with a lot of what you said, what makes you think their QB will transfer? I don’t see that happening tbh

He's draft eligible this year (long shot at 3rd day pick). However, if a lower P5 school who needs a short term rental, and can offer more opportunities for much higher endorsement money, he's gone. If not, his eligibility is still short term...1-2 years at most.

Grayson is gone sooner than later, and I think their coach is as well, leaving Coastal with an opportunity to sustain their strength. I don't see it. They have a chance, just like when ECU fired Ruffin.

[t4pizza]

I don't know if they will be completely irrelevant but they certainly won't have the same cache. Honestly, they have built their team the right way and did have success in FCS so I can see them maintaining a good G5 program, just consistently top 25 good.

Built it the right way? Please tell me what you think the right way is.

They hired a coach with NCAA sanctions, brought it multiple transfers, bring in multiple recruits not eligible that require an exception, and are extremely dirty. Nothing Coastal has done has been the right way.

There's a reason Chadwell hasn't been poached yet. He's dirty and everyone in college football knows it. The expectation is within 5 years Costal and Chadwell will be hit with sanctions. He won't be at Coastal any more though -- same thing he did at Charleston Southern -- cheat and run.

I was mainly referring to the process by which they moved into FCS and then into FBS. They had competitive teams that won games, conference titles and went to the playoffs. They also have an all time winning record in football. In other words, the foundation that was laid was solid and should last. It wasn't like a UNCC situation where they rushed to FCS, had bad teams but still rushed to FBS and continue to have bad teams. It wasn't a comment on Chadwell or this current team more a commentary on the program in general.

[Captain Morgan]

Those are some bold words about Chadwell. How is he dirty? If I am reading correctly, the sanctions were related to the entire athletic department and involved incidents across multiple programs. Sounds like he is guilty by association. Does that make him dirty? Really?

not that I know anything but this is from Wikipedia.

In 2018, the NCAA released a detailed report concerning numerous NCAA violations across the Charleston Southern athletics department that occurred during Chadwell's tenure as head football coach. The athletics department was found to have incorrectly certified 55 student athletes across 12 sports over a six-year period, and football players were found to have used scholarship funds to purchase electronics and jewelry from the campus book store. Ultimately, the NCAA sanctions included vacating 18 wins from the 2014 and 2015 football seasons and the 2015 Big South Championship, in addition to several vacated wins in other sports. Also vacated were three wins over crosstown rival The Citadel, games during which CSU used ineligible players.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jamey_Chadwell

[AppSt94]

Those are some bold words about Chadwell. How is he dirty? If I am reading correctly, the sanctions were related to the entire athletic department and involved incidents across multiple programs. Sounds like he is guilty by association. Does that make him dirty? Really?

not that I know anything but this is from Wikipedia.

In 2018, the NCAA released a detailed report concerning numerous NCAA violations across the Charleston Southern athletics department that occurred during Chadwell's tenure as head football coach. The athletics department was found to have incorrectly certified 55 student athletes across 12 sports over a six-year period, and football players were found to have used scholarship funds to purchase electronics and jewelry from the campus book store. Ultimately, the NCAA sanctions included vacating 18 wins from the 2014 and 2015 football seasons and the 2015 Big South Championship, in addition to several vacated wins in other sports. Also vacated were three wins over crosstown rival The Citadel, games during which CSU used ineligible players.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jamey_Chadwell

Yes, I read that on his page. But just like the kid that was singled out by the Boone PD, the article assigned the Luke Combs concert to the reported incident. The fact that he was the HC of the football team is irrelevant in the sense that the violations included multiple athletes in multiple sports during a time frame that he wasn’t the HC. He deserves some culpability, but calling him dirty?

[WASU 93]

Say UL joins with us. You don't think SMU, Navy, ECU, USF, a rising Tulane is better than playing a Sunbelt slate that at best would add Marshall, So Miss who hasnt been good in a decade, and an FCS transition team? The pervasiveness of this line of thinking among some of our fan base is blowing my mind. I wonder what the ven diagram overlap is with the folks that didn't want the FBS transition in the first place.

The difference in TV money is something like $500K to $10M. The money will have to decrease 80% for it not to be a beneficial move for us financially.

So if I may ask, aside from ECU, why do you think that this is a better lineup of opponents? What about them would draw Joe fan to KBS? How many of them would bring the same amount of fans as Southern, Coastal or Marshall?

I think Coastal has had one good, i repeat one, good season. Nothing about them drew fans in at all until last season. I'm not going to gamble the next 10 years of my program on the chance they sustain that success, that UL doesnt leave, and that Marshall comes. GaSou will always be a draw, but lets face it they have been down for 5-6 years overall. Do we remain wedded to that rivalry, hope they get back on top, and hope it propels us toward our goals? Or do we move and start back up the rivalry with ECU which has the potential to be just as fierce (and closer for everyone worried about regional partnerships). As far as Marshall, I like that game and what it represents but we have to acknowledge that for a large portion of the fan base (what 2003-onward?) that was not a rivalry game and doesn't move the needle as much as it does for older fans.

As far as fans in seats, are you talking about our fans or theirs? If its our fans I think they get way more pumped to see us go up against a service academy or a national brand like SMU than Texas State, ULM, So. Alabama, Georgia State, or Coastal (outside of last season). If you're talking about opposing fans at the Rock, how many fans are Coastal or Southern brining now? While its purely anecdotal, I'm a season ticket holder and I don't recall KB filling up even the fan allotment section for those fan bases.

Great response. And I mean no disrespect with my response because I agree with you in a certain perspective. I feel that your response is indicative of a fully engaged fan. You have season tickets, you participate in fan message boards. You at the very least, someone that I would consider a diehard App football fan. You may be more, but we are talking football. You mentioned that our fan base would be pumped about the AAC opponents. Would they? I mean the 9200 season ticket holders would, sure. But are they going to move the needle more so than SB opponents for the alums and casual fans to come to the Rock more often? My gf is an alum, and a football fan. She’s a Cowboys fan but I love her anyway. I asked her if the opponent being AAC or SB mattered in her decision making. She said that it would not.She would go to see App.

I don’t know how many Coastal or GS fans come to Boone, but is it fewer than a USF or SMU? Navy would bring fans, as well as ECU. The goal this year was to sell 7k season tickets. We sold 9.2k. Do you think that having 4 of the 6 home opponents being regional opponents may have had anything to do with that? So looking at those 4 games, with Elon being a sell out and assuming no one walks up on Gameday for the other three, which we know they will, thats $2.6 million in gate revenue.

I'm afraid a large number of those new season ticket holders are UNC fans. I've had a few Tar Heel buddies of mine ask me if they should go ahead and get season tickets this year, so they can have them reserved next year for the App/UNC game in Boone. I'm afraid that number is bloated and will be drastically cut down after next year.

The UNC number was bloated by 4 two years ago, so bring them on. Seriously, there's no way that 2.2K (or even 1K) of Tar Heel fans are buying 2021 tickets just to lock in tickets to one game in Boone next year. That's buying 12 games of tickets for one game, and there's just not that much passion for Tar Heel football. Could there be 25 fans that did that? Maybe, but highly doubtful.

I know we are a football school (and I'm in line with being a football first fan). However, no one ever mentions our other sports, when discussing conference alignment. The AAC (SMU, Navy, Tulane, etc) offers really nothing to our other sports, beyond ECU. Yes, it was a better basketball league in 2021 and Memphis, Wichita State and maybe SMU offer upgrades over Sun Belt Members. But, we would have to fly all teams to almost every road game. We would have ZERO in conference travel opportunities (non-football) for the majority of our fan base, beyond ECU and possibly? a few new members.

[AppStateNews]

Those are some bold words about Chadwell. How is he dirty? If I am reading correctly, the sanctions were related to the entire athletic department and involved incidents across multiple programs. Sounds like he is guilty by association. Does that make him dirty? Really?

not that I know anything but this is from Wikipedia.

In 2018, the NCAA released a detailed report concerning numerous NCAA violations across the Charleston Southern athletics department that occurred during Chadwell's tenure as head football coach. The athletics department was found to have incorrectly certified 55 student athletes across 12 sports over a six-year period, and football players were found to have used scholarship funds to purchase electronics and jewelry from the campus book store. Ultimately, the NCAA sanctions included vacating 18 wins from the 2014 and 2015 football seasons and the 2015 Big South Championship, in addition to several vacated wins in other sports. Also vacated were three wins over crosstown rival The Citadel, games during which CSU used ineligible players.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jamey_Chadwell

Yes, I read that on his page. But just like the kid that was singled out by the Boone PD, the article assigned the Luke Combs concert to the reported incident. The fact that he was the HC of the football team is irrelevant in the sense that the violations included multiple athletes in multiple sports during a time frame that he wasn’t the HC. He deserves some culpability, but calling him dirty?

Yes, dirty. The same things are happening at Coastal now. He's a cheat until you're under investigation and then bolt kind of guy. It's worked for him so far. It's just a matter of time until he's caught at Coastal.

Did the same thing at North Greenville and Delta State. As soon as the investigations started, he bolted. You don't take a pay cut from North Greenville to go to Delta State in the same position without reason. The investigation proved not enough evidence at both schools, but again, there's a reason he bolted both.

It's known throughout the industry. There's a reason he hasn't even been flirted with yet.

[AppSt94]

Those are some bold words about Chadwell. How is he dirty? If I am reading correctly, the sanctions were related to the entire athletic department and involved incidents across multiple programs. Sounds like he is guilty by association. Does that make him dirty? Really?

not that I know anything but this is from Wikipedia.

In 2018, the NCAA released a detailed report concerning numerous NCAA violations across the Charleston Southern athletics department that occurred during Chadwell's tenure as head football coach. The athletics department was found to have incorrectly certified 55 student athletes across 12 sports over a six-year period, and football players were found to have used scholarship funds to purchase electronics and jewelry from the campus book store. Ultimately, the NCAA sanctions included vacating 18 wins from the 2014 and 2015 football seasons and the 2015 Big South Championship, in addition to several vacated wins in other sports. Also vacated were three wins over crosstown rival The Citadel, games during which CSU used ineligible players.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jamey_Chadwell

Yes, I read that on his page. But just like the kid that was singled out by the Boone PD, the article assigned the Luke Combs concert to the reported incident. The fact that he was the HC of the football team is irrelevant in the sense that the violations included multiple athletes in multiple sports during a time frame that he wasn’t the HC. He deserves some culpability, but calling him dirty?

Yes, dirty. The same things are happening at Coastal now. He's a cheat until you're under investigation and then bolt kind of guy. It's worked for him so far. It's just a matter of time until he's caught at Coastal.

Did the same thing at North Greenville and Delta State. As soon as the investigations started, he bolted. You don't take a pay cut from North Greenville to go to Delta State in the same position without reason. The investigation proved not enough evidence at both schools, but again, there's a reason he bolted both.

It's known throughout the industry. There's a reason he hasn't even been flirted with yet.

Interesting. How is it that you can definitively say that he is cheating at Coastal and yet they aren’t under investigation? Sources? Have you reported them to the NCAA?

[AppDub]

I went to the Coastal game last year, there was limited seating, but all the Coastal people I know said previously, most of the stadium was App fans...every year.

So this year, Coastal is ranked and their first home game against at P5 team (albeit Kansas, probably the worst P5) drew less than 18 000 fans. I think it's fair to say with that attendance for a home game, they don't travel well, and as I said earlier this week they'll lose their QB this year or next, and when that happens their coach will bolt for a paycheck, and the Chants will most likely be irrelevant again.

But I do like having App come to town every two years.

I would love nothing more than to see the chickens falter once they lose McCall, but I'm not sure Chadwell isn't excited about the two QBs he has recruited and gotten committed to play for him once McCall leaves. Hate to admit it, but he has taken full advantage of 1 good year in recruiting. He may be there a while, who knows.

[NeersBy90]

If Carolina fans are willing to pay $500 for a seat that would cost them $70 next year, then they are pretty stupid.

To be fair, Tickets for the Miami game were going for upwards of $250 a piece in Boone and this is a way bigger game than that. If they sold the tickets for other games to get their money back and held the tickets for that game, it makes sense.

I wasn't insinuating that all 2000 new ticket holders are UNC fans but I'll guarantee some of them are. I've had 2 buddies specifically ask if I thought they needed to get season tickets for this year so they would already have a place in line for next year. It has been on their message boards to according to them.

[App90]

Those are some bold words about Chadwell. How is he dirty? If I am reading correctly, the sanctions were related to the entire athletic department and involved incidents across multiple programs. Sounds like he is guilty by association. Does that make him dirty? Really?

not that I know anything but this is from Wikipedia.

In 2018, the NCAA released a detailed report concerning numerous NCAA violations across the Charleston Southern athletics department that occurred during Chadwell's tenure as head football coach. The athletics department was found to have incorrectly certified 55 student athletes across 12 sports over a six-year period, and football players were found to have used scholarship funds to purchase electronics and jewelry from the campus book store. Ultimately, the NCAA sanctions included vacating 18 wins from the 2014 and 2015 football seasons and the 2015 Big South Championship, in addition to several vacated wins in other sports. Also vacated were three wins over crosstown rival The Citadel, games during which CSU used ineligible players.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jamey_Chadwell

Yes, I read that on his page. But just like the kid that was singled out by the Boone PD, the article assigned the Luke Combs concert to the reported incident. The fact that he was the HC of the football team is irrelevant in the sense that the violations included multiple athletes in multiple sports during a time frame that he wasn’t the HC. He deserves some culpability, but calling him dirty?

Yes, dirty. The same things are happening at Coastal now. He's a cheat until you're under investigation and then bolt kind of guy. It's worked for him so far. It's just a matter of time until he's caught at Coastal.

Did the same thing at North Greenville and Delta State. As soon as the investigations started, he bolted. You don't take a pay cut from North Greenville to go to Delta State in the same position without reason. The investigation proved not enough evidence at both schools, but again, there's a reason he bolted both.

It's known throughout the industry. There's a reason he hasn't even been flirted with yet.

Interesting. How is it that you can definitively say that he is cheating at Coastal and yet they aren’t under investigation? Sources? Have you reported them to the NCAA?

Coach Chadwell was interviewed for the South Carolina job last year, however during an interview with the State, The South Carolina AD stated we will not hire any one with NCAA sanctions from prior schools. I know for a fact the Charleston Southern program had players playing on that football team in 2014-15 that were not even enrolled at the school. How does a coach not know this. Now they raid the transfer portal and they have an abundance of kids who did get education exceptions, hope they pass and get a degree. If the Sun Belt tightens up the admission standards CCU will be in trouble. Coach Chadwell will leave as soon as a bigger school comes calling.
I wont call him dirty but to say he was just caught up in blow back because the whole AD was out of control at Charleston Southern, is some what over reaching.

[hapapp]

No defender of Chadwell and Coastal, but there does seem to be a certain envy/hostility among App fans towards them. I think some of it has to do with their becoming the darling of college football and our simultaneous fall from relevance in the eyes of the media. I think the latter was confirmed last weekend when we got no credit for our performance against Miami. Listening to the sports shows all week, I have heard multiple times the "experts" dissing the Hurricanes. Their close win wasn't a credit to our play but to their poor play. It would help if they can score a convincing win over the Spartans this weekend.

[Captain Morgan]

[/quote]

Coach Chadwell was interviewed for the South Carolina job last year, however during an interview with the State, The South Carolina AD stated we will not hire any one with NCAA sanctions from prior schools. I know for a fact the Charleston Southern program had players playing on that football team in 2014-15 that were not even enrolled at the school. How does a coach not know this.
[/quote]



wow

[mike87]

I heard he was in line for Mack Brown's job.

[JPatH3292]

No defender of Chadwell and Coastal, but there does seem to be a certain envy/hostility among App fans towards them. I think some of it has to do with their becoming the darling of college football and our simultaneous fall from relevance in the eyes of the media. I think the latter was confirmed last weekend when we got no credit for our performance against Miami. Listening to the sports shows all week, I have heard multiple times the "experts" dissing the Hurricanes. Their close win wasn't a credit to our play but to their poor play. It would help if they can score a convincing win over the Spartans this weekend.

I agree but also think it would help if we could get that ever elusive top 25 win we've been chasing since 2007. Coastal took advantage with their great year and are seeing the benefits this year even with a piss poor OOC schedule. Sucks but we can change that and snag a top 25 victory in a month

[App90]

I heard he was in line for Mack Brown's job.

He would be a perfect fit.

[ShagNC]

Posting from another thread since it didn't get any traction:

I've read on here before about the impact of academics on realignment, so I'm wondering what everyone's take is now that things are shaking up. The newest members of the Big12 are all major research universities, spending millions in R&D.

2018 figures from the National Science Foundation:

Houston: $177 million
BYU: $40.7 million
Cinci: $480 million
UCF: $215 million

For some perspective, I looked up some rivals:
ECU: $20 million
UNCC: $52 million (2020)
GaSo: $14.8 million (2020)
Louisiana: $144 million (2019)

According to the NSF, App State spent $4.5 million in R&D in 2017, which is far below our peers. Do you think this will have any impact on future realignment? I fear we may be seen as the small teachers college on the mountain, and we know optics are everything now. Is this something App needs to invest in to continue our growth? Can Boone handle that type of growth? Thanks in advance for your thoughts!

[HighlandsApp]

Posting from another thread since it didn't get any traction:

I've read on here before about the impact of academics on realignment, so I'm wondering what everyone's take is now that things are shaking up. The newest members of the Big12 are all major research universities, spending millions in R&D.

2018 figures from the National Science Foundation:

Houston: $177 million
BYU: $40.7 million
Cinci: $480 million
UCF: $215 million

For some perspective, I looked up some rivals:
ECU: $20 million
UNCC: $52 million (2020)
GaSo: $14.8 million (2020)
Louisiana: $144 million (2019)

According to the NSF, App State spent $4.5 million in R&D in 2017, which is far below our peers. Do you think this will have any impact on future realignment? I fear we may be seen as the small teachers college on the mountain, and we know optics are everything now. Is this something App needs to invest in to continue our growth? Can Boone handle that type of growth? Thanks in advance for your thoughts!

Our mission statement and niche is to be North Carolina's premier undergraduate institution. We're quite good at that. The are targets and goals to increase research which is one of the things we're behind on in our institutional targets from the UNC system, but a master's institution isn't going to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on research.

JMU has a similar mission quite frankly Appalachian and JMU are about a similar to institutions as somebody could come across. JMU actually is a little more selective and has SAT and ACT scores a little bit higher but that's primarily due to the extremely large number highly educated families living in northern Virginia. Virginia state institutions are more selective Virginia is more selective than UNC and then the college of William and Mary is one of the most selective in the country.

[moonshine]

No defender of Chadwell and Coastal, but there does seem to be a certain envy/hostility among App fans towards them. I think some of it has to do with their becoming the darling of college football and our simultaneous fall from relevance in the eyes of the media.

I personally have no problem with CCU. I believe you're spot on with this analysis. CCU got a lot of media love last year and so far this year by going 3-1 against teams with a pulse (App, UL & BYU--Liberty) to receive so much praise in the past year. Plus Gill went to bat for the Chants last year for the NY6 slot after not championing on App's behalf the previous year. CCU is reaping the benefits of what others in the conference built. Troy was the first in the conference to get ranked and App followed that up with multiple weeks and higher rankings. Then UL and CCU burst onto the scene last year for the conference making it the first time the SBC has had multiple programs ranked.

I say good for CCU! It's a relay and we are all passing the baton and trying to out perform the previous leg of the race. I believe it's good to have multiple programs getting media facetime unlike the MWC who is basically Boise and everyone else. What the SBC needs is for someone in the West, looking at you stAte, to test the Cajuns and win OOC to help elevate the SBC's rep.