http://www.sun-sentinel.com/sports/fau- ... 4796.story

Both GSU and App St. get mentioned.

"This week it was announced that the Sun Belt will be part of a five-Conference group that will field a team for a seventh BCS Bowl game. The guarantee that the best mid-major team will be guaranteed a chance to play in a BCS game — regardless of conference"

"Benson said that Georgia Southern, along with two other FCS schools, keep Benson updated on their progress in transitioning their programs to FBS play.

The Sun Belt currently has 10 football teams. Benson said that the confernece isn't expecting to discuss expansion at it's October presidents meeting, but if the Sun Belt were to expand, it would add two teams — as to gain the right to host a conference championship game at the end of the regular season."

Their is a lot of smoke rising from the Sun Belt message board since the Ga. So. students voted fo pay for their move to fbs and the remarks by the Sun Belt Commish last week. Lots of positive references to a possible ASU\Ga. Sou. invite. 360 degree difference from the ZERO consideration we get from CUSA boards.

I would take 0-4 Liberty out of that as a possibility. They seem to be more concearned in moving up than winning games.SHSU scares me as conferences always want to expanded into Texas as often as possible for recruiting purposes.

Just read the SBC message board. Most all are way in favor of adding us asap along with GaSo. Even a possible SFA & NMSU out west. If 2 are added, there will be a conference championship game and that would be huge. Plus, we would have the possibility to play in a BCS bowl. Not likely any time soon but the opportunity would be there. I hope we get an invite soon. I would much rather be part of the SBC than CUSA any day.

dlh71 wrote:Their is a lot of smoke rising from the Sun Belt message board since the Ga. So. students voted fo pay for their move to fbs and the remarks by the Sun Belt Commish last week. Lots of positive references to a possible ASU\Ga. Sou. invite. 360 degree difference from the ZERO consideration we get from CUSA boards.

You mean a 180? 360 puts you back in the same spot.

I found this to be an interesting read on the Sun Belt possibilities. http://www.dixiefriedsports.com/Next_St ... _Belt.html

T-Dog wrote:You mean a 180? 360 puts you back in the same spot.

That reminds me of a GREAT quote from Shaq. Late in his career, he had moved to a new team (don't remember which one), but he said "I am going to turn this team around 360 degrees!"

OK. Whatever. The follow up question to that should have been "How will we know?"

ASUPATCH wrote:I found this to be an interesting read on the Sun Belt possibilities. http://www.dixiefriedsports.com/Next_St ... _Belt.html

Just when I had cooled my heels and stopped my obsession with an FBS move up, along comes this article. I think it would be a smart move if we can go with Ga Southern to the SBC.

It COULD happen

hapapp wrote:

ASUPATCH wrote:I found this to be an interesting read on the Sun Belt possibilities. http://www.dixiefriedsports.com/Next_St ... _Belt.html

Just when I had cooled my heels and stopped my obsession with an FBS move up, along comes this article. I think it would be a smart move if we can go with Ga Southern to the SBC.

You and me both Hap. I love how this person states that the next move WILL BE to add App and Ga.Sou. I am going to keep this link on file so if an offer doesn't happen I'm going to e-mail him and tell him he might want to temper his words next time or get better sources, if that's where he got his "so sure" information.

My comparision list I am working on for this recruiting year isn't looking real well, at least at this point. It's hard to do a full compare since we haven't offered that many so far and the whole point is to compare who we offer that also receive offers from UNCC, GaState, and ODU; who also offers these same players, and where they choose to go. My real work will not begin until the recruiting season kicks in but if you look at who has already committed to UNCC alone (I know it can change but I am going on the data at hand) it's not looking good. 5 with FBS offers and 1 each with an SEC and PAC-12 offer in hand choose UNCC and they haven't even played a down. I know there are many who feel that our recruiting will not be affected but UNCC has 8 commits so far (including two 3 stars), Ga State has 5 and ODU has 14 for 2013. Kids can change their minds but the recruiting hasn't really started yet and these are already posted and cross checked. That's a lot of kids off the boards already.

firemoose wrote:

hapapp wrote:

ASUPATCH wrote:I found this to be an interesting read on the Sun Belt possibilities. http://www.dixiefriedsports.com/Next_St ... _Belt.html

Just when I had cooled my heels and stopped my obsession with an FBS move up, along comes this article. I think it would be a smart move if we can go with Ga Southern to the SBC.

You and me both Hap. I love how this person states that the next move WILL BE to add App and Ga.Sou. I am going to keep this link on file so if an offer doesn't happen I'm going to e-mail him and tell him he might want to temper his words next time or get better sources, if that's where he got his "so sure" information.

My comparision list I am working on for this recruiting year isn't looking real well, at least at this point. It's hard to do a full compare since we haven't offered that many so far and the whole point is to compare who we offer that also receive offers from UNCC, GaState, and ODU; who also offers these same players, and where they choose to go. My real work will not begin until the recruiting season kicks in but if you look at who has already committed to UNCC alone (I know it can change but I am going on the data at hand) it's not looking good. 5 with FBS offers and 1 each with an SEC and PAC-12 offer in hand choose UNCC and they haven't even played a down. I know there are many who feel that our recruiting will not be affected but UNCC has 8 commits so far (including two 3 stars), Ga State has 5 and ODU has 14 for 2013. Kids can change their minds but the recruiting hasn't really started yet and these are already posted and cross checked. That's a lot of kids off the boards already.

I was afraid from the get- go that UNC-Harrisburg would dig deep into our prospect pool..and even higher.

firemoose wrote: You and me both Hap. I love how this person states that the next move WILL BE to add App and Ga.Sou. I am going to keep this link on file so if an offer doesn't happen I'm going to e-mail him and tell him he might want to temper his words next time or get better sources, if that's where he got his "so sure" information.

My comparision list I am working on for this recruiting year isn't looking real well, at least at this point. It's hard to do a full compare since we haven't offered that many so far and the whole point is to compare who we offer that also receive offers from UNCC, GaState, and ODU; who also offers these same players, and where they choose to go. My real work will not begin until the recruiting season kicks in but if you look at who has already committed to UNCC alone (I know it can change but I am going on the data at hand) it's not looking good. 5 with FBS offers and 1 each with an SEC and PAC-12 offer in hand choose UNCC and they haven't even played a down. I know there are many who feel that our recruiting will not be affected but UNCC has 8 commits so far (including two 3 stars), Ga State has 5 and ODU has 14 for 2013. Kids can change their minds but the recruiting hasn't really started yet and these are already posted and cross checked. That's a lot of kids off the boards already.

Your work on recruiting is going to be eye-opening, and I for one am not looking to seeing it. Rivals featured an article last week about a highly ranked (6th? In the US) DB who had offers from both App and UNCC and listed UNCC as his favorite. We were not in his top 3. We've heard time and again that the 49ers will not affect our recruiting at all. I fear your list will prove that assertion completely false.

Anyone out there think we would benefit from a top-tier DB on our squad for the next 4-5 years?

"No I am not scared and neither should you be!"

Nice article. Not sure about his assertion of our fanbase enjoying a bowl game in Nu Awlins over a playoff game in Missoula. Had he picked any other away game, I may have agreed with him but I have to believe that if the trips were the same price and the Griz stadium capacity met the demand, most of our fanbase would choose a visit to Montana.

As for recruiting, ANYONE who thought that UNCC would not have an impact on ASU's recruiting had their head in the sand. Even if the 49ers lacked a FBS invite, they'd still have an impact. Adding 3 programs (GaSt, ODU & UNCC) to FBS within our recruiting footprint will definitely hurt the talent pool from which we recruit. Getting into the Sun Belt may help to curb the effect these programs have on our recruiting.

moonshine wrote:Nice article. Not sure about his assertion of our fanbase enjoying a bowl game in Nu Awlins over a playoff game in Missoula. Had he picked any other away game, I may have agreed with him but I have to believe that if the trips were the same price and the Griz stadium capacity met the demand, most of our fanbase would choose a visit to Montana.

As for recruiting, ANYONE who thought that UNCC would not have an impact on ASU's recruiting had their head in the sand. Even if the 49ers lacked a FBS invite, they'd still have an impact. Adding 3 programs (GaSt, ODU & UNCC) to FBS within our recruiting footprint will definitely hurt the talent pool from which we recruit. Getting into the Sun Belt may help to curb the effect these programs have on our recruiting.

That's why I'm doing the work on this. I heard many people on both here and MI say that it would not hurt us, at least in the short turn. I felt it would. So I decided to put together the list to see who was right. Results will be a little more difficult with so many already committing to the three this early as we won't know if we would have offered any of them but I'm going to use the interest block as well to try and pull it closer inline. Anyway you cut it I think quite a few will be interested in the results. I know I will be.

Firemoose: The people who said UNC-Charlotte would have a minimal effect on ASU's recruiting were basing it on UNCC being a fledgling FCS program. That all changed a few months ago when the 49ers got their invite to Conference-USA. No one I know of believes a new FBS program positioned in Charlotte would have little recruiting impact on us. That's just silly. The emergence of UNC-Charlotte and Georgia State as FBS members in our two biggest recruiting markets is the single biggest reason we are considering FBS.

AppGrad78 wrote:Firemoose: The people who said UNC-Charlotte would have a minimal effect on ASU's recruiting were basing it on UNCC being a fledgling FCS program. That all changed a few months ago when the 49ers got their invite to Conference-USA. No one I know of believes a new FBS program positioned in Charlotte would have little recruiting impact on us. That's just silly. The emergence of UNC-Charlotte and Georgia State as FBS members in our two biggest recruiting markets is the single biggest reason we are considering FBS.

Check the old MMB thread below from mid-summer. It was well after UNCC was invited to/accepted CUSA (announced on May 4) and has several folks claiming that UNCC will not impact our recruiting for at least 5, if not more, years.

http://forums.delphiforums.com/appstate ... sg=40341.1

AppGrad78 wrote:Firemoose: The emergence of UNC-Charlotte and Georgia State as FBS members in our two biggest recruiting markets is the single biggest reason we are considering FBS.

I don't think that's true at all. We commissioned the study and decided to try and go FBS long before either of them were decidedly FBS members. I remember a lot of folks getting upset that both of those programs were chosen ahead of our program. We are attempting to go FBS because it makes sense and it will be beneficial for our university, not because Georgia State and Charlotte are going FBS.

Yosef wrote:

AppGrad78 wrote:Firemoose: The emergence of UNC-Charlotte and Georgia State as FBS members in our two biggest recruiting markets is the single biggest reason we are considering FBS.

I don't think that's true at all. We commissioned the study and decided to try and go FBS long before either of them were decidedly FBS members. I remember a lot of folks getting upset that both of those programs were chosen ahead of our program. We are attempting to go FBS because it makes sense and it will be beneficial for our university, not because Georgia State and Charlotte are going FBS.

You're missing my point. True, we commissioned the FBS study long before either of them were decidedly FBS members. No argument here. The catalyst, in my opinion, was the berth of football programs at UNCC and Georgia State (and to a lesser degree Old Dominion). We accurately recognized that they wouldn't stay in FCS for long. It's no coincidence that our FBS study was announced at the same time UNCC was trying to start a football program. Other variables got the FBS ball rolling in Boone, certainly. But from my conversations with our athletic officials, I strongly believe that we would not have initiated the FBS study when we did had UNCC and Georgia State not decided to play football.

And to circle back to the original debate, many of us felt App could hold its own in recruiting against FCS members UNCC and Georgia State. No one that I know of feels the same about FBS members UNCC and Georgia State. Consequently, the comparison of UNCC signees relative to ASU signees is, in my estimation, superfluous.

AppGrad78 wrote:

Yosef wrote:

AppGrad78 wrote:Firemoose: The emergence of UNC-Charlotte and Georgia State as FBS members in our two biggest recruiting markets is the single biggest reason we are considering FBS.

I don't think that's true at all. We commissioned the study and decided to try and go FBS long before either of them were decidedly FBS members. I remember a lot of folks getting upset that both of those programs were chosen ahead of our program. We are attempting to go FBS because it makes sense and it will be beneficial for our university, not because Georgia State and Charlotte are going FBS.

You're missing my point. True, we commissioned the FBS study long before either of them were decidedly FBS members. No argument here. The catalyst, in my opinion, was the berth of football programs at UNCC and Georgia State (and to a lesser degree Old Dominion). We accurately recognized that they wouldn't stay in FCS for long. It's no coincidence that our FBS study was announced at the same time UNCC was trying to start a football program. Other variables got the FBS ball rolling in Boone, certainly. But from my conversations with our athletic officials, I strongly believe that we would not have initiated the FBS study when we did had UNCC and Georgia State not decided to play football.

And to circle back to the original debate, many of us felt App could hold its own in recruiting against FCS members UNCC and Georgia State. No one that I know of feels the same about FBS members UNCC and Georgia State. Consequently, the comparison of UNCC signees relative to ASU signees is, in my estimation, superfluous.

I don't think it's superfluous at all. I've been trying to get people to understand that no matter if they were FBS or FCS that it was going to hurt our recruiting because players in our footprint now have many others choices than they had before. We were getting the players we were because it was mostly either BCS schools (SEC & ACC) or ECU (although the Sun Belt is coming on this year also). Now there are three added schools (ODU lesser) that offer choices that were not there. Of course if they were still FCS we would be on more even ground but it's still kids that were there before that are no longer there. Even if they were only FCS it still takes 30 to 50 players out of our footprint. Going FBS just made it harder to get those boarderline BCS kids who only had ECU before. I use Armanti as my posterboy. We all know the story. FBS schools wanted him as a receiver, he wanted to play QB, so he came to App. Now say that he had three other options that weren't there when he came out. Any of those could have offered to let him play QB also. He might have still come to App but his choices, no matter if they were FBS or FCS, would have been more.

Also, the biggest argument against UNCC hurting us is that they will take years to field a winning team and they will not really hurt us since kids will want to go to a established winning program as opposed to a struggling program. I just don't think it's going to take as long as some think. And the players they are already getting is showing that.

78-I have tons of respect for what you are doing as far as recruiting goes. You do a great job and I am using some of your information to make sure I don't miss anyone but I have also had many people asking to see my report once the recruting is done. After it was announced that they were going FBS I started to end what I was doing but I've had a lot ask me not to since they will still get the boarderline FBS/FCS kids that we might have gotten in the past. Seeing where kids go given the choice between us and the others is just an indication what we might be in store for no matter if we stay FCS or are able to move up.