SB Expansion

[AppGrad78]

Firemoose: I agree completely with your argument. FBS members UNC-Charlotte, Georgia State and Old Dominion will enjoy significant recruiting advantages over us. I'm certain your data will reflect that. But if you're using that data to refute those who said Appalachian could hold its own against FCS members UNCC, Georgia State and Old Dominion, that, in my opinion, is a flawed exercise. Those three schools, for all intents, don't exist. They are now FBS programs. We'll never know how we stacked up against them as FCS schools. Personally, I think we would have held our own. You no doubt think otherwise. But given that the landscape has changed, we'll never know for sure.

[AppinVA]

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.

It's much easier to get your arse kicked when your head's in the sand.

[firemoose]

Firemoose: I agree completely with your argument. FBS members UNC-Charlotte, Georgia State and Old Dominion will enjoy significant recruiting advantages over us. I'm certain your data will reflect that. But if you're using that data to refute those who said Appalachian could hold its own against FCS members UNCC, Georgia State and Old Dominion, that, in my opinion, is a flawed exercise. Those three schools, for all intents, don't exist. They are now FBS programs. We'll never know how we stacked up against them as FCS schools. Personally, I think we would have held our own. You no doubt think otherwise. But given that the landscape has changed, we'll never know for sure.

Honestly I don't. This was never about comparing FCS recruiting and FBS recruiting. It was a simple exercise to show those who said that there would be no impact to our recruiting that simply by having two schools directly in our footprint and the lesser impact of ODU (we don't recruit that area as much but they can push into ours if they want to) would affect us for the only reason that three schools are now recruiting in the same grounds we are. I guess I didn't make that clear. I never said we couldn't compete with them on the FCS level or try to compete on an FBS level. We discussed this both on campus and on the boards and I was trying to show that the simple math of UNCC and Ga State each taking 10 to 20 kids and ODU taking a few others out of our area will hurt the number we have to select from and now with them being FBS the quality could also drop. Nothing more than that.

[AppGrad78]

I think we agree a whole lot more than we disagree.

[firemoose]

It's much easier to get your arse kicked when your head's in the sand.

Head is firmly on the shoulders and many feet from the sand. And the arse has never been kicked.

[firemoose]

I think we agree a whole lot more than we disagree.

I think that is very true. My fault I didn't express what I was really doing more clearly. Sorry about that.