Orville and Wilbur State? Because I deeply dislike some of the teams that poached our players in the past, I would absolutely adore that.
Does the MAC have different rules than the ACC (Notre Dame), BIG 12 (BYU) and CUSA (Liberty) about what type of school can join? Perhaps they do but I doubt it
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The ACC has had private religious schools since day 1 (Duke, Wake Forest), as has the B12 (Baylor). So has CUSA, though their membership has obviously fluctuated a lot more.
I doubt the MAC has formal rules about it, but I suspect Liberty just doesnât fit the profile of a bunch of state schools that are generally pretty cohesive.
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Not sure Duke is religious. My sister went there. They have a divinity school but I think itâs separateâŚ
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For those of you very interested in this, the MAC board has 5 pages of discussion on this topic, and some discussion on the possibility of Western Kentucky or North Dakota State becoming #14.
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I have nothing against the fine program of NDSU but that makes zero geographic sense. I know, UB and UMASS arenât geographically close either, but why add to the distance to travel not only East now but West as well. There have to be better options than NDSU, no matter how good their programs are.
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The MAC has been better than most at sticking to a profile but in todays conference realignment my guess is that if Espn said we will give you a million more per year if you add Liberty we would do it. I think currently we get like $800k per year a school. If my math is off just add the number we need to divide the pie of our current dollars and cover travel and I bet we would do it
I mentioned this above, but I donât think thatâs a good thing in 2024. I really think it hinders marketing and interest. Plus, most of our teams cannibalize each otherâs market. Sun Belt spans 10 states. CUSA spans 8. Mountain West is 8. AAC spans 9+. MAC spans 5. Itâs great if you want to keep things cheap. Itâs bad if you want to earn the most among the rest.
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CUSA took Liberty because they needed members badly to remain a viable conference. I suspect most conferences view Liberty warily, partially because if itâs history and partially because it uses a huge online program to fund its athletics program. In the past their leadership professed to aspiring to be âthe Notre Dame of evangelical collegesâ - the implication being they will spend whatever it takes to achieve national prominence/dominance. That goal certainly doesnât fit the mission of the MAC or any member school. And Grand Canyon, which does not play football (yet), is taking a similar approach to funding athletics - as the Westâs evangelical counterpart to LibertyâŚ
Many universities and colleges were founded as church sponsored but a good number of them have pivoted to more secular platforms over the past 150 years. Someone mentioned Duke already. Names can be misleading in 2024. SMU, for instance, is ânonsectarian in its teaching and committed to academic freedom and open inquiryâ
Most Ivy League and NESCAC Little Ivies were originally religious missions. None of them are now. BYU and Liberty are definitely religious missions. I suspect the largest contingent of religion-based major colleges are Catholic schools. Many of those are far less theocratic than the once were.
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I think its inarguable that the MAC keeping to a profile and âstanding patâ throughout the last 2 decades was a mistake.
Both football and basketball are in worse spots than they were before all the realignment kicked off. It basically cemented us as the bottom FBS conference in perception as no one was âmoving upâ to us. Adding UMass and someone else could definitely help position the league as a real peer with CUSA (whoâs really fallen) and Sun Belt, which has been rising in profile.
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Get UConn, Temple, and Delaware for 16 and then snag a few basketball A-10s. That would be nice.
The vanity of this (MAC board, not you) made me chuckle a bit.
NDSU can field a football team competitive with the median P4 team(s) ⌠and has made the conscious choice to stay a big fish in a small FCS pond.
If they make the jump to FBS, it will not be to the MAC. MWC would be a stretch. B12 and youâre talking.
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This right here. WKU is halfway for me to Miami. So a much more doable conference game would be awesome. MTSU is even closer, so Iâd take them both. Although, we only need 1 now.
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Chief panic you are 100% wrong sorry. Ndsu has a good football team but they just got a new football coach who they are paying $330k a year. Their last home game of the year they drew under 7,800. Their stadium dome only seats 19k. The football team is top notch. The program is as far away from the Big 12 as we are
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Perhaps theyâre far from the Big 12 ⌠but that does not change the fact that they wonât leave the FCS for the MAC.
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I think I agree, but Iâm not convinced UMass was a great pickup for this. The pros are that theyâre nominally the state flagship and they were actually willing to join, but I think going south or into the mid-atlantic would be better. UMass just seems too far out on an island and in a region that doesnât really care about college football.
I think thereâs a decent number of schools out there who would be good candidates for the MAC. We arenât a P5 conference that needs to worry if each candidate would bring sufficient additional value, basically any midsize public university can be a candidate.
I know a lot have been mentioned already in this thread, but I think these would all be reasonable to consider:
WKU
MTSU
Missouri St
Kennesaw St
Old Dominion
Delaware
(And obviously just about any team in the Sun Belt, Marshall, App State, etc, I just think those teams arenât likely to want to leave)
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ChiefPanic-I think you are mistaking âvanityâ for common sense arguments as to why NDSU simply isnât a good fit for the MAC. While a fine athletic school, geographically it makes zero sense to move the MAC that far west. Oxford to Fargo, ND is 1085 miles. Oxford to Amhert, Mass is 671 miles. For other MAC schools it is even farther to North Dakota. NDSU while a nice institution doesnât bring much in the way of value added to the MAC. Unlike UMASS which is the primary public institution in Massachusetts, and brings with it the 8th largest media market (if you include Boston), the entire state of North Dakota is 770,000 people. It isnât expanding the MACâs footprint to any significant degree, and certainly not enough to offset travel costs. Contrast NDSU to other schools being discussed, most notably, WKU. Geographically fits. MAC, Miami especially recruits Kentucky. Most travel can be accomplished by bus, a significant cost saving. While not a major media market, fans in the MAC will be more interested in teams close by, like WKU. MAC fans have some familiarity with WKU as opposed to probably very little with NDSU. Here I am speculating a bit. Truthfully, I am struggling to find one positive to the MAC to pursue NDSU as a partner. I think NDSU would be a fine addition to the MWC, but not the MAC. This is not to say UMASS doesnât have its issues. UMASS is currently under a Title VI investigation for failing to protect the safety of certain of its students, but that is an issue for another thread.
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WKU receives more exposure in both Louisville and Nashville markets than MU does in Cincy from what Iâve seen (lived in all 3). KY also borders 3 MAC states and has zero pro team competition - I like them as a potential add.
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WKU and MTSU are good fits. App State ainât coming to the MAC and Marshall views itself as Southern, in spite of the fact that you can see Ohio from the upper reaches of Joan C Edwards Stadium. And they are persona non grata with a lot of MAC schools. Kennesaw State has a 7,800 seat stadium with no plans to expand and they havenât played a single game yet as an FBS member. I always thought Delaware might be an option. It would put us in the Philly, Wilmington, DC and Baltimore markets.
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