Our Golden Platter?

[ATLJMUAlum]

You should read his next one that said there is nothing to it.

This guy is a joke. I hope he gets better as he gets more experience.

Haha.... wow.

[ATLJMUAlum]

Did you see the size of UNCC stadium capacity 15K. What a joke. We would be the 6th highest in average attendance in that league. Higher if we were to build out the whole thing.

Yea, pretty ridiculous.

[JMU2004]

Really Stoss? You "JUST did some poking around"? Wow, took you under 10 minutes to vet those rumors.

He must have some tremendously responsive sources. Or more likely, we are his source.

[purplehazed]

I'd love CUSA - I'd make trips to EZU, Marshall & O'dirty and others...

[Madisonian]

I heard NFL.

Intrigued... NFC or AFC. Geez I hope its the NFC south. It would be huge to host the Saints, Falcons, and Bucs at Bridgeforth. Lets not forget the beer sales.

[Dukes09]

The nfl is unwatchable sometimes. Fcs football is much better.

[rufus]

Intrigued... NFC or AFC. Geez I hope its the NFC south. It would be huge to host the Saints, Falcons, and Bucs at Bridgeforth. Lets not forget the beer sales.

From what I understand, the diehard FCS advocates are upset about the fact that moving to the NFL will result in fewer away games within driving distance.

[BDKJMU]

If C-USA WERE to go to 16 teams, I'm thinking each team would play the other 7 in its division, maybe 2 crossovers from the west and 3 OOC games. Might be different but let's just for a minute go w/ this.

That would mean in a 12 game season, 3-4 ( depending on the year) eastern division road games and 1 western division road game. So of those 9 division and conference games, we'd be looking at most 5 road trips- followed by only 4 the next year. As long as the scheduling maintained that we would always have two homes and two aways each year from the ECU/ ODU/ UNCC/ Marshall group, that would leave us with 2 driveable bus trips each year. From an economy standpoint, I think it would be in the Conference best interest as well. Not 4 home games against that core one year and 4 on the road the next.
Of the remaining schools, we'd have to fly to UAB, So. Miss & FIU, but only 1-2 times per year. The crossover games I assume would be split home and away, so whoever we drew would be an 1 additional flight.

So in essence, the worst we'd do is 3 flights for conference games. Going into this year, we were pretty much guaranteed 2 airplane trips anyway from the UMASS/ UNH/ Maine/ GA State group. So a net of one additional flight a year. Not too bad.

Our OOC scheduling is in our hands. If we did one regional BCS road payday game, one FBS home game and one FCS home game against one of our VA. brethren, we really would be not dramatically worse off travel wise than we are right now. The years we got the extra division game at home would be used for return games on the road w/ an FBS team, but we do that w/ Liberty already. Just substitute out them for Ohio U , Miami of Ohio, Navy or a low level BCS like Wake or Duke. Possibly at 1 for 2 deal w/ a decent BCS at home could be sprinkled in.

Sun Belt or MAC affiliation would not allow us to minimize travel costs in FBS ball like C-USA.
Obviously, this is a football centric discussion. I realize our costs would go up for the other sports to travel too.

Okay, I'm done...now make it happen please!

Looking back at the last 10 seaons, only 3 seasons did have 2 plane trip conference road games. The other 7 was only 1 conference plane trip. Have 2 this season- URI and Maine, but with UMass already gone, and URI & Ga State leaving after this season, were only looking at 1 conference plane trip a season. I'd call it a net additional 2 flights a year (most years anyway) for away conference.

[olddawg]

I'd say w/ 19 years of Yankee/ A-10/ CAA conference play and 36 plane trips involved for conference road games, having 3 plane trips a year is not that much of a bump. We can handle that. Anyone know what JMU uses as a cutoff for choosing to travel by air or bus? I'm guessing somewhere around 400 miles, but I suppose it would depend on whether there is an airport near enough the destination to make it feasable.

I was surprised to discover the eastern division of the MAC has 4 schools under 400 miles from the 'Burg, though none closer than 270 miles ( Ohio). Not quite as close as some of the C-USA schools, but not a whole lot farther. And the western division of the MAC is a whole lot closer than the western div. of C-USA.

Sunbelt, nothing closer than 533 miles ( GA State ). Just a logistical nightmare.