About This Nova to the Big East Thing
With all the excitement over the Duke’s big win last weekend, we haven’t had time to address the developing situation with Villanova. For those you haven’t heard, Villanova has been extended an offer to leave the CAA football conference for the Big East. Villanova is the defending FCS National Champion and is currently ranked #1 in the polls. The school plays in the Big East for all sports.
Obviously, this could have quite an impact on the CAA and JMU. How much impact is tough to tell however. First off, it’s not even clear if Nova is going to accept the invitation. That might seem crazy to lots of fans, but as Mickey Matthews pointed out this week, Nova’s facilities aren’t exactly up to par. Their current stadium only holds 12,000 fans, which is below the NCAA standards for FBS programs. The Wildcats would need to make a significant investment to improve their current stadium, build a new one, or venture further off campus for home games to play in another existing facility. Plus, anyone who watched the semi-final game against William & Mary last year, knows that Nova doesn’t exactly pack the stadium they have.
If Nova does make the leap, the loss will be felt by the CAA. Just how much it will be felt is tough to tell. Taking a national championship contender out of the conference has got to be bad right? On the surface, yes. It’s not good to lose a consistently strong program. However, I don’t think it will damage the CAA’s reputation or drastically decrease the leagues level of competition. Plus ODU and Georgia State are ready to join the league in the next few years. It’s unlikely that either school will immediately fill a void left by Villanova in terms of competitiveness. Both schools are situated in fertile recruiting areas and it already seems quite likely that they’ll have more fan support from day one than Nova ever did.
It will be interesting to see how this plays out and how the other CAA schools, particularly JMU, react. I’m fairly certain that just about every JMU fan I know would jump at the chance for the Dukes to be in Nova’s position right now. They’re not though. As Rick Pitino might say, “The Big East isn’t coming through that door folks, the ACC isn’t coming through that door.” Nova has a significant advantage in that it plays its other sports, notably basketball, in the Big East. JMU does not and it’s tough to imagine that a BCS conference would randomly invite the Dukes to join up. I’m not even sure if it’s permissible under NCAA by-laws. If I’m JMU AD Jeff Bourne however, I’m calling every FBS school and conference administrator I can get a hold off and at least throwing the Dukes hat in the ring. I’m firmly against the Dukes jumping to a crappy FBS conference just to move up. It’s time to start seriously exploring the options however.
I agree with staying in the FCS. As I have been told from a wide variety of successful people “it’s always better to be a big fish in a small pond than a small fish in a big pond”. I would rather not see us make the jump and then spend 10 years getting our teeth kicked in every Saturday. It would be hard to justify the time and money to head back to the burg for that. I will be venturing up to U of R (its a short walk) to check out the scene at the first game in the new stadium and to do some recon for the JMU game there in a few weeks.
Don’t get me wrong. I’d love to see JMU go to the FBS. My point is that it’s going to take work to find the right conference and I’d rather not see them jump at the first opportunity, if it’s truly not a good fit. JMU in the Sun Belt does not appeal to me for example.
For what its worth, as late as 1999 JMU was beating UConn and South Florida. In 1994 they beat Buffalo, Uconn and Troy and lost a close one to Marshall. Where are all of these programs now?
Good points Circus, but UConn and USF are the only teams of that group that I’d really like to trade places with right now. Buffalo and Marshall (MAC) and Troy (Sun Belt) just aren’t in appealing positions.
As for you Landeta, you don’t “head back to the ‘Burg” for anything right now, what with all your sellout Cavs and Ticks attendance, and I just don’t believe an early season visit from the Crimson Tide like Duke is entertaining today wouldn’t move the meter better ’round these parts than another visit from the Towson Tigers.
The fact that Villanova gives the Big East greater presence and access to the Philadelphia television market is far from irrelevant here. Not dissimilar to the ACC wanting access to the Boston television market and luring Boston College. Unfortunately, JMU doesn’t have a large media market to offer the Big East.