Feb 24 / Rob

Friday Ramblings: Senior Day (without seniors?) and GSU to FBS

Saturday is Senior Day for JMU basketball. The Dukes will welcome the 1-29 Towson Tigers to the Convo for the big regular season finale. The last time these two teams faced each other, JMU narrowly escaped with a 58-56 win. In that game, Towson outrebounded the Dukes by 30 rebounds. That is not a typo. I haven’t done any research, but I feel pretty confident saying that there probably aren’t too many instances where a team was outrebounded by 30 boards by a team at least a couple dozen games under .500. But this time it will be Senior Day and the Dukes will be hyped up to honor Julius Wells and Humpty Hitchens. Unfortunately, it appears Wells’ career had already ended due to a mysterious heart virus and Humpty has missed two straight games with a bum shoulder. So it looks like JMU faces the very real possibility of hosting a Senior Day without any seniors in the line-up. That would be the most 2011-2012 JMU Basketball thing ever.
Nastygram

This actually has nothing to do with JMU sports whatsoever, but someone used the term “nastygram” at work the other day. And by someone, I mean a fully grown adult male who draws a paycheck and expects to be taken seriously in the workplace. I’m not an advocate for violence, but I’m pretty much obligated to kick the next guy who says that in the nuts, right? I think it’s a law.

GSU to FBS 

An article showed up in the Atlanta Journal Constitution earlier in the week revealing that GSU commissioned a report that indicated the school’s football program is well positioned for a move to FBS. That’s not really too surprising to anyone who follows FCS football. Georgia Southern was a power program in the 90’s and has made the playoffs in back-to-back years. Wait, what? The report was about Georgia State, not Georgia Southern? Alright then. Aren’t our first year CAA friends a bunch of eager beavers?

In all honesty, I really don’t care if GA State decides to leave the CAA to move “up” to the Slum Belt Sun Belt. They have no history in CAA football and while I’m sure I could learn to hate them if they stick around, right now I just don’t care about them. If they think FBS is the right place for their program, then go for it. Seriously. They’re geographic outliers in the CAA so maybe a move is what’s best for their program. However, $20,000 for the study?!?! I mean $20,000? Now while I’ve never done one of these studies, I have spent almost 15 years in the consulting industry doing a wide range of strategic plans, does market analysis, opportunity analysis, etc. The things my firms have done just don’t have anything to do with college football and they come in the form a buzzword and jargon filled powerpoint deck instead of a document, but whatever. I can assure you that $20,000 does not get you much of anything. I’d expect that the “findings” of the report indicate that Georgia State is in Atlanta and people in Atlanta love college football, so the school is well positioned for success. I mean, seriously? For 20 grand you’re basically paying an intern to throw a few bar charts on a page add some jacked up Panther-Georgia Peach-Football logo, and call it a day.

Yes I Did Survive

Since absolutely nobody asked, I thought I’d let you know that I did survive my trip to El Salvador. And I enjoyed it very much thank you. I was there to celebrate my buddy from b-school’s wedding. It took place at his family’s beach house on the Pacific, which is one of the nicest properties I’ve ever set foot on. And I’m happy to report that Salvadoran weddings are almost exactly like every American wedding you’ve ever been to. Provided of course that at the weddings you’ve attended they blasted “Paradise City” promptly at midnight while a dude dressed as Axl Rose and 8 girls dressed as Slash come storming out with trays of tequila and Jager shots. That’s standard, right? If it’s not, it should be because it’s awesome.

 

7 Comments

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  1. Dukie95 / Feb 24 2012

    $20,000 sounds right. It would be irresponsible to spend more than $1 per person in attendance for the season.

  2. Rob / Feb 24 2012

    Well played sir.

    In all honesty, I think this was probably just a PR move by GA State to show alums that they’re serious about football and try to drum up some more support. If a school wants to go, they’re going to do a lot more than $20,000 worth of research.

  3. Chris / Feb 24 2012

    I hope GSU stays in the CAA for one very selfish reason: I live in Atlanta. The drive to the Georgia Dome is roughly 535 miles shorter than the drive to Bridgeforth. Also, I want to go to a college football game in the Dome that has fewer fans than the high school state championship games that are hosted there.

  4. Todd / Feb 24 2012

    What, no snark on the possibility of Liberty getting a Sun Belt invite?

  5. Rob / Feb 24 2012

    I didn’t even know about Liberty possibly getting a Sun Belt invite. Had I known, I definitely would have said something snarky, considering the Flames are one of my favorite things to be snarky about.

  6. 2004 Duke / Feb 24 2012

    Since talking about our basketball team makes me sick, I thought I give a shout out to JMU ALUM and official ESPN hottie Lindsay Czarniak for hosting sportscenter today!!!

  7. Todd / Feb 24 2012

    CAAZone’s JMU board has a link to a Liberty discussion forum where several posters claiming to be in the know have convinced themselves that Sun Belt officials have visited the school, and an invite is assured in April after the new SB commissioner takes over.

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