FB: Southern Athletic Association

[Pat Coleman]

The schools agreed to honor their commitments for 2012. We'll see in 2013 and beyond how SAA teams intend to schedule football games.

[Ron Boerger]

Plus it's only football.  Have not seen anything about SAA and SCAC continuing schedules in other sports, since both should be able to put together a decent conference slate, possibly double round-robin for the SCAC, in those starting next year.   

[Shoreman]

Interesting study on college presidents salaries. Seems simple, get a new president at Hendrix, fund the football program!

http://chronicle.com/article/Income-Gap-Widens/129980/

[Just Bill]

The SAA has added Washington University (Mo.) and University of Chicago as affiliate members for football...

http://bearsports.wustl.edu/Sports/Content/Pages/fb12-13-11.aspx

[Shoreman]

What a great boost for the soon to be Berry and Hendrix programs. Quality nationally known teams added to their schedule. They will have to hit the ground running with their fledgling programs.

Does anyone know if Oglethorpe is considering reinstating football?

[Shoreman]

Interesting the SAA Football conference will have an original member of the Big 10 (U Chicago) and an original SEC member (Sewanee).

[Hawks88]

So they can add teams from Chicago and St Louis but the school 90 miles down the interstate from one member keeps getting left out. Whatever.

[Shoreman]

I think it's all about admissions standards for the SAA. I think that's why they moved out the Texas schools, more about the kind of applicants they can accept than travel. That's not to say that Trinity and Austin are easy to get admitted to, but they are on a different level. Same can be said for Huntington, which is a shame because the location fits the league perfectly.

[Shoreman]

Looks like football is being talked up by Oglethorpe, hope they move in that direction.

http://brookhaven.patch.com/articles/oglethorpe-mulls-adding-football-to-sports-program

[DGPugh]

Hawks88 & Shoreman
Huntingdon would be a great fit, i have read their reasons for not wanting Huntingdon in the SAA or SCAC....but....the arguements do not hold water.

keep the faith

[jknezek]

I think it's all about admissions standards for the SAA. I think that's why they moved out the Texas schools, more about the kind of applicants they can accept than travel. That's not to say that Trinity and Austin are easy to get admitted to, but they are on a different level. Same can be said for Huntington, which is a shame because the location fits the league perfectly.

Someone would have to do a lot more research than I've put in, but I don't see a whole lot of difference academically between Huntingdon and Oglethorpe. Granted I just did a surface scan of some easily available stuff, but someone with a recent big college comparison book could probably sort through it pretty quick.

I know back in 2009 Forbes ranked B-SC the best College/University in AL and Huntingdon didn't make the top 10, but I don't know how good that analysis was (although I'm partial to it for the high ranking W&L got!). Probably just as easy to say they don't belong as to say they do since its almost impossible to find a useful comparison these days.

[Ron Boerger]

I think it's all about admissions standards for the SAA. I think that's why they moved out the Texas schools, more about the kind of applicants they can accept than travel. That's not to say that Trinity and Austin are easy to get admitted to, but they are on a different level. Same can be said for Huntington, which is a shame because the location fits the league perfectly.

That dog don't hunt.  Trinity's admissions standards are quantitatively and qualitatively more difficult than a number of the SAA schools (not ALL, but enough), as are Southwestern's and Austin's.  Colorado College's standards may even be more stringent.    Hendrix' president Cloyd said some of the left-behind SCAC schools didn't meet SAA standards in one interview, then took it back later. 

[DGPugh]

jknezek & Ron

great ideas and food for thought

i am unsure what opinions of ranks for colleges or universities really means... >30 yrs of living in the unreal, self ordained and duly authorized world of academia has taught me that

i was on the interview comittee for professional school at Auburn on and off for >20 yrs. in that time i saw packets from kids that attended all of the old scac schools (including one of the best kids i ever taught that got accepted from Tninity- a tennis player... her name, but i got an email about a sick horse from her last year...?) anyway, if i were to go back and look at a ratio of applied to accepted from each of the schools, Trinity would have been top or equal to Huntingdon, BSC and oglethorpe would be on the low side.  Berry college would be the highest number and equal high ratio to Trinity and Huntingdon...but it was not in the old SCAC

when the Boy started looking at schools to attend in 2006, i steered him toward Huntingdon for that (among other) reasons. We had history in the family (my wife's side from LaGrange-fine school, and <40 miles from the farm: and my cuzin was capt of the Suwanee football team in the mid 60's)
but we still tried to get him to go to Huntingdon based on my opinion of their school from an academic association with thier former students

All these are fine, fine, erudite schools, and as Tupac said ''it's all good"

Oglethorpe ( a fine fine institution) is very similar to Huntingdon, but (unless i am way off) has a smaller endowment that Huntingdon, so that arguement is a bit shacky

i have been marveled by this non invite to the scac for...uh..well the past 6 yrs, i spect the non invite to saa iwill be the same

keep the faith

and GO Mount

[Hawks88]

Yeah, I tried looking through websites and compare admission criteria but Huntingdon was the only one that I found minimum criteria for grades/test scores listed. Others might choose one year's class and show that class' average. I just can't imagine that Huntingdon's numbers would be very different from most of the SAA schools in that regard. If they are afraid that we would gain some competitive advantage athletically then it's not like we have taken advantage of that so far. I added up our football records against all SCAC schools and came up with 9-8. Not like we've been dominating by any stretch of the imagination and I'm pretty sure most sports aren't much different from that.
I guess we just have to accept that our only shot at a conference for the foreseeable future is to hope that CNU decides to leave the USAC and maybe open up a spot for us.

Go Hawks!

[DGPugh]

Hawks88
HERO, i pray yall are well

I hope to see yall soon
keep the faith
Go Hawks