I guess ETBU is settling for a 9 game schedule.

Lyon
Belhaven
Centenary
Texas Lutheran

I'm not sure If they have a 5th non-conference game or not.  It may be a game against NAIA or some outlaw team like Westgate again. 

At least the potential for a strong season is there.

ETBU hasn't announced their schedule yet....but it will be interesting to see how many of last year's opponents will resign.

It was SCAC heavy with Lyon, Centenary, and Texas Lutheran.

The game against Oklahoma Panhandle State (NAIA) was the lone non D3 opponent. 

Hopefully it will be similar this season.  IMHO... there's NO EXCUSE for ETBU and Centenary to not be playing.... they are only 45 miles apart from one another.

Quote from: crufootball on March 05, 2026, 06:26:43 PM

Quote from: Mavchamp on March 05, 2026, 12:32:44 AMIf the SCAC was truly wanting to get out from under the domination of the 2 purple schools....AND have long term survival as a football conference with an AQ..... they should have at least considered taking HPU and ETBU with them.  That's even assuming either would have even left the ASC if offered.

Neither HPU nor ETBU would have dominated the SCAC in football like the purple schools,...and you would no longer have that "block vote" of the 4 Baptist schools together.  The conference would likely be sitting with 9 schools and no worries of scheduling and neither of the purple schools.

Choices were made.

The purple schools would have been forced to go D2 or whatever....and every one else would be going about their merry D3 way.

It would be dirty to be sure.  But we'd at least have one stable conference.

We'd have a solid D3 conference made up of mostly Texas schools.... while UMHB and HSU would likely be almost immediately competitive in the LSC.

But looks like we will string out this age of uncertainty for a few more years for both conferences.

I don't see the SCAC gaining much stability in the near future in football.

And anyone that thinks the ASC is in good shape at 6 is fooling themselves IMHO.

I am not sure anyone thinks the ASC is in good shape at 6, it is just in much better shape then it was 4.

Just to add one thing though, with the all the talk about the purple dominance, ETBU won the most conference titles last year with 6 (Baseball, W Basketball, Softball, both Tennis, and Volleyball) followed by HSU at 4 (M Basketball, Football and both soccer's)  and then UMHB at 3 (W CC and both golfs).

I don't think the exodus to the SCAC was because of basketball, softball, and tennis.

As an ETBU alum....I've seen the struggles against the purple schools in football.

The Tigers are (1-27) Vs UMHB on the gridiron.

They are (2-25) Vs. HSU.

That's beyond abysmal.  Especially when the majority of those games haven't even been competitive.

Even with that record.....I STILL don't want them to run away.

GET BETTER.

That's what I want.  Learn to compete against the purple schools.  You may still lose more often than not...but at least make them sweat for it.  Steal a win now and again.  just....GET BETTER.

And I'd say the same to anyone if they felt like ETBU was dominating them in any given sport.  Although...history says that hasn't been the case.  ETBU is mostly mediocre in most sports with upticks in random sports here and there.  But dominating isn't happening.

If the SCAC was truly wanting to get out from under the domination of the 2 purple schools....AND have long term survival as a football conference with an AQ..... they should have at least considered taking HPU and ETBU with them.  That's even assuming either would have even left the ASC if offered.

Neither HPU nor ETBU would have dominated the SCAC in football like the purple schools,...and you would no longer have that "block vote" of the 4 Baptist schools together.  The conference would likely be sitting with 9 schools and no worries of scheduling and neither of the purple schools.

Choices were made.

The purple schools would have been forced to go D2 or whatever....and every one else would be going about their merry D3 way.

It would be dirty to be sure.  But we'd at least have one stable conference.

We'd have a solid D3 conference made up of mostly Texas schools.... while UMHB and HSU would likely be almost immediately competitive in the LSC.

But looks like we will string out this age of uncertainty for a few more years for both conferences.

I don't see the SCAC gaining much stability in the near future in football.

And anyone that thinks the ASC is in good shape at 6 is fooling themselves IMHO.

Quote from: Jake Feldman on March 04, 2026, 06:25:45 PMThat's why I'd invite Gallaudet as an associate member until a 6th school is found, and the AQ is stable.

That's a big travel bill for Gallaudet to foot for more losses.

I don't think anyone is satisfied or even comfortable with the current state of the ASC....but it's better than it was 6-8 months ago and it's at least stable for a few years.

I'm curious what the fandom of the SCAC is.  What's the temp in the room for those 5 football schools?

1.  It's not ideal and definitely not perfect....but let's keep the round robin going.  No need to panic.  We're fine without the AQ.

2.  Let's stay separate...but let's at least form a scheduling alliance with the ASC to help with travel costs and scheduling headaches.

3.  Fear that some of the SCAC will reluctantly return to the SAA or the ASC fearing the SCAC may not be sustainable in the long term.

4.  Will non football members find membership elsewhere if the football side disappears again.

IMHO..... the SCAC's best prospect would perhaps be Belhaven.  They are grossly in the boondocks with the USA South.  The SCAC could be marginally better from a geographical standpoint than the USA.  Would Belhaven be interested?  I have a hard time believing anyone would leave the SAA for an unstable conference. 

In a perfect world maybe some of the old ASC programs could come back to rejoin the conference.

Maybe Sul Ross will tire of the perpetual losing and travel all over the state of Texas and New Mexico in D2 and come back to D3.

Maybe Belhaven will tire of traveling to Virginia and North Carolina.  Maybe they could be football affiliates to the ASC.

Maybe Wayland Baptist would like to join it's Baptist brethren to save on travel to Kansas, Missouri, and all over Oklahoma.  Leaving the NAIA might be a tough decision....but it could prove to save money in the long run. 

Maybe Nelson would like to be part of the ASC.  Geography would have them almost directly in the middle of the East reaches and the west reaches of the conference  No more travel to Missouri and Kansas....and even Louisiana for that matter.

Maybe Mississippi College will one day revive their football program and will return to D3 after an expensive failure in D2.  I think alum and students at MC are still angry about their football program getting the ax.

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I'm really hoping ETBU can forge a solid rivalry against Centenary.  Mostly for football...but for all sports really.  Being only 45 mins apart....this could be a great series.  I know they're all in on the SCAC....but it would be fun to have them in the ASC.  But I'd settle for a non-conference rivalry.

We use to have a fierce rivalry with LETU.... particularly in basketball.  Always packed houses.  Gone.

Had a solid rivalry with Louisiana Christian too.  Esp in football.  Also gone.

All this conference shuffling has certainly caused a bit of a disconnect for fans IMHO.

Quote from: Ralph Turner on February 26, 2026, 01:02:03 AMIMHO, Wayland and Nelson are closer to the ASC in mission and vision. Texas Wesleyan was D2 in the 1990's. They spent 1 year in the ASC about 2000-2021, but needed to add sports at that time. They moved to NAIA shortly from there, about 2001. (I think that my comments on the old message board.)

If they were to make the jump....it sure would solidify the ASC at least for a little while.

And after pursuing the D2 boards....there are some Lone Star Conference fans that are not sold on Sul Ross sticking around.  I wonder if the addition of Texarkana is part of the reason other than the obvious fact that they are struggling in almost every sport.

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I'm genuinely curious.... how is the mission and vision different for the ASC Vs. the SCAC?

It's a shame they can't work in a more synergistic way instead of being so antagonistic to one another.

Quote from: TheChucker on February 25, 2026, 05:10:17 PMLooks like TX Wesleyan is off the board for any future ASC membership. Going D2.

https://x.com/ramsports/status/2026437467163808221?s=46

That's pretty interesting.... that leaves Wayland, Texas College, and Nelson as the only Texas teams in the Sooner Conference for football.

Travel costs have to be stacking up for all of them when you consider several trips to Oklahoma, Arkansas, Louisiana and even Arizona....and that's just for football.

Schools like Wayland, Nelson, and Louisiana Christian are islands all alone with no one near them.

You get into the other sports and you not only have the road trips to Oklahoma ....but you add in trips to Kansas and Missouri as well.

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I would suspect that Texas College and Arkansas Baptist would either stick with the SAC since they have multiple HBCU's in the conference.  If not....there are several other conferences they could easily slide into seamlessly and remain in NAIA.

But you have to wonder if MAYBE Wayland and Nelson would at least lend an ear to the ASC.  You would think having all your conference opponents in Texas would be appealing.

I think they both offer the right number of sports to transition to D3.

The bigger question might be.....IF they were to decide to make the plunge to D3.....would they chose the ASC or the SCAC? 

Quote from: Ron Boerger on February 19, 2026, 09:59:14 AMThis isn't relevant to recent discussion, but as the ASC schools do not participate in the annual NACUBO endowment study (prompted by D3Playbook recently listing endowments by conference), I went through each of the school's most recent audits (for the period ending mid-2025) to dig up these figures:

HSU:  $223.5M
UMHB: $132.3M
HPU: $46.7M
ETBU: $39.4M

in addition, the two schools joining the conference next year:

Schreiner:  $88.6M
McMurry: $81.4M

With the exception of HPU, all endowments showed some growth from 2024 to 2025.  HPU lost around $7M which given the small total is not a good thing.  All schools showed either revenues in excess of expenses (ranging from around $10M for UMHB to $0.6M for McMurry) to relatively small deficits ($0.2M for HSU to $2.8M for Schreiner).  All schools have a good ratio of assets to liabilities.

School	Endowment (M)	Revenue	Expense	Assets	Liabilities
HSU	$223.50	$84.3M	$84.5M	$414M	$85.5M
UMHB	$132.25	$139M	$129M	$410M	$47.4M
Schreiner	$88.60	$61M	$63.8M	$170M	$31.7M
McMurry	$81.40	$55.2M	$54.6M	$193M	$33.2M
HPU	$46.70	$44.3M	$37.5M	$146M	$8.2M
ETBU	$39.40	$61.3M	$62M	$162M	$27.1M

Interesting.....I'd have to do some digging and asking around....but I've always understood ETBU's endowment to be more in the $65-70M range instead of the $39M listed.  That seems really low.  But I can't say with any certainty that it isn't correct.  But that's almost half what I understand it to be.

Quote from: Ralph Turner on January 13, 2026, 01:23:58 PMPerhaps, "participation in intercollegiate athletics" is not the enrollment driver that it is for so many of the private colleges in the SCAC and the ASC.

That's a fair point.

I would think a small rural college would use any tool to recruit a student body....academic, athletics, campus vibe and excitement, school spirit.

But when all of your teams are getting skull-dragged week after week, season after season it sure makes it hard to build any sort of school spirit or campus social vibe.

Maybe the financials make all that losing worth it....but seems like some competitiveness would solve a multitude of other issues.

JMHO.

I did some research on SRSU since moving to the LSC.

2024
Football (3-8) (2-7) 8th place
Volleyball (2-14) (2-20) 16th place
Mens Basketball (3-20) last place
Ladies Basketball (1-13) (1-21) last place
Mens soccer (6-9-2) next to last place
Women's soccer (2-14) last place
Baseball (2-29)
Softball (14-24)

2025
Football (0-11) last place
Volleyball (3-12) last place
Mens Basketball (2-10) currently last place
Ladies Basketball (1-12) currently in 15th place
Mens Soccer (5-5-7) 8th place
ladies Soccer (2-16) 14th place

My questions are.....

What's the appeal for being D2 when you are getting your head bashed in for every sport?
Why is saving money worth that to a university.  No pride in athletics is kinda sad.
What's the appeal for an athlete to go there?  If they are getting offered there...they likey have other offers.

Just seems like a lose-lose proposition to me.

SRSU is a very small fish in an ocean filled with sharks and whales.

Saving on travel costs is one thing.....but.... isn't being competitive in ANYTHING important too?

SRSU might not have been a juggernaut in the ASC....but they were at least competitive. 

On the outside looking in....it seems like they will be wanting back into D3 within less than 10 years.  Losing like that in every sport is no fun for coaches, players, fans, or the community.

That's just flat out U G L Y in my opinion. 

Quote from: Ralph Turner on November 23, 2025, 02:12:14 PMI doubt that Centenary would jump. Centenary is competitive in most of the other sports, especially baseball.

Louisiana (College) Christian University is having too much success and with an easier travel budget in the Red River AC.

Sul Ross State won't come back.

IMHO, the only chance the ASC might have is for Wayland Baptist and Nelson, the former SWAGU, to switch. You would make HPU and Wayland travel partners and Nelson is nicely located in Waxahachie (southern DFW area for non-Texans, and phonetically Wahk'-sah-HATCH-ee).

You would think Wayland would like to be with their "Baptist Brethern".  No doubt the travel would be kinder to them. 

Maybe they don't want to take the UMHB and HSU beatdowns..... but it looks like they are taking plenty of beat downs in the SAC.

Christmas wish list.....

ASC recruits two-three schools to join the conference in the off-season

Wayland Baptist
Louisiana Christian
Sul Ross State
Nelson University
Centenary

Looking at Sul Ross so far this season..... two shut out blowout losses.... and the results of last season....

Makes you wonder if they would consider returning to D3 and the ASC.

It's been ugly for them....and the travel has got to be exponentially more expensive than it was in the ASC.

Just some food for thought.