Quote from: Ron Boerger on March 30, 2025, 03:03:21 PMLouisiana Christian used to be known as Louisiana College and competed as a member of the ASC until 2021 when they transitioned to NAIA. Obviously they had their reasons - probably being able to sponsor fewer sports was one of them as they dropped XC, men's golf, women's tennis, and track.
And if I'm another school the ASC is pitching, I'm asking for at least the same $4-4.5M the rumor mill (and Corey Hogue) says McMurry and Schreiner allegedly got. Not sure the Baptist 4 or the donors who coughed up the original $8M have that much to contribute to the cause.
My memory is that LC had some accreditation issues, and maybe that factored into moving from D3 to NAIA?
as to why a team like wayland baptist and other NAIAs that are not already competitive in their existing conference don't want to move to D3. consider the following.
in some parts of the world NAIA is considered better that D3. Some NAIA schools, particularly in the midwest, have pretty good budgets and view themselves closer to D2 or FCS talent wise. so for some NAIA schools moving to D3 is viewed as a downgrade.
Now for Texas based NAIAs that is not really the case. however, when the ability to offer scholarships is the only edge you have over the "purple schools" and other ASC teams that aleady beat you, why would you give up that edge just to join their conference and keep getting beaten. without the ability to offer scholarships, teams like WBU, nelson, texas college, TW, langston would have an even tougher time getting recruits and fielding a team.