FB: Southern Athletic Association

[MCScots2013]

Who would be a unanimous pick for current SAA members (taking academics and travel into consideration)? Is there an obvious one at the moment?

[jknezek]

Who would be a unanimous pick for current SAA members (taking academics and travel into consideration)? Is there an obvious one at the moment?

Don't think so. That's the problem. No one is the USA South or CCS have attractive academic profiles, and all the football playing CCS schools are in the USA South anyway.

The schools that do have academic profiles, W&L or another upper tier ODAC, or one of the NCAC schools, like Depauw a former SCAC team, don't seem likely to give up their low travel conferences and are not geographically helpful anyway. The Centennial schools are not going anywhere and are a geographic disaster.

That leaves Austin College or Colorado College. Adding another Texas school has its own challenges, adding Colorado College doesn't help for football, or their D1 sports, and sucks massively for travel.

I don't think poaching a SCIAC school would make anyone happy, so that rules out CMS who would fit academically.

So no. That's why I still think my original idea scrapping the mission and values SAA for better geographic fits is the right idea. Especially as schools start facing even more revenue challenges. Paying a fortune for athletic travel is a highlighter line item if you can find a cheaper home.

[MCScots2013]

DePauw is an interesting idea since there is some history there. Hanover from the HCAC is another with some SAA ties having played both Maryville and Centre often over the last decade, including this upcoming season. Hanover, IN isn't too far from Centre (like 100 miles); ~275 mi from Maryville, ~300 from Sewanee, ~425 from Berry and Rhodes. The longest trip they have now is just 210 miles, so they won't want to double most trips then 5x it all the way to Texas.

The Fightin' Pences might challenge the "Southern" part of the conference name, but fun to throw out there since it's July 3rd and we have 64 days until kickoff. NPI will be the SAA saving grace if the top teams continue to be #8 (Berry) and #11 (Trinity) at season-end.

[TexPat]

...That's why I still think my original idea scrapping the mission and values SAA for better geographic fits is the right idea. Especially as schools start facing even more revenue challenges. Paying a fortune for athletic travel is a highlighter line item if you can find a cheaper home.

I deeply valued my personal experience as an SAA football player -- there was a genuine respect for your opponent when you knew they were immersed in a challenging environment on top of their preparation for the game that week; however, I think jknezek's point is right: the health of the institution, league, and (to a lesser degree) D3 athletics in the South are going to require some difficult decisions on conference affiliation. if the UAA presidents are willing to put their football programs in less-academically "prestigious" regional conferences then some of the SAA presidents may have to face that music, too.

If you remove the Big $$$, television networks, and private equity from the equation, the troubles facing the Frankensteined conferences of Division 1 start to look the same. Losing the regional identities/rivalries and health of realistically-sized conferences has been a net loss for college athletics at every level.

[Mavchamp]

I hear you on the academics, but let's go back to the geography question. Wouldn't an all-Texas league with Centenary, Millsaps, Lyon and Hendrix in the SAA (or pick another name) makes sense?  What's the bad blood between the Texas schools that seem to make this impossible?

There are a lot of us that wonder about the bad blood between some of the Texas Schools.  We get very vague and non-specific reasons....nothing concrete. 

Instead of having a single solid football conference.....we have 2 football conferences both teetering near disaster with only 6 schools a piece.  Which means no wiggle room for anyone moving around.

Anyone that trusts this 10 year deal the ASC has is short-sighted IMHO.

Anyone that thinks the SCAC is stable long-term with Millsaps and Gallaudet is foolish.

Be it academics....or politics....or sourness about the domination by the purple schools (HSU and UMHB).... it's astounding to me we can't make things work in order for all to benefit from the stability.

They seem to play nice in all other sports.

Looking at a map.....there IS a core of D3 schools in the Ark-La-Tex/Ark-La-Miss that simply makes TOO MUCH geographical sense:

Millsaps
Lyon
Hendrix
Centenary
ETBU
Belhaven
Rhodes

7 schools all within a 200-250 mile radius of one another.

What would really help things....would be for some schools to return to D3 to solidify some of these gaps.

Louisiana Christian (NAIA)
Sul Ross (D2)
Wayland Baptist (NAIA)
Mississipp Collegei (D2- restart football)

Who knows what the future holds.  Lots of things in motion.

But the SAA, SCAC, and the ASC perhaps need to learn to work together better in order to survive.  Survival may need to trump the differences in which we are using to separate ourselves. 

[MCScots2013]

...That's why I still think my original idea scrapping the mission and values SAA for better geographic fits is the right idea. Especially as schools start facing even more revenue challenges. Paying a fortune for athletic travel is a highlighter line item if you can find a cheaper home.

I deeply valued my personal experience as an SAA football player -- there was a genuine respect for your opponent when you knew they were immersed in a challenging environment on top of their preparation for the game that week; however, I think jknezek's point is right: the health of the institution, league, and (to a lesser degree) D3 athletics in the South are going to require some difficult decisions on conference affiliation. if the UAA presidents are willing to put their football programs in less-academically "prestigious" regional conferences then some of the SAA presidents may have to face that music, too.

If you remove the Big $$$, television networks, and private equity from the equation, the troubles facing the Frankensteined conferences of Division 1 start to look the same. Losing the regional identities/rivalries and health of realistically-sized conferences has been a net loss for college athletics at every level.

What about Wash U? They left the CCIW for NCAC affiliation this year giving the NCAC 10 football schools. Fairly top heavy with John Carroll, DePauw and Wash U.

Good point, Mav, about ex-D3s in the area. Forgot about many of them. Definitely would help things along, as would E&H and Ferrum out my way.

[Ron Boerger]

...That's why I still think my original idea scrapping the mission and values SAA for better geographic fits is the right idea. Especially as schools start facing even more revenue challenges. Paying a fortune for athletic travel is a highlighter line item if you can find a cheaper home.

I deeply valued my personal experience as an SAA football player -- there was a genuine respect for your opponent when you knew they were immersed in a challenging environment on top of their preparation for the game that week; however, I think jknezek's point is right: the health of the institution, league, and (to a lesser degree) D3 athletics in the South are going to require some difficult decisions on conference affiliation. if the UAA presidents are willing to put their football programs in less-academically "prestigious" regional conferences then some of the SAA presidents may have to face that music, too.

If you remove the Big $$$, television networks, and private equity from the equation, the troubles facing the Frankensteined conferences of Division 1 start to look the same. Losing the regional identities/rivalries and health of realistically-sized conferences has been a net loss for college athletics at every level.

The comparison to the UAA schools "stepping down" in football isn't quite on-point; the reason they do that is there aren't enough UAA schools that play football for the sport to be sponsored and receive a bid.  They are still associating only with their peers in their own conference for almost all other sports.  The five football playing members are associated with five difference conferences.  As an aside, two of the UAA schools were once affiliated with the SAA in football for a single season ('15-'16).

The SCAC has seemingly always been (with the dubious exception of the C2C) the only D3 conference that pushed the "we're going to be like instutions instead of geographically similar schools" byline, which is why you had schools like DePauw and Rose-Hulman (twice!) involved with so many schools that weren't close.  Then the SCAC started accepting a bunch of schools that didn't fit that narrative, so the SAA broke away and publically based their decision as much on the academic side of the equation as the financial/geographic.  They then broke *that* narrative (edit: the geographic part) when they invited Trinity and Southwestern in.  Whether some/all of the eastern schools again decide that enough is enough and either form yet another compact(er) conference or head elsewhere is the question.  Or, as has been posited here already, further school closures may dictate that decision.

[scottiedoug]

I supported Maryville's move to SAA because the Scots did not fit very well with the CCS in terms of image and reputation. Many of us wondered how they were going to pay for the travel. I still do. Do you prioritize the image business over proximity and how would you decide? Do schools with plenty of money for travel have separate revenue streams...wealthy athletes as graduates? Do high school athletes care about academic/cultural reputations?

[awadelewis]

What about Wash U? They left the CCIW for NCAC affiliation this year giving the NCAC 10 football schools. Fairly top heavy with John Carroll, DePauw and Wash U.

Wash U and Chicago left the league in 2016 after only a year as affiliate members in football claiming travel cost.

And Wash U really likes being talked about in the same breath as the other members of the UAA.

[MCScots2013]

I supported Maryville's move to SAA because the Scots did not fit very well with the CCS in terms of image and reputation. Many of us wondered how they were going to pay for the travel. I still do. Do you prioritize the image business over proximity and how would you decide? Do schools with plenty of money for travel have separate revenue streams...wealthy athletes as graduates? Do high school athletes care about academic/cultural reputations?

To your last point: probably depends on where the student is coming from. From the South: probably not. That's why there are many more NAIA and D2 schools. JK has a good point about this a couple weeks ago on the Future board. From the Northeast and MidAtlantic: probably so, and they can afford tuition at less of a discount rate. As northeast schools close, look for a student-athlete migration at our level to the South and Midwest.

Why MC and the SAA: Dr Coker being a Rhodes graduate probably helped the decision into going to the SAA, but to your point, I think we were caught in the middle as far as reputation between the CCS/USAC and the SAA. Makes me all the more interested in what FloSports is claiming the revenue for these schools will be. Won't be long until they get my ~$80.