Coast-to-Coast Athletic Conference (C2C)

[jknezek]

So much of a school's identity is tied up in D1, whether it makes sense or not. The alumni lose their collective minds when those few schools, like Hartford, make a smart financial decision to step away.

VMI has no business in D1. In almost every sport in which they used to play W&L, W&L was better. Outside of a few special cases now, VMI has stopped allowing itself to be embarrassed by its D3 neighbor.

But it really is a joke. The bottom of D1, in almost any sport, ranges between the upper middle and the top of D3 in terms of competitiveness. D1 schools are spending a fortune, and they still don't get kids that are much better than the dedicated kids playing D3. And the NIL rules are only making it worse.

[SierraFD3soccer]

The Virginians who post on the basketball boards likewise insist that Longwood, despite its small size and comparative lack of resources for a D1 school, will never leave D1 for D3 because the school's identity is too tied up in its men's basketball program. Most of what public awareness there is of the school within the Old Dominion apparently stems from hoops, particularly due to former Longwood star and long-time NBA player Jerome Kersey.

Longwood is also 70-30 women to men and about3500-4000 students. It is also right near Hampden Squidney. Nice soccer stadium. Great grass.

[VASoccerDad]

I wish there was a solution for CNU, UMW, and Salisbury.  All solid programs -- probably too solid which is why they can't find a stable conference situation (and geography).  Kinda surprised recruiting doesn't seem to be impacted.  Honestly, in Virginia, I still don't understand how Radford and Longwood remain Div. 1 soccer programs.  If they dropped to DIII, I could see CNU, UMW, Salisbury, Radford, Longwood, and add St. Mary's MD as a good conference as far as soccer goes.

Son played at Radford for his first 2 years and had a decent experience. Radford soccer is part of a the Big South which is 3rd tier D1 conf whose teams primarily has 50% int'l players in most programs. Only one team qualifies for the NCAA tournament.  What you see at the top tier D1 trend with int'l players has been going on in the Big South for years. Longwood = 2025 18 int'l, Radford- 13 int'l, Gardner-Webb 20 int'l. Marshall broke that barrier which primarily has int'l players who play almost all the minutes.

IMO, Radford is never going D3. It is a state school with over 6000k enrolled. However has little resources across its sports programs. Several of the other programs do decently like its basketball program.

VMI imo will never go D1. Despite doing poorly in almost every sport and a smaller school, the school vision of itself would suffer substantially. 1500-1700 students with 86% men. I went to W&L literally next door. The alumni base would not allow this.

My comments on Radford is that it is a regional university with absolute no pretension. In fact, it seemed to be the most diverse college I have ever seen, literally. Not something they had to aspire to. Mostly I think because it was reasonably inexpensive even for out of state kids. Very accessible. Overall, just a bunch of poor kids trying to get educations and where sports has little to do as to why they attended there. Lot's of positives.

Correction...VMI is already D1, has been for a while now.