I guess the NJ sports media market (Rutgers) is bigger than the Finger Lakes/Winery Country (Syracuse) one.
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I really don't get the point of having a convoluted league that is part FBS and part FCS. It makes no sense at all. Isn't the point of FCS to be in a league of FCS teams and get a playoff bid and try to win an FCS national title vs other teams that also only have 60 schollies?
Am I taking crazy pills here? FCS teams getting to be kinda/sorta full D-1 without spending the extra 20 schollies for men and adding another 20 for lady sports to stay title-9 compliant? The NCAA is just going to look the other way and put up with this BS? The NCAA is a bunch of cheap streetwalkers if they allow this.
B10 considers Rutgers to be part of the NYC market. That's the ONLY reason they wanted Rutgers.
The two 1AA schools (Tarleton St and Dixie St) would transition up to 1A, which presumably would mean offering the requisite schollies for football and adding schollies to the women's programs, if need be. They could also cut back elsewhere in the men's program.
But Tartleton and Dixie are both in the WAC, and the plan is for the whole WAC to move up to 1A in the next ten years. Still, I can't see MTSU and WKU fans getting too enthused about adding to their schedule schools in Stephenville, TX (west of Dallas) and St. George, UT that hardly anybody's heard of, plus NMSU. For MTSU and WKU it kind of defeats the point of the original CUSA realignment plans -- to give teams a more regional conference in order to cut travel costs. Instead, of being somewhat in the geographic center of the CUSA, as they are now, both MTSU and WKU would be way out on the northeastern fringe of what would become a conference that's mostly west of the Mississippi. The "Hail Mary" plan to keep the CUSA alive doesn't really have much for them.