Northeastern University has apparently cut football. It's all over twitter and a few posters on UMasshoops.com I trust claim to have the official press release. As I'm typing this blog post, the Boston CBS affiliate, WBZ, just confirmed it.
This upsets me greatly. As much as I hate Northeastern (and I hate them a lot), the fate of the Huskies and the Minutemen football teams are not independent. Northeastern is was a short road trip every other year, possibly the shortest trip, and I'd assume, one of the least expensive.
My question becomes, where does it end? UMass is by far one of the most successful FCS teams in the Northeast, in terms of both wins and attendance (ok... so maybe not wins this year at 5-6, but we're talking historically), and we have alumni who are always dying to cut football in hopes that the extra funding will make basketball a power house. I'm willing to bet alumni who want to cut football are more numerous at the other northern CAA schools, and I wonder if Northeastern cutting it is the first of many dominoes.
Case in point, a UMass beat writer named Matt Vautour posted the following article recently about copying something BC and Notre Dame do pretty successfully. Everyone knows about the football game the two play, but they also play a hockey game the night before in the same school the football game will take place, and the attendance is boosted greatly at hockey since all the football fans are there anyway. Long story short, the writer suggested Hockey East and CAA football did the same thing in hopes of increasing attendance for both (Note to Hockey East and CAA, I'm waiting for something like this before I go all the way up to Orono. Just saying.). I posted this on a college hockey board I frequent, and the responses from Northeastern fans was "we hate our team, they're an embarrassment, cut them." The response from Maine and UNH fans was "since when have we had a football team?"
Will Maine and New Hampshire keep football if no one cares about it? What about Rhode Island? Hofstra? If these teams all get rid of it, who is there left for UMass to play?
It might be time to seriously consider making the jump to the MAC/Sunbelt/CUSA/Whatever FBS conference will take us. Yeah, it's pretty dumb playing for TheBigFootballBlog.com Bowl (no offense to that excellent web page), but I'd rather be playing football in a meaningless bowl game (or trying to get to a meaningless bowl game) than not playing football at all. Just saying.
As a side note, I'm upset with Northeastern. When I was at UMass, the football conference was called the Atlantic 10, which is the conference UMass plays in for all sports. Rhode Island and Richmond were the only other A-10 teams in the conference (compared to 3 America East teams, 5 CAA teams and 1 Big East team), so it didn't really make sense, but I was happy with it. Then Northeastern switched from America East in all sports to CAA in all sports. That gave the CAA 6 football teams (NU, Delaware, JMU, Townson, William & Mary, and Hofstra) enough to make it's own league. Immediately, the CAA teams left the Atlantic 10 conference and formed their own conference. They then robbed the A10 further, luring Richmond away. This killed the A10, as you need 6 members. Thankfully, the CAA invited the rest of the A-10 into the conference, and without much of a choice, all accepted.
So, why does it matter? A rose by any other name will still have thorns, right? WRONG. The CAA is a Virginian based conference (for the most part). By CAA rules (EDITED BASED ON jackman's comments), full CAA members get in the football conference automatically until 2017. Old Dominion, in Virginia, took advantage of this and started up a program and will join the South in '11. Not a big deal. Georgia State (guess where that is), starts up a program in 2010 and will also take advantage of this, will join the North in '12. Big deal.
Why put Georgia State in the North? Well, because it is an expensive plane trip for all of us in the conference. The Southern teams don't want to take a plane to Georgia every other year. As they have the voting rights (the CAA voted to let Georgia Southern in as a full time member, the football only affiliates had no say), they're sticking us with the team they voted to accept. I think it's revenge for the Civil War or something.
It's Northeastern's fault, and they're bailing on us without having to pay for them at all. Northeastern University is officially dead to me.
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2 comments:
On the voting issue, here's how it works: a 75% approval vote of all CAA Football members, including the affiliates, is required to admit any new member. The exception is that, until July 1, 2017, any full CAA member is guaranteed admission so long as they are full scholarship. That means that Drexel, George Mason, VCU and UNC-Wilmington could still get in without a vote, but that's it. (That is also how Old Dominion and Georgia State got in.)
Thanks for the comment. I've updated the post based on what you said.
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