USG regents meeting Friday because they want to leave the Gulf South for D1 sports.
United Athletic Conference for football; ASUN for other sports…
United Athletic Conference for football; ASUN for other sports…
Realignment: West Georgia moving on up?
- Thread starter Maroon Eagle
- Start date
Division II is dying. It's so expensive to offer scholarships that a lot of D2 schools are choosing to move to D1 (North Alabama, West Georgia, rumors that West Florida will be next). The thought is at the FCS level that they can make money in buy games to offset costs.
Mississippi College and Delta State are our state's D2 schools. They have no desire to go to D1, but the Gulf South Conference is losing teams so they may be forced to find a new conference home, possibly in the GAC with the Arkansas/Oklahoma schools.
Delta State is the smallest Gulf South football-playing school (Only Christian Brothers is smaller in all sports). They cannot move to D1 and D3s are purging public schools. The three D3s in the state (Millsaps, Belhaven and MUW) are in interesting places conference wise (in three different conferences). Millsaps is in the Southern Athletic Association, with like-minded liberal arts colleges like Rhodes, Sewanee, etc. Belhaven is in the Collegiate Conference of the South with Southern Christian colleges and MUW has to play in the St. Louis Intercollegiate Conference because they do not fit in either. Belhaven made a great move and left its old conference a couple years ago because it was starting to fall apart. They will be down to 4 teams in 2 years so they are looking to merge.
I think West Florida and Valdosta leave for D1 in the next couple years. The Gulf South will continue to survive by recycling teams - and they will pressure AUM and Union (Jackson, TN) to explore adding football. If they won't, MC and Delta State (and West Alabama) are going to have to look elsewhere and let the GSC become a non-football conference. Someone else posted this a couple weeks ago, but I never thought I would see Mississippi State play UNA in football, but here we are.
Mississippi College and Delta State are our state's D2 schools. They have no desire to go to D1, but the Gulf South Conference is losing teams so they may be forced to find a new conference home, possibly in the GAC with the Arkansas/Oklahoma schools.
Delta State is the smallest Gulf South football-playing school (Only Christian Brothers is smaller in all sports). They cannot move to D1 and D3s are purging public schools. The three D3s in the state (Millsaps, Belhaven and MUW) are in interesting places conference wise (in three different conferences). Millsaps is in the Southern Athletic Association, with like-minded liberal arts colleges like Rhodes, Sewanee, etc. Belhaven is in the Collegiate Conference of the South with Southern Christian colleges and MUW has to play in the St. Louis Intercollegiate Conference because they do not fit in either. Belhaven made a great move and left its old conference a couple years ago because it was starting to fall apart. They will be down to 4 teams in 2 years so they are looking to merge.
I think West Florida and Valdosta leave for D1 in the next couple years. The Gulf South will continue to survive by recycling teams - and they will pressure AUM and Union (Jackson, TN) to explore adding football. If they won't, MC and Delta State (and West Alabama) are going to have to look elsewhere and let the GSC become a non-football conference. Someone else posted this a couple weeks ago, but I never thought I would see Mississippi State play UNA in football, but here we are.
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I'm glad you are here to fill us in, because I had no clue what division or conference ANY of them were in. I've only got so much time in the day.
Dying? That might be another one of your doomsday hot takes. 130 teams in FBS, 220 in FCS, 169 still in D2, 240 in D3. I mean I see your point, but dying is a little too strong of a word to use. There will always be a sizable number of those teams that do not want to get their brains beat in at the FCS level.
West Florida going D1 would not be good for Troy or South Alabama, especially in baseball.
I legitimately opened this thread looking for the Auburn joke