Lehigh Football Nation

A lot of words have been spilled about this over the past 24 hours, with upset Richmond players, fans, and alumni (if you beleive the Richmond boards) having mobilized thousands of signatures to talk to the trustees on whether Richmond should join the Patriot instead of the CAA in 2007. Updating the press, the following showed up in the Richmond Times-Dispatch today: Move won't pay? In the article are half-truths about the Patriot League and Richmond's eligibility in the Patriot that should be debunked here: If UR chooses to join the Patriot League in 2007, the Spiders would find themselves in an uncomfortable state of flux for several seasons. Richmond would remain an A-10 member in 2005 and 2006 with teams that could be affected in many ways by the change of the school's football philosophy. Misleading. Many PL schools issue grant-in-aid which has the effect of being like scholarships. This implication that Richmond will all of a sudden have Siena-like recruiting classe

A series of articles have shown up in the press concerning the fate of the Atlantic 10 (A-10) football conference, and the Patriot League has been placed squarely in the middle of the proceedings. Last year, the Colonial Athletic Association (CAA) open themselves to the advent of creatingg a I-AA football conference by making Northeastern their twelfth all-sport member, and their sixth potential football member. It didn't affect the A-10 competitively in 2004, as 4 teams qualified for the I-AA playoffs, including the evential national I-AA champions James Madison University. But considering that 3 of those playoffs team (JMU, William & Mary and Delaware) already were a part of the CAA in all other sports, the A-10 had to be shaking in their boots. If the CAA wanted to make a championship I-AA football conference, taking their 6 teams that were already committed to the CAA in all other sports, what would stop them? The speculation here and elsewhere was that the CAA had a few op