Lehigh Football Nation

The talk around collegiate athletics is "Division 4", after "Big 5" commissioners  Mike Silve, John Swofford and Bob Bowlsby floated the idea of a new subdivision over the past few weeks . Normally the talk of the big conferences breaking off from the rest of FBS would elicit so much yawning from the likes of Patriot League schools. Unless, of course, you're on the table for Division 4 membership. No, this isn't a typo, or a crazy theory.  Sportswriters are contemplating what Division 4 might look like, and the Patriot League is being contemplated as a possible league to be a part of that subdivision.

(Photo Credit: Lehigh Valley Live) Over the years, the schools of the Patriot League have had a reputation as being slow, contemplative, and not exactly proactive when it comes to matters of expansion or conference movements. A recent blog post from an odd source, however, shows how untrue this reputation is, at least in regards to the swirling winds around collegiate realignment the past few years. From the Shades of 48 blog, comes detailed freedom-of-information act information from William and Mary that exposes quite a bit about the process that goes on when a school and a conference are mulling over a potential move. It also shows how seriously William and Mary thought about leaving the CAA and joining the Patriot League.  In all sports.

(Photo Credit: Monmouth Athletics) In a way, you really have to feel for the football players of the Monmouth football program. A year ago today, Monmouth was preparing for a season where the Hawks were going to be in competition for the NEC title. A challenging schedule beckoned, with a trip to nationally-ranked Lehigh and Rhode Island of the CAA heading to Kessler field, but there was a battle with teams like Albany, and nearby rival Wagner, for the NEC championship and an autobid to the FCS playoffs. But many had no way of knowing that Realignmentaggeddon would hit the Hawks, having them leave their longtime home, the NEC, and in the process find the Hawks scrambling for a new conference home. It might have even come about thanks to the Patriot League.

Exactly when is a media entity not entitled to report on itself? This is the question I frequently pose to myself when ESPN, Fox and CBS report on anything about college realignment issues in general. It's especially true about this report made by Jeremy Fowler of CBS Sports.Com, which purports to be an inside look at who has the "most say" in realignment - TV networks or the conferences themselves. The good news is that there are a lot of revealing insights into the top men running the show in collegiate athletics, including media people and conference commissioners.  The bad news is that it reads like the writer is trying to snooker the reader into thinking that TV has no influence over realignment - when a keener, more independent look at the quotes reveals anything but.

It is July 1st, and around the world of college athletics, a lot of conferences are saying goodbye, and hello. The Big East said goodbye to a whole lot of its founding members, and renamed itself the American Athletic Conference.  Those members moved on to their new offices, where they will call themselves... the Big East. The CAA say goodbye to Georgia State, Old Dominion and VCU.  And they say hello to Albany (in football only), Stony Brook (in football only), the College of Charleston (with no football) and Elon. The SoCon say goodbye to College of Charleston, Appalachian State, Elon and Georgia Southern, and say hello to one new member, Mercer and hello again to two old members, East Tennessee State and VMI. The Patriot League, though, is not saying goodbye at all.  They're saying hello to their two newest members: Loyola (MD) and Boston University.

Unless you've been living under a rock the last five years, you've probably heard about "realignment", or, as I like to call it, "realignmentageddon", in Division I athletics. Led by Nebraska's departure from the Big XII to the Big 10, the dominoes have tumbles all through Division I, directly affecting pretty much every conference's membership with the exception of the Ivy League. Central to "realignmentageddon" is football, whose value to television executives is broadly accepted as the reasons why, say, Rutgers and Maryland abandoned decades-long relationships with their old conferences in order to get larger chunks of TV money. But why is it only individual schools?  Why wouldn't a conference which currently sponsors FCS football just decide, one day, to become an FBS conference? The short answer is: the NCAA rulebook is written than way. But the long answer is that the NCAA rulebook, essentially, forces the current FCS ...

If you're a regular reader of this blog, you'll know that sometime Lehigh opponent Monmouth recently made a move to leave the Northeast Conference (NEC) in all sports to join the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference (MAAC) in all the sports that they sponsor.  As it turns out, the MAAC does not sponsor three sports in which the Hawks compete: women's field hockey, women's bowling, and football, which meant that Monmouth president Paul G. Gaffney II needed to apply back to the NEC to become an associate member in all three sports to remain. It didn't seem impossible that Monmouth would remain in the league in these three sports. But today, Monmouth got their reply from NEC commissioner Noreen Morris , returning the will of the NEC presidents: yes to field hockey, and no bowling and football . With Monmouth's "Plan A" going by the wayside, the Hawks are now certainly looking at their "Plan B"'s - one of which could very well be the ...

(Photo Credit: Staten Island Live) While the news has broken that Quinnipiac and Monmouth will be accepting bids to the MAAC conference and leaving the NEC in all sports, nothing is official just yet.  The MAAC's presidents will be conducting a formal vote on the matter tomorrow, and until then, it's technically speculation. So is the thought of Wagner and Monmouth headed to other football conferences - something that seems fairly logical, should their moves to the MAAC be confirmed.  The MAAC does not sponsor football, and while the Hawks and Seahawks could spend $250,000 in exit money and then re-apply for associate, non-voting membership in the NEC for next season, it's far from clear whether either party would welcome the arrangement. If Wagner is thinking about joining the Patriot League in football, what could that mean to them? It could open up an interesting concept I've felt has been a missed opportunity for years - annual contests to see who'...

According to sportswriter Mark Blaudshun , a 30+ year beat veteran of college football now residing in New Jersey, a key move was made by two schools, Monmouth University and Wagner College, that affects the FCS football landscape next season. "Conference reconfiguration continues on all levels," the short blog post stated.  "According to the sources familiar with the process, the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference will add Quinnipiac, Wagner and Monmouth from the Northeast Conference. The announcement will be made on Friday." In and of itself the announcement doesn't directly affect the Patriot League.  But it might. With their move to the MAAC, a conference which does not sponsor football, the Seahawks and Hawks now have to make a decision on their football programs.

If you've been following collegiate athletics like I have, you've undoubtedly seen the latest news flying around this week as colleges have been dumping long-standing conferences like, apparently, top military brass have been dumping husbands and wives. Maryland abandons the ACC, a conference which they've called home for 50 years, to join the Big 10, for little other reason than cash money to bail out their near-bankrupt athletics department.  Rutgers abandons the Big East, a conference which they've called home for more than 20 years, to join the Big 10, for little other reason than cash money to fund their struggling athletics department. From there, all hell has broken loose, as Louisville has leapt to the ACC to replace Maryland, while the Big East seems convinced that East Carolina and Tulane are acceptable replacements for the Cardinals and Scarlet Knights, and the forgotten conferences of FBS, Conference USA and the Sun Belt, reshuffle their deck chairs to...

With the best Commodore VIC-20 graphics available for the cover art, Jefferson Starship 's "Winds of Change" album seriously underwhelmed pretty much everyone at the time, yielding few hits. Some folks think just because collegiate realignment has yielded few hits on the Patriot League hit parade, it doesn't really matter to them. I mean, what is it to the Patriot League if the CAA comes back from the jaws of the dragon, or if Conference USA is out of control, or the Atlantic Ten is simply dreaming that the Big East basketball conference breaks apart? As I started to mention yesterday , it very much does matter.  In the case of Georgetown, their TV deal with the Big East could very much affect the availability of aid for other sports programs, including football. In the case of Fordham, the Patriot League's other affiliate program in football, the winds of change are, without question, even more pronounced.

As weakly-sung 80's hair metal ballads go, you could do a lot worse than the Scorpions ' "Wind of Change", the German group's documentation of the fall of Soviet-style communism in Eastern Europe.  (Though I never could get into Klaus Meine 's vocals, which were always comically flat to me.) To some Patriot League fans, the wind of change blowing through collegiate athletics right now seems as distant to them as the Scorpions' last hit record.  Does it matter, they seem to say, that the Big East might break apart?   The Patriot League, after all, has their core ideals and priciples, and if the rest of the NCAA tears itself apart over money, ego, or something else, what is it to the schools of the Patriot? The answer, of course, is absolutely everything - no matter what any deniers might say.  As I'll demonstrate in this blog posting, what happens in the Big East could potentially make a very big difference in the Hoya football program.

In every place in America that I've lived, there's been evidence of the times of the American revolutionary war. Close by, in some form or another, I've been amongst 18th-century farmhouses and ancient taverns where George Washingon, Ben Franklin or John Adams might have sipped madeira or stayed the night. I've visited 12 of the original 13 colonies (South Carolina is the only one that has evaded me). I've been to Boston, the epicenter of civil disobedience against the British, and live near Philadelphia, where the founding fathers made a functioning government amidst the chaos around them that still, to this day, serves as an example worldwide. The theme of revolution seems to be apropos to the collegiate realignment maelstrom that continues to swirl through collegiate athletics as we speak, making ridiculous ideas like Boise State in the Big East and Pitt in the ACC seem somewhat justifiable in the face of all logic. In such an environment, could there ...

I've tried to stay out of this FBS realignment talk.  Really I have. Like many of you, I see the headlines scroll by on Twitter, and try to make some sense of it all - Texas A&M to the SEC!  Conference USA and the Mountain West merge!  Texas State goes to the WAC!  But in many ways, it's like Tibetan soccer to me: a foreign sport that has little to nothing to do with the goings-on in the league I care about, the Patriot League. That all changed with talk that Temple could be joining the Big East . These talks about Temple joining the conference - a school in direct competition for the heart and soul of the Philadelphia market with one of its current members - could be the move that destabilizes everything.

Foolish me, thinking that conference realignment might be put on hold while actual college football is being played. Almost a week ago today, the ACC made its latest school grab from the Big East, nabbing Pitt and Syracuse in a move that was destined to upend conference apple carts all over the country . The move has caused an earthquake of conference speculation - and set other potential moves in motion.  And those moves open up a lot of questions for anyone who cares about the Patriot League.   (more)