July 4th Deadline for 3 SoCon Schools

According to the Charleston Post & Courier, the Southern Conference has given College of Charleston, Davidson and App State until July 4th to make their intentions known about leaving and joining the CAA. It's been reported by the Burlington Times-News that those three schools are the only ones that have been formally contacted. However, there were rumors last week that Elon and Furman had also been approached.

Conference Changing Some Things

From the SoCon spring meetings wrapped up last week in Asheville. There were a few changes announced that related to basketball. The full article can be found here. The main points are ...

- Moved back to 16 game schedule starting in 2013-2014. It was 18 games before.

- Tournament byes now go to the 2 division winners and then the next 2 teams with the best conference record. This change will take place in 2013.

- The league will create a position known as Men's Basketball Coordinator.

This individual, reporting to the Commissioner, will address issues designed to improve the league's performance in areas such as non-conference scheduling, participation in exempt events, and marketing opportunities and general promotion of the league's basketball tournament.

All of these rules will henceforth be known as "The Davidson-Charleston Concessions" as that they were all designed to keep these two schools from leaving and going to the CAA.

Not sure if it'll work, though.

App Still Looking at C-USA

App State is still wanting to get an invite to Conference USA. The question is will they get one. According to the Winston-Salem Journal, C-USA is still looking to expand.

The conference currently has 14 members, including recent additions UNC Charlotte and Old Dominion, both of which will begin playing football in C-USA in 2015.

Appalachian, which is among a few Football Bowl Championship members still seeking an invitation to an FBS league, still has significant interest in possibly joining C-USA — a move that would offer a connection to traditional rivals East Carolina and Marshall.

Differnet Revenue Sharing Model?

Article from today's Charlotte Observer. There's not much new here except for a very interesting Bob McKillop quote.

The Southern Conference shares revenue (it reportedly received $2.2 million from the NCAA’s basketball payout), and McKillop wonders if a change in policy might help the league.

“Now, everyone gets an equal share,” McKillop said. “Will it become more capitalistic by rewarding those who had more success? That would inspire campuses to dedicate more to basketball because more would be at stake.

CAA Considering App State?

From SI.com ...

Commissioner Tom Yeager, who declined to comment for this story, is targeting the SoCon's Davidson, College of Charleston and Appalachian State as replacements for his lost teams, according to a source.

I'm not particularly sure why the CAA is targeting App State, but I'm pretty sure that's not where the Mountaineers are looking to jump.

Dominos of Conference Change Coming Soon

Well it was bound to happen eventually. Up until now, all of these shifts in conference alignment have happened with the big conferences only. But recently things are moving towards the mid-major conferences.

Before we get into the opinion portion of this post, let's first look at what has happened to cause us to get here ...

- In September of 2011, Pittsburgh and Syracuse announced they were leaving the Big East to join the ACC.

- In October, West Virginia left the Big East to join the Big XII Conference.

- In December of 2011, Houston, SMU and Central Florida departed Conference USA to join the Big East. Boise State and San Diego State also joined for football only. The Naval Academy was also added for football only.

- In February, Memphis left Conference USA for the Big East too.

- Earlier this month, Conference USA announced they were adding North Texas and Florida International from the Sun Belt Conference. They added A-10 member Charlotte as well. Louisiana Tech and Texas-San Antonio left the WAC to join too.

- Eventually, Old Dominion chose to leave the CAA to become the 14th member of the new Conference USA.

- Also this month Bulter (from Horizon) and VCU (from the CAA) have left their conferences to join the Atlantic-10.

- Georgia State has announced they are leaving the CAA to join the Sun Belt Conference.

So, those are all of the actual moves that have been made up to this point. Still trying to figure out how this effects the SoCon? Well currently it doesn't and it may never effect it. But it seems very likely that there are big changes coming.

First, there's the report that the CAA is definitely interested in Charleston and Davidson. Davidson fields sports such as lacrosse and field hockey which currently don't have a true conference home. The CAA would give them that. It's also alluring that the CAA has been a multiple bid NCAA conference quite a few times lately. The Wildcats seem to have found themselves on the "gotta win the conference tourney" side of things several times in recent years. I'm sure they would like to have a better chance at the at-large. Will this watered down CAA really give them that chance is a completely different story.

The CAA would also like to pair up at least one southern school with UNC-Wilmington. College of Charleston would fit perfectly in that role. Plus, they would be a destination city for the rest of the conference. With their solid Olympic sports programs, baseball and basketball it seems like Charleston would be a great fit in the CAA.

Then there's the whole FBS football moves that other conference teams are looking to make. App State's AD Charlie Cobb has been all over the radio trying to convince the new look Conference USA to look at his Mountaineers. It seems likely his only move will be the Sun Belt Conference. App State may even be interested in starting it's own new regional conference. However based on NCAA restrictions, that seems like a pipe dream.

Also, Georgia Southern appears ready to make a move to new conference to play FBS football. Their choices appear to be on par the App State and it's likely they will go to the Sun Belt with the Mountaineers.

These are two very dominant FCS (1-AA) football powers that seem to be extremely likely to leave the SoCon very soon. With a looming new NCAA moratorium in FCS-FBS that appears to be coming soon, all of these programs that have higher aspirations are going to move quickly.

So, I guess the easiest way to sum this all up is there will be a conference shake up this coming summer. I just don't know how big. I do not believe that UNCG is on the short list of schools that the CAA is considering. I haven't received any confirmation of that, though. I will take a pure guess and say App State, Davidson and Georgia Southern all leave at some point soon.

I'll post some thoughts on new conference member possibilities over the coming weeks. Until then, keep an eye on the league meetings over the next two weeks.

SoCon Realignment?

I've got a long post to make about this issue sometime this weekend. Until then, feel free to post your thoughts about the recent conference shuffle in the comments section.

EDIT: Sorry, I wrote the most of the post but got busy with some work stuff this past weekend. It's coming though. I'm also waiting for some responses from some people who know more about this than I do.