Anyone else going to be in Amherst for the game? Flying into BOS Thursday night, working from my companyâs Boston office on Friday, then driving over to Amherst Friday evening.
Weâre out of the Bottom 10 for the first time this year, and we also didnât make the waiting list:
Itâd be nice to jump on them early, see if we can add to some of that discord and frustration.
UMass moved from FCS to FBS in 2011. They played football in the MAC for a fews years before being forced out because they wouldnât join the MAC in all sports. What if Charlotte was never invited to CUSA? Would we have remained as a FCS independent? Would we have ever moved to become a FBS independent similar Liberty? I know Phil once said he would be dead and buried before we went FBS. I donât think our fans would have been happy remaining FCS for a long time.
We would still be losing to FCS teams.
The ironic thing is that App black called us from the Southern conference.
I think if we had landed there we wouldnât have gotten an invite from CUSA
We would have likely gone to the Sun Belt, who also had invited us.
The Sunbelt for all sports or football only? CUSA is closer to a two bid NCAA conference than the Sunbelt. Plus, when we signed up for CUSA we thought we would be playing ECU every year.
They invited us for all sports. I think we would have ended up taking it. Remember, at the time, you could only move up to FBS if you had a conference invitation.
http://www.espncharlotte.net/game-preview-charlotte-49ers-at-umass-minutemen/
Isabella may be their best weapon to test the secondary for the 49ers, as he comes in averaging 91.2 yards per game
Iâm pretty sure that Phil was going to go back and beg the Big South to allow us in as a football only before the C-USA offer fell in our lap. Big South wanted us for all sports, but we wanted to keep everything else in the A-10.
Mhmm⌠Always wanted to be in the same conference as Upstate, Asheville, and Campbell lol
There was never a reason as FCS to leave the A10 for any FCS conference. Our location in Charlotte and the proximity of so many FCS programs and their alumni in the region would have made games with us no-brainers for the regional FCS schools.
We were trying to join the Big South for football only to give us a schedule, but when we put our Due Diligence package together they balked at our budget. We would have upset all of the coaches in that league when Lambert became their peer, and other schools didnât want that. They were a safety conference anyway.
We were really shooting to join the So Con for football, but they only wanted to take us for all sports, and Phil and Judy werenât going to go there. In hindsight, I bet they wish they had us now.
We got FBS invitations from the Sun Belt and C-USA at the same time. Some of the SB members will tell you that they prefer to be in the Belt, or that the conferences are equal, but as the only school invited to join both, I think our opinion is the only one with any weight behind it.
Spread down to +8 for Charlotte.