On Thursday, officials from UNC Charlotte made a presentation regarding its new football program and possibly joining the SoCon as an associate member, in football only. Charlotte will begin play in 2013.
“We didn’t vote on it or make any kind of decision,” University of Tennessee at Chattanooga athletic director Rick Hart said. “I anticipate that it’s something the [presidents] will take up and vote amongst themselves. As ADs, I think we’re comfortable and happy with where we are in terms of membership.”
Iamarino said the presidents are scheduled to meet on June 16 and a vote on Charlotte will likely be done then. He said the 12-member SoCon is “already fairly diverse when it comes to not only football, but the entire membership. There are questions of do we want to add to that diversity by taking an associate in a high-profile sport.”
On Thursday, officials from UNC Charlotte made a presentation regarding its new football program and possibly joining the SoCon as an associate member, in football only. Charlotte will begin play in 2013.
“We didn’t vote on it or make any kind of decision,” University of Tennessee at Chattanooga athletic director Rick Hart said. “I anticipate that it’s something the [presidents] will take up and vote amongst themselves. As ADs, I think we’re comfortable and happy with where we are in terms of membership.”
Iamarino said the presidents are scheduled to meet on June 16 and a vote on Charlotte will likely be done then. He said the 12-member SoCon is “already fairly diverse when it comes to not only football, but the entire membership. There are questions of do we want to add to that diversity by taking an associate in a high-profile sport.”
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Good find. I’d say that is fairly significant news. Sounds promising.
[font=arial]“We didn’t vote on it or make any kind of decision,” University of Tennessee at Chattanooga athletic director Rick Hart said. “I anticipate that it’s something the [presidents] will take up and vote amongst themselves. As ADs, I think we’re comfortable and happy with where we are in terms of membership.”[/font]
[font=arial]What do you make of this comment? Was it just posturing to say to Charlotte that “your no big deal — we can take you or leave you.” The presidents get their advice from the ADs. If this is the case, then it may be voted down.[/font]
[font=arial]Or do you think a considerable amount of ground work was done before this presentation and that the chances of Charlotte being accepted are better than 50/50? (i.e. do you think a straw poll was taken among the presidents before the presentation?)[/font]
It’s good that we made the presentation. I think most of our fans would want us to compete against their teams and, frankly, I think a lot Socon fans would enjoy hating us as an opponent.
That being said, they’re not the only ones who can say “we can take you or leave you.” I’d prefer it if we funded a marching band (remember that the music dept really stepped up to the plate during the whole Spangler incident) and put up some lights for high school teams to play under on fridays (nice for relationship-building with the hs coaches). If we had to scrap the funding for either so that we can pay socon membership fees instead, then staying fcs independent would be a better idea imho.
[quote=“49RFootballNow, post:9, topic:25451”]AH! The well-heeled scholars of Boone weigh in on the topic. Clear evidence that thinner oxygen at their altitude has affected their minds:
I can’t believe they still think they have a snowball’s chance in Hell of a CUSA invite. ::)[/quote]
Nothing surprising there… in fact, I was less annoyed than I thought I would be. They want us all of nothing - makes sense… I would too if I were them. The only thing that conference has going for it is Football - and thats only because of App State and maybe Wofford.
I enjoyed the comments about not agreeing to a home and home in bball. Ha!
[quote=“survivor45, post:6, topic:25451”]It’s good that we made the presentation. I think most of our fans would want us to compete against their teams and, frankly, I think a lot Socon fans would enjoy hating us as an opponent.
That being said, they’re not the only ones who can say “we can take you or leave you.” I’d prefer it if we funded a marching band (remember that the music dept really stepped up to the plate during the whole Spangler incident) and put up some lights for high school teams to play under on fridays (nice for relationship-building with the hs coaches). If we had to scrap the funding for either so that we can pay socon membership fees instead, then staying fcs independent would be a better idea imho.[/quote]
If that’s the situation (as you framed it), then I emphatically agree. Relying on you gusy to spell things out for us… that seems a no brainer. Really love the idea of having lights for bigtime HS football.
I can’t keep up with all these FCS conferences, do we want to join the SoCon or not? I would think we might as well be independant then jump to the big boys after 4 years… we already got two years figured out.
Well…according to every SoCon fan on message boards and the folks at GTG we have no chance in hell of this happening so don’t concern yourself with it EE.
What do you think our sales pitch is to the SoCon? As an all-sports, long-term member I think they would wet themselves to get us, but for football only? I see it representing an opportunity for their alums that live in the Charlotte area to see their school play. If they think that we might go from start-up to challenging for an FCS Championship in a few years then clearly they would like it to be as a part of their conference. Beyond that what do we tout as their reasons for bringing us in?
I would love to get into the Socon for football only. It along with the Colonial are the 2 best 1AA conferences in America. Not to mention it would be a perfect opportunity to get regional rivalries going with App, Wofford, Elon, and Western
The App St. fans really do hate us don’t they? They also seem to be under the impression that the world (or at least the SoCon) revolves around them and their football team.
