Seadragon76

To add a little extra intrigue here... The WAC is also looking into getting football back

It's weird for a few reasons.. one being that EKU and Jacksonville State would leave for this half assed scheme. Same for Central Arkansas. But, something tells me that Liberty may really want an A-Sun football conference. There are a few hurdles with this plan, none bigger then Liberty being an FBS school while the remaining members (The three newcomers plus Kennesaw State, North Alabama and Stetson) are FCS schools. They also have to convince Stetson, a member of the Pioneer League, to pay for scholarships... a very hard sell in this day and age.

No, that's the nickname. The High Desert Storm will be playing their games in Redmond, Oregon. This marks the first Oregon based team in the AWFC. A few things @GDAWG didn't mention... National Arena League: Along with Louisville and Tampa Bay getting the boot, they added a team in Albany, New York... That's right, the Empire is back. Indoor Football League: Along with Oakland and Quad City sitting out this season, the league has added two teams: Massachusetts (a former NAL member who left before the 2020 season) and Northern Arizona (expansion franchise) Champions Indoor Football: The Wyoming Mustangs play in Gillette, Wyoming. Gillette is actually one of the biggest cities in Wyoming, so this works out well for them. American Arena League: This league has had the largest expansion of the leagues so far as four teams are set to join next season - The Allen Tiger-Cats, The San Antonio Gunslingers (Who are planning to play in the Alamodome), The Topeka Thundercats and the West Texas Buccaneers (playing in El Paso). The league also added 5 teams from a semi pro league as well.

Oh, god... that USF helmet is bright. My eyes!!

I read in my local paper's sports section that the schools that make up Division I want to realign. Well, here's an idea: Take a page out of what the NAIA did - Create a 'Division 1A' and a 'Division 1B' Certain sports would have this kind of division format. For example, this is how basketball would work... Division 1A -American Athletic Conference -Atlantic Coast Conference -Atlantic 10 Conference -Big East Conference -Big 12 Conference -Big Ten Conference -Conference USA -Mid American Conference -Missouri Valley Conference -Mountain West Conference -Pac 12 Conference -Southeastern Conference -Southern Conference -The Summit League -Sun Belt Conference -West Coast Conference Division 1B -America East Conference -Atlantic Sun Conference -Big Sky Conference -Big South Conference -Big West Conference -Colonial Athletic Association -Horizon League -Ivy League -Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference -Mid Eastern Athletic Conference -Northeast Conference -Ohio Valley Conference -Patriot League -Southland Conference -Southwestern Athletic Conference -Western Athletic Conference The Power 5, Group of 5 and the six strongest basketball conferences form Division 1A while the other 16 leagues form Division 1B. Each side has 32 team tournaments that the NCAA could run at the same time with the same broadcasting plan (The Turner networks) that can easily create the same revenue source for both sides. Other sports can either do this or go in other directions, but this is a basic idea. -

That reeks of a power play by the big boys to screw over the little guys despite the plan saying that 25% of all revenue goes to the clubs at the lower levels.

The group stage draw for the Europa League was today... Group A - Roma, Young Boys, CFR Cluj, CSKA Sofia Group B - Arsenal, Rapid Wien, Molde, Dundalk Group C - Bayern Leverkusen, Slavia Prague, Hapoel Be'er Sheva, Nice Group D - Benfica, Standard Liege, Rangers, Lech Poznan Group E - PSV, PAOK, Granada, Omonoia Group F - Napoli, Real Sociedad, AZ Alkmaar, Rijeka Group G - Braga, Leicester City, AEK, Zorya Luhansk Group H - Celtic, Sparta Prague, AC Milan, Llilles Group I - Villareal, Qarabag, Maccabi Tel Aviv, Sivasspor Group J - Tottenham Hotspur, Ludogorets, LASK, Antwerp Group K - CSKA Moscow, Dynamo Zagreb, Feyenoord, Wolfsberger Group L - Gent, Red Star Belgrade, 1899 Hoffenheim, Slovan Liberec

Meanwhile, in the Europa League... -Tottenham Hotspur blew the doors off of Maccabi Haifa 7-2 -AC Milan had to survive PK's against Portuguese side Rio Ave to move on. -Rangers defeated Galatasaray

With the West Coast League going to 15 teams, I think the divisional format should be easy to figure out. North -Edmonton -Kamloops -Kelowna -Naniamo -Victoria Central -Bellingham -Port Angeles -Walla Walla -Wenatchee -Yakima Valley South -Bend -Corvallis -Cowlitz -Portland -Ridgefield It's usually a 54 game schedule, so there's 24 games against your division foes (3 at home, 3 away) and 30 games against the other 10 teams (5 of them at home and the other 5 away)

AC Milan won 2-0 on the road. There were some other big names in this stage: Rangers (Scotland) rolled over Lincoln Red Imps while Tottenham Hotspur barely got past Lokomotiv Plovdiv. All these teams play again next week for the 3rd qualifying round: Milan hosts Norway based club Bodo/Glmit; Tottenham Hotspur plays at North Macedonian squad Shkendija and Rangers plays at Dutch club Willem II. There are some other big names in this competition as well: Galatsaray, Aberdeen, APOEL, PSV Eindhoven to name a few.

USA usually has Law and Order: SVU marathons, NCIS marathons, reruns of the Chicago series, WWE Raw and NXT, a few reality shows involving said WWE talent and it has been home for a few of the games in the NHL Playoffs and, for this week only, it'll have the South Florida-Notre Dame game.

Honestly, I'm shocked that they haven't thought about cutting hockey until now. Both Alaska schools are so far away from the rest of the WCHA (soon to be CCHA) that I'm pretty sure that the travel budget is problematic.

The nicknames themselves are generic enough that just because you have that nickname, it doesn't mean Confederate General/Major/Rebel. There are Generals and Majors in any army and Rebel can also mean something outside of a military standpoint. Plus, the schools you mentioned have gone away from the Confederate imagery.. so it works out. As for the schools themselves... Yeah, the NCAA has no pull here.

That's even MORE ridiculous. Travel would be a big issue, not just for them but for everyone else in the MAC.

1.) It's not going to be anytime soon. Liberty isn't a bad team... it's the school itself. The politics they espouse there is pretty dangerous. Why do you think the Sun Belt and Conference USA wanted nothing to do with Liberty when they made the move up? The moment Liberty does something that is even remotely controversial, those conferences would be getting big time glares for letting them in. 2.) Whatever drugs you're on.. please share. There's NO way on on this planet or any other planet or even this forsaken timeline that North Dakota State jumps ship to the Big Ten. First off is academics - 13 of the 14 Big Ten members are in the AAU, probably the most prestigious academic organization in North America (Nebraska was part of it before they left in 2011). Invitations for the AAU are extremely rare. Why am I bringing this up? It might be a sticking point for most of the schools. Secondly is the massive overhaul NDSU would need to undertake in order to be in the Big Ten's radar. The Fargodome, where they play in football, is 5.5 times smaller (in terms of capacity) then Michigan Stadium. Hell, the smallest stadium in the Big Ten (Northwestern's Ryan Field) is 2.5 times larger in terms of capacity. It's the same with other sports. In terms of football is the extra money it would take - Where do you think they can come up with the money for an extra 22 scholarships in the middle of an economic downturn?

Back to MLS for the next planned phase of play, which would be a return to the regular season and the playoffs. The playoffs remain the same format wise. In terms of games, I'm looking at 20 games minimum so they can at least get the playoffs going in mid-October. Now, some teams will have 5 games under their belt thanks to the Group Stage of the MLS is Back Tournament. Well, that means there's 15 games left for them. In the case of FC Dallas and Nashville, they have 18 games left. To help minimize travel issues, the conferences will be split into two 'pods'. The Western Conference has two 6 team pods and the Eastern Conference has two 7 team pods. Here's how they break down... Western Conference Pod A: LAFC, LA Galaxy, Portland, San Jose, Seattle, Vancouver Western Conference Pod B: Colorado, FC Dallas, Houston, Minnesota, Sporting Kansas City, Real Salt Lake Eastern Conference Pod A: Columbus, Philadelphia, Montreal , New England, New York City, New York Red Bulls, Toronto Eastern Conference Pod B: Atlanta, Chicago, Cincinnati, D.C. United, Inter Miami, Nashville, Orlando The teams in the Western Conference will play their pod rivals three times for the remaining 15 games. The teams in the Eastern Conference will play a home and home series with the other teams in their pod, which makes 12 games. The final three games are against the nearest rival teams. FC Dallas and Nashville will also play three games against each other to make up for the games lost due to them leaving because of the virus.

This is going to be a five year process, so the earliest St. Thomas can become a full time Division 1 member is 2026. It's enough time to fix this issue.

Time for a What if... this time, the MLS is Back Tournament. Since it's not easy to put in 26 teams into 6 groups, things change in my version of it. Play In Round Each conference has a play in game to help round the numbers out. Miami and Nashville, as the newest teams, will be in these games against the worst teams from each conference from last season (there's not enough data to use this season, so last season will be used). So, the games would be this... Western Conference - Nashville SC vs. Vancouver Eastern Conference - Inter Miami CF vs. FC Cincinnati Group Stage After the two play in games, the group stage begins. Now, two weeks before the play in round, the groups were decided upon.thanks to rankings from the previous season. The Western Conference are in Groups A, C, and E while the Eastern Conference are in Groups B, D, and F. Group A -Los Angeles FC -Minnesota United -FC Dallas -Houston Group B -New York City FC -Toronto FC -New England -Columbus Group C -Seattle -LA Galaxy -San Jose -Sporting Kansas City Group D -Atlanta United -D.C. United -Chicago -Orlando City Group E -Real Salt Lake -Portland -Colorado -Nashville FC/Vancouver winner Group F -Philadelphia -New York Red Bulls -Montreal -Inter Miami CF/FC Cincinnati winner Each group has a day, so that makes it 18 days for the group stage Knockout Stage The top 2 in each group advances along with the four best third place teams for the Knockout Stage. It's based on each conference, so... Western Conference -Group A Winner vs. Wild Card #1 -Group C Winner vs. Wild Card #2 -Group E Winner vs. Group A Runner-Up -Group C Runner-Up vs. Group E Runner-Up Eastern Conference -Group B Winner vs. Wild Card #1 -Group D Winner vs. Wild Card #2 -Group F Winner vs. Group B Runner-Up -Group D Runner-Up vs. Group F Runner-Up The finals would be West vs. East.

I think that helps all three schools. The southern most location now is in Florida... starting next season, it'll be South Carolina as the southern most location for these schools. I think that in the next round of realignment, travel costs will play a much larger role then they traditionally do. I mean, they do play a role most of the time... but now with all the schools feeling that money crunch, travel costs might loom large.

From reading that, a few things come to mind... one is that Morgan State is basically waiting out the storm, then saying that they'll commit to the MEAC. Another option could be that they might move, but would be seen as a selfish plan considering that their inter city rivals and in state rival have committed to making it work with the MEAC. The last option could be a complete 'nuclear' option: Dismantle the entire sports program... but that's way too risky for any school, let alone a D-I HBCU, unless there is viable proof that your school can't support it.

Here's another one that slipped on by... UC Riverside, out of the Big West, changed their look recently. Here it is. All the info is here.

Exactly. There's talk of maybe the MEAC schools dropping down to Division II and possibly merging with the CIAA, but that is a literal last ditch plan there.

Delaware State staying in the MEAC helps. What concerns me is the talk of trying to expand... there's not a lot of HBCU's that are willing to make the leap to Division I right now.

Normally, a Division III school that is moving to Division II wouldn't get noticed... but D'Youville (from Buffalo) is making that move. To go with this move, they're changing their nickname from the Spartans to the Saints.

Right now, the remaining eight schools in the MEAC are probably concerned with this exodus going on. They could (but not hoping) lose Coppin State or UMES since they're non-football schools. Any school that plays football jumps ship and this conference is in trouble.