Change of Address

We’re pollen-coated ass-deep into Spring, which means the start of Major League Baseball and playoffs in the NBA and NHL. So of course we’re going to offer a few words about second-tier college football. Never say we can’t scratch a niche. 

William and Mary, at least the third-favorite college for many in the audience, recently announced that it would move its football program from its long-time home in the Coastal Athletic Association (formerly the Colonial) to the Patriot League, beginning in 2026. The move makes sense for both cultural and competitive reasons. 

The Tribe’s primary football rivals, Richmond, James Madison and Delaware, all departed for other locations; JMU and Delaware climbed upward to the Football Bowl Subdivision, Richmond moved laterally to W&M’s future home in the Patriot beginning this coming season. The CAA’s distended conglomeration that now includes the likes of Stony Brook, Hampton U., Monmouth, Albany, Campbell and North Carolina A&T doesn’t much move the needle for Team Tribe. 

The Patriot, meanwhile, is a collection of schools whose profiles more closely resemble W&M, in size and academic standing. It was also a relatively light lift, since W&M’s move is football only. The rest of the school’s athletic teams will continue to compete in the CAA. 

A segment of Team Tribe has pushed for years, with varying degrees of force, to join the Patriot. Again, like-minded schools, particularly as CAA expansion brought in colleges with little in common to replace the league’s better known programs. But that wasn’t and isn’t William and Mary’s call entirely. The Patriot is comprised of small, private schools – undergrad enrollments range from Lafayette’s 2,764 to Fordham’s 10,337 – that were and are justifiably concerned about getting Bigfooted by W&M’s broad-based athletic program. 

For many years, the Patriot also didn’t permit its schools to offer athletic scholarships, providing only what’s called need-based financial aid, a la the Ivy League. But more than a decade ago, conference Big Hats concluded that athletic grants weren’t a path to academic ruin and allowed their athletic programs to pony up. As a result, Patriot football is more competitive regionally and certainly with the CAA, which in its heyday was one of the nation’s best FCS conferences. 

William and Mary athletic director Brian Mann explained to a former colleague that the football move came about relatively quickly – in discussions over just a few weeks – and that football-only makes sense now and for the foreseeable future. CAA football is a separate entity from the rest of the conference. It has/had adjunct members Richmond, Villanova, Maine, New Hampshire and Rhode Island, schools whose entire programs compete in other conferences, and de-coupling was easier than a full move. He is quoted in the piece: “I don’t think anybody at this time is ready for a big decision like that. We’re happy with where we are in the CAA, and (the Patriot League is) happy with their full membership. And with all the changes coming to college athletics, any sort of a change like that right now feels premature.” 

“Premature” is an interesting word choice. College administrators – the more effective ones, anyway – are usually precise with language and can be as vague or specific as necessary. Given Mann’s entire thought, “premature” reads more like “not yet” rather than “not interested.” Indeed, former athletic director Terry Driscoll told my comrade in that same piece that W&M had discussions with the Patriot on three occasions during his tenure, without a move. 

Patriot League affiliation may be a single-sport endeavor for William and Mary, or it may be a wade into the shallow end of the pool for consideration of full membership down the line. In any case, it continues the Tribe’s historic rivalry with Richmond as a conference game. And rumblings that Villanova football will also move from the CAA to the Patriot would further enhance the league and give Coach Mike London’s program one more familiar foe. College power brokers sweat and fret over a shifting landscape with new seven- and eight-figure expenditures and legal taffy pulls. Meanwhile, schools down the food chain that simply want kids to be able to compete and to proudly represent the laundry can only hope to find their appropriate depth. Ain’t easy. Athletic officials all earn their keep these days.

Take the Last Train to Lewisburg

Various media outlets gave credence this week to the rumors that have been swirling in CAA circles for some time. Conference hoops stalwarts George Mason and VCU are in discussions with the Atlantic 10 to leave the Colonial and join what is arguably the nation's best mid-major basketball conference. With Butler having already announced its intention to join the Newport News-based A10, it's hard to fault Mason and VCU for their interest.

The last time the CAA was similarly threatened in 2001, as Richmond, ECU, and American left the conference for widely divergent reasons, Tom Yeager engineered a deft raid of the America East, adding Hofstra, Delaware, Drexel, and Towson. Northeastern and Georgia State joined the CAA in 2005 to round out the current all-sports membership. (Richmond, New Hampshire, Maine, Rhode Island, and Villanova are football-only members - this is important.)

Our sources in the William and Mary athletic department have been extremely tight-lipped on the rumors, and in the absence of any hard news, we're left with speculation. It seems obvious that football is driving the CAA's strategic planning (and our violent disagreement with this will be the subject of a future post - the Cliff's Notes version is Division 1 hoops will always be a more valuable property than 1-AA football). As is our typically paranoid wont, let's start with the worst-case scenario. (Implicit in this discussion is the idea that schools can get out of any legal entanglements tying them to their current conferences.)

In the doomsday version of the future, Mason, VCU, and Drexel all leave the CAA for the newly configured (and really fun, frankly) Atlantic 10. ODU accelerates its transition to FBS football and joins the Sun Belt, as does Georgia State, leaving W&M, JMU, UNCW, Delaware, Hofstra, Northeastern, and Towson in an oddly configured seven-team league. Wilmington realizes it's better off as part of the Southern Conference or the Big South, and Hofstra, Delaware, and Northeastern head back to the America East with visions of SOUTHERN BIAS fading to a bad memory.

So W&M and JMU are left holding hands and looking around. The Big South represents a huge step down for both, leaving the Southern Conference and Patriot League as the only viable options. JMU probably prefers the SoCon, but W&M likes the idea of affiliating with the Patriot's elevated academic reputation. In the end, the two schools get pressured by Richmond to stay in the same league, but JMU's outsized football ambitions lead it southward temporarily as they plan for the FBS leap, while W&M is secretly happy to de-emphasize athletics, becoming the Patriot League's 9th member.

On the plus side, it makes our chances of reaching the Big Dance better, if you ignore the fact that Lehigh smoked us this year, Bucknell is a legit program, and we couldn't beat American when we were in the same league.

Pollyanna's sporting vision looks a little different, but not actually all that great. In this version of the future, the CAA still loses Mason and VCU (this is happening, boys and girls, whether we like it or not - it'll be kind of a bummer having to cut loose KQ from our gang, but getting to keep Mr. KQ will make it okay). Georgia State also leaves the conference to pursue FBS football, which is a net positive - the Panthers never really fit with the CAA.

Yeager and the crew in Richmond have planned for this moment, though, and their agreement with NBC Sports is a valuable leverage point. The CAA pilfers Appalachian State from the Southern and Coastal Carolina from the Big South (whose new head football coach, Joe Moglia, is the former CEO and current Chairman of TD Ameritrade - don't undersell the value of those connections) to add a pair of quality FCS football programs. The league also adds the College of Charleston, looking for an upgrade in hoops competition, to round out a 12-team conference.

This new configuration gives the CAA more geographical balance, and makes it an even better football conference. It probably also guarantees ODU multiple conference hoops titles in the next few years.

There are a handful of other scenarios floating in rumorspace, some involving Richmond returning to the CAA with Charlotte, as the latter starts a football program in 2013. Instructively, in none of these scenarios is W&M an active participant in its future. If my highly scientific polling is accurate, a large majority of William and Mary alums couldn't give two shits about the College's sports destiny. In an increasingly constrained fiscal environment, would it surprise any of our readers to learn that W&M was looking for a way to field competitive athletic teams with a smaller outlay?

And that's why I'll see you all in Bender Arena for the Tribe's first-round Patriot League tournament game in March 2014.

BREAKING NEWS, ADDED BY YOUR DOOFUS OVERLORD: VCU says it is NOT looking into joining the A-10.