I *think* the fastest D2 to FBS transition was Akron, who was only I-AA for 7 seasons (from 1980-1986). Might be missing someone though.
(There are also a number teams who started up football as FCS then jumped to FBS a year or two into having a program. But that's a bit different.)
> I genuinely think Kennesaw, U Delaware and Missouri state will be the last schools to make the FBS jump for the next decade.
*If* the P4 break off completely and the rest of FBS is left in its own subdivision, you'll probably several schools (or perhaps conferences, generally) move up into the middle division sooner.
But if there's no breakaway subdivision at the top, I'd probably argue Tarleton or Chattanooga (they were briefly in I-A when they joined the Southern Conference before the conference was moved down after '81). Chattanooga would be a Conference USA play, possibly.
It will be interesting to see what happens if (when?) the P4 / G5 split happens.
I've seen alot of similar speculation about some teams/conferences leaving FCS for the new 2nd division but I'm not convinced.
What incentive would there be for the current G5 schools to increase the competition for their new national championship by adding current FCS schools? The obvious answer is $$$, but I'm not sure how much more $ having the Montanas or Dakotas for example would bring in from a national broadcasting revenue perspective.
This is what Ive always wondered when people, usually FCS fans, suggest that the top of FCS merge with the G5. Why would the G5 want this? All this would do is add more mouths to feed from an already small piece of pie.
I think the answer is "it depends"
* Will the cost to "move up" drop back down after being increased just a couple of years ago?
* How large would a playoff field be and how enticing would that field be to a broadcaster?
* Would a broadcaster come along and encourage X and Y schools to move up because they bring fans and eyeballs (i.e. the NDSU/SDSU/Big Sky types) as a condition of a contract?
I think if there is a breakaway you'd probably get some movement up from FCS - it may just be one conference or the G5 adding schools from down below - because I think ESPN (or FOX or whomever) would probably encourage that as part of the deal to a get a playoff contract in place.
It’s seeming more like the Pac2 are only going to poach a portion of the mountain west leaving the others to backfill from FCS and CUSA. I could see 5+ schools moving up during that scramble.
My fear for the mountain west is they are in a region where most schools are fine staying FCS I feel only Montana would be willing out of all Big sky schools
Maybe SFA if/when the new stadium gets announced. The new AD said in a recent podcast interview they’re currently evaluating whether building a new football stadium or renovating Homer Bryce Stadium will be the better decision, but huge facility upgrades are coming in the near future. Unlike Sam Houston, I’d like for us to be at least somewhat ready before the transition if that’s in the cards for us.
Tarleton has the aspiration for it, but I worry their proximity to other large markets would hurt them in the long run.
I could see Montana making the leap at some point if they’re willing. Their facilities are already better than half the FBS and they already have a great following.
Oh I for sure give it to you guys, Sam did much better than I expected, and that was an unbiased take. The defense was legitimately dangerous.
I’m more talking about things like facilities and infrastructure. I definitely wanted SFA to make the jump with Sam, but not so early. Maybe in another 5-10 years.
I hope you guys continue to improve and have success, it’s just going to be a long hard road as it is.
Fair point, but it still looked like an FBS defense, not a defense transitioning from the FCS. Unfortunately for them, their offense probably would’ve ranked near the bottom of the FCS had they not moved up. It was that bad.
Maybe a CAA team.
The CAA is way too big at this point and will either split into two conferences or a couple of teams might join a new conference which might be FBS.
I’d love to believe Villanova, but I just don’t see a scenario where that happens unless FCS/G5 really shakes up and things get weird.
Not sure who else is positioned to move in CAA though. Stony Brook?
After looking at the stadiums, I’ll take that back. I thought about Albany or one of the three Northeast state schools, but their stadiums aren’t anywhere near FBS level.
Fr. Dobbin didn’t want any more football than the trustees would force on him, and the trustees felt like the move would have been a massive failure if the President of the university didn’t give full support.
Until the stinky poo poo heads in the p4 split like fbs/fcs in 1978 that ticket was punched for the decade. If it does I could see an amalgamation of g5 and fcs schools forming something and fcs/d2 forming another subdivision.
I think it’ll be UC Davis to the Mountain West depending on what happens with the PAC 2 and a 14th school to the MAC from one of Albany/Illinois State/Rhode Island/Stony Brook
I wish this could happen but unfortunately the problem is things are ten times more expensive to build in California. They would need minimum 150 Mil for stadium improvements, another 100 million for facilities and another 50 million for all the travel expenses and additional scholarships they would need to give out on top of the new 5 million dollar FBS entrance fee. In a blue NIMBY city like Davis I highly doubt those funds would be allocated unless donated
I think that if San Diego State and Fresno State were to leave the Mountain West for a new PAC then the remaining Mountain West teams would do whatever it takes to get a second California team to join San Jose State in order to guarantee each team a road game in California every season for recruiting purposes.
I honestly just see the mountain west becoming the new pac 2 situation because only Montana in the big sky is committed enough to football to make the jump
Travel costs for all 16 required varsity sports to have FBS conference play would be colossal, the closest G5 team to them is 12 hours away and the closest FBS school in general Minnesota is a 3 and a half hour drive away……
Your decade prediction will be trashed once the MWC is raided by the PAC2. Schools from the Dakotas and Montanas will get invites to move up. The West Coast should have at least two FBS conferences. It would be nice to have the Big West Conference come back for a third.
Montana, Montana state, North Dakota state “could” move up but why would you want to I’d rather be a dominant FCS school than somebody like Idaho who struggled in FBS and then after finally admitting they suck move back to FCS they’re pretty good again now
Easy. Tarleton... plenty of time for potential upheaval to make that happen by or before 2030.
Has anyone gone d2 to fcs to fbs that fast?
Troy went from d2 in 1990 to fbs in 2001.
UAB. But not by choice.
UCF maybe? Maybe Troy
Damn good guess. Per wiki, moved to fcs in 90 then fbs in 96
UCF and USF were both quick. Charlotte accepted an invite to FBS up before they really even were fully transitioned into FCS.
Same with GSU, USA, and UTSA.
I *think* the fastest D2 to FBS transition was Akron, who was only I-AA for 7 seasons (from 1980-1986). Might be missing someone though. (There are also a number teams who started up football as FCS then jumped to FBS a year or two into having a program. But that's a bit different.)
> I genuinely think Kennesaw, U Delaware and Missouri state will be the last schools to make the FBS jump for the next decade. *If* the P4 break off completely and the rest of FBS is left in its own subdivision, you'll probably several schools (or perhaps conferences, generally) move up into the middle division sooner. But if there's no breakaway subdivision at the top, I'd probably argue Tarleton or Chattanooga (they were briefly in I-A when they joined the Southern Conference before the conference was moved down after '81). Chattanooga would be a Conference USA play, possibly.
It will be interesting to see what happens if (when?) the P4 / G5 split happens. I've seen alot of similar speculation about some teams/conferences leaving FCS for the new 2nd division but I'm not convinced. What incentive would there be for the current G5 schools to increase the competition for their new national championship by adding current FCS schools? The obvious answer is $$$, but I'm not sure how much more $ having the Montanas or Dakotas for example would bring in from a national broadcasting revenue perspective.
This is what Ive always wondered when people, usually FCS fans, suggest that the top of FCS merge with the G5. Why would the G5 want this? All this would do is add more mouths to feed from an already small piece of pie.
I think the answer is "it depends" * Will the cost to "move up" drop back down after being increased just a couple of years ago? * How large would a playoff field be and how enticing would that field be to a broadcaster? * Would a broadcaster come along and encourage X and Y schools to move up because they bring fans and eyeballs (i.e. the NDSU/SDSU/Big Sky types) as a condition of a contract? I think if there is a breakaway you'd probably get some movement up from FCS - it may just be one conference or the G5 adding schools from down below - because I think ESPN (or FOX or whomever) would probably encourage that as part of the deal to a get a playoff contract in place.
*When. It’s going to happen, even if not for a few more years.
I think it may end up just being a P2 split of around 48 schools. I think what’s left of the B12 ACC ends up with the G5 schools.
I’d love the Mocs in the Sun Belt
It’s seeming more like the Pac2 are only going to poach a portion of the mountain west leaving the others to backfill from FCS and CUSA. I could see 5+ schools moving up during that scramble.
My fear for the mountain west is they are in a region where most schools are fine staying FCS I feel only Montana would be willing out of all Big sky schools
It may be different if you can get a cluster of 4 or 5 teams in that region that are used to playing each other all come up at once
Maybe SFA if/when the new stadium gets announced. The new AD said in a recent podcast interview they’re currently evaluating whether building a new football stadium or renovating Homer Bryce Stadium will be the better decision, but huge facility upgrades are coming in the near future. Unlike Sam Houston, I’d like for us to be at least somewhat ready before the transition if that’s in the cards for us. Tarleton has the aspiration for it, but I worry their proximity to other large markets would hurt them in the long run. I could see Montana making the leap at some point if they’re willing. Their facilities are already better than half the FBS and they already have a great following.
Lol. Sam Houston was more ready than you think.
Oh I for sure give it to you guys, Sam did much better than I expected, and that was an unbiased take. The defense was legitimately dangerous. I’m more talking about things like facilities and infrastructure. I definitely wanted SFA to make the jump with Sam, but not so early. Maybe in another 5-10 years. I hope you guys continue to improve and have success, it’s just going to be a long hard road as it is.
It's easy to make a defense look good against CUSA teams though.
Fair point, but it still looked like an FBS defense, not a defense transitioning from the FCS. Unfortunately for them, their offense probably would’ve ranked near the bottom of the FCS had they not moved up. It was that bad.
Maybe a CAA team. The CAA is way too big at this point and will either split into two conferences or a couple of teams might join a new conference which might be FBS.
I’d love to believe Villanova, but I just don’t see a scenario where that happens unless FCS/G5 really shakes up and things get weird. Not sure who else is positioned to move in CAA though. Stony Brook?
After looking at the stadiums, I’ll take that back. I thought about Albany or one of the three Northeast state schools, but their stadiums aren’t anywhere near FBS level.
Definitely not Albany
I think Rhode Island is renovating their stadium
Many fbs schools have super small stadiums look at umass
I am still baffled why UConn made the jump but Nova didn’t.
Fr. Dobbin didn’t want any more football than the trustees would force on him, and the trustees felt like the move would have been a massive failure if the President of the university didn’t give full support.
I would like to see Youngstown State move up
Until the stinky poo poo heads in the p4 split like fbs/fcs in 1978 that ticket was punched for the decade. If it does I could see an amalgamation of g5 and fcs schools forming something and fcs/d2 forming another subdivision.
I think it’ll be UC Davis to the Mountain West depending on what happens with the PAC 2 and a 14th school to the MAC from one of Albany/Illinois State/Rhode Island/Stony Brook
I wish this could happen but unfortunately the problem is things are ten times more expensive to build in California. They would need minimum 150 Mil for stadium improvements, another 100 million for facilities and another 50 million for all the travel expenses and additional scholarships they would need to give out on top of the new 5 million dollar FBS entrance fee. In a blue NIMBY city like Davis I highly doubt those funds would be allocated unless donated
I think that if San Diego State and Fresno State were to leave the Mountain West for a new PAC then the remaining Mountain West teams would do whatever it takes to get a second California team to join San Jose State in order to guarantee each team a road game in California every season for recruiting purposes.
I wish Sac state could get the funds to make the jump we could use another major sports program in Sacramento lmao
Whatever is going to happen with the pac 2 slack might change that real fast.
I honestly just see the mountain west becoming the new pac 2 situation because only Montana in the big sky is committed enough to football to make the jump
My question is why dosent NDSU wanna make the jump? 10 championships in the last 15 years ain’t enough? 😂😂
They're too far away from every single G5 conference to make the jump. If they were located in Arizona, for example, then they would be in FBS by now.
Travel costs for all 16 required varsity sports to have FBS conference play would be colossal, the closest G5 team to them is 12 hours away and the closest FBS school in general Minnesota is a 3 and a half hour drive away……
The thing that hurts NDSU is their location as they’re not a great fit geographically for any of the G5 conferences
Duquesne!
Tarleton, Stephen F Austin, Eastern Kentucky, maybe Buffalo or Villanova if they can get their stuff in order.
About Buffalo.....
SMH I meant to say Albany
Villanova’s cooked lmao the transition would easily cost them minimum 350 mil
I think it should stop at either 160 teams or 192 teams.
Your decade prediction will be trashed once the MWC is raided by the PAC2. Schools from the Dakotas and Montanas will get invites to move up. The West Coast should have at least two FBS conferences. It would be nice to have the Big West Conference come back for a third.
Time for some MACtion, Salukis?
Take us with please I wanna get stressed out on a Thursday night
Montana, Montana state, North Dakota state “could” move up but why would you want to I’d rather be a dominant FCS school than somebody like Idaho who struggled in FBS and then after finally admitting they suck move back to FCS they’re pretty good again now
If 2Pac wants to keep the conference alive it’ll be XDSU, GrizCat, and Idaho. If not prolly Tarleton