Comments on: Birmingham-Southern, welcome to D-III

By: Ralph Turner

Ralph Turner — Wed, 31 May 2006 11:54:10 +0000

wt, I weighed in on the Scarbinski and Melick columns on the Football Daily Dose blog.

http://www.d3football.com/dailydose/?p=208

As an outsider, it is amazing to see read what the reporters were writing versus what the columnists were saying. IMHO, the reporters were giving hard facts and the columnists were giving pure “knee-jerk” emotion.

By: wt

wt — Tue, 30 May 2006 23:17:53 +0000

It would be interesting to hear David Pollick’s response, if any, to Melnick’s column ….

By: Pat Coleman

Pat Coleman — Tue, 30 May 2006 18:30:31 +0000

Sports columnist Ray Melick comments on the process by which B-SC made its decision:

http://www.al.com/sports/birminghamnews/rmelick.ssf?/base/sports/114898061587450.xml&coll=2

By: wilburt

wilburt — Sun, 28 May 2006 15:07:38 +0000

The reason I ask is since the SCAC doesn’t need another football school, there shouldn’t be a problem with UDallas joining the SCAC and Fisk rejoining the SCAC (Hypothetically speaking of course . Why not have 2 seven team divisions in order to further reduce travel budgeting problems? The more the merrier…

West
Trinity TX
Southwestern TX
Austin College TX
Colorado College CO
Rhodes TN
Hendrix AR
UDallas TX

East

Millsaps MS
Birmingham Southern AL
Oglethorpe GA
Sewanee TN
Centre KY
Depauw IN
Fisk TN

By: Ralph Turner

Ralph Turner — Sun, 28 May 2006 13:47:40 +0000

Wilburt, when the SCAC added Austin College in 2005, they stated that they wished to become a 2-division 12-team conference. My only concerns would be whether DePauw wishes to stay, whose position may have been stabilized with the move to divisions, and whether Oglethorpe will continue as a member. The split to divisions is certain to help their travel budget as well. Oglethorpe’s endowment is the lowest of the SCAC members. There are now 8 football playing members on schedule for 2007, plus BSC’s announced program.

IMHO, this effectively ends any speculation about adding affiliates for football, and forces University of Dallas to re-assess their hopes for an invitation to the SCAC, since their leaving the ASC in 2001.

By: wilburt

wilburt — Sun, 28 May 2006 13:26:57 +0000

How big does the SCAC want to grow?

By: Pat Coleman

Pat Coleman — Sun, 28 May 2006 04:07:05 +0000

Only D3football.com junkies will remember that David Pollick wrote an op-ed piece for us back in the fall of 2000 about financial aid in Division III. Here’s the link:
http://www.d3football.com/notables.php?date=2000-10-18

By: Pat Coleman

Pat Coleman — Sat, 27 May 2006 21:09:41 +0000

Odd. I read the first two questions of the Q&A and come away with a completely different perspective:

D3: What were your impressions of BSC as a Division I school?
DP: Probably the best Division I program I’ve ever seen in terms of integrity, quality of coaches, athletic director, quality of performance, simply superb. It graduates student-athletes at a higher level than the rest of the student body. We have a very strong academic profile so all of our kids are graduating at a very high rate, with very strong GPAs, but the athletes fit right into that profile. There was no deviation at all.

D3: It sounds an awful lot like a Division III school.
DP: The college itself matches that profile, we’re 1,300-plus students, a Phi Beta Kappa institution, we look like the ones you’re familiar with, the Gettysburgs, Dickinsons, F&Ms, from Pennsylvania, and from here, Sewanee, Rhodes, Trinity, Austin College and Southwestern.

By: carlweathers

carlweathers — Sat, 27 May 2006 20:48:54 +0000

I agree that the President has certain goals that are apparent but as I read the articles this morning the move by BSC seemed to be much more about finances and less about academics. After all, as the school was quick to point out, their teams were doing pretty well in the classroom and their student-athletes were graduating at a rate above the normal student.

Now normally most smaller Division I schools will not stray that far from their average admissions profile for non-revenue generating sports. That is why I made this a basketball specific issue.

There are currently four JuCo transfers on the BSC roster and one student who graduated from Eldon Academy in Michigan. Now I am not saying that JuCo transfers are all bad students coming out of high school, but in D-1 men’s basketball that is generally the case more times than not. Eldon Academy has an interesting history. Again, no judgement on every kid, just the average kid.

If some of these kids struggled to qualify out of high school that would put them very far from the average SCAC student-athlete. BSC could drastically improve the bottom end men’s basketball player’s academic profile and still be well off of the norm for the SCAC.

Now, I am NOT saying that this is definitely the case. I am just saying the conference should not jump too quickly at a 12th member that fits geographically and adds another football program. Make sure it is the right fit. The conference doesn’t have to have another football school and the University of Dallas is unquestionably a good fit academically.

By: Ralph Turner

Ralph Turner — Sat, 27 May 2006 19:30:16 +0000

Carl, concerning your Post #6, the sixteen game schedule might work with a pair of neutral site games, or rotating the inter-division games and playing only 4 inter-divisional games, as the ASC tried about 4 years ago.

An alternative would be to count only the intra-divisional games towards the division standings. The inter-divisional games would help to fill out the schedule with “in-region” opponents.

As it stands now, in the first 2 years (2007-08 and 2008-09), the games with BSC do not count in the NCAA calculations. We have gone thru that in the ASC with UT-Tyler.