That’s cool.
But it will fall to FCS not FBS.
Well, both of my parents got their Bachelor’s degrees at Lamar (my dad later went to law school and grad school at UH), so I have mixed feelings.
On the one hand, the caliber of the competition in some sports like basketball will likely increase.
On the other hand, they might take a bit of a step down in baseball.
Regarding football…Lamar would lose its arch-rival McNeese. But its name would get wider national recognition in more states.
In the end, if it gets the program more money and markets, then by all means.
The WAC has more name recognition than The Southland.
Good move for all involved.
While it is good for the four schools involved, it may lead to more competition for those three star guys that we are going after…no?
I doubt it. Football prospects will almost never turn down a I-FBS offer in favor of a I-FCS offer. And even in basketball, I can’t imagine that those schools will get any recruit that Sampson seriously wants and pursues.
Isn’t the WAC D1?
It is, but for football, the WAC is being resurrected as a Division I-FCS conference (it was formerly I-FBS, but has been shut down for football for a number of years now). Given that, it’s highly unlikely that we’ll lose any recruits to its member schools.
Word has it West Texas A&M is gonna get the call-up from D-II to round it out, which would be a fantastic call that the Buffs are overdue for.
We need UH- Victoria and UH-CL to get teams so they can join the WAC. Time for our sister campuses to move up athletically, or would be nice.
lol…first thing that popped in my mind
That would be cool. UHV has cool baseball facility, ex-Astro Terry Puhl has been running it for awhile
I’ve seen it. The bottom FBS teams like UMass, NMSU, ULM, etc. get beat all the time in recruiting. What’s the difference in playing at NMSU or a FCS with a winning tradition and good facilities and support?
it looks to me that SHSU, SFA, Lamar and ACU think their stuff don’t stink and they are better than the current Southland which added private schools and they think they are a step above the Louisiana schools. They’re just playing a long game of running the wheel like the hamster. Most of their fans are UT, A&M fans anyway and they’ll never be like them.
Texas State proved the grass ain’t greener even with 40k students to tax.
I’d like to believe that we are NOWHERE NEAR comparable to those programs. Those programs are all MANY levels of suck worse than ours. Those are all schools that should probably be in I-FCS anyway.
Programs like that are more or less the exceptions that prove the rule when it comes to I-FBS programs losing recruits.
I don’t see us losing ANY recruit that we genuinely pursue to I-FCS schools.
Hasn’t UH-V almost bent over backwards in the past to become aTm-Victoria?
I remember hearing something like that a few years back. If so, then despite their status as a member of our system, it’s hard to completely embrace them as a member of the family.
Nobody gives a rip about the WAC, didn’t when they were FBS, won’t when they are FCS. The Southland conference has national recognition as a good FCS conference. McNeese, SHSU, SFA, etc have good programs and to go for a tarnished name, which is what the WAC is, would be silly in my opinion unless there is some kind of TV deal we are unaware of that would bring in bucks.
They are talking about elevating Div II teams to form the conference, how is that an improvement? Also, the Southland confernce is in Texas, LA, and Ark; how would Utah travel fit in? To me, it just doesn’t make sense.
When your struggling with an identity you do dumb things.
Apparently the schools that are leaving felt like the conference had too many schools that weren’t quite as invested in athletics (not to name names, but HBU, UIW, etc.)
Probably doesn’t help that three of those four have sat and watched ULM, UNT, Texas State, and UTSA make moves to FBS while they stayed stuck in the Southland.