Scanning the SoCon Rapid Response: CofC Moves to the CAA

This is a special report from Scanning the SoCon. When the announcement came down that College of Charleston was leaving for the CAA, it may not have come as much of a surprise, but that doesn't mean there isn't plenty to respond to. There is. Several of your regular Scanning the SoCon bloggers sounded off.

Appalachian State- I don't blame Charleston for wanting to move. They were always a bit of an outsider in the SoCon. It's clear that besides Davidson and UNCG, the rest of the SoCon is a football-first conference. In the CAA they will have more like-minded schools and with the NBC Sports Network deal, a TV platform to expand their base. The CofC administrators want to expand their name recognition to the Northeast and they weren't getting that anytime soon in the SoCon. Plus after their AD publicly eviscerated the SoCon at their last BOT meeting, there was no turning back.

It's no secret that ASU and GSU are wanting to join an FBS conference, most likely the Sun Belt, in the very near future. In a sense, they are looking to do exactly what CofC is doing, and that's using their front-porch sport to try to maximize their revenue. Davidson made their coach to remain in the SoCon and for them, it was probably the right choice as the mission of their school is vastly different than CofC.

At this point in the realignment game, everything is moving at a 100 MPH so the landscape can change so quickly. The SoCon could be vastly different in the very near future. The trickle-down effect was inevitable and now it's time for Iamarino to make some decisions. Based on the past rep of the SoCon, it'll be reactionary rather than proactive. Does the SoCon go after a non-football school to keep the number the same? Do they go ahead and add more football schools to offset the potential future losses? They've known this was a possibility since the summer so to be flat-footed now would show a complete failure of leadership.

As far as ASU goes, everyone's being politically correct and not letting leaks get out. The university stance is to join FBS when possible. That's been known since September 2011. Cobb has said he's been "burning up phone lines" as I'm sure the folks at GSU are doing. Fans are on pins and needles as one would expect.

Overall I wish CofC the best of luck in the CAA. Maybe they can finally win a hoops tournament there.

Chattanooga- I know that College of Charleston is making a good decision for basketball, and I know that there is a general consensus out there that the SoCon should just let them go and we’ll be fine. I don’t buy that. The Cougars were one of the better teams year in, year out in the SoCon. They were a very good team that never was able to win the SoCon Tournament (OK- they won it once, which is very disappointing for a school that was as successful during the regular season as the Cougars was). They came up with several good out of conference wins for the SoCon annually.

The SoCon hopefully has done some planning for this. I am extremely curious to see how they respond to this. No- not respond with an official response, like they did Friday afternoon. But show me what teams are coming. Is ETSU going to come back? Is someone interesting going to come and join up? Or are talking about West Georgia or even Northern Kentucky? That would not be good.

Will the Mocs think about leaving? There have been no rumblings yet, but if I were in the Chattanooga Athletic Department (and I’m not), I’d at least start nosing around for what happens if Georgia Southern and Appalachian State also leave in the next few weeks/months.

Of course, we all saw this coming. The SoCon should be prepared for it. The CAA is getting a good basketball program (one that happen to think will be middle of the pack when they get there, rather than a true contender for the title). How the SoCon responds now will determine everything about this.

College of Charleston- Can't say I didn't see this coming after our debating the issue, voting, negotiating, voting to negotiate and then voting again. I think the recent surge of mid-majors joining the conference realignment talks really lit a fire under our Board of Trustees to get something done. In true Cold War fashion, the move was voted unanimously at least partly out of the paranoia that Appalachian State and Georgia Southern will be gone in a few weeks. That would cause the SoCon to be left searching for answers and picking up the NCAA scraps so to speak. I think the CAA is an upgrade for not only our marquee sport but other programs as well but I'll admit Hull and Benson might look stupid if all the dominoes don't fall the way they're predicting. However the Southern Conference leadership has not demonstrated much in the past to foil this prediction.

Davidson-I was very much in favor of adding CofC to the Southern. I really thought that they'd continue to be a premier mid-major team and that they'd elevate the Southern to a 2-bid league. It certainly isn't CofC's fault that the conference hasn't become a 2-bid league, but we haven't. They have definitely elevated the profile of the league. They are in their 15th season in the conference. In that time, they have a healthy percentage of the conference's best wins. They won the conference title once and have competed for it several other times. They've given us great players and some very entertaining coaches. I'll miss them. I'll miss the games between Davidson and Charleston. We've played 26 times as conference mates. Davidson is 9-3 at home, 7-4 at CofC, and 2-1 in the tournament. There have been some fantastic games in that series. I doubt that we'll play each other after this season. I wish them well in their move. The CAA should be a good fit for their sports. I don't like that they are giving the Southern such short notice. Seven months isn't enough. I'd be in favor of banning CofC from conference tournaments for the remainder of their stay, but I can't imagine our commissioner and ADs going that far.

Furman- I hate it for baseball and basketball, but in general I will not weep when a non-football-playing school leaves, especially a party school. Problem is that Imamoron will probably do something stupid like bring in High Point to replace them. Eleven basketball teams is not ideal for the two-division game, but I would just have everyone play home-and-home - twenty conference games. I know I am not with the majority on this point.

Georgia Southern- Charleston leaving isn't really a surprise to me and it would probably affect me more as a Georgia Southern fan if I didn't expect my Eagles to be on the way out the door as well. This was probably just the first move in a series of events that will change the SoCon greatly. I imagine before long Georgia Southern and Appalachian State will both be leaving for a FBS conference, most likely the SunBelt, and Davidson might find a new home as well. These moves will obviously affect the conference in all of the major sports as GSU and App St are both on the national football scene in FCS, Charleston and Davidson are 2 of the top mid-major basketball programs, and GSU and Charleston both have very solid baseball programs that routinely go to regionals.

The school that stands to gain the most from this in my opinion is clearly Chattanooga. They are the 3rd biggest basketball program in the SoCon in terms of brand recognition and if Davidson decides to also leave then the door could be open for yearly NCAA tournament trips for the Mocs. Even if Davidson doesn't leave it will make UTC the #2 program in the conference and puts one less quality program in the way of the big dance. The Mocs have also been on the cusp of being a playoff team in football for a couple years now and if Georgia Southern and App St both leave then that opens up an avenue for UTC to be a serious contender to win the SoCon football title.

UNCG- First off, let's not be surprised by this move. Their AD's comments a few months ago left little doubt that they would be moving on. My personal reaction to the news, though, is a bit "meh". On one hand, the Cougars have a nice sports program that brought something to the table in almost all SoCon sports. Their basketball and baseball programs had NCAA caliber squads almost every season. In that respect it will be very hard to replace Charleston. But as a person who has wanted to see the SoCon have more member schools like my alma mater (larger state public schools), I'm interested to see how replacing them turns out. If CofC is replaced by Gardner-Webb or Presbyterian, I'll be a little more upset about them leaving. If it's Winthrop or ETSU, I'll be less upset about it. Plus, I think there are other schools that are going to move on before it all settles out. So, I'll hold off on a real opinion.

From the Cougars standpoint, I think it's probably a good move in the short term. I say short term b/c who knows what the conference landscape is going to look like in twelve months. Basketball is their marquee program and this instantly gets them on television more often and gives them an opportunity to get an at large bid to the NCAA Tournament. Not having VCU or ODU there may not give them as much of an opportunity as they envision. But certainly a better chance than they have in the SoCon. However, I would like the academic people at Charleston to stop spouting this stuff about using the CAA to draw more kids from up north. Let's just admit this is about money and basketball. None of these realignments have anything to do with academics. So, let's not even throw that out there.

In the end, I think it's a good move for the Cougars and it could end up being good for the SoCon. Now let's see where this goes.

Western Carolina- I'm afraid the conference commissioner is reacting to events, rather than being proactive to these same events. In my opinion, just as the CAA did, the SoCon commissioner should have announced his intentions publicly some time ago, and then pursued a set of schools that could have been ready and waiting to fill these positions. I'm afraid, that without a public plan in place, more SoCon schools might seek out other conference homes on their own, before the SoCon even approaches any potential replacement schools about these openings.

What if, with these three schools departing, Davidson reconsiders their decision. Then, Elon and UNCG (or Wofford) decides to depart with Davidson? With those departures, maybe UTC and Samford decide that the OVC is looking pretty good now, and seeks re-entry. This could turn into a completely depleted SoCon real quick.

Read the rest of his thoughts here.