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  • UNC Pembroke leaving MEC by 2025

    Conference Carolinas announced plans to sponsor football starting in the 2025 season. UNC Pembroke will leave the MEC at that point to join Barton, Chowan, Erskine, North Greenville and new ConfCar member Shorter as part of a six-team league.

    https://conferencecarolinas.com/news...l-in-2025.aspx

    So, does the MEC end up sticking with 11 football teams or do you think there's a chance the league adds another football school to get to an even 12?
    Cal U (Pa.) Class of 2014

  • #2
    Originally posted by ctrabs74 View Post
    Conference Carolinas announced plans to sponsor football starting in the 2025 season. UNC Pembroke will leave the MEC at that point to join Barton, Chowan, Erskine, North Greenville and new ConfCar member Shorter as part of a six-team league.

    https://conferencecarolinas.com/news...l-in-2025.aspx

    So, does the MEC end up sticking with 11 football teams or do you think there's a chance the league adds another football school to get to an even 12?
    Main question would be Who do you add? The only football school in the neighborhood could be maybe WV Tech, but they only announced a program addition. They have not to my knowledge made any concrete moves to actually fielding a team. Outside a hail mary reconciliation with Shepherd which seems highly unlikely, the main school they could add seems to be non-football and now lone continental US independent Salem. Frankly, they might as well as just revert to the old WVIAC name and branding too.

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    • #3
      Notre Dame finally jumps ship for the GMAC and the MEC sticks with 10.

      (Mostly) sarcasm.

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      • #4
        Thanks for coming out UNCP

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        • #5
          Originally posted by EastStroud13 View Post
          Notre Dame finally jumps ship for the GMAC and the MEC sticks with 10.

          (Mostly) sarcasm.
          Now you’re going to get Boat all fired up

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          • #6
            MEC should have gone after Bluefield State when they had the chance.

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            • #7
              Originally posted by GSCfan1275 View Post
              MEC should have gone after Bluefield State when they had the chance.
              Well, there is always Salem. Ya never know, maybe Jimbo Fisher will swoop in with a few million for them to restart football.

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              • #8
                I've said it before, the MEC wants to be 12 football playing schools...and NO more!! While this is nice in theory, it leaves zero room for outside conferences poaching members or a school going out of business. Short of poaching a team from another conference, here are our options:

                From NAIA, these three have been talked about before:

                1. WV Tech - They previously (more than a couple of years ago) asked to join the MEC and have expressed a desire to restart football. They are not the "old" WV Tech as they are on an entirely new campus and have turned the student enrollment corner.
                2. Bluefield University - The "other" Blufield in the Virginia side of town. Crosstown rivals of Blufield State. Currently in the NAIA but they do have a football team which would be a plus.
                3. University of Pikesville - UPike in Kentucky. Stable program with football but beyond idle speculation, no indication they are intent on moving up to DII.

                From D3 world:

                There are plenty of D3 schools in the MEC area but I don't know of any that have publicly expressed interest in considering moving up to DII. For the record, there are 23 in PA, 21 in Ohio, 9 in VA and 4 in Maryland. Some of the schools mentioned over the years include:

                1. Salisbury State - Over the years Salisbury and Frostburg have been considered a "package deal." When Frostburg moved up to DII and the MEC, there was a degree of speculation about whether Salisbury would move up also.
                2. Stevenson and/or McDaniel - Not a lot of speculation over the years for either but what there was centered on one/both as a "bridge" to Salisbury.
                3. An Ohio/far Western PA school - Mostly all idle speculation here but a couple of the schools mentioned over the years - Geneva, Wilmingron, Wooster, and Oberlion. Mentioned a couple of times as a tongue in cheek "pick" is Bethany.

                Wished for by fans of other conferences:

                1. Seton Hill from the PSAC - They are bad and the PSAC doesn't need them anymore so with history as a guide, they dump them back to the place they came from.
                2. Some sort of one sided "swap" that sees the GMAC dump all or a significant portion of their bottom feeders to the MEC as a "prize" for NDC. Some of the schools mentioned Kentucky Wesleyan, Ursuline, Cedarville, Ohio Valley, Salem.

                I've also said this before, the MEC needs to be 14 football playing schools in two divisions (N/S, E/W...I don't really care). This number would allow them to have a conf champ game and would reduce driving distance. But most importantly, 14 teams would eliminate the immediate pressure to get a new member when a team leaves.

                No inside information here beyond idle speculation, but if I could have any of the above teams, I'd pick in priority order:

                1. UPike
                2. Wooster
                3. Salisbury

                What we'll PROBABLY do is pick-up either WV Tech or Bluefield University and call it a day.


                Last edited by boatcapt; 01-29-2023, 11:08 AM.

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                • #9
                  Really like Pikeville too as first choice but it would be a lot of travel. Nice school and town. Really impressed when I saw this place. Last choice, Salem, the pits!

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                  • #10
                    Originally posted by Sportsnut View Post
                    Really like Pikeville too as first choice but it would be a lot of travel. Nice school and town. Really impressed when I saw this place. Last choice, Salem, the pits!
                    From the furthest north member of the MEC, the travel distance to UPike is about half that of the distance to UNCP. While not for football, the furthest south member of the GMAC would be Trivecca which is a little less than 200 miles further.

                    I did this exercise several years ago about total travel mileage from NDC to the rest of the GMAC and the MEC. The distance was not as dramatic as some would have you believe. As I recall, at that time the average driving distance difference was on the order of 30 miles. Add in Thomas More and subtract UNCP, and the average distance is probably even less. Someone else is welcome to redo the millage comparison if they so choose.

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                    • #11
                      Originally posted by ctrabs74 View Post
                      Conference Carolinas announced plans to sponsor football starting in the 2025 season. UNC Pembroke will leave the MEC at that point to join Barton, Chowan, Erskine, North Greenville and new ConfCar member Shorter as part of a six-team league.

                      https://conferencecarolinas.com/news...l-in-2025.aspx

                      So, does the MEC end up sticking with 11 football teams or do you think there's a chance the league adds another football school to get to an even 12?
                      While for football (since there is no automatic qualifier for conference champs) it doesn't reall matter, I thought for a conference to "officially" (for NCAA purposes) sponsor a sport they needed eight teams? As I recall, the first couple of years the GMAC said they sponsored football but from an NCAA standpoint, they didn't really.

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                      • #12
                        Boat, take Ohio Valley off of your list, they no longer exist. They shut the doors about a year ago.

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                        • #13
                          Originally posted by GSCfan1275 View Post
                          Boat, take Ohio Valley off of your list, they no longer exist. They shut the doors about a year ago.
                          I was talking about the "player swap" that was talked about by some on this board as a "done deal." Some posters alleged that it was a done deal and would be announced at the next conference meeting. Granted that "next meeting" was several years ago and the announcement never materialized!

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                          • #14
                            Notre Dame College and Ursuline College are 4 miles apart so it's easy just to compare their travel. Ursuline in the GMAC averages 197.0 distance to the other full members with the longest being 528 to Trevecca Nazarene. NDC in the MEC averages 237.9 distance to the other full members with the longest being 339 to Concord.

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                            • #15
                              Originally posted by Tech Boys View Post
                              Notre Dame College and Ursuline College are 4 miles apart so it's easy just to compare their travel. Ursuline in the GMAC averages 197.0 distance to the other full members with the longest being 528 to Trevecca Nazarene. NDC in the MEC averages 237.9 distance to the other full members with the longest being 339 to Concord.
                              OK...I was wrong...Average driving distance is 40 miles not 30. But it still lends to the question, is a 30 minute difference in driving time really a reason for leaving one conference and choosing another?

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