Ohio Valley Conference

[rbhale55]

With the top two programs, Jacksonville St. and Eastern Kentucky, leaving the conference the Ohio Valley Conference will become one of the weakest football conferences in the country. This is adversely impact recruiting and quality of the sport on the field. Should the OVC consider going down to Division II? Any plans for expansion? If they could lure East Tennessee State and Chattanooga to come over, that would be great but not very likely to happen.

[Mocs123]

Chattanooga AD Mark Wharton said the OVC and A-Sun have both reached out to Chattanooga but that the Mocs are happy in the SoCon for now.

The A-Sun really appealed to me, but is still incomplete - to make sense for the Mocs we would need a couple of other schools that are appealing to Chattanooga to join - I'd think that would mean at least two of the following: ETSU, TSU, Austin Peay, WCU, TN-Martin, or TTU. Going to Louisiana or Florida for schools probably doesn't make the A-Sun as appealing to the Mocs. To be honest, from the beginning I said the ambitious A-Sun plan only works if all the schools go together. I think some schools jumped the gun (perhaps UCA felt pressure from the Southland debacle) and now that the A-Sun movement seems to have slowed - are the schools that jumped at risk?

As for the OVC - It's been a pretty weak football conference for some time, with it being JSU and then everyone else. Austin Peay has been good of late, but with the coaching turmoil of the past 3-4 years we will see if they can stay successful. Either way some team(s) will fill the void With it pretty much being a (to borrow a basketball term) a one bid league already - I'm not sure that they will be hurt that much.

Is the OVC one of the weakest FCS football conferences - maybe (particularly depending on how APSU does) bu the remaining Southland looks pretty bad too, and the Big South without KSU isn't so hot, but the addition of NCAT helps.

No way they should drop to D2 - all other sports would have to drop. If they explored a drop, my guess is more than half the schools would be looking for another conference as they want to stay D1.

[bonarae]

What about Morehead State? Should the conference convince the Eagles to add athletic scholarships to change conferences?