OT - Interesting College Football Game

[DetroitFlyer]

http://www.lincolnu.edu/pages/1042.asp

This coming weekend, Division II Lincoln University in Jefferson, MO will host the club football team of Xavier University, (OH). The game is Lincoln's homecoming game. I'm sure that they wanted to schedule a win by playing a club team.

This is interesting on so many levels.

First, has a club team recently played a game against an NCAA, Division II level opponent? I see club teams playing games like Division III JV's, so it seems like a real good "get" by Xavier to land such a game!

As a Dayton fan, I will be interested to see how Lincoln fares against Xavier and then Central State the following week. It will kind of give me a feel for where Xavier is currently relative to my Flyers.

Xavier would be a great addition to the PFL. Is playing a game against an NCAA Division II program a gauge to see how far they have to go...?

Have any current club teams played a game against the varsity of any NCAA or even NAIA team recently?

As I mentioned, this is off topic, but I just do not know how common it is for a club team to play a full fledged NCAA team, especially a Division II team. It will be kind of fun to keep an eye on this game over the weekend while I'm at the Drake visiting Dayton game....

[danefan]

George Mason has a pretty established club team.

They have a bunch of colleges on the schedule. Not sure who they are though.


http://www.gmufootball.gmu.edu/schedule.htm

[DetroitFlyer]

George Mason has a pretty established club team.

They have a bunch of colleges on the schedule. Not sure who they are though.


http://www.gmufootball.gmu.edu/schedule.htm

http://www.lulions.com/schedule.aspx?path=football&

I took a look at one team on Goerge Mason's schedule, Lincoln, PA. The varsity team does not show GM on the schedule so I'm betting that this was a game against the Lincoln JV. It is hard to tell from most club team's schedules unless they specifically call out the "JV". I'm thinking that Xavier playing a full fledged, NCAA Division II varsity team is kind of rare....

[IaaScribe]

I know that George Mason's club team played St. Paul's (DII) back in 2006.

[UAalum72]

Not many varsity teams with any aspirations of playoffs will play clubs because such games don't count, they're basically scrimmages or exhibitions.

Besides other club teams, they usually play JV teams or jucos.

When Albany was a club, they played then-D-III Towson once. The first year as D-III we still had a couple of clubs on the schedule, but none since then.

[DFW HOYA]

I took a look at one team on Goerge Mason's schedule, Lincoln, PA. The varsity team does not show GM on the schedule so I'm betting that this was a game against the Lincoln JV. It is hard to tell from most club team's schedules unless they specifically call out the "JV". I'm thinking that Xavier playing a full fledged, NCAA Division II varsity team is kind of rare....

George Mason opened the season against the Lincoln varsity, losing 34-7.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/16/sports/ncaafootball/16lincoln.html

[Umass74]

The University of Vermont Club football page (http://www.leaguelineup.com/welcome.asp?url=uvmfootballclub) .

[crusader11]

Is Dayton considering dropping down to the Club level?

[JMU1992]

This season is Lincoln University's first varsity football season in 48 years.


http://www.lulions.com/news/2008/5/2/uniforms.aspx

[Lehigh Football Nation]

Bringing this back to the original topic (sorta). I could possibly envision a Xavier promoting the sport from club football status to Division I. If they did, they could either go non-scholarship and play in the Pioneer Football League vs. Butler, Dayton and Drake (which might make a lot of sense for them) or play in the MVFC football as a scholarship team.

A Horizon League full-scholarship league might also enter into the discussion - Youngstown State, Western Illinois, Xavier, Drake - but that would be more unlikely.

Xavier might make a lot of sense as a D-III school playing cost-containment football in the Pioneer League, which wouldn't cost all that much more than club football. Where do they play their games?

George Mason has been a subject of discussion for years for "moving up" to full-scholarship CAA play because of their fairly successful club football team, and (less frequently) Vermont has been floated as a team to "move up" as well (who played in the original Yankee Football Conference).

If the CAA North were somehow to break off into a new Yankee Conference, and CAA South became the "new CAA", GMU joining the CAA and UVM joining the "new Yankee" may pick up steam. But netiher GMU or UVM seem to have football ambitions (or, importantly, the financial will to sponsor full-scholarship football) beyond the club teams they have now - which could change once ODU and Georgia State come on board, but probably won't.

[JetsLuvver]

I wonder if the midwestern PFL schools could some day split off and form a non-scholarship Horizon football league.

Xavier has been pushing for a return to Division I football for a number of years.

UW-Milwaukee and Marquette have strong club programs. Not sure if they'd consider moving up though.

Detroit has built a multi-purpose stadium on campus and is supposedly considering a non-scholarship program.

Evansville is often rumored to considering a return to football.

SIU-Edwardsville, which just moved up to DI, also has a club team.