ASC Rumors

I want to state right up front that I have no direct confirmation to support this article. You may ask how is this different from other articles? I respond with how can you be so rude without acknowledging any truth in your statement.

Nothing firm on the ASC but as I’ve written in the past, they have 2 years to retain their Automatic Qualifiers (AQ) to the NCAA Tournament as they have dropped below the mandated minimums with regards to members. The problem is football. They have two traditional powers that would dominate most conferences they move into so why would anyone want to take them? For most sports, no one would really care because a stronger conference in volleyball (let’s say) means better chances for at-large bids. In football, there are just too few at-large bids. I have it on good authority that the SCAC will not take on the remaining ASC programs. Maybe one splits off and goes in that direction but I think even that is unlikely. The ASC could expand but there really are not a lot of good options there and, frankly, it would have already been announced. The schools could go to the NAIA or DII (as Sul Ross State and UT-Dallas have done) but that also doesn’t seem like the best choice for these programs.

So, where are we? Well, right where we’ve been for a number of months now. Back in February I wrote that some of the ASC schools were talking with the Coast-to-Coast (C2C) Conference but that football was not on the table. What I’m hearing now is that there is talk of the ASC (as a whole) combining with the C2C but, again, football would not be included. The ASC, as I understand it, want to combine and keep the ASC name so that the football AQ is retained. The C2C is supposedly cool on that idea. This option would give the “old” ASC programs 2-years to figure something out with regards to football. As I understand it, the conferences cannot merge because this would be considered a new conference with no AQs in any sport. One conference has to absorb the other to retain AQs and there is no urgency (or reason) for the C2C to be absorbed. To be clear, there are programs in the C2C that play football but they are happy as associate members in the New Jersey Athletic Conference (NJAC).

To put a bow on what I don’t actually know, I’m hearing that some sort of an announcement will be made this month. I guess the one question I would have is could the C2C absorb the ASC in all sports except for football and the ASC exists only for football for the next 2-years keeping their AQ? That seems like the path forward.

I did reach out to the commissioner and assistant commissioner of the C2C but didn’t hear anything back. I also reached out to a few coaches that I thought might know something but no luck there, either. Again, treat this as a rumor but I think everyone’s hope is that something good comes from all of this and the schools in the ASC will be fine moving forward.