How Will the G-MAC Look by 2017 as Expansion Continues?

Battler Beat knows one thing for sure. The Great Midwest Athletic Conference, which Alderson Broaddus is a part of, has added some quality institutions to conference membership. It was announced on Monday, June 29 that University of Findlay, Hillsdale College, Walsh University, Ohio Dominican University and Lake Erie College accepted membership as G-MAC members for the 2017-18 school year. This followed the May announcement that Malone University would join the G-MAC for the 2016-17 school year. This would put conference membership at 13 schools by 2017. That is an odd amount of schools. It would give the conference 8 football-playing members. But with the fact that it is only 13 schools and 8 of them playing football, it leads us to believe that the conference is not done with expansion. We also add the remark that the Lake Erie College president made this week in that he feels the conference could have up to 17 members by 2017. It leads us to believe that the expansion track isn't complete. Today we decide to give our prediction on what the conference will look like by the 2017-18 school year. In future posts, we will detail how the conference expansion will greatly aide the athletic department at Alderson Broaddus University.

Will any of the Current G-MAC schools defect?

We certainly hope not. But the geographic layout of the conference could possibly lead to one defection. Trevecca Nazarene's athletic director came out this week and said that the Trojans are committed to the G-MAC with a caveat that southern expansion needs to occur next. We actually believe him and also believe that G-MAC Commissioner Tom Daeger will now successfully make that move. Daeger brokered a great expansion deal this past spring. He deserves a ton of credit for the leadership that he has shown through the whole G-MAC ordeals. When Cumberland and Georgetown were turned down for D2 membership, he came up with a different and even better plan for expansion. He looked to obtain new members from what many believe is the top D2 conference in America. The GLIAC is regarded as the top D2 conference as far as athletics are concerned. Many would have thought it to be impossible to get members to leave the GLIAC and join the G-MAC. But the fact is that many of the private schools in the GLIAC were swamped by the large-state schools in Michigan. Some of those D2 state-schools in Michigan have bigger enrollments than Marshall University and some are almost as big as West Virginia University. So what Daeger did is to contact the much smaller private schools primarily located in Ohio and ask if they would be interested in joining a fledgling league in the G-MAC. His outline of what he visioned for the league sold these institutions into joining the league. For now, Daeger has G-MAC membership at 13 schools.

Word has surfaced from multiple avenues that Cumberland was rejected last year on some faulty logic in their NCAA membership plan. Cumberland is very strong in many sports at the NAIA level. Their baseball facility has to be one of the better small-college baseball facilities in the country. The logic given for Cumberland's denial was that 'their student-athletes didn't have quite enough community service hours' and that the school's 'community-service plan wasn't quite what the NCAA wanted'. Many believe at the time that the GLIAC and GLVC members on the NCAA expansion committee drove the attempt to not have the G-MAC expand. Whether that is true or not remains to be seen. What is true is that the NCAA did set up some different ways that the expansion committee was to operate. With the G-MAC now expanding to 6 more NCAA D2 members, it is believed that it will not only be easier to convince to southern NAIA schools to apply to Division 2 status but that these schools will likely be accepted.

We believe and predict that two NAIA schools will apply for D2 membership for the 2017-18 year. We believe those two schools will be Cumberland Univeristy located in Lebanon, Tennessee. We also believe that Lindsey Wilson College in Columbia, Kentucky will apply. These two schools would lie in close proximity to current G-MAC members Trevecca Nazarene and Kentucky Wesleyan. We feel Cumberland and LWC have the athletic makeup and like-minded institution traits that the league is looking for. Cumberland has a powerhouse baseball program at the NAIA level. It would be a great baseball partner with Trevecca's outstanding baseball program. LWC's athletic department is very good overall. Both schools also have football. We will detail later in this post as to why we feel a southern NAIA expansion will be a component. But certainly this league would like to keep two current schools in the markets of Nashville, TN and Owensboro, KY. Adding another school in Nasheville would be even better. The G-MAC also doesn't want to take any chance of losing Kentucky Wesleyan's basketball tradition. KWC has football and may not be so quick to jump from the G-MAC. But the conference certainly wants to keep a school in the league that has 8 NCAA Division II men's basketball championships to their credit. History and tradition mean a lot.

Where does the G-MAC go after the southern NAIA expansion?

Our next prediction is how we believe the G-MAC may look and why we believe the next expansion moves point to if the NAIA piece is successful this time. We believe that the G-MAC will rely on the Pod scheduling system as compared to a two-division G-MAC. We believe the G-MAC will go to a Pod scheduling system simply because the G-MAC is a conference will have a large geographic layout by 2017-18. We also believe the it makes to much sense to go in that direction. It would be a four-pod league based on geography. It would cut down on travel for the non-football sports.

We believe the next school that will either be invited or will express a dire interest to join will be Notre Dame College in South Euclid, OH. It just makes too much sense. They are geographically going to be too close to many of the G-MAC schools. We believe one pod would feature: Kentucky Wesleyan, Trevecca Nazarene, Cumberland  and Lindsey Wilson. Another geographic pod would feature: Walsh, Lake Erie, Malone and Notre Dame. Another geographic pod (although a bit more spread out) would be: Cedarville, Urbana, Findlay and Hillsdale. But in this day and age of D2 conferences, travel is going to occur. This pod isn't all that bad really.

But then that leaves us with Alderson Broaddus and Davis & Elkins and their pod. That becomes interesting. In order to get our prediction, we have to revisit history a little bit. When the WVIAC broke up and the MEC formed, their was a blip in between. Ed Welch, president of UC, led a movment to keep the WVIAC in place. UC, WV State, UPJ, Bluefield State, Wheeling Jesuit, WV Wesleyan, AB, D&E and Ohio Valley agreed to keep the league in place. The problem was that there were not enough football institutions for UC, WV State and WV Wesleyan to remain. It would have been a problem for them. Robin Capehart gave UC, State, Wesleyan and Wheeling 48 hours to make a decision on whether to join the MEC or not. They went to the MEC but with feet dragging. This has all been documented in newspaper articles from a few years ago.

But now with G-MAC expansion of six D2 institutions, the cards sit pretty for Tom Daeger. Private schools in the state of West Virginia rely heavily on out-of-state student enrollments. The financial condition of the state of WV dictates that there are not enough students in the state of WV to keep these private institutions alive. These private WV schools also have to recruit heavily out-of-state. There are not enough in-state athletes to fill out all the rosters. It would lead us to believe that some of the current MEC private institutions and their coaches may like the idea of being in a conference that is branched out into four states. It makes it easier for a basketball coach at UC to tell an Ohio basketball player that you will be coming back home to Ohio to play several basketball games a year. Plus there is a strong feeling among MEC private schools that the MEC was a league-formed and terms dictated to by West Liberty and Shepherd. It is perceived as a state-school run league. For instance, the MEC expansion committee has been made of only two people for some time: commissioner Reid Amos and Shepherd AD B.J. Pomeroy. Amos was a long-standing state employee for both Fairmont State and West Liberty. Was that the reason for the blip caused by UC President Ed Welch back in the formation of the MEC? Remember that individual league members of the MEC do not get a vote in league expansion. That is left up to this two-person committee.

With all of that being said, we believe that if other expansion plans occur that either University of Charleston, WV Wesleyan or Wheeling Jesuit will be invited to join the G-MAC. We only feel Wheeling would be invited if they started a football program up. WV Wesleyan makes a lot of sense since they are close to AB and D&E. UC might be a reach but it was Ed Welch who was never in favor of disbanding the WVIAC. Charleston is also an institution that recruits heavily both student and student-athlete wise into the state of Ohio. But this would be a pod that might include Ohio Valley instead of Charleston....let's keep that in mind. We actually think Wheeling Jesuit might be the most ideal school to come in, but we do believe the fact that they don't have football might hurt their chances of getting an invite. Right now they are in a good situation in the MEC being that they are the only school in that league without football. That allows them to dump more scholarship money into sports like basketball and volleyball since they do not have to fund football

What would the pod system look like in the G-MAC?

Southwest Pod               Midwest Pod              Northeast OH Pod              WV Pod

Kentucky Wesleyan        Cedarville                    Notre Dame                      OVU
Trevecca Nazarene          Hillsdale                     Walsh                               AB
Cumberland                     Findlay                        Malone                             DE
Lindsey Wilson               Ohio Dominican          Lake Erie                         WV Wesleyan or WJ

How would scheduling work for league members?

We believe that there is always going to be travel in the G-MAC. But we believe the following scenario would cut-down on travel quite a bit. We are going to use men's basketball as our example. But this would really apply to most sports that aren't football. It is just easier to show how this would work under one sport. We chose the sport we are most familiar with: men's basketball.

We believe that in men's basketball that all members in one pod would play each member twice. For instance, Cedarville, Hillsdale, Findlay and OD would all play each other home-and-home duirng the course of a season. That would give each member 6-league games to start with.

We believe that due to geographic layout that the Southwest Pod members and the Midwest Pod members would also play each other home-and-home during a basketball season. For instance, Cumberland would face Cedarville, Hillsdale, Findlay and OD twice during a basketball season. That would add 8 more men's basketball games. That is a total of 14-league games so far. The Northeast OH pod and WV pod members would also play each other twice during the season.

We then believe that during the course of a basketball season that the Southwest/Midwest pod members would play the Northeast/WV pod members once. For example, Ohio Dominican would already have 14 league games. They then would play Notre Dame, Walsh, Malone, Lake Erie, AB, DE, Ohio Valley and say a Wheeling once during the course of the basketball season. This would give each league member a total of 22 league basketball games. It also gives each member institution a chance to play 6 out-of-conference games. The key thing here is that these schools only have to make the farthest road trips once every two years.  For example that Trevecca would only have to travel to Philippi once every two years and that Davis & Elkins would only have to travel to Owensboro, KY once every two years. The bottom line is that it cuts down on the extreme trips to once every two years rather than every year.

The travel might be a little more taxing on the Southwest/Midwest pod. But I believe that Findlay and Kentucky Wesleyan fans would have no trouble playing each other twice considering both programs hold 9 D-II men's basketball national championship between them. Schools trying to hype G-MAC games gets a little bit easier. And as we have stated, there is always going to be a little bit more travel in today's landscape.

How would the regular-season championship be determined?

We believe that a computerized-power rating would be used to determine the regular-season champion in several sports. Because not every league-member plays each other twice, it would make sense to do it this way. It would be based on the strength of the league teams you play. For example, it does appear on surface that the Southwest/Midwest pods are a little stronger in men's basketball. So by using a power-rating system.

What about Ursuline?

It throws a little wrench into women's athletics and the pod-system. But obviously it could still work. It would make sense to place Ursuline into the Northeast OH pod. Some things would have to be worked out in terms of scheduling, but it wouldn't be that difficult.

Final Thoughts

We again congratulate the current league-members on the fact that expansion looked attractive to form a private-school league. We also congratulate Tom Daeger for such an outstanding job during this expansion process. This post is only a prediction. But we believe that is a prediction that holds some water in the future of the G-MAC. It may take different directions. But we strongly believe that the G-MAC is not done expanding! We will feature other articles later on about how the G-MAC now influences Alderson Broaddus University. But we believe for the first time that the G-MAC actually holds a nice set of cards in their hand when it comes to the future of the league.