Should ETSU Explore a New Conference?
It’s not that the Southern Conference is a poor conference. But is it a place where a program can truly grow?
In the past week we have learned that ETSU football is, at long last, a program good enough to win the Southern Conference.
But we have also learned that the Sun Belt is the superior basketball conference, by virtue of ETSU’s 74–68 loss to Georgia State last night.
This should be of note to ETSU athletic director Scott Carter and the rest of the Buccaneers athletic department because the program that doesn’t grow is the program that dies.
And despite the success ETSU has had recently, they are surrounded by superiors.
The football team may make the FCS playoffs, but their neighboring schools are superior to them. A 59–3 loss to Tennessee is taken so casually a bid to bring the ESPN College Gameday crew to Johnson City actually features head coach Randy Sanders’ quotes on how much better a FBS team with a 5–5 record is to the Bucs.
Next season Appalachian State, once a Southern Conference mate, will open up their season by giving ETSU a similar trouncing. And they will never return to Johnson City for a football game.
Georgia State was actually the team ETSU once replaced in the Atlantic Sun Conference. That was the moment the Panthers passed the Bucs in hierarchy and they haven’t looked back.
Truthfully, ETSU is so happy to just be back to where they perceived they were before their Atlantic Sun banishment of former President Paul Stanton and athletic director David Mullins it seems they are not thinking of a bigger picture.
The Bucs are making trophies for victories against their current Southern Conference mates. Current ETSU athletic director Scott Carter has said he’s happy in the SoCon on my radio show, Tri-Cities Sports NOW.
The Southern Conference is not a bad conference. But so many of ETSU’s one-time contemporaries; Davidson, Marshall, Georgia Southern, College of Charleston, and even Elon have moved on.
Should ETSU be happy with membership in a declining football conference and has never received two bids to the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament?
Yes, there are limits to what ETSU can do. They’ve never won a National Championship, save for Neil Cusack’s 1972 individual cross country championship, which isn’t exactly something a program hangs from the rafters.
And if the Bucs were to move think of moving up to another conference, especially one that plays FBS football, they’d have to build a new arena (not a bad idea), fund not only 22 more football scholarships but 22 more women’s scholarships thanks to Title IX, and expand their football stadium to at least 15,000 and sell that many tickets to every game.
Which would be a good trick since the current record ETSU football attendance was 13,863 when they had an opportunity to sell more than 150,000 for the game.
But with Nevada ranked in the Top 10, Gonzaga a national power, a trip to once- anonymous-now-powerhouse Creighton on Sunday, and Mark Adams stating last month on a trip to town he saw Western Kentucky, Virginia Commonwealth, and Dayton as future powerhouses; why not ETSU?”
And if the Southern Conference isn’t currently equipped for the Bucs to have such a rise, what will it take? Chattanooga to revive themselves to past strengths? Duggar Baucomb building a strong program at The Citadel? Adding other basketball powerhouses to the mix, even if they don’t play football?
Certainly getting a better television deal.
Perhaps these things can happen in the SoCon. But if they can’t, ETSU would best be advised to grow on their own than sink with their contemporaries.
Marky Billson hosts Tri-Cities Sports NOW 12–2 p.m. ET weekdays on 1420 NBC Sports Radio Tri-Cities. Watch his show live and archived here and here.
