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This is the official press release. Going to 60 scholarships starting with 15 in 2013.

http://www.patriotleague.org/sports/m-f ... 12aac.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

About time! Welcome to the club!

Very cool. That strengthens the division.

Congrats to the PL for seeing the light.

I'm hopeful this will be a kick in the pants to the NEC to raise the scholarship limit to 60 in progression with the PL schedule.

PL has the potential to be a very very strong conference.

This is great news for FCS football!

Looks like the geniuses in the underground bunker of the FFFFFFD are going to have to adjust the "NDSU scheduling model". Patriot League won't be as easy to beat up on anymore. Guess there's always the MEAC.

EWURanger wrote:This is great news for FCS football!

Looks like the geniuses in the underground bunker of the FFFFFFD are going to have to adjust the "NDSU scheduling model". Patriot League won't be as easy to beat up on anymore. Guess there's always the MEAC.

JFC Ranger, that was the unspoken thought on everyone's mind but you didn't have to go and amplify. Thanks for the ensuing shit storm.

kalm wrote:Very cool. That strengthens the division.

This. It's great news.

danefan wrote:Congrats to the PL for seeing the light.

I'm hopeful this will be a kick in the pants to the NEC to raise the scholarship limit to 60 in progression with the PL schedule.

PL has the potential to be a very very strong conference.

Let's not get crazy yet. Let's see what happens on the field before we start using multiple "very"s in the description. The Ivy's have been slipping money to kids for years and no one is saying they would be juggernauts if they started playing the rest of FCS.

And then there were 6 (major conferences)

Brock Landers wrote:And then there were 6 (major conferences)

If simply having schollies is what makes a conference "major" there are more than six. As we all know, the Patriot had plenty of money going to players all along. We will have to see if making them "scholarships" makes a difference on the field.

GannonFan wrote:

danefan wrote:Congrats to the PL for seeing the light.

I'm hopeful this will be a kick in the pants to the NEC to raise the scholarship limit to 60 in progression with the PL schedule.

PL has the potential to be a very very strong conference.

Let's not get crazy yet. Let's see what happens on the field before we start using multiple "very"s in the description. The Ivy's have been slipping money to kids for years and no one is saying they would be juggernauts if they started playing the rest of FCS.

Many conferences (several in MUCH better recruiting areas) have "the potential". Time will tell.

89Hen wrote:

Brock Landers wrote:And then there were 6 (major conferences)

If simply having schollies is what makes a conference "major" there are more than six. As we all know, the Patriot had plenty of money going to players all along. We will have to see if making them "scholarships" makes a difference on the field.

I was implying that there will be 6 "power" conferences in the near future (obviously giving the Southland some credit here), which means I'm assuming having actual athletic scholarships will bump up the PL's quality of play, which was pretty good to begin with

GOD, 89. Always have to be a bitch

kalm wrote:

EWURanger wrote:This is great news for FCS football!

Looks like the geniuses in the underground bunker of the FFFFFFD are going to have to adjust the "NDSU scheduling model". Patriot League won't be as easy to beat up on anymore. Guess there's always the MEAC.

JFC Ranger, that was the unspoken thought on everyone's mind but you didn't have to go and amplify. Thanks for the ensuing shit storm.

Brock Landers wrote:And then there were 6 (major conferences)

Nah, there's still only three.

As I understand it, the Patriot teams still have more stringent academic standards, redshirt very few players, and take few, if any transfers. They're getting rid of their biggest handicap, but if they still have the 3 others, they'll be a better conference, but not a powerhouse.

Good move by the Patriot League. Hopefully the Northeast Conference follows suit.

Patriot scholarship decision will affect Ivy

By Craig Haley, FCS Executive Director

Philadelphia, PA (Sports Network) - Some Ivy League football programs can look down the road and know their schedules already are completed for quite a while.

Princeton, for example, is booked through 2017, with some of the following seasons not far behind in the planning stage.

But some teams in the Ancient Eight might be double-checking to see if their schedules are marked in pencil and not ink. Monday's announcement by the Patriot League that it will start to offer football scholarships with the 2013 season will have some affect on scheduling with its sister league, the Ivy League, over the long term.

It's not that the non-scholarship Ivy schools are going to cut the cord on the Patriot League competition - far from it. But Ivy programs no doubt will look elsewhere for opponents a little more, especially when the maximum of 15 scholarships per recruiting class start to add up at Patriot schools and they get markedly better.

Princeton often plays all three of its non-league games against Patriot opponents, and it's the case on four of its next six schedules.

In future years, perhaps Princeton will schedule two Patriot opponents and look toward the Pioneer Football League, the only other non-scholarship FCS league beginning in 2013, or perhaps a scholarship school from a league lower in stature than the Patriot League, like the Northeast Conference or the Mid- Eastern Athletic Conference.

San Diego, from the PFL, already has built a relationship with Ivy competition, while Marist and Columbia are a strong geographical fit and have built a relationship.

PFL members like Butler (it has a home-and-home with Dartmouth over the next two seasons), Jacksonville, Dayton, Drake, Davidson, Campbell, even Mercer or Stetson when they begin play in 2013, could become more attractive to the Ivies. Such games would satisfy wide-spread alumni and develop more recruiting bases.

Ivy teams held their own this past season while going 3-3 against scholarship programs, but they were a combined 6-21 in the five prior seasons (2006-10), and that is not a welcomed trend to them.

Just looking to the past, Brown got out of its series with Holy Cross when the Crusaders had scholarships in the late 1980s and early 1990s and only renewed the relationship once the Patriot program dropped the scholarships.

Penn has played a lot of close games with Villanova in recent years, but the CAA Football program keeps winning them. The Quakers (Villanova and William & Mary) and Cornell (Fordham and Monmouth) are the only Ivy teams playing more than one scholarship program this season.

Harvard, like Penn a perennial Ivy power, has avoided playing scholarship opponents under veteran head coach Tim Murphy, enjoying rivalries with schools like Holy Cross and Lafayette. Of course, those Patriot League teams have scholarships on the way.

Georgetown will be in demand with more Ivy programs if, unlike the rest of the Patriot League, the Hoyas decide to keep offering only need-based financial aid and not the merit-based financial aid that is football scholarships.

Changes in scheduling between the Ivy and Patriot leagues might be subtle in upcoming years, but greater change is out there when future schedules start to have openings again and the Patriot scholarships keep adding up.

The two academically elite leagues have been great playing partners. Keeping the same relationship just may not be smart for the Ivy League.
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Well, the Haley article explains why Harvard has scheduled San Diego the next two seasons and Georgetown in 2014. I miss the good old days of scheduling Army, William & Mary, UMass and Northeastern.

BDKJMU wrote:Monday's announcement by the Patriot League that it will start to offer football scholarships with the 2013 season will have some affect on scheduling with its sister league, the Ivy League, over the long term.

Odd choice of words when referring to football conference affiliation.

So who is the CAA's "sister league" I wonder?

93henfan wrote:

BDKJMU wrote:Monday's announcement by the Patriot League that it will start to offer football scholarships with the 2013 season will have some affect on scheduling with its sister league, the Ivy League, over the long term.

Odd choice of words when referring to football conference affiliation.

So who is the CAA's "sister league" I wonder?

MEAC.

Ivytalk wrote:

93henfan wrote:
Odd choice of words when referring to football conference affiliation.

So who is the CAA's "sister league" I wonder?

MEAC.

That would be the CAA's playoff bitch, not sister

dbackjon wrote:

Ivytalk wrote: MEAC.

That would be the CAA's playoff bitch, not sister

Precisely.

I assume the the fact no one has come up with an answer is tacit admission that the CAA is a peerless football league, top to bottom. Thanks.

93henfan wrote:

dbackjon wrote:

That would be the CAA's playoff bitch, not sister

Precisely.

I assume the the fact no one has come up with an answer is tacit admission that the CAA is a peerless football league, top to bottom. Thanks to Old Dominion.

FIFY

CAA Flagship wrote:

93henfan wrote:
Precisely.

I assume the the fact no one has come up with an answer is tacit admission that the CAA is a peerless football league, top to bottom. Thanks to Old Dominion.

FIFY

No, you guys fit right in the middle of the pack, like most expected you would. It's the emergence of sad-sack Towson and the exit of Rhode Island that really cleaned up the riff-raff.

Now if we could just get Villanova to go away...

93henfan wrote:

CAA Flagship wrote:
FIFY

No, you guys fit right in the middle of the pack, like most expected you would. It's the emergence of sad-sack Towson and the exit of Rhode Island that really cleaned up the riff-raff.

Now if we could just get Villanova to go away...

Rhody is around for one more season. You mean GST and UR? Villanova spent a year in suckitude last yr- they won't this yr.