Last week, we published an article asking if William & Mary should consider joining the academically-minded Patriot League. In it, we played devil’s advocate, putting forward 5 arguments for why W&M joining the Patriot may one day make sense for the Tribe. Reasons included the league’s high academic standards, scholar athlete emphasis, and geographic vicinity relative to W&M, to name a few.
I want to clarify: we at the WMSB aren’t saying that we favor W&M moving to the Patriot over the CAA. Instead, we’re simply pointing out the possibility in hopes of stirring legitimate, intelligent back and forth within the Tribe community.
Suffice to say, we received an outpouring of comments from Tribe fans on the subject. Below is an assortment of those comments taken from social media, providing insights from both sides of the aisle; in addition to those comments, I’m adding in some comments of my own.
Continue to let us know what you think on social media!
If we stay in the CAA and want to experience sustained, widespread athletic success that matches our high academic standards, we need to either (1) spend more on our teams and/or (2) lower the academic bar on recruiting standards for certain sports. However, if we lower recruiting standards, we know this will slowly eat at W&M’s strong academic reputation — which we know, is above all the most important thing for W&M. By moving to the Patriot, W&M can compete against true peer schools while continuing to maintain high recruiting standards and pay far less for the lower level of scholarships that the Patriot requires relative to the CAA.
Football is just one of over 20 sports that W&M offers, and while it is the biggest revenue-generating sport, we can’t make a decision based off just one sport. Speaking of football, while the concerns about limited scholarships and lack of redshirting is valid, I think the fact that there are only seven Patriot teams playing FCS football plays to W&M’s advantage. The Patriot League, just like the CAA, gets one automatic qualifier to the FCS Football Championship each year. In a league with just 7 teams (compared to 12 in the CAA), less scholarships, “smaller time” football traditions, and similar academic recruiting standards, doesn’t W&M have a better chance of making the FCS Championship each year as the auto qualifier?
3) Comparing W&M to UVA, Duke, and Stanford — schools that have existed in the Power 5 for the entirety of D1’s existence — is not realistic, nor is it anywhere close to a fair comparison or representative of a realistic goal for W&M — especially in today’s day and age given the current collegiate landscape. Perhaps in the 50s, but not now. 4) Maybe we do refocus our recruiting, as stated above; unfortunately, that would likely result in lowering of academic standards. As long as W&M is fine with that, the strategy represents one potential avenue toward potentially increasing the winning percentage of teams at W&M.
Talking to students on campus, it seems that fewer and fewer care about Tribe sports. Most fans we see at Kaplan and Zable are older alums who were on campus when Tribe sports were “big.” Therefore, we do not think that moving to the Patriot will impact the current students’ perception of W&M sports at all. In fact, if W&M makes the move and increases its winning percentage, even against lesser competition, we think it will be a net positive among current W&M students. Everybody loves a winner, no matter the competition. We have to think about the future of W&M Athletics in 10, 20, even 30 years from now. Not just 1 or 3 years out. If current Tribe students don’t see a consistent winner across several sports, interest will continue to wane throughout generations of incoming students, and future financial support for W&M Athletics will likely reach dangerous lows.
Conclusion
Again, we are not suggesting that W&M abandon the CAA and move to the Patriot League. We are merely providing a counter argument to folks (especially older alums who remember the “glory days”) who say that we should 100% stay in the CAA without even considering potential alternative scenarios and their sustainable benefits. As one of our comrades notes below, the college landscape is going to change dramatically in the coming years; it’s better to have these discussions now, before it’s quite literally too late.
We appreciate the healthy conversation this has stirred among Tribe fans on social media, and we continue to encourage you to provide comments below or on social media. See you there.
Go Tribe!
Discuss this topic with us on social media!
The William and Mary Sports Blog 
Just follow Richmond. Why is this hard to figure out
Plus 2 other state schools. W GW fans can drive to VCU,GMU,UR, and GW. Most alumni live in DC or RVA.
Simple. Follow our old conference foes.
J
Sent from my iPhone
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This assumes that the A10 would take W&M, which I don’t think would happen any time in the next decade at least.
I still think the Patriot League makes the most sense. I, too, am a young alum like most of the writers here. I went to almost every home b-ball game in my four years, traveled to Baltimore twice for the CAA finals and attended most football games in my time as an undergrad and in my two years as a townie post graduation. The reality is WM is just not a sports-oriented student body. And furthermore…staying in the CAA or trying to move to a bigger conference is not going to invigorate the student body. WM and UVA are comparable academically (and I would argue WM is slipping, a move to the Patriot League could actually keep us from slipping further IMO) and no high school student with an interest in college athletics is going to choose WM over UVA. Even less so if they are concerned about tuition…UVA is now 7k cheaper per year (in-state) and Tech (although not as competitive admission, still a very fine school) is around 10k cheaper per year. The shift to the Patriot League opens the door to a) being competitive again across the board b) savings on scholarships c) competing against schools with student bodies of similar sizes and focus and d) honestly raising the basketball profile of the school– Patriot League has had a better RPI the last two years (actually placing right behind A10 this past year)…look at the quality of the Navy, Colgate, and Bucknell programs the last few years. How much would I rather see one of them come to the ‘Burg than really any CAA team. Lastly, before I end my rant, I’ll address the football issue because it is probably the biggest drawback. We did just build a grandstand and have certainly tried to raise the profile of our football. But in the 13.5 seasons (unsure how to count this spring?) in the CAA we’ve made the FCS tournament 3 times, with our highest finish being the semifinals in 2009. In the decade since we’ve made it no further than the second round. Is there some magic to staying in the CAA that makes us think we’ll qualify more often or go further? As Kyle pointed out, we have a much better shot at the automatic bid in a 8 man league with a couple guaranteed wins (who wouldn’t love crushing Georgetown every year?). My thought is wouldn’t it be more fun for it to be the rare year where we aren’t in the FCS playoffs instead of the less than 33% chance we make it where we currently are, not to mention we’re in a 6 year drought. And the oldest rivalry in the South ain’t going anywhere, we would still finish each year with UR coming to town or heading down the road to their impressive stadium to play them.
It blows my mind how SOME W&M folks talk out both sides of their mouth. They want success in sports and they think that money just falls out of pockets and is being used for warmth instead of progress in the athletic department. W&M slit their own throats with the pitchfork and lanterns they whipped out for Huge. As polarizing as they make her seem, SHE went out and secured the 50 million for athletics not Bob Driscoll and Al Albert. They have been going around getting their $500 donations and thinking that is enough, definitely not big league enough to be progressive or do what needs to be done.
The old guard kicked this can down the road for so long and university admin is so risk adverse that any b*tching by irrelevant sports; sorry to say that word, has lead to a thinning of financials over too many sports. JMU cut sports in early 00’s and now you cant go to one of their games without sitting through an extra 20 minutes of championship/medal presentations. Time to shut out the vocal minority and for Rowe to grow a pair and do what’s right and cut sports and cut old weight. There is a reason why associates, sr associates, deputy AD’s at W&M will not touch the AD seat. Toxic administration, a few toxic coaches and a current temp AD who is Rowe’s lapdog but doesn’t know which way is up-he can’t get out of athletics fast enough. Huge is laughing her a*s off and comes out smelling like roses. Sports WILL be cut and Rowe will go down because of her wavering on this topic, no confidence coming soon. Wonder who we can get for President, Hunter Biden? James Comey? Maybe John Stewart. Better off watching quality high school sports around here before those kids go actual D1, WM going d3 soon. Sad.
Hey W&M has a legit football coach and the team will be well coached in the coming years which will make them VERY competitive. If your Football team is competitive week in week out you will get the $$ you need to modernize the rest of your sports.
Look at JMU. It took years of focus and fundraising and planning to be nationally competing and topping CAA play in so many sports. But it starts with football. And you will enjoy the next two years in that sport.
W&M going to the no name Patriot to get an AQ and get dusted in first round of FCS playoffs will kill the program. You coachng staff is there because if successful in CAA play you can compete in playoffs. Which gets you recruits.