Buffalo

They just had a good season. Sad for the players. hoping they will be able to have worthwhile options in spite of the late news. Most squads' rosters are now complete....

 

Once again, a harsh reminder that men's college soccer is a welfare sport and that unless it is revenue-neutral, at best, it exists at the generosity of the school and can be ended any time.

It sucks. But there's no right that forces a school to field a money-losing team. It's why I'm always calling out college coaches for not doing more to try and promote and grow the game.

 

they had just promoted a long-time assistant to head coach, too.

 

puts the MAC down to five schools, even with WVU as an affiliate.

 

Some ideas for survival:

Pull KY and maybe even Marshall (may still be bad blood from them leaving) from Conf. USA (would help both with travel).

Of merge with Missouri Valley's 7 teams or Horizon's 10 teams (could do two conferences East/West).

Or maybe target Dayton and/or St. Louis from A-10.

 

Dayton and St. Louis are not leaving the A-10 for the MAC anything... A-10 is an upper mid-major basketball conference with multiple bid teams ...

 

Obviously WVU has no allegiance to the MAC so they will go where they can be in a conference that gets them a bid. The AAC as a soccer-only member would make sense, as would CUSA.

That would leave Akron and the other 3 MAC soccer programs scrambling. If WVU and Akron approached the AAC or CUSA as a package deal for soccer, I can see that happening and being a win-win for both the programs and the conference.

 

I suspect MAC won't survive. I could see WVU and Akron going to same place -likely better conf. (Big East?). As I could see W. Mich and Bowling Green going to same place. Northern IL probably will go somewhere close - Missouri Valley. Or maybe the last 3 all join Horizon and they can have 2 divisions (13 teams) - geographically it works well.

I just hope we don't see any of those schools decide to drop men's soccer too.