Article Blasting KT on the Hampton/FBS Move Piece

[93BlueHen]

Apparently this guy sees race in everything: https://meetthepres0709.substack.com/p/ ... JhxK6KguU8

[bluehenbillk]

Actually I thought the dude wrote a good article. Yea it had a racial angle with the neighborhood comment but it was entertaining otherwise

[dchen]

The article does a thorough job of evaluating Delaware’s challenges in leaving the CAA but does so in a way that conflates the University and KT’s words (which are his alone - not the University’s) in a manner intended to throw some shade at UD. Does anyone know who Preston is and where this was published?

[Oldhen]

I remember what ‘there goes the neighborhood’ was code for. I was stunned and amazed to see he used it in that context. Really stupid.

[dovetail]

Not long ago the CAA was the most powerful conference in FCS football. Four different schools won a national championship. Not any more. When the neighborhood changes, most people move to a better one.

[Baltimore Hen]

KT is just stating the obvious in his article. THe CAA is a shell of its former self and no longer is a highly competitive conference. each departure has brought in less that desirable athletic "peers"....Its not racial for crying out loud. it's crap athetics that doesn't draw the attention of anyone in the UD fanbase. But alas, it todays world people want to apply race to EVERYTHING!!! SAD...

[Bluewyn Gold]

Actually I thought the dude wrote a good article. Yea it had a racial angle with the neighborhood comment but it was entertaining otherwise

Agree completely. Thought the article was well-written. I do understand how the author could have misconstrued Kevin's intention there and was right to acknowledge the sensitivity of the "neighborhood" sentence. Inartful and foolish though the comment might have been, anyone who knows Kevin and is familiar with stances he's taken in past probably knows he did not intend to offend or imply that this sentence was limited to Hampton, especially since specifically mentioned Bryant and Campbell immediately before it.

The fact remains that the CAA is no longer the conference Delaware signed up for, the profile of its membership dramatically changed since the early 2000s. The profile of the majority of members is no longer close at all to UD. Who could blame Delaware for wanting to look elsewhere?

Now comes the news courtesy of Matt Brown's Extra Points that the CAA is speaking with Quinnipiac (who has football), Fairfield (again), and High Point about potential membership.

Another option, specifically for Merrimack, could be the CAA. Industry sources have told me the two sides are expected to at least talk as early as this week. Sources have also told me that Merrimack is prepared to increase spending on football scholarships and support, should the program compete in a more demanding football conference...

Wait, if they added Merrimack football, wouldn’t the CAA have roughly 500 teams? Why would they do that?

In fact, industry sources tell me, it’s possible the CAA might add even more programs. The league had discussions with Fairfield during their last round of expansion, and multiple people I trust have told me those conversations have been re-engaged. I’m also told that the representatives of the league’s interests have shown interest in High Point. Fairfield currently competes in the MAAC and High Point in the Big South. Neither currently have football programs.

Part of the reason for CAA membership aggression, I’m told, is the belief that the league could lose members in the near future. Multiple ADs and industry professionals familiar with and around the league have told me over the last month that they expect the College of Charleston to leave the CAA and join the A10 after the end of this college basketball season. Delaware, I’m told, has communicated a displeasure with the current direction of the league to CAA officials, and would explore an FBS opportunity if one presented itself. It’s entirely possible that other schools may decide to seek membership elsewhere as well.

There’s also an argument that “strength in numbers” provides better internal stability in a volatile membership environment, especially if expansion doesn’t require dramatically more travel for athletes or schools. All three of those targets are currently within what might be considered the league’s geographic footprint.

Given this news, it would not surprise me in the least if Delaware made the quickest possible exit from the CAA to the first FBS conference that would take them. No doubt Ms. Rawak is actively speaking with other schools in the region (UMass, Stony Brook, W&M, etc.) about partnering in a move to CUSA or, if they are interested in expanding, the MAC or Sun Belt. It's unfortunate UD waited until the situation became so critical to make a move, placing itself in a position of weakness.

[bluehenbillk]

Bluewyn hit it right on the head with his last remark - UD has cost themselves from years of ineptitude and inaction and now presumably “backed into a corner”, they couldn’t be operating from a weaker hand.
From a school that forever liked to be the big fish in a small pond is now seeing that pond torn open to much smaller fish, with a small opening leading to an ocean full of sharks and whales.

[RalphD58]

There's more than just one article. This is written by a former New Journal reporter.

https://hbcusports.com/2023/10/25/hampt ... attention/

[Section J]

Apparently this guy sees race in everything:

[bluehenbillk]

That last article surely portrays UD in a terrible light, combining KT’s neighborhood phrase and the timing of UD leaving as HBCU’s enter the CAA.

[Housthen18]

It's OK for the authors to point out that the phrase "there goes the neighborhood" has potentially insensitive connotations in this context--even though KT was obviously using it to analogize the collective diminishing of the CAA's prestige based on all its new admissions, not its HBCU ones exclusively.

Where I push back is the implication--in the latter article particularly--that UD leaving the CAA is inherently racially exclusionary and morally wrong because some of the new schools are HBCUs. Whatever the reasons for why Bryant, Campbell, Monmouth, Hampton, NCA&T, etc. have less resources and prestige than Delaware (and it is entirely true that for the HBCUs those reasons deal with historical racial exclusion) the fact remains that Delaware's competitive football aspirations are larger than what those schools can provide.

Football conference affiliation is not social justice; Delaware has every right to promote its own competitive advancement without shame, including via avoiding conference affiliation with less competitive, less prestigious, weaker-branded schools. It is no less than acceptable for Delaware to do so than it would be for, say, the members of the ACC or Big 10 to balk at the idea of being affiliated with UD, even though UD is institutionally similar to many.

Delaware did not turn college football into the capitalistic, stratified venture it is today - that is simply the nature of the beast.

[tomdawg00022]

That last article surely portrays UD in a terrible light, combining KT’s neighborhood phrase and the timing of UD leaving as HBCU’s enter the CAA.

UD voted to let in the lesser quality programs. They could have (but chose not to) rally the old guard to not them in but the optics would have been awful in doing so with regard to the HBCUs.

The HBCUs on the East Coast have a disadvantage on resources compared to just about every other FBS, FCS, and even many D2 programs in the region. The NEC might be the one league that is comparable in terms of balance/strength. And that should have been made clear to everyone when the HBCUs when they applied...we love you, we want you to do well but it's going to be a tough marriage for both the league quality and your school's performance.

If Hampton weren't lumped in and it were, say, VMI...nobody would bat an eye at all about the comment. The end.

[Baltimore Hen]

That last article surely portrays UD in a terrible light, combining KT’s neighborhood phrase and the timing of UD leaving as HBCU’s enter the CAA.

of course it does....

[Baltimore Hen]

It's OK for the authors to point out that the phrase "there goes the neighborhood" has potentially insensitive connotations

yes, it's ok to acknowledge it, but also be honest in the reporting that the comment in no way shape or form referencing race at all!