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I’m mostly bummed because TU leadership has been largely reactionary, passive and unimaginative in the modern collegiate sports landscape. Rather than taking the bull by the horns and actively shop our program around for a better opportunity our President, AD, admin, etc. seemingly sit on their hands and wait for things to happen around them. While making a move to SoCon might not be the sexiest play to make, it might be the only play left to make and I happen to think it would be a significantly better group of (football) schools to be associated with than the patchwork remnants of the CAA. Who knows if that’s even an option but if I were Steve I’d be on a plane to wherever their league offices are and be groveling for entry into SoCon.

I appreciate you sharing the receipts of your suggestions. Seriously, one of my least favorite things is complaints with no tangible suggestions/solutions. I love that you through this ideas out there a while ago. Of those three, the SoCon was and is probably the most realistic option. - I think we either need to swing for the fences with a targeted FBS plan, which would probably require money we don't have and might be a major financial risk. This seems unrealistic. - Get together with Stony Brook, Monmouth, Albany and Bryant (Elon would be good too, but I don't know if it it fits regionally as much as the others), and see if as a group we have enough influence to can convince 3-4 other similar schools of decent quality to join up. It is pretty slim pickings, but maybe one or two FCS schools looking to move geographically and/or 1-2 good D-2 schools with the itch to move up. I know that is not exciting, but those seem like the schools that have the most in common with us when it comes to quality, potential (which we all have), and financial resources (I don't know for sure, but none of us are FBS schools, but we can do well at this level). - Try to go to the Patriot League (they probably won't have us, because it was never a great fit when we were there). - Try to go to the SoCon. It is where a lot of the CAA travel are going anyways with new members, so travel wouldn't be much more of an issue. Especially if we brought one or two of the schools above with us. - Stay in the CAA, try to recruit new members and hope for the best. - Drop the program and focus on basketball and lacrosse, and other sports. I would say go to D-2 or D-3, but I wasn't sure if that means the rest our programs would have to go there too. That would not be acceptable. The ground is shifting below is and we will have to pick a track at some point in the next 3-5 years to map out a real future. Otherwise, we could be back to treading water like we were in the mid-90s, only with more financial sharks circling around us to create bigger problems. -

Some cool news from abroad: former Towson great Nina Cajic suited up for Serbia yesterday in their Volleyball Nations League match against the USA. She did not play, but she is in the gym playing against world class players and on the coaching staff’s radars. The VNL is a yearly summer tournament in which the 18 best national teams in the world compete. It is a very prestigious tournament to be a part of, and her presence there is a huge moment for any volleyball player. Serbia is one of the strongest nations in international volleyball. They have a ton of talent and won the World Championships in 2022. Hopefully she gets on the court soon.

I just listened to this and would urge others to do likewise, as it provides some insight as to why each of these guys, especially, from our perspective, Tejada, opted to return. All in all 3 impressive guys who should be commended for returning to their respective schools. I’ll be rooting for all 3 young men this upcoming season

Now, they might be expecting more of a media draw because of DJax and Michael Vick at Delaware State and Norfolk State respectively, but here we have an in-person media day at the same location that CAA Football enjoyed not that long ago. I kept hoping that in some x years to follow the football season of 2020-21, we'd be able to get back to M&T for the CAAFB event each July, but now you've got the MEAC occupying the territory. Good deal for them and nice look for my Flock to play host to at least one FCS conference. But man, I know media days aren't the biggest deal, but I really liked covering the NEC's at MetLife, for instance. That's a lot of effort they do for the student-athletes' sake.

247 article on 3* KaRon Ali committing to Towson

Joey D for the win. Collecting checks and mismanaging the conference.

In no way shocked by this as I have proposed many options over the years to get us out the the dead CAA. Dr E. call me and I'll figure this out.

"While the departure of members is always disappointing..." THEN STOP HOLDING THE EFFING DOOR FOR THEM JOE!

So years ago the CAA hitched their wagon to be a "football conference" and tried to be the best of the FCS (minor leagues), instead of increasing their basketball exposure. The league was always top heavy and propped up by JMU, Delaware, NH and Nova. This angered the good basketball programs, who did not have nor care about football. They left for greener pastures. After a while the good football programs also had enough of this JV football and moved up. Thus leaving the CAA as the 3rd best football conference behind the MVFC and Big Sky. To replace those schools, the CAA back filled small schools from the eastern seaboard, that didn't fit into the culture/footprint of the league, nor did were they able to compete thus having 3 solid football programs then bounce. Now we are stuck with the most hodge podge league where the hoops nor football is great, and our closest team in football matchup is Monmouth and Hampton, followed by Elon or Stony Brook?!? There's no reason to be playing little league football in this league with the likes of those other schools in front of 2,500 people.

Not just CAA football… all of FCS is dying.

No doubt KU wants to scout Tejada in person, after the successful Nick Timberlake era in Lawrence

At the risk of oversimplifying, let me endeavor to sum this football situation up: (1) we’re in a 10 year mediocrity spin cycle; (2) attendance is not good; (3) we’re in a conference that used to have anchor stores like Saks, Bloomingdale’s and Lord and Taylor, and is now anchored by K-Mart; (4) moving up is a fantasy that only the most ardent TU fan could indulge in; (5) moving to the Patriot League is almost certainly out of the cards; and (6) while the demise of CAA football as we once knew it begun in earnest several years ago, we seemingly have sat idly by and appear content to hope we can rise to the top of the conference over the bodies of schools like Hampton and Campbell. Have I missed anything?

I am sure it was discussed, but because of what we are I am not sure the options were any more extensive than they are now. This program needs to raise its level of success if it wants to be in a better conference. By my count, we are 56-58 and 38-42 in conference play since playing in the national title game. With our lack of attendance and fan support it doesn't exactly scream out to anyone that we are an attractive get for any conference. We wanted a new coach and we got one. With two full recruiting cycles for Shinnick, year three is really put up or shut up time in terms of raising the level of the program in a conference where the quality diminishes every year.

I wonder how long UNH & Rhode Island are going to stay? And Maine too. Just wondering if those 3 NE schools could cobble together a New England centric conference, that they may bolt too. Meanwhile, the PL is going to have a helluva football conference, with all these CAA additions. I’d beg them to let us join, for football, but I doubt they’d take us. I hate to be gloomy Gus here, but at the moment I’m not bullish on the future sustainability of TU football. We can’t go up (I forgot to mention earlier that FCS programs now have to pay like a 1 time multi million dollar fee to move up to FBS. Even if we wanted to do that, which I doubt, where’s that money coming from?) The cost of maintaining a football program has to be daunting, especially when the program doesn’t generate any revenue on its own. We’re not too big to fail. There are other universities with good sized enrollment (can anyone say George Mason) that eschew football in favor of focusing more resources on basketball. Forget GMU, we don’t have to look any further than C of C and UNCW as examples.

There’s no perfect solution for Towson but I’d be shocked if Steve isn’t looking into other options for football and possibly all Sports. The ship be sunk.

Nova is gone beginning 2026. Announcement expected tomorrow. Joey D ladies and gents! Towson will be the last one out of the building... someone remind Eigenbrot to turn the lights off behind him

Her name was Sarah Metzgar. It was alumni work for the Towson as a whole. Kudos to her for traveling out this way to generate new alumni support. I don't think there was anything done for the NDSU game. I went to the game on my own, and frankly I was pleasantly surprised that we stopped getting embarrassed for the most part in the second half. It was much better than the Towson-NDSU game at Towson, which was quite frankly the most one-sided beatdown I ever attended. The football games are definitely fun to travel to when I have a chance. I came back for the first Towson-Maryland game (which was somewhat entertaining, traveled down to LSU (which was a fun trip all the way around). I have gone to Chicago, Rhode Island, Philly and South Dakota for hoops over the last couple of years. It enjoy it any time I can see Towson outside of Maryland and close to where I (or friends and family) live.

Hey man! What else do you want???! Don't you remember 15 years ago when he got here?? We didn't even have a great personality

"they are a continual competitor." = "she's got a great personality!"

And just like that, she does see the court! Cajic got significant playing time as a substitute in Serbia’s 3-2 loss to France today. She was not heavily involved in the offense, with only 2 kills on 10 total attempts, but they left her in for long stretches of the game and she contributed positively on defense. She wasn’t stellar, but it’s a good foot in the door and she will likely get more opportunities.

same line of thinkng for anyone who is pro on Football, MBB, Baseball, Lax. we need to be shouting when Tigers are on the national and international stage

Regardless of if she plays or not like you said "she is in the gym playing against world class players". This should be celebrated and promoted by our athletic department and volleyball program, but for some reason unless they read this post they probably do not even know about it.

NE is the real winner, all three top teams once, at home in their high school gym. Really like ours, hopefully we can get C of C and UNCW on weekends in February, and a two for trip with Hampton WM & Elon A&T

Tejada grow again? Or did Samb get shorter??

Big one from Indiana Kent State offered along with North Alabama. 6-3 195

Sure, why not? It won’t be long before 25 will be young for a D1 MBB player. Besides, one would think he could have followed Wil Wade to NC State, but he chose to remain in Lake Charles

We were 7-8 against the North and 4-8 against the South this year.

5-10 ATH from Pensauken, NJ 3* had offers from BC, EMich, Md., Georgia State and UNH according to 247 and also Pitt,Syracuse, Rutgers, Temple and WVs according to Rivals

That is sort of my point with the teams that are similar to us. It feels like we need to be out in front and try to lead a coalition best we can, because I am not sure we bring enough to the table on our own. There is no doubt it might be more appealing to the North teams to band together and shut us out. However, I picked Bryant, Stony Brook, Albany and Monmouth because none of those teams can stand on their own reputation wise, but they all have show in some way that they have the potential to breakthrough and build good programs. New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Maine are the teams that might try to lead and dictate, but if we joined those previously mentioned universities it might give us all more opportunity to collectively control what is next and find a couple of up and coming D2 teams and a couple of programs that either relevant geographically or in some other way to fill out a conference. This might also be completely unrealistic, I am not just trying to think of fairly realistic out of the box ideas to try to have some control. I agree on the SoCon, but to me it is the other option along with staying in the CAA or figuring out a way to engineering our own hybrid conference.

Football needs to win. Period. This season. But as for the future, I can't imagine Steve is sitting there twiddling his thumbs and preaching that the CAA is the best option off the record. Dude was at South Carolina and UNLV. Has helped raise millions from donors and sponsors that the previous AD was unable to accomplish. He knows that sitting in a conference with big mid-major names like JMU, W&M (FB), Richmond, Villanova and Delaware now gone, is not going to help the brand. He's not going to come out and say the CAA is wrong for us, because who knows what the options that are feasible. Maybe we will stay with the CAA as they add another mediocre school or two. But I can't imagine that he's not looking, but let's be honest, Towson still has issues with the administration and he just can't do anything without the President's ok along with the board of regents. A lot of those people aren't exactly the most progressive when it comes to sports. I think Ginsberg is but I don't know what his feeling is about the CAA and moving to another league. I assume he's not for moving up yet because I think the state of the football program is holding us back. I know some people here want this program gone because FCS sucks now or football is never going to make $$$, it ain't happening. Maybe in the deep future when this NIL/SAR shit ruins mid-majors where teams are leaving FBS or D1 altogether. We're not adding to the Field House, putting up new coaches offices and building a new practice facility for women's soccer and both lacrosse teams.

I am sure someone will show up. In our case, she said Towson is making an effort to talk to see where there are new alumni opportunities to connect. The person who hosted our event at him and his wife's apartment recently started donating scholarships and wanted to help them cultivate more connections in Minnesota. I appreciate that he did that because now there are three of us who are connected and willing to help move efforts along in the future. As I have said, I have a friend who went to Johns Hopkins, and because of the medical field opportunities at the Mayo Clinic they have quite a few alums in the state. They do an annual Orioles-Twins' game that my friend puts together, and there are usually 15-20 people there, which seems like a lot for this state's connection with a university from Maryland. Please let us know about your event. I am interested to see how these go in different states.

Thank you! I'll be interested who, if anyone directly from Towson shows up to LA. Will also report back after the event on how it went. Looking at how large the package we got is on the dodgers website it should be 50+ people

11-0 maybe before our upset at Allen Fieldhouse…. Rock Chalk Tiger 🐯

I was just about to say, home football attendance is not the kicker for FBS positioning. Sure, the optics of having a good FB atmosphere matter in some sense for curb appeal/they play on Twitter and for the pride of the conference, but my view is it'd certainly matter more how the institution views G5/G6 ball in the year 2025+. Not everyone buys that Group of 5/6 action is necessarily a great path for DI mid-majors in the House world, but this Villanova thing is about to force everyone to think about CAA Football (or think about it again, depending on who you are). I'll be very surprised if Nova/Patriot FB doesn't get rolled out on Friday at noon. I guess you can make the alternative argument that we should circle the PL spring meeting scheduled for Tuesday, June 10 (per the Holy Cross board's citing of the W&M board 😅). Villanova probably is thinking it can trade nonconference football games vs. Lehigh and Colgate for noncon matchups vs. Rhody and Monmouth. The question with the Wildcats (outside of the Patriot rules specifics) seemed to be whether they would bother enough with football to go through the effort of moving it (just with the basketball competition distraction). This is just intriguing to follow at this point with Delaware on the outside looking in because Villanova football moving doesn't set off direct chain reaction for full members Hampton and NC A&T, but every so often I'll hear it brought up speculatively that a U-turn of some fashion by that pair (or one?) isn't out of the question. Maybe they'd pivot from CAAFB but stick with the CAA. I don't pretend to know exactly what the Pirates, say, are trying to accomplish. Sorry / getting on Towson again, the Venn diagram between Delaware and Towson has geography in the middle, to state the obvious in the service of the point that the CAA probably will remain centered on the heart of the mid-Atlantic here. William & Mary threaded the needle into all-sports CAA coupled with a different football home. I wonder if Towson will find or first desire a similar route, but the SoCon destination brought up might well want more than just football in a new member. It seems like the SoCon membership hasn't been on the same page in expansion scuttlebutt.

Opportunity to be Big XII champs playing Kansas and Houston (if that report is true). Question is how many non-con home games are we gonna get?

this on a weekend would have been nice..

No excuse not to compete or win the CAA now.

Need to win the CAA in football now that the competition remaining makes the path easier than ever. Is Shinnick gonna get it done with the current QBs? Is he gonna get more than 6k to show on a Saturday to Johnny U? If not, then the football team seems like a whole lot of effort for not a lot of return monetarily. The new CAA = a quasi HBCU conference combined with the little sisters of the (athletic dept) poor

Well put. (As an aside, your posts are always well thought out and often serve as a voice of reason amongst some of the more hyperbolic posts here, including mine 😂). Now that I’m finished throwing bouquets, you are correct in your assessments that: (1) we squandered the momentum from the 2013-14 Frisco run and (2) it is imperative that Shinnick start winning (that is to say, making the playoffs) starting this upcoming season. And you’re also correct that other conferences probably aren’t clamoring to take us in, as since the 2014-15 season, 7 W’s is basically our ceiling, with 1 playoff appearance during this decade, which resulted in being soundly thrashed at home by that perennial powerhouse, Duquesne.

The writing was on the wall several years ago, when JMU’s exodus opened the floodgates. That’s when we should have been thinking about our own exit strategy. Instead, I suspect we did next to nothing & are now content try and be the big fish in the little CAA football pond. I know one thing, we better damn side start dominating. As it is, with the lackluster conference home games we’ll be having, attendance doesn’t look promising, even if there’s a sea change on the field

The CAA should be won every year with the losses of: JMU, Delaware, Richmond, Nova and WM in the last 5 years... Funny you mention those two games, those were the last two I attended (since the playoff shit show again Duquesne). Safe to say, left before the first quarter was over against the hens and just after half against Stony. I'll stay away from games this year! Promise!

Yeah, there really are no places left to go. Patriot League wouldn't take us back, we don't have enough cache to move up, SoCon and CAA are pretty much in the same situation. We need a 2-3 year level of sustained success to generate some enthusiasm, and let the chips fall where they may. It hard to believe it has only been two years of the Pete Shinnick-era. I think it has been alright, but need a quality jump this year. The Delaware (2023) and Stony Brook (2024) home losses the last two years each took all the air out of what was in the balloon. It really should be a winnable conference at this point, but I know that is probably not what we will get.

I think expecting Alumni to go to the events page on the alumni site is expecting a bit much for people who tend to be pretty busy. Add upcoming events to the alumni magazine, send emails, share on social. Broadcast the Baltimore stuff locally. DC is so close you'd they they mix in weekend and weekday events. Young alumni happy hours at some cool bar etc. to keep people hooked. If you want to get donations you need to keep people engaged - sports and booze are the easiest way to do that.