Re: Will the DII's ever get out of Limbo?
If their only DI/II competition is St. Anselm's, St. Mike's, Assumption, and SNHU that's fine with me
When was the last time Stonehill or Franklin Pierce won the NE10 Championship (and therefore would get the AQ)?
Seriously... I've never really paid attention to the NE10 conference championships
You beg the question: What kind of preparation for a D 1 playoff is winning a NE 10 Championship? The obvious answer is none at all. The D 2 schools play primarily D 3 schools and of course other D 2 schools. Ergo the only championship their schedule warrants is an AQ to the D 3 championship.
I don't think that recruitment problems in D 2 stem from lack of a playoff opportunity in a D1 championship where the team would be hopelessly outclassed, embarrassed, hammered, beaten into the ground, pulverized to smithereans (sic?), if the desire for a championship AQ is an issue it is not having an AQ to their appropriate competition, the D 3 championship.
Who would want to sign up for a D 2 school, win the NE 10 and then get hammered by teams in the D 1 who can give up to 100% athletic scholarships when the poor prep school kids on your team get nothing and therefor are what they are, D 2 calibre players.
It strikes me that the suggestion on the D1 board is a thinly veiled attempt to get rid of the D 2 school's potential to recruit decent players if they never give away their right to allocate their funds in the way they see fit. Anybody who has ever negotiated knows that this is an applea and oranges situation and that you never give away your advantage, perceived or otherwise, just to be in a position of disadvantage.
Bottom line is D2 schools would get hammered by D 1 schools and particularly if they gave up their autonomy over how to allocate funds in their athletic departments. What about the D 3 schools who have better records than the D 2 school that wins the Ne 10 championship? Wouldn't they have some concerns that an inferior team by record gets to go to a D 1 championship. Makes little sense. The only way a D 2 school should go is if they win a D 2 versus D 3 championship straight up and then they go against D 1. In this case the team would at least be proven to be of sufficient caliber to make it worthwhile.
This is all a mute point because while D 1 might not mind hammering some poor defenseless D 2 team they sure are not going to put it on the line against a team like Norwich. If Norwich beat Boston in a championship, then D3 would be better than D 1. This would prove that we don't live in a geo centric universe revolving around D1 and then all heck would break loose.
The difference is that D1 schools can afford to buy better players, in general, because they can give scholarships, but that does not mean that they have an absolute advantage. Norwich could probably whup some of them, right up to the middle of the pack, and they know it. No way that D 1 would ever put it on the line. Neither should D 2 bother putting it on the line in a D1 tournament where the outcome is not even in doubt.