When will Albany go full scholarship?

[mainejeff]

Has anyone heard anything about when Albany may go full scholarship in I-AA? My guess is 2006, maybe 2007 at the latest. A lot will probably depend on the A-10/CAA situation which hopefully will be decided in June. Albany fans should be rooting for Appalachian State to join the CAA which would give them the needed 6 teams to break from the A-10 (of course there is a strong possibility that Northeastern will join the CAA as well). I still think that Central Connecticut is another candidate to join Albany and Stony Brook when this all goes down. With UConn moving up to I-A and New Haven and UMass-Lowell dropping their D-2 programs.......there is definitely a void developing in New England college football for those student-athletes seeking to play at the I-AA level. Albany fans should also hope that Maine and UNH don't get invited to the CAA as associate football members. If they did, it would probably be 50/50 on them accepting the invitation.

[Ruler]

The new stadium COULD be ready by 2005. My best guess is Albany will go full scholarship by 2006. The contract with the NEC ends and they will either be aligned with the AE???? ....well I don't know what conference they would be in.

[UAalum72]

Albany has committed to the NEC THROUGH the 2006 season. Unless there's a buyout/penalty clause we could pay, we're stuck until the 2007 season. Since the NEC aid must be need-based, the best we could do is get to the 30-man (10 per year) max for 2005 underclassmen, then get 20+ full scholarships for 2006 and redshirt all of them - if they play we'd have to declare ourselves ineligible for the league championship. Then for 2007 add another 20+ to get to the 63 max for I-AA.

 

When we start hearing about next year's recruits, then maybe something will come into focus.

[GreatDanes06]

well if these rumors are true about a California QB, i'm liking the direction of this program biiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiggggggggggggg time.