New York-based Stony Brook flows south

By Chris Lang

Published: July 26, 2008

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Stony Brook athletics director Jim Fiore has heard all the jokes by now. SBU in the Big South? What is it south of? Connecticut? Quebec?

Well, yes, south of both. So, no, the Seawolves’ move into the Big South Conference for football made absolutely no geographic sense. That didn’t concern Fiore it all. Nor did it concern Big South commissioner Kyle Kallander.

Both parties needed something. The Big South desperately sought a sixth member that was immediately eligible to compete for an NCAA playoff berth. After choosing to increase its scholarships from 30 — the maximum allowed by the Northeast Conference, SBU’s old home — to 55, Stony Brook needed conference affiliation.

Call it the ultimate marriage of convenience, and it’s why Fiore and SBU coach Chuck Priore found themselves in a North Carolina hotel talking football on a warm July day.

“It’s mutually beneficial,” Fiore said Friday at the Big South’s football media day. “The Big South was looking to expand for the purpose of getting an automatic bid. They reached out to us. We met with them, and the schools were terrific and the A.D.s were terrific.

“Where does it benefit us? No. 1, it gives us a football conference with an automatic bid. No. 2, it gives us an increased geographic footprint for recruiting. No. 3, it gives us instant credibility in the football world. It will help us in all sports. No one will have to say, ‘Where’s Stony Brook?’ any more.”

For the record, Stony Brook is located on the northern side of Long Island, east of Islip but west of the Hamptons, close enough to Manhattan to occasionally enjoy the nightlife but not too far away from the Montauk lighthouse and Long Island’s numerous beaches.

Liberty coach Danny Rocco noted that playing in New York will give him an opportunity to showcase his program in a place it normally wouldn’t recruit. Other coaches shared the same sentiment Friday. But the main reason for the Big South’s love affair with Stony Brook was that automatic bid to the NCAA FCS playoffs. Soon after Stony Brook joined, the NCAA expanded the FCS playoff field to 20 teams, and in 2010, the Big South’s champion will earn one of those bids.

Never mind that the Northeast also will earn a bid. Even so, Stony Brook’s aspiration is to be at the full allotment of 63 scholarships by 2009. The Northeast voted this summer to add two scholarships per year for the next five seasons, bringing the total for each institution to 40 by 2013. The two parties didn’t see eye-to-eye, thus the split.

Stony Brook, which competes in the America East for most sports, made the decision to leave the Northeast to compete as an independent before the Big South came courting. The Seawolves only had to play one season sans affiliation and went 6-5 in 2007.

“We took some risks, saying hopefully we’re going to find a home,” Priore said. “It became very logical for both parties. We had a huge need, and they had a need, because by getting us in the conference, 2010 could be realistic. We sort of found each other. Sometimes, things work out.”

Kallander’s long-term vision is for the Big South to have a similar football profile to the other FCS conferences in the South, notably the CAA and Southern. That means a full allotment of scholarships for each institution and a steady diet of games against high-level competition. Stony Brook shares a similar vision. It has plans of playing games against FBS opponents, starting with a trip to South Florida in 2010. The Seawolves are also trying schedule games with Buffalo in 2011 and Army in 2012.

Whether or not the Seawolves are still in the league by 2012 is still up for conjecture. Stony Brook signed a four-year contract as an associate member, one that will expire after the 2011 season. By then, Presbyterian College will be a fully eligible Big South member, so it wouldn’t hurt the Big South’s automatic bid if SBU were to leave.

Any such talk is premature, though.

“We’re not in this thing to get out of it,” Fiore said. “That’s the truth of the matter.”

Still, the landscape of FCS football is continually shifting. With the CAA set to expand to a whopping 14 teams with the addition of Old Dominion in 2011 and Georgia State in 2012, there is ongoing talk of that conference’s northern teams (Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Northeastern, Maine and Hofstra) splitting off to form a more travel friendly league.

With the Atlantic 10 no longer sponsoring football, the America East would be the logical choice to spearhead such a move, but that conference has shown little interest in football. Currently, the only America East members who play football are SBU, UNH, Maine and Albany.

“This level of college athletics always changes,” Fiore said. “There’s tremendous expansion and/or reduction every year. My job is to solidify us for 20 years from now. Football is the tail that wags the conference affiliation dog. Look at the ACC with Boston College. What are Northeastern and those guys doing in the CAA? Well, football was the driving force. Hofstra, the same thing.

“When the time is right, whether it’s expanding the Big South or if something shakes up nationally, my job is to have the vision to say, when things shake, Stony Brook is with a group of great institutions.”