slightly unique childhood in that I started attending JMU sporting events with my late grandmother, who worked at JMU until the early '90s, when I was 6 months old. Hence why I will often tell people "I grew up on JMU athletics" because I did. Since she switched from admissions to financial aid, I was fortunate enough to meet all the JMU "great athletes" during that time while they were still in college. Also, she gave me the opportunity to interact with all the big wigs on campus (i.e., former President Ronald Carrier (RIP), former AD Dean Ehlers (RIP), etc.) as well as the various coaches (i.e. Lefty (RIP), former women's basketball coach Shelia Moorman, former baseball coach and Whit Babcock's father Brad Babcock (RIP), etc." It got to the point that it wasn't uncommon that if they saw me out in public, even when I was with my mother, they would make a B-line to me just to speak to me. For a elementary/middle school kid I thought that was the neatest thing because I was no body. However, I did seem to get along better with adults than kids my own age. Whenever I was talking to an adult I made sure to really listen to what they were saying which helped get insight to really what was going on in '71 and '78 because they experienced it and in some cases were even involved in the decisions. Now Harrisonburg may be a somewhat unique city because it is a "small city" and still operates as a small town. However, it has1 DI university (JMU), 1 DIII university (Eastern Mennonite University or EMU), and it is 10-20 minutes away from another DIII university (Bridgewater College or the "other BC" because it has the same school colors and mascot as the one in Chestnut Hill). Growing up in that environment, particularly since my late father's sister married into a family with real connections to "the other BC" and my second cousin in my mom's side attending EMU and later being the baseball coach while I was in HS, I think helped me really understand the complexity the NCAA (the organization as a whole) faces trying to satisfy the needs of all 3 division levels especially when their motivations and basic needs differ greatly in athletics. While at VT, my major focused primarily on political science which turned out to be a blessing because it was then I really became interested in the history of the NCAA especially in the "office politics" within the association. It wasn't until after college that I decided (for fun) to read the NCAA DI Manual (aka bylaws) and really try to understand it. Not only because I was a big college athletics fan growing up as a kid, but I wanted to try to understand some of the politics that led the schools to make some of the decisions they did at the time. Plus, during college I had discovered a website similar to TSL that focused its coverage on the I-AA schools because I was really interested to see which ones are considering switching subdivisions for football. It was a great website because any articles on it would be linked to local new stories since they were the primary source. In the early 2000s the SportingNews bought the website and shut it down for whatever reason which led me to TSL. To answer your question, I have a feeling that the schools will probably drag their feet for multiple reasons and 2030 probably won't look too different than it does now. Now the curveball to my prediction is the NCAA re-org meetings that are still ongoing. Given they have kind of fallen off everyone's radar because they only meet 2-4 times per year, the decisions from those meetings could change everything. If the schools announce the NCAA 2.0 prior to 2030, which is a possibility, then fans could see anything between something similar to the status quo to 180 degree change. The gap between the P2s and the smallest mid-majors (i.e. MAAC, NEC, maybe Summit League, Horizon League, Southern, MEAC, SWAC, etc. schools) so wide right now that there probably should be a fourth division level within the NCAA (if they were using today's reality to make their decision back in 1971). Likewise, the DI schools may have even decided to not create a second subdivision for football in 1977. I saw at least 1 article on questioning the future of the DI-FCS subdivision because of how many "big name" FCS schools are switching subdivisions right now. Don't be surprised if the DI-FBS schools implement another moratorium prior to 2030 as a result of this trend. ** Edited by VTHokie2000 at 2/24/2026, 6:31:28 PM