Hi, I'm coach Ricky, Ronnie, and you're listening to the monarchist. podcast
I'm Aaron and I'm Mike and you're listening to the monarchist podcast today. We welcome Sunbelt commissioner, Keith Gill to the. Thanks for coming on. Keith, appreciate you. Yeah,
thanks for having me, Aaron and Mike. Appreciate it.
Well, we're happy to have you. Congratulations. Friday is a huge day for the league and I imagine it's a culmination of a lot of work by your staff. It's gotta feel great that it's all kind of coming together and it's a reality now.
Yeah, you, you know, we're really excited about July 1st and you know, kind of having a new look, Sunbelt, you know, adding the four schools, obviously ODU being one of them. And it's a work of a lot of people, you know, obviously, you know, the leadership of the four schools are adding Marshall, ODU, JMU, and Southern miss, but certainly the Sunbelt leadership I'd be remiss without acknowledging Kelly damp.
Who's the chair, who's the president of the Sunbelt and his CEO, colleagues and their vision, and obviously the ADSS and, and, and the Sunbelt. So we're really excited. Can't wait to get started and July one can't come soon enough.
So, Keith, at, at what point did the Sunbelt decide that you were interested in expanding? Can you take us through that process to identify the schools which schools were candidates for expansion and, and kind of what the thought process was behind it?
Yeah. You know, it's really interesting, you know, I, I think like everyone in kind of the college athletics universe, when the news about Oklahoma and Texas kind of. Once after you got through your shock and your surprise and you know, were able to put your phone down for a second, you know, the thought was okay, you know, what are the opportunities for us kind of in that?
And so that's the way we kind of looked at it as a conference and we didn't really know that we were gonna expand, you know, we would've been good to kind of stay at the 10 football members that we had. And, and I, and I think our leadership was, was important with that. So I, I think the first thing that was important for us was just to make sure that we didn't lose any of our core football members. You know, we had a really good conference, a really strong conference.
We certainly were on the, the had a lot of momentum. And so I think that was important. So that's what we really focused on in the beginning. And then once we felt really good about that, then we turned our attention to what really made sense. In terms of addition, does it make sense to just stay at 10 or were there some opportunities for us to expand in some ways that made some sense?
And, you know, we, we thought that trying to find like-minded institutions in terms of, you know, good football programs with good fan bases. and, and in markets where we thought were good proximity from a geographic standpoint, made a lot of sense to us. And we also wanted to rebalance ourselves because we had Troy in the east, in our, in our previous setup. And, and so in that created, you know, some, some issues in terms of trying to really build rivalries.
I mean, they were naturally kind of more of a Western. Kind of based team. And so focusing kind of on those three things, it, then it just made sense that if we could find the right members, then we would expand, you know? And so we kind of, you know, looked at the, the whole kind of you know, landscape what made, what might be made sense. And then, you know, we settled on the four schools that we added that, that we offered admission to. And fortunately those schools accept.
And you know, we had a little debate about 12 or 14 and what made the most sense and those kinds of things, but, you know, if we added 12, then we wouldn't have been able to add someone in the west. And and so we really thought Southern miss would be a great ad for us. And and then, and then we had three kind of targets in the ESO 14 really really made sense for us.
Well, we're coming from conference, say we can kinda. Connects with Troy a little bit. We were on an island and it made it hard to develop rivalries. And now we're kind of, we're in this great triad era where apt is down the road. Coastal's not far and JM U's coming with us. So we're excited.
But what was it? The JMU ODU rivalry, getting that back. Sorry to interrupt. That'll be great. Oh, good. You know, can't some traditional rivalries is, is gonna be a great part of this new conference. So we're excited about that. Oh,
we are to but before we go there and talk more about rivalries, what was it about old dominion that stood out to you that made them a good candidate
for the. Yeah. You know, that's a great, that's a, that's a great question. You know, I, I think one is the quality of the school generally, you know? I mean, the, the one good thing about old dominion is from an athletic standpoint, you're good at everything.
And that's like, kind of historically, and just generally, when you think about whether it's field hockey or women's basketball, men's basketball, you know, certainly when I was the ad at Richmond, we had plenty of battles with ODU and certainly didn't win. Many of those as I would've liked. And so certainly from an athletic standpoint, really understanding the quality of your athletic program across the board. I mean, look at your baseball now.
I mean, we're gonna have one of the best baseball conferences in the country now, you know, in order to you is gonna be a big part of that. So I think that was one thing, obviously the geography made sense for us in terms of, you know, we thought we could build good rivalries with ODU. And obviously reestablishing the Jammu rivalry, the app rivalry, when you guys traveled five, 6,000 down to the Myrtle beach bowls. So obviously the game against coast bowls is gonna be a good game.
So there's some regional aspects to that, that that, that made a lot of sense too. So I think, you know, just really fit into kind of those, those criteria that I talked about, the good geography that allowed us to build some regional rivalries, a good fan base. And really good sports programs, all packaged in a really good school and it didn't help for us, you know, to expand our footprint into Virginia. You know, that's a nice ad.
It's not like we started this process saying we need to get to Virginia, but I don't think that's a bad outcome in terms of how this all works. I think being in Virginia is, is good for the Sunbelt. And certainly having two schools like Janu O in Virginia, I think is is a really good benefit to our league.
We gotta add that. I'm excited about renewing our basketball games against Georgia state. We had a lot of fun playing them in the CA.
Yeah, that'll be great. You know, and, and think about, think about the facilities too, you know, I mean your basketball facility is great. I can remember going into the constant center. Well, I guess it's not constant
center anymore. That's okay. That's okay. We call it the Chad still. Yeah, I
gotta, I gotta work. I gotta work on some of my old, old habits, so, but but you know, beautiful basketball facility. Last time I was on Odus campus saw the, the, the basketball practice gym that was You know, kind of built onto that. So so great facilities as well. Great investment in athletics. I think president hemp bill is star. Obviously wood is great to work with so great staff too. It's just gonna be really exciting you know, having O in the Sunbelt.
So our fan base is really excited about the potential robberies in the Sunbelt. And you already kind of hinted at it. How much of the potential rivalries and the actual rivalries played in decision making of
the expansion. Yeah. You know, it's a huge part of the decision making. You know, when you look at kind of our scheduling format, kind of going forward in terms of these sports, you know, a lot of it is divisional play. It's not all divisional play at the end of the day. We're a conference, so you're gonna have to play west, but in most of these sports are paying 75% of your games.
In the division, you know, basketball's gonna be home and home in the division and then you'll have six other games outside that division to, to get to your 18. So I, I think that it was a lot, you think used to hear, you knows, you know, thence, USA, American merger, and divideding up the east and west and, and all those things. And I think we, we did, you know, we got the best of all that in terms of. You know, we, we created a west division that's strong and east division.
That's strong, we'll play primarily kind of in those divisions allowing fans to get to games. That's the other thing they'll be able to travel to 'em in a pretty easy way for the most part. And those divisional games. It'll set up some rivalries, some rivalries already existed. They were just kind of broken by conference changes and you know, or, or FCS, the FBS moves and all those kinds of things. So I do think geography had a lot to do with it. It was something we were really focused on.
It'll help us actually drive down travel costs, help our fans. Travel more and people get excited about teams that they know, you know, it's kind of hard when you're playing, you know, some team from, you know, three time zones away, you know, fans. Aren't exactly excited as excited about that versus, you know, think about the football skit, you know, Virginia, Virginia tech Liberty, you know, and then you've got the six Sunbelt east teams. You know, that that's, that's a real exciting.
You know, kind of brand of football for fans, you can obviously get to the home games, but all you can get to most of those away games as well.
And that's not even including ECU this year. And I know Mike and I are gonna try to get to both of those as well. So it is exciting. Speaking of exciting, it's exciting to see that soccer has expanded and Kentucky, South Carolina, West Virginia, and now UC. Into into the Sunbelt. Last week we had the opportunity to sit down with, with Dr. Wood Seig and he confirmed that the Sunbelt's looking at potentially adding some additional sports down the line. Can you tell us about that at all?
Yeah. You know, so when we're excited to be back in the men's soccer business, so and you know, and I just talked about baseball, you know, we'll have one of the best men's soccer. Conferences in the country, you know, it'll be a multi bid league, got, you know, former national champions in the conference. So that's gonna be outstanding, you know, we're, we're kind of exploring swimming beach volleyball, field hockey some of these other sports where, you know, we have some schools.
You know, with the, the kind of the way, the process that realignment kind of worked out, you know, we needed to take care of some core things this year, just to get ready to kind of play in 22, 23. But as we get, you know, that all solidified. You know, we finished our schedules, you know, we're in a good spot.
In that regard, we have turned our attention to some sports where we've got a predominant, we've got a good number of core members that participate in those sports, but that play as affiliates and other leagues. And so there is an opportunity for us and some of those to, to start and, you know, beach volleyball, field hockey and swimming are some of those that will explore over the.
You know, kind of nine to 12 months to see if there's an opportunity for us to create a schedule and and a championship in those sports, in the Sunbelt.
Well, coming from conference USA where ODU was kind of nomads in a lot of sports, that's really refreshing to hear. I know woods gotta be excited that about the potential to add even more under the Sunbelt moniker.
Yeah. It's nice when you know, the more sports. That you can kind of get under the kind of core conference. I just think the better you know, the more that we can manage. And I, I think the one thing for us, as we think about the branding is these are sports. We can be pretty good in, you know, our field hockey conference can be pretty good. Jamie is good. ODU is good. You know, app is, is right there. And so depending on who we can.
With those schools, you know, there's some, there's some opportunities to have some success there. In those sports, you know, same with beach volleyball, you know, Georgia state had a great year. You know, I think they made it to the, maybe they around the eight then NCAA championship.
So you know, so I, I think there's some good opportunities for us to continue to build our brand, you know, at the end of the day, you know, realignment was about football, but that was what it was primarily about. That was the driver. But we run and be good at everything, you know?
And so from our standpoint, you know, as we were exploring these schools, we're like, well, wow, look at how good we'll be at baseball and look at how good we'll be at softball and look how good we'll be at men's soccer and field hockey at field hockey. And, you know, we've gotta get better at basketball. You know, I don't, I don't run away from that.
I mean, we're not where we need to be in the sport of Ben's or women's basketball, and we've got some work to do there, but at the end of the day, we want to be good at everything. This isn't about just being good at football. That certainly was a driver in terms of these choices, but we've got an opportunity to have comprehensive excellence in the Sunbelt and we're, we're certainly gonna seek it out.
That's exciting. Speaking of the driver. We have this awesome partnership with ESPN, the league is growing the 14 teams. We have to imagine this is a great opportunity to add more bowl game tie-ins. Can we expect those to be announced over the next couple years? And I'm gonna add could one of the new members that's joining on Friday, post a bowl game in
the future. So on the front is yes, we are working diligently on, on new bulls. Just because at the end, like our rule, we're trying to have 50%. Right. You know, so if we have 14. Teams, we're trying to have seven bowls right now. We have five bull tie-ins. So I do feel really good that hopefully we're gonna get to six this year on some things that we're working on. And at the end of the day, we need to get to seven.
The one problem that we are facing is that, you know, the bulls, this is all done cyclically and we're in the middle of a bull cycle that doesn't end until 26. So so to answer your question is yes. We've identified that we've been working on it, you know, I think we'll. An opportunity to ensure that six schools can go to a bowl as soon as this year. And we'll continue to work on making sure it's seven. Cause our goal is to make sure we have space for 50% of our football playing members.
So, so yeah, we're working on it. I think we wouldn't exclude anything. You know, there's already a bull that Myrtle beach. Hosts that coastal host called the Myrtle beach bowl. And, and so if it, if it makes sense and we can get the right partners and get the right, you know, I think we'll be open to to, to any of that. I think though, we're trying to make sure that we create, you know, good opportunities, whether it's good destinations.
Particularly at that time of year and a good opportunity for student athletes to maybe see some places that they haven't seen before. So I don't know that that's the first place that we go in terms of trying to create bowls, you know, on our campuses, but we're not against it. We certainly had those conversations with other schools in the Sunbelt, obviously coastal has one on their campus. So we're, we're not against it.
Appreciate the insight on that. Now you mentioned earlier wanting to be good at everything. So recently, Sunbelt leadership's publicly stated it's committed to improving the quality of basketball in the league. Obviously ODU for the longest time is a basketball school. Cause we've only had football since 2009. What is your vision for taking Sunbelt basketball to the next level in the next five or 10 years.
Yeah. You know, so first, so some of that's gonna start with a strategic plan or, or kind of strategic committees. So we're gonna have a couple committees that we're gonna put together with ad's. Other athletic administrators, coaches from men's and women's basketball that are gonna take a deep dive kind of look and see how we can make things better. That being said, you know, I do know some things that we need to do right off the bat.
You know, if you think about it, we didn't have one top 100 net school in men's or women's basketball. So, so what we've gotta do is we've gotta get one in each. You know, and then we've gotta get two in each and then three in each. And you know, the way you do that is you know, you've gotta schedule the toughest schedule. You can and win 75% of those games. That's essentially how it all works.
Now we can talk about how you do the net and how you do the RPI, but at the end of the day, if we have everyone on our. Play the hardest schedule that they can play. And that's gonna vary for each team. You know, if you've got a little younger team, you're not gonna schedule as hard, you've got an older team. Maybe you can, but schedule the hardest scheduling you can, where you can win 75% of those games.
And if, if we can do that regularly and consistently, then our net scores are gonna go up, you know? And, and so. That's gonna be an important part about, you know, talking to our folks about how we can schedule, make sure we can win some of those games. We're gonna talk to some leagues about scheduling partnerships, trying to get a few more home games. You know, you win 70, 75% of your games at home in division one basketball. So having more home games is is helpful in that regard.
And then obviously we're gonna have to make some investments, you know, in terms of making sure we're making the right investments in basketball. So we're gonna try, we're gonna put together, you know, some committees that are gonna look really closely at, at some of those things and come up with some specific.
Kind of procedures, but at the end of the day, you know, moving the needle in this takes some time, you know, it's not really something you can do overnight, so we're not gonna wake up and we're gonna have five top 100 teams in each of those sports. Like next year, you know, it just doesn't really work that way. But the reason why it's important is right now, the scenario is such that if we have a team that had a great non-conference.
When they get to conference play, their net is gonna continue to trial and we've gotta make it. So it's like baseball. You know, if you think about the way Sunbelt baseball was this year, you play at a Texas state, you know, Georgia Southern had a top, you know, 10 RPI, Texas state had a top 20 RPI. You know, Louisiana had a top 50 RPI, south Alabama had a top 70 RPI. So you're going, and you're playing these games.
So one, when you lose them, It's not as catastrophic versus, you know, if you're you're down and because you're gonna lose conference games and all of a sudden some of those are gonna be quad four. And so it's really important for us to shift the trajectory, the league up. It's gonna take some time to do it. And then once we do that, you know, it begins to build on itself. So, so we'll take a look at our scheduling and how we do that.
We'll take a look at you know, obviously recruiting where we need to. Are there things that we can do better. And and then hopefully incrementally over time. You know, when we have this, the next conversation, we're talking about some of the progress that we made, that sounds awesome.
I know a lot of O fans would be happy to hear that the Sunbelt is putting an emphasis on basketball. Cause we do have a lot of fans that they've been fans of ODU for 40 years and all they knew was ODU basketball for the longest time. I'll be very happy to hear that it is an emphasis. But looking towards the future of the Sunbelt, what are you most excited about with this new league?
Yeah, you know, I I'm, I'm most excited about, I feel like there's really good alignment. You know, like we had our first ad meetings. We had our first, our spring meeting with all, with all of our membership together, you know, so the new schools, you know, the current schools and that was great. I thought people got along. I thought people were you know, will ready to work together and, and talk and the same with the CEOs. So they were all together.
So I, I think we've got good alignment in that space, but I think that we are, you know, we're a conference on the rise and so. I am excited about continuing to watch us grow and watch us win games. You know, we had four teams in the in the NCAA baseball and we had, you know, two that went to essentially the regional or went to the, the finals of the, of the early to go to a super regional, they were in the regional final. And so we had one.
And if you include Southern MIS, we had two teams, you know, in our league that hosted so that there's a lot of optimism and, and that really, and baseball's a metaphor, you know, I mean, you look at men's soccer, you look at softball, which I know ODU doesn't sponsor that sport, but you know, we're gonna have a great, you know, Jammu is in the college world series a few years ago. Louisiana's a perennial top 20 team. We have four teams in softball. Tournament you know, last season.
And so you know, you couple that with football and soccer, where we are in baseball, you know, our golf is in a really good spot. You know, this is not gonna be just a football league, you know, and we got really good schools, you know, to use a great school. The academics are, are terrific. And and so at the end of the day, you know, we're gonna be giving.
You know, students, the opportunity to achieve what they want athletically, but at the same time, get a good education to be prepared to, you know, be the next generation of leaders of the country.
All right, Keith, last question here, cuz we know that you gotta go, oh, no worries. In 20 22, 23, if old dominion fans could only go to one conference championship destination this coming season, which one would you recommend? They. Wow.
Hmm. That's a tough question. You know, I mean, I think in terms of, you know, going to see the, the basketball championship in Pensacola, I think is, is really a treat. You know, I think Pensacola's a great town. They do a great job kind of supporting the championship. It really has a feel of, you know, you go to the downtown Pensacola and the flags are up.
Trash cans are decorated and, and all those things as though you're in a, you know, kind of an NCAA tournament, kind of a sweet 16 final four field. So, you know, so I, I think if you can only go to one you know, maybe the basketball championship is is, is really a good one. I think the arena is, is, is decorated. It looks great. The branding is, is outstanding and and it's a lot of good basketball. So so if I had to pick one, I mean, obviously my first answer should be all of.
But if you're gonna like pin me down and say, pick one championship, you know, that basketball championship I think is, is is, is pretty outstanding.
Well, I'm definitely gonna try to be there this year.
Yeah, same here. So Keith, me and Aaron were in new Orleans for the final four. One thing we noticed was all the billboards around town and it was, it was so cool to see Sunbelt putting their name out there and promoting a league.
Yeah, thanks for saying that. I really appreciate it. Yeah. We were trying to you know, every chance we get, you know, super bowls and final fours and those kinds of things around the city, we just try to make sure people know that you know, that yeah. You know, that a, that a great athletic conference is is housed in the super dome and in new Orleans.
All right. Well, we appreciate you coming on. I appreciate your time. And speaking of conference championships, hopefully once we have this new, beautiful baseball stadium, maybe we can bring something up
to Norfolk. Yeah, it sounds good. You know, the renderings look outstanding. So um, so yeah, no that that'll be great. Be out. And the team certainly has earned it. Great. Yeah. Great baseball. I'm excited about Sunbelt baseball. You know, Marshall just announced, you know, they kinda have plans for their new stadium and, and that's gonna be online by, and you know, so, you know, the future of Sunbelt baseball is really bright.
We're all excited. Thank you so much for coming on. Hopefully we can have you back some point in the future
Yeah, definitely. Yeah. Just let me know anytime. So one it's a lot of fun and certainly anytime I can try to provide some information to you and, and, and the old dominion nation, I'd be more than happy to do that, so.
All right. Really appreciate it, Keith. Great.
Thanks so much. Have a good one. You too. Thank you.
Go
monarchs. Go monarchs.
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