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Start getting used to the term “full cost of attendance”, or, as many who are obsessed about college sports are calling it, “FCOA”.
In January, the eighty schools of the “Power 5” FBS football conferences voted 79-1 to allow its members to offer additional money above the cost of a scholarship – up to the “full cost of attendance” of the school.
It’s been legislation that the “Power 5” schools have wanted to enact for years, surviving an embarrassing legislative loss when the rest of the NCAA’s membership voted in 2011 against the original proposal crafted by NCAA president Mark Emmert and many members of the Power 5 leadership.
It led to the Power 5 asking for autonomy over the rest of the NCAA’s membership to all them to enact their own legislation for themselves, without a vote by the rest of the membership.
Now, as the Power 5 wanted all along, FCOA is here.
Sadly, it’s still every bit as complicated – and unbalancing – as the many critics of FCOA feared. And at the FCS level, it seems like the strategy is to simply hope and pray that nobody decides to implement it for their own athletic departments.

(Photo Credit: Monmouth Athletics)
In a way, you really have to feel for the football players of the Monmouth football program.
A year ago today, Monmouth was preparing for a season where the Hawks were going to be in competition for the NEC title.
A challenging schedule beckoned, with a trip to nationally-ranked Lehigh and Rhode Island of the CAA heading to Kessler field, but there was a battle with teams like Albany, and nearby rival Wagner, for the NEC championship and an autobid to the FCS playoffs.
But many had no way of knowing that Realignmentaggeddon would hit the Hawks, having them leave their longtime home, the NEC, and in the process find the Hawks scrambling for a new conference home.
It might have even come about thanks to the Patriot League.
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According to sportswriter Mark Blaudshun, a 30+ year beat veteran of college football now residing in New Jersey, a key move was made by two schools, Monmouth University and Wagner College, that affects the FCS football landscape next season.
“Conference reconfiguration continues on all levels,” the short blog post stated. “According to the sources familiar with the process, the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference will add Quinnipiac, Wagner and Monmouth from the Northeast Conference. The announcement will be made on Friday.”
In and of itself the announcement doesn’t directly affect the Patriot League. But it might.
With their move to the MAAC, a conference which does not sponsor football, the Seahawks and Hawks now have to make a decision on their football programs.
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