Conference Realignment Auction: The Mountainous Beauty of the Greater Appalachian Athletic Conference

GAACtion commeth

Hope you like hiking.

Quick Facts:

Conference's name: Greater Appalachian Athletic Conference

Northernmost school: Albany

Southernmost school: Arkansas State

Easternmost school: Albany

Westernmost school: Arkansas State

Who is the MAC school you drafted? Ohio Bobcats

Which two teams have the longest driving commute? Arkansas State to Albany (18 hours)

Where is your football championship venue? Bridgeforth Stadium, Harrisonburg, VA
Where is your basketball championship venue? Peterson Events Center, Pittsburgh, PA
Where is your baseball championship venue? Veterans Memorial Park, Harrisonburg, VA

Introducing the Greater Appalachian Athletic Conference

I have to say, that I had several loose ideas when it came to a plan, but I was sort of winging it until a couple bids came in. I started off slow, not wanting to go outside of my means, but was able to select two top-of-the-conference trophy teams that will set the bar high in Tennessee and West Virginia. They are Appalachian and they have pride in that fact. The GAAC is a league that prides itself on its background but welcomes on all comers when it comes to non-conference play, challenging all comers and scheduling many away games in hostile territory.

I didn't budget well at the beginning, but it didn't ultimately matter as I was able to secure a lineup of teams that fit what I wanted put together.

Rivalries

Tennessee-West Virginia will mark a new and exciting rivalry as both will compete near the top of every sport for supremacy. Challenging those two will be a challenge for many of the schools year-in and year-out.

VCU and Old Dominion make for a great basketball rivalry, with ODU having some notable recent success and VCU duh, being awesome and such. That'll be fun. St. Bonaventure and Albany will represent the northernmost rivalry in the GAAC, and are due for some incredible shooty hoops battles.

Ohio and Eastern Kentucky will make for an outstanding rivalry for hoops and concussionball (credit Avacado). Imagine getting to watch Ohio, an established and consistent DI program, face a growing and increasingly impressive Colonel football program. Fun right?

Finally: APPALACHIAN STATE AND EAST CAROLINA IN FOOTBALL? SIGN ME THE HELL UP.

The division alignment was assigned after-the-fact. It wasn't either to decide either. No matter what, some school is going to feel screwed over travel-wise.

If you could do this over again, how would you do anything differently?

If we had a dime for every time that we would do something differently with this conference...

Thoughts

The leaders of the Greater Appalachian Athletic Conference are quite pleased with our conference. We have a respectable and thoroughly talented stable of teams across numerous sports, complete with the chance to compete on a national scale for championships. The high-profiles of Tennessee and West Virginia bring stabilization and respect to the conference (future realignment be damned).

New regional rivalries between super teams with great legacies will make GAAC athletics a must-watch in every sport.

Yeah, I'm happy with this. We also welcome hatah's. A couple hatahs.