Tricky_Falcon wrote:Does anyone else think we should leave the MAC?
For what?
As you said, even if Conference USA were an option, it isn't a good option.
I like our league. Sure, I wish the football was deeper ... the blow outs get old. But I respect universities like Miami, Toledo, Ohio, Northern Illinois, Western Michigan and Buffalo. It is good to be in a league with schools like this. And this seems to be a particularly bad year for the MAC. I expect the league's depth to once again improve.
I wouldn't mind losing a couple MAC members. But, overall, this is still a pretty good situation for us.
All we can do is keep winning games, building a fan base and hope our opponents do more to earn some national respect before they arrive at the Doyt.
BGBoilermaker wrote:My point about depth is, would we last 8 games in a row against the Oklahomas, Ohio States and Purdues of the college football world?
I'm tired of this tired argument.
Look at the programs you are naming... three of the best in the country. It isn't like the Big Ten is *that* hard.
Put Bowling Green in the Big Ten and the revenue will start pouring in... television revenue, NCAA basketball tournament revenue, BCS revenue, etc. That dough -- and the increased attendance we would see by hosting programs like Michigan and Ohio State -- would be more than enough to start our season with home games against patsies like Duke, Idaho and Louisiana Monroe.
So we're talking about three wins right there.
Next, all we would have to do is manage three wins in eight tries in Big Ten play and we would be bowl bound.
How hard is that? Western Michigan almost beat Illinois at their place. What do you think *we* would do to the Illini... or Indiana... or, for that matter, Ohio State?
Your argument is really the last refuge of those who refuse to let their hyperinflated opinion of the Big Ten die: "Sure, you won once... but it's a long, grueling season. Bowling Green wouldn't last in our league because our league is so much better."
Whatever. For every Michigan, there is an Indiana. The Big Ten isn't *that* good.
This thought process in my opinion is just asinine right now. What do you have to offer BIG 10 or other "major" conferences besides football? I suspect you're in the same boat as NIU cutting certain "lesser" sports for funding and title 9 compliance? Please correct me if i'm wrong. Also, academically how do you match up against big 10 schools? Is your student population on the same level with the Majors? There are so many issues to consider besides football for this kind of a jump. Not to mention you have to get invited in the first place. Your student (and/or community) apathy seems to be on mark with the rest of the MAC schools. Sadly, this is where you belong. With the rest of us "losers"
BGBoilermaker wrote:My point about depth is, would we last 8 games in a row against the Oklahomas, Ohio States and Purdues of the college football world?
I'm tired of this tired argument.
Look at the programs you are naming... three of the best in the country. It isn't like the Big Ten is *that* hard.
Put Bowling Green in the Big Ten and the revenue will start pouring in... television revenue, NCAA basketball tournament revenue, BCS revenue, etc. That dough -- and the increased attendance we would see by hosting programs like Michigan and Ohio State -- would be more than enough to start our season with home games against patsies like Duke, Idaho and Louisiana Monroe.
So we're talking about three wins right there.
Next, all we would have to do is manage three wins in eight tries in Big Ten play and we would be bowl bound.
How hard is that? Western Michigan almost beat Illinois at their place. What do you think *we* would do to the Illini... or Indiana... or, for that matter, Ohio State?
Your argument is really the last refuge of those who refuse to let their hyperinflated opinion of the Big Ten die: "Sure, you won once... but it's a long, grueling season. Bowling Green wouldn't last in our league because our league is so much better."
Whatever. For every Michigan, there is an Indiana. The Big Ten isn't *that* good.
Schade excellent points. The Big ten has its bottom feeders as does every conference. Add PSU to that list too. I think our current team could go at least 4-4 in conference. The problem however is that football is the only sport we could compete with these schools. We're not even good in the MAC in basketball anymore. And there's no way the Big eleven takes a football only member. ...What does the Big ten have to gain adding us? I would say only a 12th team for a conference champioship. BG will not be that team.
kdog27 wrote:Schade excellent points. The Big ten has its bottom feeders as does every conference. Add PSU to that list too. I think our current team could go at least 4-4 in conference. The problem however is that football is the only sport we could compete with these schools. We're not even good in the MAC in basketball anymore. And there's no way the Big eleven takes a football only member. ...What does the Big ten have to gain adding us? I would say only a 12th team for a conference champioship. BG will not be that team.
Don't get me wrong. I agree with you. We aren't an option for the Big Ten, not for the foreseeable future.
I would argue that our basketball would improve in the Big Ten. Dakich would suddenly be able to outrecruit a whole lot of schools he is now forced to go head-to-head with now. But it's a purely hypothetical argument.
It has been mentioned to look past just football because our other sports have to move conferences as well. With that being said, the only program good enough to compete beyond the MAC is the football one. Sorry to say but if we moved to the Big East, our men's and women's bball teams would have a tough time. The Big Ten would be the same. C-USA shouldn't even be an option because no one wants to see BG there if that's the case, Krebs isn't going to try to make that move. Until our other programs step up consistently, we need to stay in the MAC. Our football program just needs to schedule other teams. Temple, Lberty, Eastern Kentucky type teams doesn't help anything. Somehow we need to start getting teams like OSU and others to come to The Doyt. That in itself will increase attendance and give our team a chance to prove to the nation we are better than we get credit for.
"To the optimist, the glass is half full. To the pessimist, the glass is half empty. To the project manager, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be."
Penn State is only there for the moment. While JoePa is one of the greatest, he is simply past due for retirement. Any school that can put 100k in the stands no matter what is going to be able to get a top notch coach. I believe their recruiting has suffered due to questions about the coaching situation.
Do you guys have any idea as to how difficult it is to get into the Big 10? Michigan State had to win a national championship and expand its stadium to 75,000 before UM was ready to concede. JoPa had 10 undefeated seasons and built the fanbase of PSU from 20k to 85k before he got State College in.
Syracuse, Pitt, Missouri, WVU....all programs that would die for Big10 membership if it came. Does any athletic program in the MAC compare even to those wannabees? No, not even close.
Into the Big East? That is a different story. The most desirable school in the MAC for the BigE is NIU with the Chicago market. Then Toledo if you want to give them a rival. The Big East would never take BG before Toledo. And certainly not both BG and Toledo. Toledo has much stronger support in both football and basketball and a bigger market.
Just drink your beer, and enjoy your MAC games.
Growing up in Athens and playing for the high school, the only thing anyone dreamed of was to play for Don Peden.", 1950 OU graduate. "He was the most respected man in town."
In football I think we would be able to compete enough to be a middle of the road big 10 team. In all other sports we are light years behind.
The other biggest issue, really, is academics. The Big 10 holds a VERY high standard on academics in order to gain entry. It is academics more than anything that has kept Pitt, among others, out of the Big 10. The Big 10 schools all put huge dollars into graduate research, and BG is not even close in that department.
Because of our deficiencies in academics and other sports there is no way the Big 10 would even consider us for membership...they'd laugh at us if we called them. That said I still am an advocate of leaving the MAC for football, along with the other top notch MAC teams. I'm still intrigued by the idea of the top tier midmajors creating a football only conference consisting of:
Tulane
TCU
Fresno State
Boise State
BG
NIU
Miami
Marshall
UT
San Diego State?
BYU?
Utah?
You could also think about Louisville, because this conference might be a step up from where they're going. All of these mid majors are generally pretty good, although all will of course have down years. Travel would be a bear, but for football I think you could swing it.
I think that is a best case scenario for BG football, and as out there as it seems is a helluva lot more plausible than gaining entry in the Big 10.
That what ive been saying Hammb. We need to make a NEW conf, not leave the MAC. Take the best of the rest and throw them together. SOS will not be a problem as much then, and there will be plenty of TV ooprtunities. Boise v. BG will have an over/under in teh triple digets im sure, so how is that not goign to be an entertaining game?
This is clearly the best case senario for these programs, and it needs to happen, but i doubt it ever will.
"Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. A rocket is always a dildo."
~Rightupinthere
I hope everyone remembers how stupid we thought this talk of changing conferences etc, was a few years ago by Marshall, Toledo, et al, when things weren't going quite as well for us. Why don't we concentrate on making the MAC better?
hammb wrote:I still am an advocate of leaving the MAC for football, along with the other top notch MAC teams. I'm still intrigued by the idea of the top tier midmajors creating a football only conference consisting of:
Tulane
TCU
Fresno State
Boise State
BG
NIU
Miami
Marshall
UT
San Diego State?
BYU?
Utah?
...
I think that is a best case scenario for BG football...
hammb wrote:
The other biggest issue, really, is academics. The Big 10 holds a VERY high standard on academics in order to gain entry. It is academics more than anything that has kept Pitt, among others, out of the Big 10. The Big 10 schools all put huge dollars into graduate research, and BG is not even close in that department.
I'm still intrigued by the idea of the top tier midmajors creating a football only conference consisting of:
Tulane
TCU
Fresno State
Boise State
BG
NIU
Miami
Marshall
UT
San Diego State?
BYU?
Utah?
I think that is a best case scenario for BG football, and as out there as it seems is a helluva lot more plausible than gaining entry in the Big 10.
Michigan State is arguably the worst academic school in the Big10, especially 50 years ago but they got in because of football. You probably didn't know this, but Pitt has a larger endowment than OSU and double the size of MSU's. Academics are not holding Pitt back from the Big 10. The Big 10 already has the largest piece of the Pittsburgh market with Penn State, and thats why Pitt will never be added. The same market share reasoning would keep BG out.
If your going to cobble together some mid-majors to form a conference, I would stick to schools in the Eastern United States. Your best shot would be if CUSA somehow split into two leagues, and you joined up with the Eastern schools. Memphis is upset with CUSA because the basketball is to watered down, and I could see interest there in forming a smaller 9/10 school eastern based conference. Especially if the Big East takes a couple more schools from CUSA.
Then with only 9 schools you play a 16 game conference schedule in basketball which Memphis would like. And the football conference would have good bowls in the Liberty, MCB, GMAC. The strength of schedule for this league would be near the MWC level.
Growing up in Athens and playing for the high school, the only thing anyone dreamed of was to play for Don Peden.", 1950 OU graduate. "He was the most respected man in town."
It is OK to dream of things that can't happen, so I can roll my eyes and let talk of some of the conferences people would like to see us play in die.
I reject the notion that who we play is the issue. We just had several very long, very well argued threads on attendance. Who we play isn't the issue. If it were an issue, why did we pull 23,000 for SEMS? Why did we pull 18,000 for a team given up for dead, run by a coach that all but states he is going to get fired on national TV, yet only draw 10,000 for a newly revived EMU team?
We can pull crowds to games, it is GETTING THEM BACK ON A CONSISTENT BASIS which is the issue. Our core fan base, which has always come out no matter whom we play, or how bad we are when we do, is about 8,500. Add to that some students, and incidental traffic for one marketing stunt or the other, and you get 14,000 to 17,000 on average. That means we aren't doing anything, which draws BGSU alumni and fans, which would make it worth-while if the game isn't a marquee event.
The fact that major games do draw better doesn't prove who we play is the issue. It proves that outside of marketing stunts and major match-ups, nobody has any other reason to want to come to our game. A lot of people made the valid point that folks should want to come out of a love of being here. That is a valid point. Plus we have had major teams and games here that don't come close to what we want to draw.
We've had name-brand teams play BGSU. Temple, Pitt, Mizzou, and Daunte Culpepper's UCF. Even UT, NIU, and a title game. Yet none of those games got to 30,000. MOST of them didn't even get to 26,000. I also remember playing in the East, and we couldn't draw well for OU, Akron, Kent, or UB. So traditional rivals aren't going to cut it either. The point here isn't who we play, nobody can support that view because the numbers speak for themselves.
When you have a mid-major program you have to market differently, do more to make the games value-added experiences. You need to think outside the box.
Now talking realistically, with the entire Membership Standards plan working its way through the conference leadership, change could occur. If there is anything that might someday happen, it is a down-sizing of the MAC. You could see different things happen which could result in a more interesting slate of programs playing as part of a revised MAC, new conference, or even a merger between parts of the current league and others.
Being fixated with the Big Ten is a joke. Even the Big East doesn't seem realistic at all. (I'm amused that in all this talk CUSA properly remains seen as a step down in quality) We should be thinking outside the box. What teams like a Memphis, or top level 1AA teams, or even some lower rung Big East teams, might make for a good conference combined with PARTS of the MAC? How much better could more realistic lineups of these teams be compared to a MAC with four bowl bids, decent TV contracts, great basketball contracts, the title game, regional spotlight games like BG-Wisconsin, and the current members?
I think stability is a good thing. It has served us well. Marshall couldn't sit still, and I fully believe it will cost them more in the long run. The MAC improves its TV coverage every year. It has come into its own in terms of national and regional media PR. It is sending more players to the NFL each year. It has two, will have three, and a year beyond that, most likely have FOUR bowl bids in the next few years. We are near or at the top of the MAC heap. I'd rather win titles than get buckeye-envy of the Bigger Ten.
Most of the rest of the MACs top teams haven't had a problem developing and keeping attendance. Miami is in the thick of the race yet couldn't draw well this year. Lots of folks turn out to see EMU and CMU play each other. We are starting to complain too much, and focus too little on what needs to be fixed with what we have.
We have a good thing here.
NWLB
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