MAC Football Scheduling - The Blade....

[Flipper]

Ok..I actually laughed at that

For me...it boils down to this. The current crop of students..who don't seem to give a crap... are footing the bill so a bunch of alums can run around and say "we play in the same division as OSU" like that matters beyond dick swinging time.

That strikes me as being patently unfair

[hammb]

Ok..I actually laughed at that

For me...it boils down to this. The current crop of students..who don't seem to give a crap... are footing the bill so a bunch of alums can run around and say "we play in the same division as OSU" like that matters beyond dick swinging time.

That strikes me as being patently unfair

Not that it matters, but I'd add to the "unfairness" part by mentioning they're doing it on the backs of racking up FAR more student debt than any of us alums did while we were in school.

[gmartin]

Hammb? I thought that's what all the restaurants are for across from campus. Work at BK, Wendy's, McDs, Chipotle and work down that debt.

[hammb]

Hammb? I thought that's what all the restaurants are for across from campus. Work at BK, Wendy's, McDs, Chipotle and work down that debt.

Of course! How could I forget, this is America!

Taking on $40K of debt for your college degree is stupid! Get out there and work at Chipotle to pay for your college and graduate without debt, you lazy bum!

[Flipper]

Crazy as it seems...there was a time when you could do that. My first year... 79/80..tuition was $360 a QTR...or $1080 a year. Books would run you $100 or so a qtr. I worked year round at Bill Knapp's and pulled it off. I took out one student loan for $2000 and put my last semester's tuition ($1200 or so) on a Visa I had. Worked year round throughout...took a couple of semesters off here and there to save, reevaluate and yes..party. But I still crawled across that finish line with about $3000 in debt.

Of course...sasparilla was a nickel, you could trap and eat cats legally and girls didn't expect much more than a pizza...so life in general was a lot cheaper.

And nobody even thought of saying "amazeballs"

[Schadenfreude]

The current crop of students..who don't seem to give a crap... are footing the bill

Students foot part of the bill. But this is common across much of Division I, and it has been true for many years at BGSU.

My understanding, for example, is that student fees were used to pay for the Perry Field House.

[Flipper]

For dozens of years cursing in front of women and children was illegal in the state of Michigan.

Because it's always been that way is not an argument against change...it's not an argument for anything but sitting still, which is how possums get run over by trucks.

Most of D1 does it that way? Didn't you and your mom ever do the "if the rest of the kids jumped off a bridge would you do it" bit? Then again...if the bridge is on fire...do you want to wait for the rest of the kids to jump first?

[Schadenfreude]

Most of D1 does it that way? Didn't you and your mom ever do the "if the rest of the kids jumped off a bridge would you do it" bit?

Bowling Green has more than 50 years of tradition in Division I and FBS. The Falcons also have one of the strongest football programs in the MAC year in and year out, and they have won the league championship two out of the past four seasons.

You seem eager to throw all that tradition away by moving down to Division II. I think that would be short-sighted and foolish.

I flew down to Memphis to watch Bowling Green play in the Liberty Bowl, just as I've made trips to Alabama, Missouri, and elsewhere to watch this team play over the years. This football program is one of the most visible aspects of BGSU, one of the best ways the university has to engage alumni. There is value here that is difficult to quantify.

Would you make a road trip to watch Bowling Green play football against Ohio Dominican or Michigan Tech? I sure wouldn't. Those schools aren't our peers. The members of the MAC are.

I do not deny that the finances of Division I pose challenges. But the entire MAC is in this together. Several other conferences are on this situation as well. I think its obvious that we should keep playing FBS football -- where we have been quite successful on the field -- and continue to look for solutions that benefit all the MAC and all of FBS, just as we have for decades.

[hammb]

To me the issues are two-fold.

1) The costs of Division1 Football have risen to absurdity. What it takes to fund the team now is many times over what it took 15 years ago when I was in school, and drastically more than 25 years ago. Head coaching alone, Urban made a base salary of $125k, Jinks is pulling in $410k. A main campus student is paying $822/year for intercollegiate athletics. 15 years ago when I graduated the General fee total was $1100, so probably $550 went to athletics.

In 15 years that's more than a 50% increase to what it costs the average student to fund our athletics, all the while all of the other costs of attending school have risen by massive amounts as well. When many of us were in school it was conceivable to work to pay for school, now almost everybody is taking on 10s of thousands in debt. Maybe it doesn't matter in the end, but it rubs me the wrong way when you're putting kids in debt to fund something who's best value is, "difficult to quantify" and helps "engage alumni." If the alumni are that engaged, they should step up and start funding the program(s).

2) I continue to maintain that the changing landscape of college football (and probably basketball as well) has lessened the ability for MAC programs to actually do exactly what you say they do. The ability to watch the mega programs whenever you want has a big part of it; ESPN and the like telling everybody that only the mega programs count is another. And, to get back on topic, I believe that the MACs decision to chase the pittance of TV dollars versus engaging the current student population also is a major contributing factor. All this adds up, in my opinion, to creating a large population of new alumni that couldn't possibly care less about BGSU sports, and the program does NOTHING to engage them.


As much of a sports fan as I am, I could see graduating far more salty about the $3000-4000 of extra debt I had to carry to fund sports than I would be connected to the university because of those sports. I can only imagine how NON sports fans feel about it, if they actually took the time to look into it. It's a problem. I think it's a big problem. And I don't think, "it's always been this way, we've always been D1, we need to keep making it work," is the best mindset to have when trying to address the problem.

[Flipper]

Most of D1 does it that way? Didn't you and your mom ever do the "if the rest of the kids jumped off a bridge would you do it" bit?

Bowling Green has more than 50 years of tradition in Division I and FBS. The Falcons also have one of the strongest football programs in the MAC year in and year out, and they have won the league championship two out of the past four seasons.

You seem eager to throw all that tradition away by moving down to Division II. I think that would be short-sighted and foolish.

I flew down to Memphis to watch Bowling Green play in the Liberty Bowl, just as I've made trips to Alabama, Missouri, and elsewhere to watch this team play over the years. This football program is one of the most visible aspects of BGSU, one of the best ways the university has to engage alumni. There is value here that is difficult to quantify.

Would you make a road trip to watch Bowling Green play football against Ohio Dominican or Michigan Tech? I sure wouldn't. Those schools aren't our peers. The members of the MAC are.

I do not deny that the finances of Division I pose challenges. But the entire MAC is in this together. Several other conferences are on this situation as well. I think its obvious that we should keep playing FBS football -- where we have been quite successful on the field -- and continue to look for solutions that benefit all the MAC and all of FBS, just as we have for decades.

Two things....

You aren't footing the bill...so this discussion probably shouldn't be about what you want.

We won a National Title before we were "division 1". You seem eager to piss on that tradition by insisting we spend money like drunken sailors to chase the illusion that we're at OSU's level.

Would I go to games at smaller venues...of course. I'm an alum of BGSU. I'm not an alum of D1... Root for the school...be proud of what you are..taking pride in a label is so....1980's

[2006Grad]

I looked at the previous schedules to see how common a Saturday November game is, here is what I found:
SAT NOV 17, 2012 Kent State - 15683 (Attendance)
SAT NOV 1, 2008 Kent State - No idea
These are literally the last two times we played at home on a Saturdays in November (unless of course I missed one). Here are my takeaways, first, it is so rare, why even bat an eyelash when it doesn't happen now. There is not a student at BGSU who has even had that experience, which is also a word I use lightly because. That KSU game the weather was beautiful, it was of the MAC east title, they were playing for a possible BCS bowl and <16k were there. So swap that out with a sub .500 team and crap weather and how many people are showing?
As a BG fan you know the home schedule is 6 home games at the best, with 4 of them coming in sept or oct, when the weather should be tolerable. How about we figure out how to pack the Doyt for those games and then we can start explaining why we need a Saturday game in November, when putting it on TV exposes BGSU and the product on the field to 3 to 10 times the number of people that will be in the stands.
Further more, if you look at the quality players we have had over the last few year step vast majority are located 3+ hours away from BGSU, as in their parents would struggle to drive in for the games. Why would they choose to come to our sleepy little town to play college football? Well for many of these far away kids they know their parents will be able to see them play on TV every game! That has to be a selling point to the recruits, so yes I would rather tailgate for a Saturday game, but I will support MACtion during the week.

[Flipper]

2012 was the first decent season after two years of losing. You had the Brandon fiasco in 2008 An OK year in 2009 and thwn two years of a down to the studs rebuild under the awesome Dave Clawson. That 15k plus turned out the second you gave them a reason to be there in Nov is a testament to what you can have if you build a local fan base.

So we expose BG football to 200k people...a figure we didn't sniff last year on TV? So what? Great...we get ***kids from all over the place...why? Why are we in a spending war to do that? Are there any hard numbers that show conclusively that sporadic games on the shrinking footprint of ESPN actually benefits us? And no/..."well it logically follows" isn't an example of hard data

[jpfalcon09]

Pretty simple to me, the university isn't going to do away with football or any other revenue generating sport in the near future, no matter how much of a losing venture it is. If students were legitimately concerned about footing the bill for said programs, they'd do their homework before applying and being accepted into BGSU. The administration isn't going to worry about that though because enrollment has been increasing within the past 3-4 years, so obviously no one really gives a rat's ass.

My generation and younger has come to accept the fact that student loan debt is essentially a part of life. I honestly don't believe many of them care about it anymore. There are hundreds if not thousands of schools that charge more for tuition than BG does that don't have athletic programs, many of those schools have limited scholarship opportunities. Kids still choose to attend them. It's the way things are now, right or wrong. If kids have a problem with it they can explore other options and force BGSU to change their ways, but given the most recent data I don't expect that to ever happen.

[2006Grad]

2012 was the first decent season after two years of losing. You had the Brandon fiasco in 2008 An OK year in 2009 and thwn two years of a down to the studs rebuild under the awesome Dave Clawson. That 15k plus turned out the second you gave them a reason to be there in Nov is a testament to what you can have if you build a local fan base.

So we expose BG football to 200k people...a figure we didn't sniff last year on TV? So what? Great...we get ***kids from all over the place...why? Why are we in a spending war to do that? Are there any hard numbers that show conclusively that sporadic games on the shrinking footprint of ESPN actually benefits us? And no/..."well it logically follows" isn't an example of hard data

If BGSU should be happy that 15k came the MAC East title deciding football game, then there really is no argument for having November games on a Saturday. I hate that students/community members would rather sit at home to watch OSU or Mich, but that is the reality and by November the games of those teams tend to be of greater significance.
Also it is not just exposing BG football to the national audience, it is exposing the college as a whole. There is clearly no way of gauging if that exposure helps with enrollment, but it can't hurt. Everyone in Northwest Ohio knows about BGSU, so what does a weekend game in November get us? Now if the University really wants to prove a point a then schedule homecoming for a balmy November day and lets see who the true die hard fans are lol

[Flipper]

Don't kid yourself..Drawing 15k for anything after the Brandon fiasco and the awful teams we had in 2010 and 2011 was a minor miracle

One of the problems with turning your football program into a mid week TV show for a boutique audience of 50,000 is this. What do you do when your show gets cancelled? ESPN is a sinking ship...do you really want to overspend on one sport so you can make yourself attractive to a network that's bleeding money?

I've yet to hear a compelling argument for staying on the course we're on. I don't think the emotional needs of a few alums gets it. I don't think the notion that ESPN's exposure is worth it is compelling...how do we benefit from some guy in Calabasas, CA watching us play Kent? "Well...we've always done it this way" isn't a great argument either.

We're forcing people who don't give a crap to pay for a toy that doesn't serve their interests one iota. I don't care if they seem to be OK with it...or if they haven't figured out that they're being ripped off....They're being ripped off. We need to come up...and by "we" I mean everyone who isn't going to be one of those eventual 64 schools that get virtually all the money...a different game plan because we're on a Looney Toons path right now