EMU faculty, students: Drop out of Division I football

[poltergeist]

Presentation last week to the EMU Board of Regents.

http://www.freep.com/story/news/local/m ... /83493156/" target="_blank

[mscarn]

We'll see where this goes. Virtually never having a winning season has given them an opening I'm surprised took so long for them to pursue. Still, organized student government is a poor barometer of the sentiments of the student body at large and the AAUP faculty types are against any resource allocation that isn't going towards their own salaries and pensions.

Someone needs to tell Coach Creighton that the elimination of his program is now a clear and present "moral imperative" for the university! One of the USA Today sourced data charts notes how WMU spent $34 million on athletics while BG only spent $21 million. That's unsustainable.

[BGFalconfromCincy]

"Eastern Michigan should drop Division I football, and join the Horizon League, where football is not required," the report says. "Alternatively, EMU can still play football, but at the Division II or Division III (non-scholarship) level within the Horizon League, which would save even more resources. The advantage of joining the Horizon League is EMU athletes could still compete at the Division I level in Olympic and other non-revenue sports, but spend much less.

I don't think the plan they have here is going to work. I just can't see a school being allowed to play one sport (football) in D2 and the rest of the sports in D1. It would be one thing if they wanted to play a single sport in D1 and move the rest of the sports down to D2 or D3, which is allowed and you see many schools do for hockey and some do for other sports like lacrosse and baseball, I just can't see the opposite happening. They mention Eastern joining the Horizon League, if that were to happen they can put their football in the FCS Pioneer League, which is a non-scholarship league, and has current Horizon League member Valpo in it, along with former Horizon League member Butler.

[Flipper]

I think the fact that virtually no students attend EMU football games can be taken as a sign that the student population could give a FFF about EMU football.

If you took a vote of the entire BGSU campus and asked the current students if they'd care if we dropped to D2...do you think they'd say "less fees? yeah..f**k football"

I think they might....

[zete]

I think the fact that virtually no students attend EMU football games can be taken as a sign that the student population could give a FFF about EMU football.

If you took a vote of the entire campus and asked the current students if they'd care if we dropped to D2...do you think they'd say "less fees? yeah..f**k football" I think they might....

I was at Eastern twice this past basketball season and saw maybe 40-60 students in attendance. They have serious issues up there in Wolverine country.

[MarkL]

This all reminds me a lot of the 2009 situation where some whiny students who were out of things to whine about targeted their collective whining on the Stroh Center funding. Then the BG News editors decided to dip into the controversy. After all, leave no good controversy untouched, said every politician and journalist ever.

And then the issue actually came to the student body. A student wide vote was conducted and the pro-Stroh group won by over two to one. And the whiny students still found something to whine about, of course.

The whiny students at EMU probably represent a small portion of the student body. I bet this will go away and suddenly the students will show up this year, at least for the first few games.

BTW Chris Creighton is building something there. More on this on a later thread. Now is a bad time for this distraction.

In case the tone of this post didn't give me away, I was a student when the Stroh Center funding issue came around. And I was one of the students who organized the pro-Stroh group. Winning that vote was fully expected and rewarding.

[Critical Thinker]

If the whiners want DII sports at their school so bad, they should all transfer to a school that plays them.

[It's the Journey...]

No one else is going to look at this from the other side? EMU football is a doormat in the MAC, has been a doormat in the MAC, and will continue to be a doormat in the MAC. I would point to the last 30 years as empirical proof of that statement. At what point do you step back and say maybe dropping football down a division or two will actually provide more money and strengthen the existing sports? Is it a happy thought, no. But no athletic department should protect one sport at the expense of the rest of the department.

I said this in the "Other Schools" forum as well. The power 5 have the rest of FBS football right where they want them. Schools cannot afford this arms race with facilities and cost of attendance and every other added expense. Maybe this is where the non power 5 conference schools need to stand together and say we are done trying to keep up with them? EMU's situation has nothing to do with coaches or athletes, they are all good people. This is a culture of poor performance. EMU cannot get any upward momentum to last.

The thought of this happening at EMU hits close to home because they are in our back yard and in our conference. Unfortunately I do not believe this is the last time we will hear about this discussion.

[apollo]

The entire MAC should look at dropping down to 1AA...doesn't make sense to waste that level of money. At the least the MAC needs to put some restrictions on spending...coaches salaries, spending on team travel, no staying in hotels for home games, etc. You could save a lot of money just by not being stupid.
As for Eastern, I think they have 1 maybe 2 more years to turn football around or it will be gone or moved to 1AA. Not that they win the MAC, but need to start winning 4,5,6 games. Certainly this negative press doesn't help their cause. The tough thing for EMU is it is a great fit for the MAC, I'm sure they don't want to leave to join the Horizon.

[Flipper]

Not the last time this topic will come up...nor should it be. How long are we going to ask each and every student to foot the bill so we can call ourselves a D1 football school?. What would student fees be if we didn't fund football at that level? Would anyone care if we went D2 across the board?

20 years ago...hell, 10 years ago I would have thought the very suggestion was preposterous....now, I'm more inclined to pull the chute on this charade and find a more sensible way to continue to play football, but at a level that makes sense financially.

[jpfalcon09]

Surprised it took this long for EMU to really look at this. I have a co-worker who has a son that goes to EMU and the reality is many students really don't care about athletics there. They have a good reputation for academics and attract some quality kids (his son received a full-ride even being out-of-state). Couple that with competing against UM, MSU and the other directional schools for resources and you find an unsustainable proposition going into the future.

Simply put, if the students want to reduce their debt and are okay with cutting football, you have to listen to them. This swell is only going to grow larger at schools of similar size as costs keep rising while more and more students face the task of affording a secondary education. I'm with Flip, it's sensible for many mid-majors to be honest with themselves and take a serious look into the future regarding this issue because it's only going to loom larger.

On a side note, if they do drop football it would mean the MAC would need to find a replacement member in order to qualify for a championship game in football. Also curious if the conference would make an exception and keep them on as non-football members seeing as they ushered out UMass for similar.

[Schadenfreude]

The Eagles aren't likely to be any more successful at FBS football than a second NFL team would be in Green Bay. Given this reality, Eastern Michigan would be wise to reconsider membership in the MAC.

Instead, Eastern Michigan should put its football team in the Missouri Valley or the Pioneer, and see if the Horizon would have them in other sports. Or if the numbers don't work, just drop football. Any of these would probably be better options for Eastern Michigan than the MAC, given how hopeless the football enterprise is for them.

(And, no, playing Division II football and Division I in other sports will not work. The NCAA will not permit that.)

As for Bowling Green, and the rest of the MAC: This is an FBS conference. The Falcons have won two out of the last three MAC football titles, and the Falcons have defeated three out of the last four Big Ten teams on the schedule. We have a good thing going here. Sure, there is financial pressure on all schools outside of the P5. But, given this track record, the last thing Bowling Green should be doing is leading a charge out of FBS.

As for the views of Eastern Michigan students: I am not so dismissive. As I read that article, this report was put forward in part by student government. Student governments are designed, through elections, to represent the interests of the student body. It is true that student governments sometimes are out of step with the views of the students they serve, just as the views of elected officials sometimes get out of step with the public. But this isn't always the case.

Eastern Michigan administrators will need to separate the signal from the noise on this and determine if the views being projected by student government truly are representative. The fact that only dozens of students bother to attend some football games is telling, though. it suggests there isn't much interest on campus in FBS football. And if FBS athletics has truly lost the support of Eastern Michigan students, it has also lost much of its reason for being, especially when you consider students are footing most of the bill.

[hammb]

Not the last time this topic will come up...nor should it be. How long are we going to ask each and every student to foot the bill so we can call ourselves a D1 football school?. What would student fees be if we didn't fund football at that level? Would anyone care if we went D2 across the board?

20 years ago...hell, 10 years ago I would have thought the very suggestion was preposterous....now, I'm more inclined to pull the chute on this charade and find a more sensible way to continue to play football, but at a level that makes sense financially.

I'm with you. I always said a decade ago that dropping to D1AA or whatever would cause me to lose any interest in BG football and it would be awful. But as the years have gone on and college football has changed how it has, I've lost most of my interest anyhow. I'll go to a couple games, hit some tailgates, but in the end we're completely irrelevant. The MAC does nothing for me, and I'm starting to think I'd rather have a shot at a real national title than whatever Bowl Game decides to charity invite the lowly MAC schools so they can further line the pockets of the bowl organizers.

It is ludicrous to me that when a student graduates from BGSU they will have incurred thousands of dollars of debt specifically to support an athletic department that can barely draw 1500 to a hoops game and 20k is a stretch for a football game.

I'd selfishly want us to stay D1 in hoops, and hockey as well, which means we'd likely have to keep football at the 1AA level. The question then becomes does the loss of exposure dropping from 1A to 1AA justify the difference in expense, because it's still not cheap to play football on that level either.

College tuition is a bubble that is going to burst at some point, and the fact that we're funneling so much money from students to live the illusion of being in the same level as OSU/UM/Alabama/etc is just not smart finances, IMO.

EMU will be the first to seriously discuss this because they've been so awful, but it's a discussion the entire MAC (and really all of the non-Power5) should be having.

[Flipper]

The students at EMU have spoken collectively...they do so every weekend when they find something better to do than go to an EMU football game.

The MAC is an FBS conference in name only. We're at best an ESPN sideshow that allows them to have something on the air between discussions about the ten or fifteen programs that are relevant in today's world

[Schadenfreude]

The MAC is an FBS conference in name only.

Three years ago, Northern Illinois played in the Orange Bowl. We are one great season away from doing the same thing.

We are just as much a part of FBS as any school in the American, the Mountain West, the Sun Belt, or Conference USA. Plus we have delightful tradition of beating Big Ten schools and winning conference championships.

I don't share that negative thinking.