EMU faculty, students: Drop out of Division I football

[BGSU33]

Wouldn't EMU actually have to have a D-1 football program in order to drop it??? Kidding, just kidding.

[Flipper]

You don't share reality...a MAC team made the Orange Bowl and got trucked several years ago. You go ahead and cling to that ...economic and demographic realities aside

[mscarn]

We're really having this "MAC football is irrelevant" discussion the year after BG itself defeated two Big 10 teams on the road and only a couple years removed from being in the BCS and having a Heisman finalist? MAC football is more relevant and more legitimate a player on the national scene than ever before. NIU lost the Orange Bowl. Half the teams that participated in BCS/New Year's Six games also lost and Notre Dame got particularly demolished this past year. That doesn't in and of itself render any of them irrelevant. EMU's student attendance is also hurt by not having had a winning season in 20 years. When they were winning they were filling their stadium above capacity. In no way does it reflect a wholesale rejection of college football or reflect a pattern of student attendance throughout the conference. Like Critical Thinker said, if we're going to say EMU students have "spoken" by not attending games we can also say they've expressed their lack of outrage over such a trifle by attending EMU in the first place rather than Albion, Grand Valley or the other regional options at their disposal.

Financially we're at a disadvantage yet still manage to field competitive teams due to the 85 scholarship limit, inaccurate talent evaluations out of high school and scheme uniqueness. Demographically we might be at a disadvantage decades down the road, but for the time being it doesn't appear Sun Belt or Conference USA schools in high football participation areas are taking the nation by storm. Many players from that region also can't wait to leave their home environments.

The professors pushing this issue and ginning up the student government busy-bodies rail about debt incurred from athletic fees yet fail to concern themselves with the overall tuition rates driven up by their own unquenchable salary and pension demands. An athletic fee pales in comparison to tens of thousands in annual tuition buoyed by bloated faculty contracts. Have a professor offer to take a pay cut in conjunction with the relative pittance to be "saved" from cutting football and I'll know they're serious about the issue. That will happen right around the time EMU wins the national championship.

[Schadenfreude]

We're really having this "MAC football is irrelevant" discussion the year after BG itself defeated two Big 10 teams on the road and only a couple years removed from being in the BCS and having a Heisman finalist?

I don't agree with mscarn's entire post, but this? Boom. Yes.

[hammb]

I believe there is a big difference between being relevant on the field (which we largely can be) and being actually relevant in the sport as a whole (which we aren't even close).

[Flipper]

The larger question is...of course...is it worth it to try to achieve the degree of "relevance" we can realistically hope to achieve. How many millions do we piss away here and for how long? Great we go unbeaten one year and draw that inside straight to whatever BCS bowl is in the "leftovers" column (and bear in mind...as the process evolves and more of the focus goes on the final four, the leftover bowl will seem less noteworthy) so what? What difference will it even make....unless we do it repeatedly and NOTHING in the history of this conference suggest that that is possible.

I would rather see us reject the structure that I view with a great deal of contempt...f**k the P5 and their brethren. They took an awesome sport with traditional rivalries, sensible geography and a charmingly goofy way of selecting but not really selecting as champion and they turned it into a watered down NFL. Let's tell the whores to go pound it while we focus on an ethically defensible, sane approach to sports. I'd love to see us play Grand Valley State on a Saturday

[Falcon Commander]

Board of Regents Statement (EMU)

https://t.co/9kdJeKRGBl" target="_blank

[BGSU33]

I love BG football. I love BG being in the MAC. I love BG being an FBS program. I love when BG beats Power Five schools. I love that my school is an FBS program and that many of its fans actually went to school there and didn't just walk into Walmart and buy a shirt for a team to follow like 80% of the Ohio State out there are. Frankly, I don't really care much about the Power Five. I like being a fan of a conference you actually need to follow, and not just be informed about a Power Five one that you don't have to follow because SportsCenter can rehash it day and night for you. And yes, that puts me in the minority, but I don't really care. I love exactly who we are and what we're about. I also don't care that we're an extreme long shot to make the playoffs or one of the big bowl games, because guess what, there are a bunch of Power Five schools that are in the same boat and won't get there either.

I really appreciate there are many other schools out there that would LOVE to be sitting where we are as an FBS program. In the past decade and a half some 20 something schools from the FCS have come up to the FBS with many more wanting to do the same. And it's not only run-of-the-mill FCS schools, it's some of the teams with the most FCS (I-AA) championships in Division history that are doing it such as Georgia Southern and Appalachian State. Appalachian State even won all those national championships recently and yet even they bolted. Why? They said so themselves - to become relevant. Yes, being a Group of Five FBS team mattered more than winning FCS National Championships. That speaks volume of the importance of being an FBS program, even as a Group of Five member.

Look, we all know college football is a huge expense. It costs a shitload of money to play and sustain for all involved. And yes, it goes without saying that Power Five schools are in much greater shape to offset it or for some to even capitalize on it. For everyone else out there, we're all more or less in the same boat one way or another. But that doesn't mean we all just bitch and complain about things not being equal or fair and just give up. You ante the F up! You fight and keep swinging. This Power Five thing compared to the Group of Five, FCS, D-II, D-III, NAIA or JUCO is nothing new. Christ, it's exactly the same kind of thing in the real world! There are those who live in ways many of us could only dream of doing, and those of us who make do by all the means necessary. Some people never have to lift a finger in life and yet have it all, while many have to bust their ass and never have much at all. This money talk in college football about the Haves and Have-Nots is just another extension of the real world.

[Flipper]

Right...and in the real world at some point you have to justify the cost of your emotional wants and daydreams. What payoff do we get for trying to play this game?

[Schadenfreude]

I'd love to see us play Grand Valley State on a Saturday

Oh hell no.

[Lord_Byron]

I'd love to see us play Grand Valley State on a Saturday

Oh hell no.

Been there, done that.

At GVS on September 10, 1977 BG 17 GVS 6

At BG on September 23, 1978 BG 49 GVS 3

[Beaker]

Everyone knows there are tangible differences between the elite mega schools of the football world and the rest of us, but talking about ditching out of the highest division after winning your conference championship 2 of the last 3 years and having recent success against P5 schools seems silly to me.

Yes the economic realities suck. The atmosphere is corrupted and I have as much distaste as anyone for the current structure that's set up to let the rich get richer and keeps the others fighting for scraps, but the payoff is in the love of the sport and the pride of the success we've had competing at this level. EMU doesn't have that because they've had no success for as long as anyone can remember. I don't know what the answer is, but for me, it's not to throw in the towel and walk away. You can make that argument for EMU, but we're not in the position they're in.

Anyone that thinks we're irrelevant now and that dropping down to dominate a lower division will somehow change that is fooling themselves. Yeah we may only get, 15,000 - 20,000 a game now on a good week, but start playing in the FCS and you'll see those numbers plummet, right along with any enthusiasm for the program by the students and whatever fan base we have. No, we're not on par with the Floridas and LSUs of the world, but most college football fans know who we are because they've seen us on tv and we get to compete with and at times, beat P5 schools. Bolting from this level will put us into football oblivion and as a fan and alum, I don't want that for us.

Like many of us, I'm no fan of ESPN, but I like the fact that when I can't make it to a game in person, there's a way for me to see the game either on tv or online. I'd like to keep it that way.

[BGSU33]

I'd love to see us play Grand Valley State on a Saturday

Oh hell no.

Not just hell no....F no!!!

[zete]

If MAC schools jammed their football stadiums every time there was a home game, the league would be fine and we would not be having the above discussion. Too many things working against the numbers game - small markets ( Athens, Oxford, Munice, BG); meaningless games; giants in the mist (OSU UM). In the 60s and 70s the idea was build it and they will come. The great experiment is over. The results were fruitless year after year.
EMU build one of the nicest football/basketball complexes in the region and nothing has happened. Thus, reevaluate and move on.

[Flipper]

I'd love to see us play Grand Valley State on a Saturday

Oh hell no.

Not just hell no....F no!!!

You fellows are just like the OSU fan's who dismiss us....me...I root for my alma mater, not the "division" of football they compete in.