SI.com is reporting Butler has informed the Horizon League that they are leaving. All speculation is geared to it being the A10.

Drop football down a level, and that's a realistic possibility. 

It has nothing to do with football (see Temple and UMass). If Ohio wants the A-10 to be a realistic opportunity it needs to:

1) Become a private Catholic university
2) Be in a decent-sized media market

It's just that easy.

Sometime soon, I wonder if it's not a decision that is essentially made for the MAC by these "BCS Schools".  I've had a long held belief that basketball does more for OUr university than football.  It's not a shot at Frank or anyone on the team.  They're doing great work.  It's simply that a MAC school will always have greater opportunities for success nationally in basketball.  Always meaning as things stand right now.  

I also agree with the statement about budget.  Imagine what we could do with an extra million or so thrown at men's hoops, and some additional money thrown at women's hoops? 

For now it's a moot point for OU and the MAC.

One thing this change should do is to elevate the other conferences, like the MAC, that compete with the Horizon League for recognition, players, and NCAA & NIT tournament berths.

UMass and Temple are/were members of MAC for football. So that doesn't seem to be the determining factor.

You may save some money by dropping to FCS. You wouldn't have to fund 40 scholarships (20 scholarship reduction in football which would require 20 women's scholarships to be cut to remain Title IX compliant) and subsequent coaching expenses. But you lose some bargaining power in your money games, lose split of BCS revenue, TV revenue, ticket sales, contributions and national TV exposure. IMO, you give up way more than you get. And I wouldn't assume that any savings get allocated to other sports.

But Dayton football is not dropping down a level, it's basically dropping football. They are non-scholarship but an NCAA rule requires them to be FCS. Which means they never get an invite to the playoffs. You would definitely save money in this scenario. But I'm sure how much of an Athletic Dept. you would have left or one of the school's greatest assets, the Marching 110.

Yes, the alums really pack the Convo on basketball homecoming and the tailgating at Tailgreat just cannot be topped in Athens on a January/February Saturday. The students attendance average at the Convo is perhaps triple the attendance at football home games where the small crowd always leaves after halftime anyway.  The 70 member basketball "in the stands" pep band of the 110 is superior to the 220 member 110 shuffling to 7.4 MILLION hits on YouTube variety.   The mid week televised football games during the past two seasons are inferior to the catching up with a Bobcat game on Sports Time Ohio.  Our visiting crowd at the basketball Akron and Kent games this year that I attended really brought out our fans where I saw as many Ohio shirts as the guy on the Chicago train recently saw in his car before he decided to switch to another.  As a student there is always a much better chance of having a class and getting to know one of 15 basketball players vs getting to know one of 100 who hides behind a helmet and is vitually unknown.

In Cleveland, when Barley House hosted the March 2012 St. Pats in the Flats with about 1200 alums were partying on the afternoon/evening of the Bobcats taking the MAC Tourney away from the Zips, perhaps 30 of the 1200 attendees made their way over to the Gund to watch--yes that basketball really brings out the best in our alums that they wouldn't go down the street to watch their alma mater rule. 

 

Ah, but you assume that the funds allegedly saved by dropping football a division would remain in the athletics budget.  That is a dangerous assumption.

More likely we'd end up with lesser football and no more money for athletics to do anything else.

We'll still have a football team, and a homecoming, and tailgating and all of that good stuff. In fact, we'll also be able to ensure that all of our home games take place on Saturday afternoon, the way God intended, because we wouldn't have to schedule our Tuesday night MAC games and such. 

Let's assume, for a second, that OU did drop a division. The CAA is in the midst of a bit of an overhaul after the loss of Umass, and with the pending loss of URI. Rumor is that Maine and New Hampshire will likely leave as well. A conference of Delaware, James Madison, Old Dominion, Richmond, Villanova, Towson, and William & Mary makes a lot of sense for OU both athletically and academically. Being mentioned as a peer of schools like U of R and William & Mary would be a nothing but a good thing, and frankly, from an attendance standpoint, our student body isn't going to be more fired up for Eastern Michigan than they are for Delaware. It's a complete wash. 

And a nationally televised home NCAA tournament game would draw just as well as a home game against Minnesota, or whichever mid level BCS team we can convince to come to Athens once every 8 years. 

Who is discussing OU football nationally?

And the alumni resentment would be coming from a vocal minority. 

I wouldn't be too sure about that.

It'd be BAAAAAAD.

Who's discussing us? How many times did the week night games make the ESPN-Top10 reel? Or the Marshall game, when TT was discussed as one of the week's best performers?

Dropping football to a lower level would be a disaster. As in AD fired, Bobcatattack message board activity dropping off markedly for most of the year, women's sports losing ~30 scholarships, decreased alumni-athletic giving, less gate $ at pedan, the list goes on. Anyone who thinks that dropping to I-AA would be a good thing for the university as a whole is deluding themselves. If basketball is your primary concern (I very much like and follow closely the basketball team, but I'm primarily a football fan) I'd say its no better than 50/50 that such a move would be benefical for mens basketball.

http://espn.go.com/mens-college-basketball/story/_/id/7911693/oakland-wants-take-butler-place-horizon-league

Oakland looking to replace Butler in the Horizon but worred about being blocked by Detroit.