Yeah, too bad we don’t have a Sports Information Program. But if we did I bet it would be world renowned. Yes there is a big difference in Sports Information and Sports Administration.

If we did, I vote it be named after Frank Morgan.

Its a question that has been asked many times before on this board in different ways and the economic argument behind moving to FCS is completely moot at this point as nobody knows what the structure of the sport will even look like 5 or 10 years from now.

For example a school of thought is out there that the P5 will inevitably break away from the NCAA. That happens and it would leave the G5 behind as an 85 scholarship division still playing in the NCAA. What would that do for Ohio's ability to win a national championship in the NCAA if the P5 picked up the ball and went home?

All bets are off making a comparison in a different future structure that we be driven by conferences bigger than the MAC.

Miami doesn't have money to throw around at anything. Their fundraising (athletic and overall) is no better than Ohio's, and their endowment in somewhat smaller, and their athletic department takes a much bigger subsidy than Ohio's to stay afloat.

Just because a lot of their students come from rich families doesn't mean that Miami is a rich school. And speaking of that, I saw in a NYT interactive that Miami has a higher percentage of kids from top 1% families than any other public university except Michigan. Now combine that with the fact that they also have an average SAT score a hundred points lower than OSU, and I think that tells you everything you need to know about Fiami--safety school for rich kids who want to be surrounded by kids just like themselves.

I interned with Frank. My chief duty was assembling facts and figures for the next Ohio basketball season media guide. Later while I was soldiering in Korea, Frank occasionally sent me clippings on how Ohio was doing in basketball.

For what it is worth ND State has played a BCS school one time since 2015 and they beat Iowa by a few points. The Bison can't get schools to schedule them. They are that good! I would not bank on playing more P5 teams if Ohio would drop a division. Not comparing the Bison to the Bobcats, but don't bank on a bunch of P5 games.

Agree.

Re:the quoted statement about playing Marietta for Homecoming. I assume you're being tongue in cheek. If we were FCS, we would not be playing Div III schools. We could still have a good schedule. Competitively, I don't see anything super negative about moving to FCS. I am just not convinced that it would take care of the financial issues we are facing.

The Miami donor base is richer than you think, and have heard from enough people they're just waiting for a reason to throw the money around. Haven't had a real reason to yet in terms of the conference they're in.

Yes probably only 10-15 teams can actually win a football national title. Pretty much the same most seasons like Clemson, Bama, Auburn, Georgia, Oklahoma, Ohio State, LSU, Notre Dame and a few others. ND State could probably defeat lots of schools in those power five conferences. They beat Iowa a few seasons ago, Kansas St in 2013 and Iowa St in 2014. Not many schools in those power five leagues want to schedule ND State. The Bison are on another level. In the next ten years, I would like to see CUSA, MAC, Sun Belt, MWC and many American Athletic Conference schools join up to form that next tier. ND State would probably win many games vs those teams.

https://www.insidehighered.com/quicktakes/2020/08/14/athl...

"Football has been the biggest driver of athletic revenue in the sector. (FBS institutions) Football contributed $5.8 billion in 2018, a whopping 40 percent of the $14.6 billion in total athletic revenue counted by Moody’s. Growth in revenue has been driven by media rights like the payments television networks make for the right to broadcast games."

"Men’s basketball accounted for about 15 percent of 2018 athletic revenue across higher education. Women’s basketball was 7 percent."

The athletic department is a business. Revenues drive the decisions. To increase the "prominence" of our basketball program beyond it's present state, which IMHO is historically slightly above average among the 350 D1 programs, and peaks once every fifteen years or so, would require a cash infusion that this institution does not have.

Couple that with the lost donor support (read: donations) if we drop to FCS, and this premise is a financial L...O...S...E...R. No offense, but you won't see more donor dollars hit the Foundation coffers if we try to throw in and be the next Butler/Gonzaga, and our program doesn't have the pedigree and infrastructure to sniff that business model. Want to talk about throwing money away and trying to keep up with the Joneses? DOA

I know the basketball lovers here love to hate football, but this institution is far and away better off playing FBS football TODAY and in the future...empirically. If you were making this decision fifty or sixty years ago, then perhaps time would have treated this posit differently. But in the now, this is a non starter.

This is a classical case of cherry-picking. Athletics "revenue" at most institutions outside the 30 or so programs that can fund themselves, have some sort of subsidy in the form of student fees that is counted as "revenue" for the athletics departments.

It's absurd to use Donations to athletics to justify the actual costs. If Donations were substantive enough to justify athletics, then the programs wouldn't need to depend on student fees just to be solvent. Most of the MAC is 70% subsidized by the student body; which therefore means 70% of the "revenue" isn't donations, pay-day games etc.

It's such a scam to present Sport % Revenue as a legitimate argument to keeping up with the jonses. This is EXACTLY why college has become absurdly expensive.

Akron alone collects a $26-million subsidy from it's students. Last time I checked they're running an operational hole of something around $26-million. That subsidy could EASILY be diverted to things that actually matter to students/education. I doubt the loss in donations from Akron Alumni would even be seen on a financial ledger.

https://www.cleveland.com/datacentral/2020/02/why-univers...

The school's track record and numbers just don't show it. At all. If you're going by the word-of-mouth of Fiami alums, take that with a grain of salt. There's no school in America whose people so grossly over inflate their school's reputation, resources and prestige than Miami. The gap between what they think Miami is and what Miami really is i delusional.

Like I said above, smaller endowment than Ohio and smaller SAT scores than OSU. That's the reality of Fiami.