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Ohio Football Topic
Topic: How would you feel if the MAC dropped to FCS?
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Bobcat Love's Sense of Shame
8/26/2020 9:30 AM
BillyTheCat wrote:expand_more
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.
Doesn't our football program lose money though? I don't doubt that football is the biggest revenue driver in college athletics; I just question how much of that revenue we're getting.

And I think the idea of putting football money into basketball and trying to be Butler or Gonzaga is a pre-Covid one. The new reality in higher ed, to me, seems to be about reducing spending where you can reduce spending.

Do NOT confuse "revenue" with "profit"!

I do agree with DA, eliminating FBS football will hurt the University in many ways, and you will not see us become the next anything, other than who we are by jettisoning FBS football. As for us having a leg up, that would be short lived, as we would stop getting the quality of recruits we currently get due to being an FBS school. It's not like recruiting will stay the same.
I'm not confusing those things. In fact I'm pointing out that revenue does not equal profit.

Right now, what are we 'the next' for? From what I said above, isn't it clear that I'm not advocating our becoming the 'next' Butler or Gonzaga?

If anything, I just want to make sure we're not the 'next' state university to close our doors or get folded in with Kent or whatever.
Last Edited: 8/26/2020 9:40:04 AM by Bobcat Love's Sense of Shame
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GoCats105
8/26/2020 9:50 AM
D.A. wrote:expand_more
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.
So basically what you're saying is Ohio (and schools like it) is stuck in this paradigm and has no choice but to accept the fact that we won't ever compete for championships, but boy oh boy we get revenue and notoriety for doing so?

Excuse me while I wave my Ohio pennant while we go 9-3 and squeak out a MAC East championship and Dollar General Bowl trophy (maybe).

I love basketball and don't hate football. I just don't see the point of accepting this fate. Especially if we still don't turn a profit and siphon money from the university's students because of it. Not sure that would end under an FCS regime though either.

You say basketball doesn't have a pedigree. I guess that depends on your interpretation of pedigree but a recent Sweet 16 berth and two MAC Championships in the last decade is a pretty good place to start. And it's a lot easier to start from there than where we were with football, IMO. The difference is football doesn't seem to have an end game other than maybe, just maybe, we'll be good enough one day to reach a Cotton Bowl.

Before Gonzaga, Butler or Xavier made their commitments to high level basketball, what was there pedigree? You have to start somewhere.
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ou79
8/26/2020 9:52 AM
I believe our athletic budget represents less than 3% of the University's total budget. My point is we can crash the entire athletic program and still not put a dent in the overall budget of the University. In other words, if we completely eliminate all athletics so that we do not spend any money on them, we still do not really touch the University's overall budget. Dropping to FCS is actually a bigger dumpster fire than where we are now. And finally, it will not be the athletic budget that causes OUr university to collapse financially and be rolled into something else.
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BillyTheCat
8/26/2020 10:30 AM
Bobcat Love's Sense of Shame wrote:expand_more
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.
Doesn't our football program lose money though? I don't doubt that football is the biggest revenue driver in college athletics; I just question how much of that revenue we're getting.

And I think the idea of putting football money into basketball and trying to be Butler or Gonzaga is a pre-Covid one. The new reality in higher ed, to me, seems to be about reducing spending where you can reduce spending.

Do NOT confuse "revenue" with "profit"!

I do agree with DA, eliminating FBS football will hurt the University in many ways, and you will not see us become the next anything, other than who we are by jettisoning FBS football. As for us having a leg up, that would be short lived, as we would stop getting the quality of recruits we currently get due to being an FBS school. It's not like recruiting will stay the same.
I'm not confusing those things. In fact I'm pointing out that revenue does not equal profit.

Right now, what are we 'the next' for? From what I said above, isn't it clear that I'm not advocating our becoming the 'next' Butler or Gonzaga?

If anything, I just want to make sure we're not the 'next' state university to close our doors or get folded in with Kent or whatever.
I guess you fail to realize that sometimes one can use the quote box and not actually be challenging someone, but more like commenting. I am capable of reading and you clearly say that "revenue does not equal profit", however, I wanted to comment on the post above while also capturing your comments.
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Bobcat Love's Sense of Shame
8/26/2020 11:40 AM
BillyTheCat wrote:expand_more
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.
Doesn't our football program lose money though? I don't doubt that football is the biggest revenue driver in college athletics; I just question how much of that revenue we're getting.

And I think the idea of putting football money into basketball and trying to be Butler or Gonzaga is a pre-Covid one. The new reality in higher ed, to me, seems to be about reducing spending where you can reduce spending.

Do NOT confuse "revenue" with "profit"!

I do agree with DA, eliminating FBS football will hurt the University in many ways, and you will not see us become the next anything, other than who we are by jettisoning FBS football. As for us having a leg up, that would be short lived, as we would stop getting the quality of recruits we currently get due to being an FBS school. It's not like recruiting will stay the same.
I'm not confusing those things. In fact I'm pointing out that revenue does not equal profit.

Right now, what are we 'the next' for? From what I said above, isn't it clear that I'm not advocating our becoming the 'next' Butler or Gonzaga?

If anything, I just want to make sure we're not the 'next' state university to close our doors or get folded in with Kent or whatever.
I guess you fail to realize that sometimes one can use the quote box and not actually be challenging someone, but more like commenting. I am capable of reading and you clearly say that "revenue does not equal profit", however, I wanted to comment on the post above while also capturing your comments.
Fair enough. Wasn't clear to me that you were replying to DA.
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TWT
8/26/2020 11:41 AM
GoCats105 wrote:expand_more
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.
So basically what you're saying is Ohio (and schools like it) is stuck in this paradigm and has no choice but to accept the fact that we won't ever compete for championships, but boy oh boy we get revenue and notoriety for doing so?

Excuse me while I wave my Ohio pennant while we go 9-3 and squeak out a MAC East championship and Dollar General Bowl trophy (maybe).

I love basketball and don't hate football. I just don't see the point of accepting this fate. Especially if we still don't turn a profit and siphon money from the university's students because of it. Not sure that would end under an FCS regime though either.

You say basketball doesn't have a pedigree. I guess that depends on your interpretation of pedigree but a recent Sweet 16 berth and two MAC Championships in the last decade is a pretty good place to start. And it's a lot easier to start from there than where we were with football, IMO. The difference is football doesn't seem to have an end game other than maybe, just maybe, we'll be good enough one day to reach a Cotton Bowl.

Before Gonzaga, Butler or Xavier made their commitments to high level basketball, what was there pedigree? You have to start somewhere.
I can't believe we are having a conversation about increasing athletic spending in any area at all in light of the pandemic.

We will be lucky to hold onto what we have. That should be priority.
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L.C.
8/26/2020 12:41 PM
Bobcat Love's Sense of Shame wrote:expand_more
Doesn't our football program lose money though? ... [/QUOTE]
I think partly that's a cost accounting question. If you have a football team, you have to also have multiple women's sports to keep the number of athletic participants and scholarships equal by gender. Do you charge those women's scholarships to football? If so, football loses money for sure. If not, it's a much closer question. Certainly it's true that if you cancel football entirely, you can also cancel the women's sports, and indeed, you need to to keep the numbers equal, so maybe they should be charged to football.

....
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....

What about using non-athletic donations to justify the costs of football? As I have shown many times over the years, there is a strong correlation between general endowment fund growth and football success. Years ago, that wasn't true, but in recent years, a few select colleges have had solid endowment growth who are not football powers, but their numbers are few, and they are primarily limited to Ivy league schools, plus a few select others like UC, MIT, and Cal Tech. Most of the schools with rapid growth in their endowments, however, have been P5 schools.

Is it because schools with lots of money flowing into endowment can afford P5 football? Is it because football success creates better connection to alums, who in turn boost giving? Is it a coincidence? When you have a correlation, you don't necessarily have causation, but whether athletics does boost general giving or not, I do believe that the reason Universities continue to fund FBS football is because they believe it boosts general giving. How do you feel whan an Ohio alum becomes and OSU football fan, and ends up donating to their general fund?

[QUOTE=ou79] I believe our athletic budget represents less than 3% of the University's total budget. My point is we can crash the entire athletic program and still not put a dent in the overall budget of the University. In other words, if we completely eliminate all athletics so that we do not spend any money on them, we still do not really touch the University's overall budget. Dropping to FCS is actually a bigger dumpster fire than where we are now. And finally, it will not be the athletic budget that causes OUr university to collapse financially and be rolled into something else.

If you decrease expenses 3%, but general giving falls, it may make things worse, not better.
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Bobcat1996
8/26/2020 3:00 PM
GoCats105 wrote:expand_more
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.
So basically what you're saying is Ohio (and schools like it) is stuck in this paradigm and has no choice but to accept the fact that we won't ever compete for championships, but boy oh boy we get revenue and notoriety for doing so?

Excuse me while I wave my Ohio pennant while we go 9-3 and squeak out a MAC East championship and Dollar General Bowl trophy (maybe).

I love basketball and don't hate football. I just don't see the point of accepting this fate. Especially if we still don't turn a profit and siphon money from the university's students because of it. Not sure that would end under an FCS regime though either.

You say basketball doesn't have a pedigree. I guess that depends on your interpretation of pedigree but a recent Sweet 16 berth and two MAC Championships in the last decade is a pretty good place to start. And it's a lot easier to start from there than where we were with football, IMO. The difference is football doesn't seem to have an end game other than maybe, just maybe, we'll be good enough one day to reach a Cotton Bowl.

Before Gonzaga, Butler or Xavier made their commitments to high level basketball, what was there pedigree? You have to start somewhere.
Basketball does have a pedigree, but those two MAC tourney championships and sweet 16 appearances are after being given a second chance. The sweet 16 season was a great year, but the Bobcats were 11-5 in the MAC to finish 3rd place in the East that year. Football doesn't get a chance for a second opportunity. Ohio would not have played in any NCAA tourney games since Larry Hunter was coach if not for the second chance opportunities in the MAC tournament. Football and basketball have a different set of rules. One could argue that over the past three seasons, if the Bobcats were given a second chance, then maybe they would have ended up as MAC champion. I could be one of the few that thinks a MAC title doesn't define the season. It is important, but it doesn't define the season.
Last Edited: 8/26/2020 3:03:02 PM by Bobcat1996
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Bobcat Love's Sense of Shame
8/26/2020 5:25 PM
Bobcat1996 wrote:expand_more
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.
So basically what you're saying is Ohio (and schools like it) is stuck in this paradigm and has no choice but to accept the fact that we won't ever compete for championships, but boy oh boy we get revenue and notoriety for doing so?

Excuse me while I wave my Ohio pennant while we go 9-3 and squeak out a MAC East championship and Dollar General Bowl trophy (maybe).

I love basketball and don't hate football. I just don't see the point of accepting this fate. Especially if we still don't turn a profit and siphon money from the university's students because of it. Not sure that would end under an FCS regime though either.

You say basketball doesn't have a pedigree. I guess that depends on your interpretation of pedigree but a recent Sweet 16 berth and two MAC Championships in the last decade is a pretty good place to start. And it's a lot easier to start from there than where we were with football, IMO. The difference is football doesn't seem to have an end game other than maybe, just maybe, we'll be good enough one day to reach a Cotton Bowl.

Before Gonzaga, Butler or Xavier made their commitments to high level basketball, what was there pedigree? You have to start somewhere.
Basketball does have a pedigree, but those two MAC tourney championships and sweet 16 appearances are after being given a second chance. The sweet 16 season was a great year, but the Bobcats were 11-5 in the MAC to finish 3rd place in the East that year. Football doesn't get a chance for a second opportunity. Ohio would not have played in any NCAA tourney games since Larry Hunter was coach if not for the second chance opportunities in the MAC tournament. Football and basketball have a different set of rules. One could argue that over the past three seasons, if the Bobcats were given a second chance, then maybe they would have ended up as MAC champion. I could be one of the few that thinks a MAC title doesn't define the season. It is important, but it doesn't define the season.
This is another great argument against investing in FBS football. FCS football has more in common with basketball, from a structural standpoint, right?

I think the basic point a lot of folks make is that our basketball team competes at the exact same level as Duke and Kentucky and UNC. We're not as good as them. They have way more resources. But if we have a good basketball season, we get to play UNC in a game with very real stakes.

Whereas with football, we simply aren't in the same division as Clemson, Ohio State, and the like. We could go 28-O over the course of two seasons and still not be guaranteed a playoff spot. In football, to compete for a national championship. perfection literally isn't enough.

In basketball, we can go 11-5 in the league and end up one of the last 16 teams standing and take UNC to overtime.
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TWT
8/26/2020 7:12 PM
The justification for Ohio spending even what it does is because its in a G5 conference. It's in a next 5 conferences after the P5.

The Colonial FCS model would mean every Bobcat sport would see a large spending cut in line with our new FCS peers.

As a basketball program out of a rural area the best Ohio can do is 2010-2015 period, averaging 24-25 counting wins in the post season tournaments and stay annually Top 3 in the MAC. The situation right now is perfect because it allows for spending up some to attract a high quality mid major coach. Stay among the Top 3 in a Top 8-10 basketball conference.

But we are what we are athletically due to the fact we play in a G5 conference. You can say the same thing about West Virginia in a P5. Without that status it wouldn't be the same level of program. 50 years ago WVU very easily could have ended up a MAC school under different leadership that didn't want to grow.
Last Edited: 8/26/2020 7:16:38 PM by TWT
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GoCats105
8/27/2020 10:18 AM
I feel like this is relevant.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PKIpCPS-oZc
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Flat Tire
8/27/2020 12:15 PM
Club Hyatt wrote:expand_more
The justification for Ohio spending even what it does is because its in a G5 conference. It's in a next 5 conferences after the P5.

The Colonial FCS model would mean every Bobcat sport would see a large spending cut in line with our new FCS peers.

As a basketball program out of a rural area the best Ohio can do is 2010-2015 period, averaging 24-25 counting wins in the post season tournaments and stay annually Top 3 in the MAC. The situation right now is perfect because it allows for spending up some to attract a high quality mid major coach. Stay among the Top 3 in a Top 8-10 basketball conference.

But we are what we are athletically due to the fact we play in a G5 conference. You can say the same thing about West Virginia in a P5. Without that status it wouldn't be the same level of program. 50 years ago WVU very easily could have ended up a MAC school under different leadership that didn't want to grow.
No offense, but stating that WVU could have ended up in The MAC 50 years ago is not true. WVU football was part of the Big 4 that included annual games with Pitt; Penn State and Syracuse. WVU basketball was an independent, but they opened the WVU Colisem during that period. WVU wouldn't opened a 14,000 arena to play in The MAC. I know WVU played some basketball games with Ohio during this period, but it result of being an independent.
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Alan Swank
8/27/2020 8:28 PM
Flat Tire wrote:expand_more
The justification for Ohio spending even what it does is because its in a G5 conference. It's in a next 5 conferences after the P5.

The Colonial FCS model would mean every Bobcat sport would see a large spending cut in line with our new FCS peers.

As a basketball program out of a rural area the best Ohio can do is 2010-2015 period, averaging 24-25 counting wins in the post season tournaments and stay annually Top 3 in the MAC. The situation right now is perfect because it allows for spending up some to attract a high quality mid major coach. Stay among the Top 3 in a Top 8-10 basketball conference.

But we are what we are athletically due to the fact we play in a G5 conference. You can say the same thing about West Virginia in a P5. Without that status it wouldn't be the same level of program. 50 years ago WVU very easily could have ended up a MAC school under different leadership that didn't want to grow.
No offense, but stating that WVU could have ended up in The MAC 50 years ago is not true. WVU football was part of the Big 4 that included annual games with Pitt; Penn State and Syracuse. WVU basketball was an independent, but they opened the WVU Colisem during that period. WVU wouldn't opened a 14,000 arena to play in The MAC. I know WVU played some basketball games with Ohio during this period, but it result of being an independent.
I'll go a step further. We are not an 8 to 10 conference. It's more like 11 to 14. As for being top 3 in the MAC in basketball, we would probably be a 5 or 6 over the last 8 years.
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Jeff McKinney
8/27/2020 10:08 PM
We've had a couple seasons recently in the 8 to 10 range. Normally, we are 11 or 12. Which isn't bad considering that there are 32 leagues.
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TWT
8/28/2020 8:29 AM
Right. You could say at that present moment the MAC isn't really Top 8-10 in basketball. In some sports however it is.

But I don't think there is potential to become a one seed type program in basketball, regardless at how much money is thrown at it. For one there is no history of blue chip recruiting like Memphis where if they could just get their act together they could have a really good team.

The only difference between Ohio and the other rural universities that play in the MAC is that 1) A more impressive arena. 2) A more impressive college town. The edge is there to stay near the top of the MAC or a MAC like conference but it doesn't translate into success into a Top 5 basketball conference.

The potential is there to be a very good mid-major program winning 25 games a year and making tourney runs but its not an elite program waiting in the wings. Yes some modest advantages but not a major one like 20 million a year from FedEx or located in the hottest recruiting city in the country.
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TWT
8/28/2020 9:40 AM
GoCats105 wrote:expand_more
North Dakota State arguably has a more relevant program than Ohio and is in the FCS. Stop making it seem like a move down is a death nail to this program. You can make a successful program at that level and most teams in the MAC would automatically have a leg up on the rest if they moved down.
I'll throw out 4 profiles and see if you can guess which is which.

Profile #1
Stadium: 31,000
Arena: 9,000
Endowment: $400 million

Profile #2
Stadium: 26,000
Arena: 8,500
Endowment: $450 million

Profile #3
Stadium: 27,000
Arena: 13,000
Endowment: $600 million

Profile #4
Stadium: 10,000
Arena: 5,000
Endowment: $106 million

Profile #1 if you guessed it right is an average G5 profile. Profile #2 is the average MAC profile, slightly lower on facilities and slightly higher on endowment. Profile #3 is Ohio's profile which is slightly higher on average than the MAC and G5.

Profile #4 is the average, scholarship FCS program profile. This is the subdivision you aspire to move to. There is not one FCS program that has a 27,000 stadium, 13,000 arena and a $600 million dollar endowment. Overall the university doesn't belong in that grouping.

This is not even throwing in the intangibles such as status as a major state university, academic tradition that doesn't make FCS universities as a whole peers.
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Chris Galloway
8/29/2020 1:08 PM
How would I feel? Disappointed and angry.

How would it affect me? I would attend one or two games a year - no more season tickets. I would stop following the team closely. I would shift to being a fan of a P5 team. Probably UNC because of a number of personal and familial relationships.

No more money game trips like to UT. No more bowl games. My relationship to the university would drift. No doubt about it.
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Bobcat Love's Sense of Shame
8/29/2020 1:16 PM
Chris Galloway wrote:expand_more
How would I feel? Disappointed and angry.

How would it affect me? I would attend one or two games a year - no more season tickets. I would stop following the team closely. I would shift to being a fan of a P5 team. Probably UNC because of a number of personal and familial relationships.

No more money game trips like to UT. No more bowl games. My relationship to the university would drift. No doubt about it.
In the scenario posed, the whole MAC is coming along to FCS, right? So you but season tickets to see Ohio play Kent, Miami, BG, etc. solely because they're FBS schools? The schools on our schedule year to year would be identical. We'd be playing for the same thing -- a MAC championship. The only difference would be that we might go to a tournament at the end of the season to play for a national championship, instead of a bowl game to determine if we're better than the Sun Belt.

Also, as pointed out, FCS teams play P5 teams all the time. Why would that change?
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Alan Swank
8/29/2020 1:49 PM
Chris Galloway wrote:expand_more
How would I feel? Disappointed and angry.

How would it affect me? I would attend one or two games a year - no more season tickets. I would stop following the team closely. I would shift to being a fan of a P5 team. Probably UNC because of a number of personal and familial relationships.

No more money game trips like to UT. No more bowl games. My relationship to the university would drift. No doubt about it.
I'm curious as to why?
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Pataskala
8/29/2020 2:05 PM
Bobcat Love's Sense of Shame wrote:expand_more
How would I feel? Disappointed and angry.

How would it affect me? I would attend one or two games a year - no more season tickets. I would stop following the team closely. I would shift to being a fan of a P5 team. Probably UNC because of a number of personal and familial relationships.

No more money game trips like to UT. No more bowl games. My relationship to the university would drift. No doubt about it.
In the scenario posed, the whole MAC is coming along to FCS, right? So you but season tickets to see Ohio play Kent, Miami, BG, etc. solely because they're FBS schools? The schools on our schedule year to year would be identical. We'd be playing for the same thing -- a MAC championship. The only difference would be that we might go to a tournament at the end of the season to play for a national championship, instead of a bowl game to determine if we're better than the Sun Belt.

Also, as pointed out, FCS teams play P5 teams all the time. Why would that change?
Except that even if we were to get into the MACCG at the 1AA level, we wouldn't be guaranteed a post-season game. In 1AA, conference champs fill up the ten automatic berths to the playoff, with the other 14 teams chosen by a selection committee based on nine criteria, one of which is input from a regional advisory committee (https://wwwcache.ncaa.com/news/football/article/2020-01-1... ). It can be pretty subjective. Last year more than 20 1AA teams with winning records didn't make the playoff. I think the last time we had a winning record and didn't go to a bowl game was during the Jim Grobe era.
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Bobcat1996
8/29/2020 2:35 PM
If the Bobcats were to drop a division, then no more Pitt, Iowa State, Minnesota or Kansas visiting Peden. Wouldn't be playing Penn State in Happy Valley or Ohio State in the shoe. Doubt Marshall home or away would be played. Throw in no more trips to Northwestern and others. The UC Bearcats wouldn't be on the schedule. Let's turn the table and ask how would Bobcat hoops fans feel about playing a schedule full of Detroit, Morehead St., Cleveland St., IUPUI, Youngstown, Oakland, Tenn. Tech, UT Martin, Lehigh, VMI, High Point, Evansville and Drexel on top of the regular MAC schools? No more Purdue or back in the day, Kentucky Wildcats playing in the Convo. It doesn't happen every season, but it is nice to play a larger "name" school in Athens in both basketball and football.
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Alan Swank
8/29/2020 6:15 PM
Pataskala wrote:expand_more
How would I feel? Disappointed and angry.

How would it affect me? I would attend one or two games a year - no more season tickets. I would stop following the team closely. I would shift to being a fan of a P5 team. Probably UNC because of a number of personal and familial relationships.

No more money game trips like to UT. No more bowl games. My relationship to the university would drift. No doubt about it.
In the scenario posed, the whole MAC is coming along to FCS, right? So you but season tickets to see Ohio play Kent, Miami, BG, etc. solely because they're FBS schools? The schools on our schedule year to year would be identical. We'd be playing for the same thing -- a MAC championship. The only difference would be that we might go to a tournament at the end of the season to play for a national championship, instead of a bowl game to determine if we're better than the Sun Belt.

Also, as pointed out, FCS teams play P5 teams all the time. Why would that change?
Except that even if we were to get into the MACCG at the 1AA level, we wouldn't be guaranteed a post-season game. In 1AA, conference champs fill up the ten automatic berths to the playoff, with the other 14 teams chosen by a selection committee based on nine criteria, one of which is input from a regional advisory committee (https://wwwcache.ncaa.com/news/football/article/2020-01-1... ). It can be pretty subjective. Last year more than 20 1AA teams with winning records didn't make the playoff. I think the last time we had a winning record and didn't go to a bowl game was during the Jim Grobe era.
A "bowl" game for finishing .500 and being included in a tournament that leads to a national championship is as different as night and day.
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TWT
8/29/2020 8:18 PM
Bobcat Love's Sense of Shame wrote:expand_more
How would I feel? Disappointed and angry.

How would it affect me? I would attend one or two games a year - no more season tickets. I would stop following the team closely. I would shift to being a fan of a P5 team. Probably UNC because of a number of personal and familial relationships.

No more money game trips like to UT. No more bowl games. My relationship to the university would drift. No doubt about it.
In the scenario posed, the whole MAC is coming along to FCS, right? So you but season tickets to see Ohio play Kent, Miami, BG, etc. solely because they're FBS schools? The schools on our schedule year to year would be identical. We'd be playing for the same thing -- a MAC championship. The only difference would be that we might go to a tournament at the end of the season to play for a national championship, instead of a bowl game to determine if we're better than the Sun Belt.

Also, as pointed out, FCS teams play P5 teams all the time. Why would that change?
The sport is moving toward the P5 playing more conference games to help their smaller drawing programs at the gate. Less G5 games and very few FCS games.

But I would be canceling my season tickets with a move to FCS would mark the end of advancing the university through athletics. Department would downsize as a result and cut more sports to get down to the D1 minimum.

Again I can't see it after spending the past 75 years to try to compete at the major conference level, between building The Convo, investing in football ect. That OU would raise the white flag and voluntarily move down but that is what it would be.
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Bobcat1996
8/29/2020 9:10 PM
Many Bobcat fans appreciate the fact that Ohio gets matched up in a bowl vs ECU, Southern Miss, Nevada or SD State. Is this any different than Ohio hoops playing Albany, VMI, Morehead or Cleveland St in the CBI/CIT? Basketball is much different than football as they get a second chance or a second season to move on. No MAC football team that ends up as a nine seed in the regular season gets an opportunity for post season play. Also many Bobcat alums and fans travel to see the Cats play at Ohio State, Pitt, Penn State and Purdue in football. Doubt as many take the road to see Ohio play at N Iowa, Illinois St. or Western Illinois. The interest won't be the same and the contributions will not be the same. Wouldn't this hurt all athletic programs at Ohio? Some sports wouldn't exist. What are the chances of a W. Illinois-Ohio game in Peden attracting the same 25,000 crowd that a Marshall- Bobcat game attracts?
Last Edited: 8/29/2020 9:16:45 PM by Bobcat1996
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Pataskala
8/30/2020 12:47 AM
Alan Swank wrote:expand_more
How would I feel? Disappointed and angry.

How would it affect me? I would attend one or two games a year - no more season tickets. I would stop following the team closely. I would shift to being a fan of a P5 team. Probably UNC because of a number of personal and familial relationships.

No more money game trips like to UT. No more bowl games. My relationship to the university would drift. No doubt about it.
In the scenario posed, the whole MAC is coming along to FCS, right? So you but season tickets to see Ohio play Kent, Miami, BG, etc. solely because they're FBS schools? The schools on our schedule year to year would be identical. We'd be playing for the same thing -- a MAC championship. The only difference would be that we might go to a tournament at the end of the season to play for a national championship, instead of a bowl game to determine if we're better than the Sun Belt.

Also, as pointed out, FCS teams play P5 teams all the time. Why would that change?
Except that even if we were to get into the MACCG at the 1AA level, we wouldn't be guaranteed a post-season game. In 1AA, conference champs fill up the ten automatic berths to the playoff, with the other 14 teams chosen by a selection committee based on nine criteria, one of which is input from a regional advisory committee (https://wwwcache.ncaa.com/news/football/article/2020-01-1... ). It can be pretty subjective. Last year more than 20 1AA teams with winning records didn't make the playoff. I think the last time we had a winning record and didn't go to a bowl game was during the Jim Grobe era.
A "bowl" game for finishing .500 and being included in a tournament that leads to a national championship is as different as night and day.
What you're talking about is an "opportunity" to get in a playoff. That opportunity may be slim. Ohio would either have to win the MAC title (which, as we know, hasn't happened in 52 years) or otherwise finish in the top 24 teams in 1AA (out of 119, if the MAC dropped to 1AA, in conferences that compete in the playoff). In order to have a real chance at getting into the 1AA playoff a team needs to win at least eight games; last year three seven-win teams made it while more than 20 didn't; six eight-win teams were in while only two were out. To win at least eight games in 1AA Ohio would need to improve in the MAC. Over the past eight years, Ohio has been 5-3 three times, 4-4 three times and 6-2 only twice. That means Ohio would have to win at least two or three OOC games to even have a chance at a playoff. Even then, getting into the playoff would be up to the selection committee. About half the current 1AA teams (53) haven't made the playoffs once in the last five years.

And even though we haven't lost to a 1AA team in the Solich era, that's largely because (a) we've played them all at home and (b) we have a 20 schollie edge over 1AA opponents. Both of those advantages would go away if we dropped to 1AA. And even with those advantages, we struggled against several 1AA teams.

I think most players would rather play in a post-season bowl game practically every year than sit at home in December half the time or more.
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