Said it before and will say it again, going FCS makes more sense than staying FBS. Remember talking with someone who said our TV contract is the reason why we're still up, but that point is becoming more moot by the second. Yeah, we get a million off of it, but we save over 1.2 in scholarships alone at minimum if we went FCS.......

Could careless about the championship (though it would be awesome to go into the FCS playoffs). Then again, I think we would be in for a rude awakening among some of the FCS schools.....

I'm sure there are good and legitimate arguments for both staying put, and dropping to FCS. In the long run, I think it's a matter of dollars. And no matter how you slice it, 2020-21 is going to be a tough year financially for all MAC schools and their corresponding Athletic Departments. If dropping to FCS saves money, it's more likely to happen now than ever.

https://www.toledoblade.com/college/2020/04/18/ncaa-cutti...

Maybe it's time to trade that 1AA home game for an additional money game at a "P" team, at least for a few years. It would mean giving up an almost sure win, but it might be more attractive to recruits if we could play another game at a "P" team every year (and maybe pull off an upset once in a while) instead of having Gardner-Webb, Fordham, LIU and Morgan St over the next few years.

Akron's president announced today that their athletic program will be "much smaller and leaner," beginning with a 20% budget cut in FY 21.

With Arkley gone and the ANews reporter headed to Cleveland, we'll probably hear about those cuts on here first.

I have a feeling the MAC and other non-P5 schools get hit the most. In a weird sort of way I heard from a fair amount of the Higher Ed spectrum this week and although sports certainly wasn't the focus of our conversation, it did play a part. An administrator from a MAC school told me certain schools are staring at problems they tried to put off for years; athletics can't escape some serious pruning. I heard the same from a Division III school. Yet, an Ohio 5 school administrator told me they aren't facing a single cutback. As a matter of some of their school's elite families were giving their room and board refunds to the university to help those students who are stuck.

One of the administrator's I mentioned, said they they heard from a colleague that the Power 5 schools are looking at this as a further way to distance themselves athletically from any upstart non-Power 5 schools intent on trying to make a statement. Finally one administrator jokingly told me that if Harvard would part with 10% of it's 40 billion dollar endowment, it could go a very long way in helping many small colleges and universities, along with some MAC schools in this state.

I think that long term the MAC will become an FCS conference--maybe a few teams will depart, maybe not. The MAC is already a second class citizen in FBS and that situation will not get any better. The only thing that would make me consider staying longer is the impact of the TV contract. While it may be a wash overall financially, I can't help but think that this doesn't take into consideration the advertising benefits it gives the university.

At that point, my 'dream' scenario was that we'd join the Colonial. Putting aside, of course, that Ohio was not a colony, I feel like the schools in that conference match what we are well. Few are their states flagship schools, and those that are (Delaware, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Maine) are much smaller. It's also a really strong conference for football. But as you and somebody else a long time ago pointed out, the travel expenses would likely be a lot higher. Getting to Maine ain't easy, even if it only happens every other year.

You lose the savings on scholarship with the travel associated to that league.

I know one easy way to cut our football budget: Quit housing our team in a local hotel prior to home games. That's like 20-30K per game right there.