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Post by thecrossisback on Nov 24, 2018 22:54:55 GMT -5
Watched a lot of the so called rivalry games today, Most were blowouts, another reason, I think the BC rivalry should be continued. Why does BC continue to play Umass, blow them out and get a smaller crowd than when they play Holy Cross? Also HC has to call up Umass and start scheduling them. Would draw well. As for FCS, fine, start to win the PL, compete in the playoffs and then move up.
UTEP is FBS, they play in a 51,000 seat stadium and their attendance is 17,271 19,412 12,809 10,787 9,690 14,962 Move up to where - 1A? You're joking right? Absolutely not joking, eventually and hopefully we would move up. FCS might not be around forever. FBS, might be the only option to continue having football in D1. Also, we would not be the first team to move up.
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Post by A Clock Tower Purple on Nov 24, 2018 23:06:27 GMT -5
Yeah - I'm well aware other schools have made the jump. You're delusional if you think HC ever would.
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Post by timholycross on Nov 25, 2018 8:53:41 GMT -5
0% possibility of a school like HC with 2,900 students returning to a 85-90 scholarship program with expanded coaching and support staffs, which is what FBS is even at the lower levels of it.
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Post by nycrusader2010 on Nov 25, 2018 9:49:03 GMT -5
Move up to where - 1A? You're joking right? Absolutely not joking, eventually and hopefully we would move up. FCS might not be around forever. FBS, might be the only option to continue having football in D1. Also, we would not be the first team to move up. HC87 isn't right about EVERYTHING. The FCS level is doing just fine despite a number of marquee programs moving up to FBS over the past 20 years. Just because attendance is down in the Northeast doesn't mean our region is a bell-weather for how FCS football is doing nationally. A number of startup programs down south are already doing extremely well on the field AND filling stadiums. Rabid fan bases in Montana and the Dakotas aren't going anywhere. JMU is drawing 20,000+ per game despite being on the same stretch of interstate of UVA, Virginia Tech and Liberty. William & Mary just expanded their stadium after the installation of permanent lights a decade ago sent ticket sales soaring.
As far as FBS being the only option, I think you might start to see more schools move DOWN from FBS than up in coming years as the G5 is becoming over-saturated. Idaho moved down to the Big Sky this year rather than try to wing it as an FBS independent (they had recently lost their spot as a football-only member of the Sun Belch). UMass SHOULD come back -- MAC was a decent landing spot for their program but the league decided to hold the UMass basketball program hostage and kicked the Minutemen out when they refused to join for all sports. Unless you are a service academy or a cult-like religious institution, life as an FBS independent is not a place to be. At the time, in 1999, I thought the I-A move was the right one for UConn but obviously many dominoes fell in a way that marginalized them and left them on the outside looking in as far as football is concerned -- all the while costing them Big East basketball membership.
Also, as far as the profile of schools that move up from FCS to FBS, it's less about on-field success or program history than it is about school size, geographic location and existing affiliation with existing FBS conferences. Many of these programs went from scratch to playing FBS football over the span of 3-4 years and were only I-AA/FCS for a couple years during a token transition period.
I'll give you the list of schools that have made "the jump" since 1999. I wonder how closely we "fit" as a college with these other schools:
Marshall, Buffalo, Middle Tennessee, UConn, UMass, Georgia Southern, Georgia State, Charlotte, South Alabama, Texas State-San Marcos, Florida Atlantic, Florida International, Western Kentucky, South Alabama, Old Dominion, Texas-San Antonio, Appalachian State, Troy, Coastal Carolina
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Post by thecrossisback on Nov 25, 2018 11:03:26 GMT -5
One problem with FCS is the playoff format is not regional. Maine got a home game and they play the winner of two southern schools. Who is going to that game? If Colgate wins they have to travel to North Dakota St. How many Colgate fans are either going to travel or watch the game online? Now if they played a big name school people might travel. Nobody is going to travel to watch a northeast team play Eastern Tennessee or Portland St.
NY mentioned teams in Montana and North Dakota, what the heck else is there for those people to do. HC is in a market that competes with NFL, BC, Umass. How do you draw fans when you play a playoff game vs Montana st
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Post by Non Alum Dave on Nov 25, 2018 11:21:02 GMT -5
I don't see how level FBS football pushes the needle much, imho. I've seen plenty of MAC games - most of the time empty seats far outnumber filled ones.....and they are playing in stadiums fairly comparable to Fitton in terms of size.
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Post by WCHC Sports on Nov 26, 2018 12:09:03 GMT -5
League affiliation is not hurting our success as much as it is our own investment and commitments. I've said it regarding basketball a number of times: you can't complain about the league unless you are dominating the league, year in and year out, losing only maybe one or two games a season. We'd have to be tired of decimating the competition to be justified in screaming to leave the PL in either football or basketball. Instead, we are hopeful for a record above .500.
Attendance and popularity will be successful more broadly if the team wins, and the team plays local competition. HC, and I surmise most of the PL teams not Lehigh/Lafayette match ups, don't have success with both of those requirements.
The teams that draw well are in the FBS and are in the top 1 or 2 categories that DFW Hoya outlined above. Their position in those categories allows them to draw fans and attention successfully almost regardless of opponent and record. Notre Dame can play the Little Sisters of the Poor B team and still sell out and have the game nationally televised on NBC.
Holy Cross Football has to be happy with what it has, or what it can reasonably attain. Screaming to go FBS to go play Alabama and compete without embarrassing itself will never happen. Even other FBS teams are struggling with that (noting prior posters' comments on the top-heavy nature of FBS).
The question at the end of the day is, what do you want? I want to win. We're not doing that in the PL. We won't do that anywhere else unless we address those problems in the PL first. Changing leagues only gives us a new set of headaches to attend to, and distract us from core issues of coaching, investment, recruiting, developing recruits, recruiting some more, and fan engagement/outreach to sell asses in seats.
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Post by Chu Chu on Nov 26, 2018 14:24:05 GMT -5
Amen. Well said!
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Post by nycrusader2010 on Nov 26, 2018 20:45:26 GMT -5
One problem with FCS is the playoff format is not regional. Maine got a home game and they play the winner of two southern schools. Who is going to that game? If Colgate wins they have to travel to North Dakota St. How many Colgate fans are either going to travel or watch the game online? Now if they played a big name school people might travel. Nobody is going to travel to watch a northeast team play Eastern Tennessee or Portland St. NY mentioned teams in Montana and North Dakota, what the heck else is there for those people to do. HC is in a market that competes with NFL, BC, Umass. How do you draw fans when you play a playoff game vs Montana st You are absolutely right that FCS playoff attendance figures tend to be quite underwhelming in many locations during the early rounds. The Grambling-Southern game actually outdrew the entire outbracket round of the playoffs this Saturday. It may seem surprising but the FCS playoff format IS indeed set up regionally. Only NCAA tourneys to be nationally seeded are men's and women's basketball. After the top 8 seeds are laid out, the remainder of the bracket is constructed in a way that the NCAA minimizes flights. Orono, Maine is such a remote location that just about any Patriot, NEC or CAA school would have to fly there anyway based on the 400-mile rule -- might as well pair them with a southern school. In fact, if you ever go on the AGS site, alumni of Missouri Valley Conference schools complain about the regionalization of the bracket ad nauseum. A nationally seeded FCS playoff would be totally unrealistic for many of the reasons you touched on. Hence North Dakota State and South Dakota State meet almost every year by the Round of 8 at the latest (an all-Dakota or Dakota-Montana championship match-up on ESPN might not get great ratings as you'd imagine). If you look at the entire history of opening or Round of 16 games for Patriot League teams, you'll see that almost all of them were against the CAA. A hypothetical HC-Montana State playoff game wouldn't happen until the semis or Frisco in all likelihood. As far as Colgate-NDSU, I would imagine most Red Raider alum would tune into the game online, considering the Bison are the Alabama of our level and then some -- the gold standard. Will many travel? No -- but NDSU is one case where they are a given to sell out against anyone. Whole state will be clamoring for postseason tix.
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Post by hcpride on Nov 26, 2018 21:22:18 GMT -5
As much as one or perhaps two posters on Crossports have a strong dislike for the FCS playoffs, I wonder if the folks at Colgate feel the same way. Attendance v JMU may give us a hint (Colgate v HC was 5300 on a lovely sunny and 74 degree day, Lafayette was 7700 in pretty nice weather, long time rival Cornell 3100 on a cold day, and Georgetown 1800 on an even colder day).
Weather (long range forecast) looks to be about the same as the Georgetown game (a cold and cloudy 36 degrees or so.)
Stadium holds about 10K.
(I would note that FCS playoffs are not alone in occasionally producing underwhelming attendance)
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Post by hc87 on Nov 26, 2018 21:35:49 GMT -5
I'd be shocked if Colgate had more than 5K on Saturday. Hamilton is so remote, undah-populated etc...they've never really had a "subway-alumni" following in that area that HC once did and still kinda does in CMass.
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Post by nycrusader2010 on Nov 26, 2018 21:43:41 GMT -5
I predict somewhere in the 3,500 range for 'Gate-JMU.
Four factors keep FCS attendance figures low:
1) NCAA gets a cut of the gate so there are no inflated numbers i.e. youth giveaways and promotions that increase the body count during the regular season. 2) Cold weather where applicable -- basically anywhere that's not a dome (NDSU, UNI, ETSU), somewhere in California or in the VERY deep south. 3) The need for fans to clear their schedule on a week's notice. Your team might be playing at home. They might be playing in a state with three electoral votes 2,500 miles away in a small city that required 1-2 flight connections. They also might get eliminated and not play at all. In comparison, I had the BC game this year marked on my calendar for almost half the time that I've been an alum. My entire extended family has been discussing next year's game in Annapolis for over three years (grandfather was USNA '51). 4) Holidays - the old Round of 16 used to fall Thanksgiving weekend and now the play-in round does. These games do not draw well. Not to mention the rest of the postseason is played in December when people have travel plans, holiday parties, year-end corporate events, Christmas shopping and other family oriented things on the agenda.
Many of the lower-level FBS bowls have similar attendance problems to the point where the figures aren't even published in box scores they are so embarrassing. And these are games held in warmer locations for the most part like The Bahamas, St. Petersburg, Santa Clara, Mobile and Orlando. The other thing the bowls have going for them is that fans have anywhere from 2 weeks to 50 days to plan their bowl trip.
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Post by CHC8485 on Nov 26, 2018 21:59:06 GMT -5
November 29, 2003 - Hamilton, NY. Cogate vs. UMass Temperature: 28 Wind: 15 MPH W Weather:Snow
Attendance 4197
Given the general decline in fan interest, a less "local" opponent, but slightly better weather forcast than 2003, I'd say all involved will be thrilled with 3500 - 4000. Hope they do better.
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Post by richh on Nov 26, 2018 22:11:28 GMT -5
Absolutely not joking, eventually and hopefully we would move up. FCS might not be around forever. FBS, might be the only option to continue having football in D1. Also, we would not be the first team to move up. HC87 isn't right about EVERYTHING. The FCS level is doing just fine despite a number of marquee programs moving up to FBS over the past 20 years. Just because attendance is down in the Northeast doesn't mean our region is a bell-weather for how FCS football is doing nationally. A number of startup programs down south are already doing extremely well on the field AND filling stadiums. Rabid fan bases in Montana and the Dakotas aren't going anywhere. JMU is drawing 20,000+ per game despite being on the same stretch of interstate of UVA, Virginia Tech and Liberty. William & Mary just expanded their stadium after the installation of permanent lights a decade ago sent ticket sales soaring.
As far as FBS being the only option, I think you might start to see more schools move DOWN from FBS than up in coming years as the G5 is becoming over-saturated. Idaho moved down to the Big Sky this year rather than try to wing it as an FBS independent (they had recently lost their spot as a football-only member of the Sun Belch). UMass SHOULD come back -- MAC was a decent landing spot for their program but the league decided to hold the UMass basketball program hostage and kicked the Minutemen out when they refused to join for all sports. Unless you are a service academy or a cult-like religious institution, life as an FBS independent is not a place to be. At the time, in 1999, I thought the I-A move was the right one for UConn but obviously many dominoes fell in a way that marginalized them and left them on the outside looking in as far as football is concerned -- all the while costing them Big East basketball membership.
Also, as far as the profile of schools that move up from FCS to FBS, it's less about on-field success or program history than it is about school size, geographic location and existing affiliation with existing FBS conferences. Many of these programs went from scratch to playing FBS football over the span of 3-4 years and were only I-AA/FCS for a couple years during a token transition period.
I'll give you the list of schools that have made "the jump" since 1999. I wonder how closely we "fit" as a college with these other schools:
Marshall, Buffalo, Middle Tennessee, UConn, UMass, Georgia Southern, Georgia State, Charlotte, South Alabama, Texas State-San Marcos, Florida Atlantic, Florida International, Western Kentucky, South Alabama, Old Dominion, Texas-San Antonio, Appalachian State, Troy, Coastal Carolina
+1. Well said.FCS is a stable entity more likely to grow than to vanish. For us, the issue is simple. Do we as a conference want to compete nationally or exist as local northeast league limiting ourselves to an insular schedule like the Ivies.Right now we are straddling the fence by taking a halfass approach to separate ourselves from the Ivies. Up to the Presidents to pick one or the other.
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Post by hc87 on Nov 26, 2018 23:27:58 GMT -5
I hope so, but I'm not as sanguine on the long-term health of the FCS-level...it's a very expensive endeavor with little payoff for a lot of the programs at this level currently.
Same could easily be said for the G5 programs at the FBS level as well.
I think we'll see some major restructuring with regards to D1 football within the next ten years or so...where it shakes out for HC, is anybody's guess right now.
As for playing the Ivies, I would make the argument that a big reason we still compete at the FCS-level is to play Harvard, Yale, Dartmouth et. al. annually. I don't see us separating our "football identity" with the Ivies anytime soon.
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Post by longsuffering on Nov 27, 2018 1:39:05 GMT -5
Good discussion. Football is indeed expensive and carries a health risk that science is learning more and more about. But interestingly, two neighboring colleges, Becker and Anna Maria, which both were women's colleges when I was at HC, have added football programs in recent years.
I recall from newspaper articles at the time of the announcements that football was seen as an important amenity to add to the college experience, bring the campus community together and serve as an attraction for potential students who wished to continue their high school football participation. I think even Mt. Ida College in Newton, another former women's college, had a football team before the school suddenly shut down this Spring. Perhaps football is seen as part of the amenities arms race for small private colleges to attract dwindling numbers of students, but it is valued.
Holy Cross isn't in the same category as Becker, Anna Maria or the late Mt. Ida, but probably won't radically change it's competitive position amongst it's peer group of schools by dropping football unilaterally. The key to me is for HC to do football right and I think hiring Coach Chesney is a step in that direction. UMass made a major miscalculation when they jumped to FBS. They had a great niche as a recent FCS national champion and a perennial contender for the post-season. Western Mass. sports fans supported UMass football when they were winning in 1-AA and not when they are losing in 1-A. Let's hope Coach Chesney gets all the support he needs from TPTB, and unlike the Duffner era when we couldn't go to the playoffs, let's hope we can win the PL and make a run in the post season.
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Post by timholycross on Nov 27, 2018 7:18:15 GMT -5
I hope so, but I'm not as sanguine on the long-term health of the FCS-level...it's a very expensive endeavor with little payoff for a lot of the programs at this level currently. Same could easily be said for the G5 programs at the FBS level as well. I think we'll see some major restructuring with regards to D1 football within the next ten years or so...where it shakes out for HC, is anybody's guess right now. As for playing the Ivies, I would make the argument that a big reason we still compete at the FCS-level is to play Harvard, Yale, Dartmouth et. al. annually. I don't see us separating our "football identity" with the Ivies anytime soon. It doesn't hurt HC that the Ivies HC plays the most (H/Y/D) are pretty good teams right now and look to stay pretty good. A generation ago they were not (even though HC still managed to lose to Yale just about every time they played them).
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Post by timholycross on Nov 27, 2018 7:27:23 GMT -5
JMU attendance (in 1000s) this year- 18 (game moved from Saturday to Thursday a couple days before due to impending hurricane), 25, 25, 24, 7.
Gotta think the 7 had more to do with it being Thanksgiving weekend (school closed until that evening) than anything else. They were playing a CAA rival who they hadn't played this season.
Don't see where the level of ball they are playing at is hurting interest. 2 sellouts and one close to that.
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Post by WCHC Sports on Nov 27, 2018 9:38:35 GMT -5
A lot of talk about money, and specifically, the fact that football doesn't make money. Aren't there only like, six programs nationally that come out in the black with their football programs?
Think of it this way: professors cost money. They "lose" the college money. But, no one would disagree that they are worth the investment to attract the students and nurture the values that HC holds in high esteem. While not on par, I think athletics-- the right athletics programs-- can be held in similar regard. Spend the money to attract the type of student and environment that HC wants.
The only money-making enterprises that the college should bank on are students' tuition, alumni/donor generosity, and management of the endowment.
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