(02-02-2012 10:08 PM)NIUfilmmaker Wrote:  

(02-02-2012 03:07 PM)DrTorch Wrote:  

(02-02-2012 02:29 PM)NIUfilmmaker Wrote:  I respect and appreciate your opinions. On the other hand, you seem so pessimistic about the future of the MAC, I wonder why you spend time on this board at all. If the outlook is so grim, why hang around?

aksme's razor sharp wit, and cooking recipes from the occasional Marshall lurker. But mainly to discuss expansion options.

Fair enough. I will though be the first one to say "I told you so" five years from now when the football being played at NIU is as nationally relevant as it is now if not more so.

You'll have every right to. I'd love to see the MAC get better. But I've been a fan for 20+ years and I haven't seen significant progress.

(02-02-2012 11:25 PM)DrTorch Wrote:  

(02-02-2012 10:08 PM)NIUfilmmaker Wrote:  

(02-02-2012 03:07 PM)DrTorch Wrote:  

(02-02-2012 02:29 PM)NIUfilmmaker Wrote:  I respect and appreciate your opinions. On the other hand, you seem so pessimistic about the future of the MAC, I wonder why you spend time on this board at all. If the outlook is so grim, why hang around?

aksme's razor sharp wit, and cooking recipes from the occasional Marshall lurker. But mainly to discuss expansion options.

Fair enough. I will though be the first one to say "I told you so" five years from now when the football being played at NIU is as nationally relevant as it is now if not more so.

You'll have every right to. I'd love to see the MAC get better. But I've been a fan for 20+ years and I haven't seen significant progress.

There's definitely a ceiling there for MAC teams, and it's made of brick instead of glass.

(02-03-2012 10:55 AM)NIU007 Wrote:  

(02-02-2012 11:25 PM)DrTorch Wrote:  

(02-02-2012 10:08 PM)NIUfilmmaker Wrote:  

(02-02-2012 03:07 PM)DrTorch Wrote:  

(02-02-2012 02:29 PM)NIUfilmmaker Wrote:  I respect and appreciate your opinions. On the other hand, you seem so pessimistic about the future of the MAC, I wonder why you spend time on this board at all. If the outlook is so grim, why hang around?

aksme's razor sharp wit, and cooking recipes from the occasional Marshall lurker. But mainly to discuss expansion options.

Fair enough. I will though be the first one to say "I told you so" five years from now when the football being played at NIU is as nationally relevant as it is now if not more so.

You'll have every right to. I'd love to see the MAC get better. But I've been a fan for 20+ years and I haven't seen significant progress.

There's definitely a ceiling there for MAC teams, and it's made of brick instead of glass.

Don't you think that they said the same thing on the Boise board 10 years ago...

(02-04-2012 02:21 AM)NIUfilmmaker Wrote:  

(02-03-2012 10:55 AM)NIU007 Wrote:  

(02-02-2012 11:25 PM)DrTorch Wrote:  

(02-02-2012 10:08 PM)NIUfilmmaker Wrote:  

(02-02-2012 03:07 PM)DrTorch Wrote:  aksme's razor sharp wit, and cooking recipes from the occasional Marshall lurker. But mainly to discuss expansion options.

Fair enough. I will though be the first one to say "I told you so" five years from now when the football being played at NIU is as nationally relevant as it is now if not more so.

You'll have every right to. I'd love to see the MAC get better. But I've been a fan for 20+ years and I haven't seen significant progress.

There's definitely a ceiling there for MAC teams, and it's made of brick instead of glass.

Don't you think that they said the same thing on the Boise board 10 years ago...

Excellent question. Boise St is indeed a great case study. What did they do right?

(Having a rapidly growing population and virtually no local competition were good starts.)

(02-04-2012 08:51 AM)DrTorch Wrote:  

(02-04-2012 02:21 AM)NIUfilmmaker Wrote:  

(02-03-2012 10:55 AM)NIU007 Wrote:  

(02-02-2012 11:25 PM)DrTorch Wrote:  

(02-02-2012 10:08 PM)NIUfilmmaker Wrote:  Fair enough. I will though be the first one to say "I told you so" five years from now when the football being played at NIU is as nationally relevant as it is now if not more so.

You'll have every right to. I'd love to see the MAC get better. But I've been a fan for 20+ years and I haven't seen significant progress.

There's definitely a ceiling there for MAC teams, and it's made of brick instead of glass.

Don't you think that they said the same thing on the Boise board 10 years ago...

Excellent question. Boise St is indeed a great case study. What did they do right?

(Having a rapidly growing population and virtually no local competition were good starts.)

You can still break through a brick ceiling. Its' just a lot harder.

(02-01-2012 05:48 PM)DrTorch Wrote:  

(02-01-2012 03:55 PM)NIU007 Wrote:  I've said this before...but I think the TV viewing fanbase for the top schools will be smaller if they separate out the top 6 conferences. Fans of MAC, WAC, CUSA, etc will be less interested in the goings-on of the greedy group, as there will be less of a connection between the schools.

But for how long? What happens when a new generation of sports fans never saw this sort of competition? They cheer for what they always knew.

I'll give you a few of examples why I think this will happen:

1. The MAC itself. Despite having a large alumni base, the MAC has struggled. Few college sports fans in OH vocally lament losing the Tangerine Bowl tie-in after being so dominant, nor do they protest the drop to IAA in 1982(?). No, in OH it's all about ZSU, even if you're connected to a MAC school.

2. U Chicago, Carnegie-Mellon, etc. They stopped playing major programs and...life went on. Granted, they have relatively few alumni and they stopped playing willingly, but these days very few fans realize that they played with everyone else decades ago, and were even ranked among the best at times.

3. I was at UGA and there were letters to the editor arguing over Duke basketball. Duke! They aren't even in the same conference as UGA...yet the die-hard basketball fans could barely care less about their NIT-bound team and were focusing their attention toward the top teams, and the student newspaper got on board.

So, I believe the top 80 schools will push to separate, and in 12 years, a big portion of ESPN viewers and SI readers will think it has "always" been this way.

That's not really what I'm saying. In basketball, everybody in Division I has a chance to be National Champion, so they still watch the top teams. Less so for football but fans still watch the top teams as they consider themselves at the same level (officially, as an FBS school, but not competitively of course). People that I know that went to small colleges don't follow college football at all, unless they happen to know someone that got them interested, or they live near a big university and got swept up in it. If the greedy six separate themselves from the other I-A schools, many fans of those schools may still watch their own teams but will lose interest in the "new level" of football. Lets face it, if they want to watch the best football, it's the NFL anyway, not Alabama or Oregon.

I don't think much will change this summer. If anything, maybe some good will come from a little shake-up of the status quo. All we have to do is keep improving facilities and support our teams.

(02-04-2012 11:05 AM)NIU007 Wrote:  Lets face it, if they want to watch the best football, it's the NFL anyway, not Alabama or Oregon.

I would argue the entertainment level of college football is more than the NFL. NFL is a chess match while college is more like checkers. College has a faster pace and more major plays while the NFL is more of a slow drive down the field. I for one would rather watch the more exciting plays of college than the better players of the NFL.

(02-04-2012 08:51 AM)DrTorch Wrote:  

(02-04-2012 02:21 AM)NIUfilmmaker Wrote:  

(02-03-2012 10:55 AM)NIU007 Wrote:  

(02-02-2012 11:25 PM)DrTorch Wrote:  

(02-02-2012 10:08 PM)NIUfilmmaker Wrote:  Fair enough. I will though be the first one to say "I told you so" five years from now when the football being played at NIU is as nationally relevant as it is now if not more so.

You'll have every right to. I'd love to see the MAC get better. But I've been a fan for 20+ years and I haven't seen significant progress.

There's definitely a ceiling there for MAC teams, and it's made of brick instead of glass.

Don't you think that they said the same thing on the Boise board 10 years ago...

Excellent question. Boise St is indeed a great case study. What did they do right?

(Having a rapidly growing population and virtually no local competition were good starts.)

Have a good run of coaches (at least while they were there) and being able to keep one. That is huge. It also helps being the biggest thing around for a very long way. In state they only compete with Idaho and then you have a lot of nothing for a long time with plenty of people interested at playing at a high level and not that many choices to go to. Get some good coaches start winning and their ceiling was much more glass than the brick. School in our neck of the woods have a lot more to compete with I think and few of us have much success keeping coaches as they look at us as a good way of elevating themselves.

(02-04-2012 02:21 AM)NIUfilmmaker Wrote:  

(02-03-2012 10:55 AM)NIU007 Wrote:  

(02-02-2012 11:25 PM)DrTorch Wrote:  

(02-02-2012 10:08 PM)NIUfilmmaker Wrote:  

(02-02-2012 03:07 PM)DrTorch Wrote:  aksme's razor sharp wit, and cooking recipes from the occasional Marshall lurker. But mainly to discuss expansion options.

Fair enough. I will though be the first one to say "I told you so" five years from now when the football being played at NIU is as nationally relevant as it is now if not more so.

You'll have every right to. I'd love to see the MAC get better. But I've been a fan for 20+ years and I haven't seen significant progress.

There's definitely a ceiling there for MAC teams, and it's made of brick instead of glass.

Don't you think that they said the same thing on the Boise board 10 years ago...

When MAC teams are willing to pony up salaries in excess of $1 mil to keep their coach (up to $2 mil now for Boise) and said coaches are turning down legitimate offers from schools like UCLA, then a team from the MAC (or SBC, C-USA, etc.) might be capable of being on par with Boise. Even at NIU, you lost your coach to one of the worst 2 teams in the Big 10 and had your OC accept a job and decline it the next day. If we had not lost coaches to Cinci (TWICE!) CMU probably would not have struggled like we did the last 2 years. Boise is on their second coach for the past 11 years. How many successful MAC programs can say that?