Ball State and Muncie have a chance to be special because the university plays in the highest football classification in intercollegiate athletics. Ball State has a tremendous opportunity to spread its name and message because it competes in I-A.
As a member of the Mid-American Conference (Ball State would not maintain that affiliation if it dropped to Division I-AA), Ball State has a chance to qualify for one of two Division I-A football bowls each year. This year, five MAC schools are participating in bowl games.
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Q: As you may know, Ball State's football program struggled this year to maintain an average attendance of 15,000 at its home games, coming short with an average of 14,300. Is this a problem for others schools aside from Ball State?
A: Yes, it is not just Ball State, that's clear. In the MAC, there are at least two or three others, Kent State, for sure that I know of. Also, the University of Buffalo and other schools like University of Wyoming. It's probably less than 10 schools, but clearly more than just Ball State.
Q: How much "wiggle room" will there be for schools who do not meet that attendance requirement? Will other factors be considered that may enable a school to keep its Division 1A status?
A: (Brand is quiet for a moment.) Well, suppose you decide then to lower that criteria from 15,000 to 13,000. Then there are other schools that are going to be caught on the edge. There really is no magic number but there may be some compensating issues, perhaps student athletes' graduation rates, that can be considered.
Here at Ball State, I know those rates are very high; the school gets a gold star for this. I believe 88 percent of Ball State's football players graduate when the Division 1A average is 56 percent. That's nothing less than remarkable, and shows that the school is doing a good job and is being careful about who they bring in.
So, maybe we could use some of that as compensation at least on the margin, not grossly, but on the margin. I don't know ... these are the kinds of ideas - not a magic bullet or anything - that we're exploring.
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So does that mean that Miami, Buffalo, Kent, and Ball State the schools that did not average 15k can not play in a bowl game next year? Also does anyone think that the NCAA will actually kick someone out of D1 for attendance, when they have not done anything since it was implemented?
Quote:There really is no magic number but there may be some compensating issues, perhaps student athletes' graduation rates, that can be considered.
It seems as though the NCAA is already looking at revising the 15K rule.
GlassBowl9 Wrote:So does that mean that Miami, Buffalo, Kent, and Ball State the schools that did not average 15k can not play in a bowl game next year? Also does anyone think that the NCAA will actually kick someone out of D1 for attendance, when they have not done anything since it was implemented?
No, any school not meeting the attendance requirements the first time receives a warning from the NCAA.
If you fail the attendance requirement for the second time in 10 years, the following season you'll be put on bowl probation.
If you fail the attendance requirement for a third time in 10 years, you will be declassified to 1-AA.
CMich mentioned they are talking about revising the rules. The outcome of the revision is not going to be what ever you dream it to be. Myles Brand states that schools on the margin of the requirement (13,000+) might be exempt from declassification if they have above average football graduation rates.
I would say Miami, BallSt, CMU ect won't have to worry about declassification because they're always close to the rule if not above it. Its going to be really difficult for Kent State and Buffalo to even meet that 13,000 or 14,000 mark.
Given the rules, I support the MAC expanding with Temple to backfill the league membership if it loses Kent St or Buffalo. I was against Temple until a couple weeks ago when that Myles Brand article came out stating there will be no grandfather clause.
The rule is technically in place this year. It is also, in fact, under legislative review. It doesn't get sent to legislative review unless there is a possible legislative problem foreseen. You can read that however you want.
[edit] Remember the angst the NCAA went through with the restricted earnings position in basketball? They don't want to get into a lawsuit again, or they'll have congress legislating them.
I've not heard the grad rate opt-out for attendance but nothing would suprise me.
The attendance criteria has serious anti-trust concerns so an opt-out wouldn't be shocking.
A grad rate condition would solve a couple problems. It would allow schools with higher academic standards but traditionally iffy records (Buffalo, NorthWestern, etc) to slide by with 12,000-14,999 fans/game with no problem. It would also allow programs with high standards which usually win -- like Miami -- to breathe a little easier when the crowds are sparse.
The one difficulty could be defining graduation criteria for the team: for instance, how does one treat the transfer of players from one school to another or an early leap to the NFL?
I'm really sick of this attendance garbage...I want this stuff to just end already, all this talk of revising it in January..Can we just get the final answer already. I personally think this attendance thing is the stupidist thing the NCAA has done to date. Do the schools that cant average 15,000 for numerous reasons, put in less work or millions of dollars into the programs as the others do. If you are putting out the amount of scholarships required, complying with the conference rules, and making obvious attempts to be competitive i dont think theres a damn reason to be dropped to Div 1-AA. Take my school, Buffalo, for example. We moved up to Div 1-A in 1999, moving from div-III to the highest division in EIGHT years. We are having a hard time drawing fans because A) we are a very young program and still getting are feet dug into the D-1 ground, and with this arent winning games. B) The weather sucks in Buffalo once November comes and that is a MAJOR factor in putting fans in the seats. To see that we average 12,000+ with that is a miracle. If we were to go 4-7 or god forbid .500, UB stadium would be averaging close to 20,000 Plus every game. You want proof? come to Alumni Arena and look at the support Basketball is getting now that we are starting to win. So to back on my point. UB is throwing Millions of dollars into Football every year, and you want to tell me because we averaged 12,000 instead of 15,000, that we should say ...O well, lets just go to div 1-aa and throw away our multi million dollar investment because we werent able to get 15,000 people to come watch our football team because we have yet to turn the corner and get wins. So we would be kicked out of Div 1-a, before even getting a chance to see what we would have here if we won. Maybe the NCAA besides threatening situations like this should be trying to help out...Outside of Syracuse there is no other College Football in NY. WNY would go crazy if UB ever made a bowl game, and once that happens in Buffalo the community supports you, just look at the Bills. Sorry for the rant, but this just gets to me that My school will be kicked out of Div-1A before we ever even got to see what it was capable of.
A slight disagreement Kit Kat. I agree that if you don't make the attendance requirement, you get a warning. I agree that if you don't make it a second time within the next ten years, you are on post-season prohibition the year after that.
However, the way it reads to me is that to be removed from Division I-A, you'd have to miss the attendance requirement in the post-season prohibition year. Make it that year and you're off probation. Basically, you've got to make it every other year.
As for a lawsuit, I've stated my reasons I don't think it would be successful. Then again, if I could predict the future, I wouldn't have to work for a living.
Nightwish1094 Wrote:I'm really sick of this attendance garbage...I want this stuff to just end already, all this talk of revising it in January..Can we just get the final answer already. I personally think this attendance thing is the stupidist thing the NCAA has done to date. Do the schools that cant average 15,000 for numerous reasons, put in less work or millions of dollars into the programs as the others do. If you are putting out the amount of scholarships required, complying with the conference rules, and making obvious attempts to be competitive i dont think theres a damn reason to be dropped to Div 1-AA. Take my school, Buffalo, for example. We moved up to Div 1-A in 1999, moving from div-III to the highest division in EIGHT years. We are having a hard time drawing fans because A) we are a very young program and still getting are feet dug into the D-1 ground, and with this arent winning games. B) The weather sucks in Buffalo once November comes and that is a MAJOR factor in putting fans in the seats. To see that we average 12,000+ with that is a miracle. If we were to go 4-7 or god forbid .500, UB stadium would be averaging close to 20,000 Plus every game. You want proof? come to Alumni Arena and look at the support Basketball is getting now that we are starting to win. So to back on my point. UB is throwing Millions of dollars into Football every year, and you want to tell me because we averaged 12,000 instead of 15,000, that we should say ...O well, lets just go to div 1-aa and throw away our multi million dollar investment because we werent able to get 15,000 people to come watch our football team because we have yet to turn the corner and get wins. So we would be kicked out of Div 1-a, before even getting a chance to see what we would have here if we won. Maybe the NCAA besides threatening situations like this should be trying to help out...Outside of Syracuse there is no other College Football in NY. WNY would go crazy if UB ever made a bowl game, and once that happens in Buffalo the community supports you, just look at the Bills. Sorry for the rant, but this just gets to me that My school will be kicked out of Div-1A before we ever even got to see what it was capable of.
I agree with you.
CMichFan Wrote:A grad rate condition would solve a couple problems. It would allow schools with higher academic standards but traditionally iffy records (Buffalo, NorthWestern, etc) to slide by with 12,000-14,999 fans/game with no problem. It would also allow programs with high standards which usually win -- like Miami -- to breathe a little easier when the crowds are sparse.
The one difficulty could be defining graduation criteria for the team: for instance, how does one treat the transfer of players from one school to another or an early leap to the NFL?
Quite a few schools just on the borderline of the attendance requirement. Really only Kent State, Buffalo and San Jose State in gross violation of 15,000.
The margin line will probably be 13,500 and that will only be applicable for current Division 1-A members. Lets be honest here, if Kent didn't have Akron at home and Buffalo with Syracuse both these schools draw under 10,000 for the season. Potential at Kent State and Buffalo? They've never been good consistently even in the days when they played weaker competition.
Schadenfreude Wrote:Nightwish1094 Wrote:I'm really sick of this attendance garbage...I want this stuff to just end already, all this talk of revising it in January..Can we just get the final answer already. I personally think this attendance thing is the stupidist thing the NCAA has done to date. Do the schools that cant average 15,000 for numerous reasons, put in less work or millions of dollars into the programs as the others do. If you are putting out the amount of scholarships required, complying with the conference rules, and making obvious attempts to be competitive i dont think theres a damn reason to be dropped to Div 1-AA. Take my school, Buffalo, for example. We moved up to Div 1-A in 1999, moving from div-III to the highest division in EIGHT years. We are having a hard time drawing fans because A) we are a very young program and still getting are feet dug into the D-1 ground, and with this arent winning games. B) The weather sucks in Buffalo once November comes and that is a MAJOR factor in putting fans in the seats. To see that we average 12,000+ with that is a miracle. If we were to go 4-7 or god forbid .500, UB stadium would be averaging close to 20,000 Plus every game. You want proof? come to Alumni Arena and look at the support Basketball is getting now that we are starting to win. So to back on my point. UB is throwing Millions of dollars into Football every year, and you want to tell me because we averaged 12,000 instead of 15,000, that we should say ...O well, lets just go to div 1-aa and throw away our multi million dollar investment because we werent able to get 15,000 people to come watch our football team because we have yet to turn the corner and get wins. So we would be kicked out of Div 1-a, before even getting a chance to see what we would have here if we won. Maybe the NCAA besides threatening situations like this should be trying to help out...Outside of Syracuse there is no other College Football in NY. WNY would go crazy if UB ever made a bowl game, and once that happens in Buffalo the community supports you, just look at the Bills. Sorry for the rant, but this just gets to me that My school will be kicked out of Div-1A before we ever even got to see what it was capable of.
I agree with you.
There has to be a Division 1-A attendance standard to make Division 1-AA relevant. And there has to be enforcement on existing Division 1-A schools not making the numbers for it to be fair. You can ease the rules a little bit for programs established in 1-A, but some of them must be put out of their misery.
Buffalo doesn't have much potential. If Joshua Cribbs lost little brother shows up at UB, maybe they could win 6 games. Just compare UB to UAB another start up program thats been very competitive in less time. The talent was their local to Birmingham and they quickly scooped it up. Not enough football talent in Western NY for that to happen with UB. If there was, they'd be a bowl contender by now.
Nightwish1094 Wrote:I'm really sick of this attendance garbage...I want this stuff to just end already, all this talk of revising it in January..Can we just get the final answer already. I personally think this attendance thing is the stupidist thing the NCAA has done to date. Do the schools that cant average 15,000 for numerous reasons, put in less work or millions of dollars into the programs as the others do. If you are putting out the amount of scholarships required, complying with the conference rules, and making obvious attempts to be competitive i dont think theres a damn reason to be dropped to Div 1-AA. Take my school, Buffalo, for example. We moved up to Div 1-A in 1999, moving from div-III to the highest division in EIGHT years. We are having a hard time drawing fans because A) we are a very young program and still getting are feet dug into the D-1 ground, and with this arent winning games. B) The weather sucks in Buffalo once November comes and that is a MAJOR factor in putting fans in the seats. To see that we average 12,000+ with that is a miracle. If we were to go 4-7 or god forbid .500, UB stadium would be averaging close to 20,000 Plus every game. You want proof? come to Alumni Arena and look at the support Basketball is getting now that we are starting to win. So to back on my point. UB is throwing Millions of dollars into Football every year, and you want to tell me because we averaged 12,000 instead of 15,000, that we should say ...O well, lets just go to div 1-aa and throw away our multi million dollar investment because we werent able to get 15,000 people to come watch our football team because we have yet to turn the corner and get wins. So we would be kicked out of Div 1-a, before even getting a chance to see what we would have here if we won. Maybe the NCAA besides threatening situations like this should be trying to help out...Outside of Syracuse there is no other College Football in NY. WNY would go crazy if UB ever made a bowl game, and once that happens in Buffalo the community supports you, just look at the Bills. Sorry for the rant, but this just gets to me that My school will be kicked out of Div-1A before we ever even got to see what it was capable of.
Yeah, what he said! Enough is enough with this already.
First off Kit-Kat who are you to decide if UB has potential. We went from Division 3 to 1-a in eight years man. Sure were taking a longer time then i thought would take to win some more games, but the potential is there. WNY has some decent HS football talent, and if we start winning it will make recruiting the state as a whole and NJ easier. Neither are great states for recruiting but its a start. As for the difference of 1-a and 1-aa...the difference is scholarships and money put into it...attendance is a bull**** way to make a decision on a football program. You think they should cut the cable on Buffalo, fine thats your opinion your entitled to it, but dont make it seem like they are a lost cause already...theyve been Div 1 for a total of 6 years, maybe you can do that and be succesful in Alabama and Florida...Not in NY, it takes time...You have to understand UB wasnt even at Div -1aa, for that long before jumping to the MAC. Maybe that was a mistake by the university, but it was done none the less and UB should be given some time to get the program off its feet, and putting sanctions on them because FANS WATCHING THE GAME does nothing but make it harder to recruit and build the program. I think any new programs should be given at least some time to get settled before being kicked out. NO school should be kicked out of div 1-A because of attendance, its rediculous. You can graduate 8% of your football team and give the players prostitutes, have almost 90% grad rate, follow all the rules, try very hard to get your program off the ground and get kicked out because u average 3,000 fans less then 15,000 some BS magic number. That makes alot of sense to me.
Nightwish1094 Wrote:First off Kit-Kat who are you to decide if UB has potential. We went from Division 3 to 1-a in eight years man. Sure were taking a longer time then i thought would take to win some more games, but the potential is there. WNY has some decent HS football talent, and if we start winning it will make recruiting the state as a whole and NJ easier. Neither are great states for recruiting but its a start. As for the difference of 1-a and 1-aa...the difference is scholarships and money put into it...attendance is a bull**** way to make a decision on a football program. You think they should cut the cable on Buffalo, fine thats your opinion your entitled to it, but dont make it seem like they are a lost cause already...theyve been Div 1 for a total of 6 years, maybe you can do that and be succesful in Alabama and Florida...Not in NY, it takes time...You have to understand UB wasnt even at Div -1aa, for that long before jumping to the MAC. Maybe that was a mistake by the university, but it was done none the less and UB should be given some time to get the program off its feet, and putting sanctions on them because FANS WATCHING THE GAME does nothing but make it harder to recruit and build the program. I think any new programs should be given at least some time to get settled before being kicked out. NO school should be kicked out of div 1-A because of attendance, its rediculous. You can graduate 8% of your football team and give the players prostitutes, have almost 90% grad rate, follow all the rules, try very hard to get your program off the ground and get kicked out because u average 3,000 fans less then 15,000 some BS magic number. That makes alot of sense to me.
Finally the voice of reason
The thing that bothers me is that a large percentage of the schools having attendance problems are in the MAC. The MAC is a great product right now in football, and I just don’t understand how all MAC schools don’t average 25k or better a game. All other mid-major conferences except the sun belt conf seem to be doing relatively well in attendance. I understand bad attendance for bad teams, but when teams are playing well and still have bad attendance it is a little scary. The MAC has been gaining a tremendous amount of respect nationally, but still has not received the respect locally and that’s sad.
Nightwish1094 Wrote:First off Kit-Kat who are you to decide if UB has potential. We went from Division 3 to 1-a in eight years man. Sure were taking a longer time then i thought would take to win some more games, but the potential is there. WNY has some decent HS football talent, and if we start winning it will make recruiting the state as a whole and NJ easier. Neither are great states for recruiting but its a start. As for the difference of 1-a and 1-aa...the difference is scholarships and money put into it...attendance is a bull**** way to make a decision on a football program. You think they should cut the cable on Buffalo, fine thats your opinion your entitled to it, but dont make it seem like they are a lost cause already...theyve been Div 1 for a total of 6 years, maybe you can do that and be succesful in Alabama and Florida...Not in NY, it takes time...You have to understand UB wasnt even at Div -1aa, for that long before jumping to the MAC. Maybe that was a mistake by the university, but it was done none the less and UB should be given some time to get the program off its feet, and putting sanctions on them because FANS WATCHING THE GAME does nothing but make it harder to recruit and build the program. I think any new programs should be given at least some time to get settled before being kicked out. NO school should be kicked out of div 1-A because of attendance, its rediculous. You can graduate 8% of your football team and give the players prostitutes, have almost 90% grad rate, follow all the rules, try very hard to get your program off the ground and get kicked out because u average 3,000 fans less then 15,000 some BS magic number. That makes alot of sense to me.
1) You've had 6 years to build a fan base in Division 1-A. And you'll have at least two more making it 8 years to get it straight.
2)You play in a metropolitan area of 1 million people with tens of thousands of successful alumni nearby.
3)Excluding one stretch in the late 40's, you've only had 6+ wins for 3 consecutive years or better once.
4)No Conference Championships at any level.
5)Home attendance average excluding Syracuse game is 7500.
6)Even Syracuse playing in a dome on a Big East schedule and Florida State visiting only averages 37,000. No pro sports in that town either.
Now I want to see UB make a turnaround in attendance figures but I don't know if its realistic for it to ever happen. UConn couldn't fill its 16,000 seat stadium in Storrs, first year they built a new stadium near Hartford they draw 37,000. If its taking 8 years for UB to make the 15k, it isn't happening. Unless you can somehow play in a dome its going to be impossible.
I agree with the time thing...8 years is a long time to get a fan base. But we have yet to win, and i really think were close now. Yea, after the Syracuse game attendance was abysmal. The home opener here almost always gets 20,000...God forbid if were to ever win one, i think alot of those fans (especially the new freshman and students) would come back. yes we havent established a very good fan base, with that said, we havent established winning yet either, they go hand in hand...usually with wins comes fans. So hoping to get some wins isnt horrible. You said it yourself theres alot of people in Buffalo and alot of alum...the resources are there for a fanbase, now the ******* team needs to cut the crap and establish a passing game and get this ball rolling.
Quote:I'm really sick of this attendance garbage...I want this stuff to just end already,
Best point of the thread.
My only other questions is this. When we leave, do we get to keep all those MAC Championship banners?