CSNbbs

Northwestern hosted Northeastern in front of a staggering 16,199.
The Big 10 playing Div 1-AA is really paying off.

Other than the academics, Northwestern really has no business being in the B10. Unfortunately, those academic standards have and will always prevent Northwestern from ever being a perennial contender in either football or basketball. A good friend of mine who went there said that NW fans pretty much attend B10 conference games on the probability of an upset. So I completely understand why they only drew 16k vs. a 1-AA club.

And yet they've been to the Rose Bowl more recently than Indiana, Illinois, Minnesota, Michigan State, Iowa, and Penn State.

Understood, I was just making the case that their football and basketball programs can not contend year in and year out. Indiana, Illinois, and Michigan State are good every year in basketball almost every year and MSU has been bowl eligible 3 of the past 7 years. Iowa and Penn State are always competing for the B10 football title and ditto for Iowa's basketball team. Minnesota has made a bowl game 6 out of the last 7 years and was in the Big Dance in 2005. NW football has been toa bowl game maybe twice in the past 7 years and don't even get me started on their basketball. I'm not sure if it still stands but doesn't NW football hold he records for most losses and largest average margin of defeat? For all I know this could be Temple by now, although 1900-1990 should keep us from holding those records.

PhillyPhlash Wrote:Understood, I was just making the case that their football and basketball programs can not contend year in and year out. Indiana, Illinois, and Michigan State are good every year in basketball almost every year and MSU has been bowl eligible 3 of the past 7 years. Iowa and Penn State are always competing for the B10 football title and ditto for Iowa's basketball team. Minnesota has made a bowl game 6 out of the last 7 years and was in the Big Dance in 2005. NW football has been toa bowl game maybe twice in the past 7 years and don't even get me started on their basketball. I'm not sure if it still stands but doesn't NW football hold he records for most losses and largest average margin of defeat? For all I know this could be Temple by now, although 1900-1990 should keep us from holding those records.

The academic requirements are true to an extent. Northwestern has quite a few football players on their team with ACT scores below a 22. Normal students would have no chance of getting into Northwestern with a 22 ACT score or lower.

You have to understand that Northwestern is in a city of around 50,000 people including students. How many MAC schools can say that they draw over 30% of the city they're in when they're playing a D-IAA team, and 100% when they play an upset game?

PhillyPhlash Wrote:Understood, I was just making the case that their football and basketball programs can not contend year in and year out. Indiana, Illinois, and Michigan State are good every year in basketball almost every year and MSU has been bowl eligible 3 of the past 7 years. Iowa and Penn State are always competing for the B10 football title and ditto for Iowa's basketball team. Minnesota has made a bowl game 6 out of the last 7 years and was in the Big Dance in 2005. NW football has been toa bowl game maybe twice in the past 7 years and don't even get me started on their basketball. I'm not sure if it still stands but doesn't NW football hold he records for most losses and largest average margin of defeat? For all I know this could be Temple by now, although 1900-1990 should keep us from holding those records.

Since joining the Big 10 Penn State has gone 69-43. Sure they won the conference twice but they've also had some horrible years during that timeframe as well......and oh by the way Nortwestern won the conference three times in that same timeframe PSU did twice. Not every team can be on top every year, somebody has to be the bottom feeder, maybe Northwestern will cycle back and get to the top again and maybe Penn State will drop off once JoePa hangs 'em up.

uakronkid Wrote:You have to understand that Northwestern is in a city of around 50,000 people including students. How many MAC schools can say that they draw over 30% of the city they're in when they're playing a D-IAA team, and 100% when they play an upset game?

Bowling Green does about that.

And Bowling Green is not connected to Chicago by a commuter train.

uakronkid Wrote:You have to understand that Northwestern is in a city of around 50,000 people including students. How many MAC schools can say that they draw over 30% of the city they're in when they're playing a D-IAA team, and 100% when they play an upset game?

Evenston is the first suburb north of Chicago. If you don't notice the city limits sign you won't notice that you have left Chicago. They are not playing to a 50,000 base but a 10,000,000 base.

uakronkid Wrote:You have to understand that Northwestern is in a city of around 50,000 people including students. How many MAC schools can say that they draw over 30% of the city they're in when they're playing a D-IAA team, and 100% when they play an upset game?

DeKalb has approximately 40,000 residents including NIU students. We drew 26,123 in 2005 against Tennessee Tech. Against Indiana State we drew 19,720 last season after starting off the season 0-2. Evanston is located between a population with millions of people. The simple fact is, no one cares about Northwestern athletics.

Polish Hammer Wrote:Since joining the Big 10 Penn State has gone 69-43. Sure they won the conference twice but they've also had some horrible years during that timeframe as well......and oh by the way Nortwestern won the conference three times in that same timeframe PSU did twice.

Good research Hammer. Can't wait to throw that in the face of my PSU friends.

uakronkid Wrote:You have to understand that Northwestern is in a city of around 50,000 people including students. How many MAC schools can say that they draw over 30% of the city they're in when they're playing a D-IAA team, and 100% when they play an upset game?

Athens has about 21,000 people including students.

For the Gardner-Webb game only 25% of our students were in town leaving the population of the city at about 9,000. Yet we had 20,000 at the football game.

uakronkid Wrote:You have to understand that Northwestern is in a city of around 50,000 people including students. How many MAC schools can say that they draw over 30% of the city they're in when they're playing a D-IAA team, and 100% when they play an upset game?

Apparently they were at Soldier Field rooting for NIU

uakronkid Wrote:You have to understand that Northwestern is in a city of around 50,000 people including students. How many MAC schools can say that they draw over 30% of the city they're in when they're playing a D-IAA team, and 100% when they play an upset game?

Evanston is adjacent to the City of Chicago. There are one million people within 10 miles of the school. You make it sound like they are located in DeKalb, which is located in a cornfield 65 miles west of the city. No excuse for a Big 10 team to draw only 16K.

uakronkid Wrote:You have to understand that Northwestern is in a city of around 50,000 people including students. How many MAC schools can say that they draw over 30% of the city they're in when they're playing a D-IAA team, and 100% when they play an upset game?

Are you insane? Northwestern is in a city of 7 MILLION people. 50,000? thats the frickin neighborhood/suburb Evanston.

Northwestern got into the Big Ten in the early days of college football. Northwestern is more Ivy league type. University of Chicago left the Big Ten to focus on academics over major college football. Back in the day, Chicago and Northwestern would have been a top rivalry. Chicago won several Big Ten titles. Northwestern perhaps should have followed Chicago's move and left the Western Conference (real name of the Big Ten). Today the money is too good for Northwestern to turn down and Big Ten would never kick out Northwestern because visiting fans from several schools who can get tickets back home travel to Chicago for the Northwestern game each year. This is why Iowa traveled so well for the game with NIU. Big Ten fans are conditioned to going to Chicago every other year and this for a holiday weekend which was very easy to do.

I agree that NW is not going anywhere.

PhillyPhlash Wrote:I agree that NW is not going anywhere.

Chicago market is key for TV package.

As we know U.Illinois does not really carry Chicago for the Big Ten. I would think they carry more the rural parts of the state than Chicago.

This is exactly why market is so important. If Temple can establish a winning football program (looks like they are on their way) they become extremely attractive again to the BE because of the Philadelphia market.

PhillyPhlash Wrote:This is exactly why market is so important. If Temple can establish a winning football program (looks like they are on their way) they become extremely attractive again to the BE because of the Philadelphia market.

That's exactly why we don't need Temple in the MAC, they just want to rebuild and bolt. We have an odd number of teams which makes scheduling difficult, and Temple is continuing to fund their program as a BCS team. Crazy expensive stadium, high paid coaching staff, it's kind of evident that they aren't looking to stay in the MAC.

I don't hold ill-will against the program though, I hope it does improve and you guys (and Buffalo) certainly deserve a winning program more than anyone else I can think of. I just don't see any benefits from the MAC accepting Temple into the fold.