(06-29-2016 02:52 PM)TrojanCampaign Wrote: (06-28-2016 12:38 PM)SubGod22 Wrote: (06-28-2016 12:04 PM)TrojanCampaign Wrote: (06-28-2016 11:14 AM)SubGod22 Wrote: Between Koch, Carney, Ruffin, DeBoer and others I think we could raise quite a bit of what is needed if we can get them on board. There are also a number of corporate types that could invest if they feel that this could benefit them in the long run.
And some of the stadium upgrades could be made over a few years time. I haven't made it all the way through the report yet as I'm still trying to do my job as well, but the summaries I've read I think look promising.
What do you guys really hope to accomplish with FBS football? I mean we both can agree Kansas and Kansas State are very well established and well funded. Yet they can't even field consistently good teams.
KU doesn't care about football. I believe we can pass them in time. KSU cares but they're KSU so who knows. But we can still put a solid program together. Will we ever compete for a national championship? Probably not. But you can say the same thing for about 100 other FBS schools.
What it could accomplish is enrollment growth, more visibility in the region and potentially nationally. More school pride and a better student experience on campus. More involvement and interaction with the community, both business and simply fans. Potentially a better conference for basketball and other sports which would only help all of the above as well. Increased giving to the university both in athletics and academics.
So I guess not a damn thing.
I was not being rude when I asked that by the way was just curious.
I'm not Kansas fan but I would not say there is a single FBS team that does not care about football. Even the worst G5 programs care about how many games they will win each season. I think it has more to do with the fact that Kansas teams are just at a disadvantage in football.
But why I ask is that I hope the majority of WS fans know just what you are getting yourselves into. That all sounds nice but a bad football team can actually cause the opposite to happen.
Again I just ask how?
1. A better basketball conference. What is the plan for football to bring this about? It wont be the AAC or MWC and I would hardly call CUSA or the SBC better than the MVC. If your goal is the MAC they would need to add another team. And at the moment I just don't see why the MAC would put themselves in the position CUSA is in with two many teams.
2. More school pride & visibility. You guys have a very good reputation now...People around the country know of your basketball. FBS and FCS are pretty much rigged to where only schools with special situations will be consistently good. Have you ever wondered why SEC teams, California teams, and teams that have a lot of Texas/Florida/Ohio are consistently the best teams?
Just know what you are wishing for. You are making fun of Kansas but like I said FBS is rigged....Kansas will ALWAYS be making ten times as much money than Wichita, will always have a better schedule, will always have more TV exposure, will always access to better recruits, just because they are in power conference.
This is a system where if you ever have a coach that starts winning Kansas will be there to double his salary and offer the chance to play a big kid schedule.
Football is an afterthought at KU. That's an absolute fact.
The AAC or MWC may not happen overnight, but without football, we will forever be stuck in the MVC which continues to get worse. Obviously we can have some success where we are, but our margin for error is pretty damn thin and makes every non conference game insanely important. A couple of injuries early and our season can be done for. We lost a couple of games this year when we were without our starting PG, our backup PG, our starting center and a guy who would have been our 3rd PG wasn't yet eligible. That stretch nearly cost us an NCAA appearance and stuck us in the play in game. If the MVC wasn't so god awful, we could have picked up some wins in conference that would have made up for those early games when we were depleted. Outside of UNI, I question just about every school in the conference. Evansville had their best team since joining the conference and they didn't even attempt to schedule for an NCAA and missed the NIT as well because of it.
There is no benefit to staying in the MVC long term. If we have to go to one of the weaker G5 conferences to give us a chance at something better than I'm all for it. All we have to do is have a moderate bit of success in football to at least be in consideration for openings in an AAC/MWC. Our athletic department is in great shape and the study released shows how much that's true. Yes, football is the main key to conference moves, but basketball can play an important part and we have a great asset there. And if conference presidents want to look at the others sports we offer, they're all doing pretty damn well so we'd be a pretty good boost to the non revenue sports as well. I believe we currently compete in 15 sports in the MVC and we just won 9 conference titles with a few 2nd and 3rds in there. Plus Baseball will get better. We're also the only school in the MVC that is offering FCOA for all sports. All others only do basketball and I believe UNI will offer it for VB.
After we dropped football, enrollment slowly went down by about 3000. Our president has made it his goal from day one to grow the student population to over 20k and a lot of students from this area have chosen to go elsewhere because Wichita doesn't have football. I know I had a number of friends that left because of that and I hear the same thing from kids now. Even if we have to stay FCS longer than most of us hope, we can do it well and it will be funded. I'm not saying we're going to turn into NDSU, but there are also no FCS schools in KS, OK or NE which might actually help. Though I'm sure UNI and the Dakotas recruit NE effectively.
And as far as KSU goes, they've been a pretty solid program for 20 years or so. They've had ups and downs but it's been pretty good and well supported. But there are also a lot of people in the Wichita metro that follow KSU or some others only because WSU doesn't currently field a team. Wichita is the main passion for a lot of these people who would switch their allegiances to support the Shockers.
And while basketball has garnered some respect regionally and nationally, we still fight an uphill battle as a whole because of our conference. This conference will never get any kind of income off of TV as we beg ESPN to show our games basically for free. There is no room for growth in the MVC as a whole. There are reasons that at least three other schools have looked at moving up to FBS to give them more options. None have done so yet, but if things start to shake up again we won't be the only ones looking to move. UNI could do it now if they wanted and had an invite. MSU and Illinois State have both talked about it. We've just been the most vocal about it and I think it's because the administration is frustrated that we're grouped with a bunch of schools that don't have resources to do much more than they already are. On top of that, from the academic side, I'm not sure if any of the member schools have the same mission as WSU and I believe there's only one that is on or near our level when it comes to research which is a huge focus for us now. And our president has talked about wanting to be associated with other research institutions.
Now to specifically answer your questions, the way things are going, the MAC and Belt are probably stronger than the MVC in basketball. Will that trend continue? Who knows, but if you remove Wichita from the MVC it takes quite a hit in RPI ranking.
I honestly don't follow college football that closely so I don't know specifics of who is consistently good year in and year out outside of Bama. OU and Ohio State I guess would be up there. Beyond that, I'm not sure as I don't have enough interest in other schools outside of Wichita. But there's a ton of history with them and that plays a huge part of it. Reputation can go a long way.
And yes, Kansas will always make more money and blah blah blah. But if Wichita finds some success and gets into a respectable conference, we can definitely pass them in football. Winning goes a long way and Kansas doesn't win. They'd be lucky to finish middle of the pack in the MVFC I'm sure. If being in a P5 conference was everything, NDSU wouldn't be beating those teams every year. Yes, P5 teams have an advantage in everything because of how the system is rigged as you put it. The networks gift them money and exposure that they deny the rest. But that doesn't mean the rest can't build something successful.
As far as basketball, they can get whatever recruits they want and if we happen to run into them in the tournament again, I'll like our chances of winning that game again.
And as I've said, winning a national title in football is not likely for us at the FBS level. But we can build a solid program given time and an opportunity and with the rest of the athletic department be a beneficial addition to a number of conferences. If the only purpose is to win a title then 90% of schools should drop football now and that includes a number of P5 schools. But it goes beyond all of that. As I've said, we're trying to draw more traditional students to campus. We're trying to grow enrollment and increase giving. Football can and most likely will do that for us. It will be a process and nobody is saying we're going to dominate anything, but there's no reason for most of us to believe that there's no hope.
Again, the only way we ever move up is with football. Without it, there is next to no hope of ever landing in a better conference as those conferences require football. Plus, we really want to be in a conference that has a TX presence as we do a lot of recruiting for students down there. We're currently offering in-state tuition to students in the Tulsa, OKC and DFW metro areas as well. We're working on getting that offer extended to KCMO.
Sorry for the long winded response.