(07-14-2019 03:31 AM)Stugray2 Wrote:  

(07-14-2019 12:08 AM)THUNDERStruck73 Wrote:  

(07-13-2019 11:27 PM)Stugray2 Wrote:  Here is why Marshall is not in the conversation:

From Equity in Athletics (US Department of Education)

full time undergraduates: 7,773 (this is even fewer than UAB, Vermont, and Idaho)

Athletic budget: $30,753,677

Donations: $3,652,264
Gate: $3,887,680

Student Fees: $6,267,660
Tax Payer Money (from School): $8,078,014

This program is pretty topped out as far as support (a massive $900 a year fee for every full time student!) and subsidies (the school is transferring an addition $1000 per student to athletics from it's State of West Virginia education allocation) and still $15M/year below the bottom of the American. Where is that additional money to come from? We are talking raising $250M in the next decade to support an AAC level program.

Rather than give the AI rating (which is not good) I'll just give you indicators of AI and you can figure out where Marshall stands

4-year graduation rate  29%
Fall 2017 acceptance rate 90%
SAT 980 / ACT 19 (Marshall provided this information)

It's safe to say this would be the absolute bottom school in the American in academic terms, and by a good margin. That is saying something when the competition includes ECU, Memphis and Wichita State. Further their Endowment is only $110M, which is less than half the other small endowments of ECU, Wichita State, Memphis and UCF (UCF wtf?).

The only reason Marshall has any brand name at all is for those of us over 55 years of age who remember the tragic plane crash. There really is not a single category Marshall looks good in.

You probably shouldn’t criticize anyone regarding football, basketball, or branding. We have branding for many other reasons.

All SJSU has been is a suckling on the teet of the MWC. That plane crash comment has to be one of the most uninformed and insensitive comments I've heard on a board in a long time.

And I see that you are a fan of schools across the country. So, after the fourth week of the season when SJSU is 0-4, do you go to the closet and break out your Brutus gear?

If you have read most posts on the AAC board, most Marshall fans have said that we don't expect the invite, but they’re not getting BYU, Army, AFA, or Boise.

I’ve said my peace, and I know others will be along behind me with better factual info regarding our academics (we were ranked by either Princeton or Forbes as the #14 public university in the south). Bottom line is, you have no damned clue any more than anyone else in regard to what the AAC is doing, so whatever you say.

This reply is called "whataboutism" , which is a logical fallacy. It is also ad hominem, which may get you a warning from the mods.

But I do not take personally attacks on SJSU. If you knew anything about me, you would know that I am extremely critical of the San Jose State, it's leadership, and not just athletic, as well as the CSU system and charter. I do not defend SJSU, because I have told them for a decade that they were headed down the path they are headed because of wrong priorities and failure to understand the changing demographics of their school and city. Money in fact should not be a problem for them, but that it is, tells you everything you need to know about the school. The resources are there, but they have no clue how to harness them or organize them. So in the richest valley of high achieving families, high incomes, and money flowing in the streets they can't get their act together. So go ahead and criticize SJSU, I do it every single day.

But SJSU's problems are not relevant here. Marshall and it's potential for the AAC, which to be honest is none. Realistically Marshall needs to double it's student enrollment, while raising it's AI (which by the way is more than a bit lower than SJSU). And they need to double their endowment and donations, and double the revenue they get from ticket sales if they wish to be at AAC level.

Having great fans is not an issue. For a small school in the boonies Marshall does pretty well, in fact I think as well as it ever can do. But the fact is Marshall does not have the resources of Cincinnati, Houston, Central Florida or South Florida to actually compete (same story for UAB, La Tech and USM). These are schools with 4 times, 5 times, even 8 times the number of students, in much larger and wealthier metros, with much larger pools of alumni to draw from. Marshall is woefully short. Marshall already subsidizes sports at a tune of $1900 per student. That is a higher per student subsidy than any school in G5 including Eastern Michigan! Then throw in the high academic standards or SMU, Tulsa, Tulane and Navy and you see Marshall is completely outclassed in this conference in every category.

In C-USA, Marshall is a middling school, with comparable smaller schools like Louisiana Tech and Southern Miss. It's a fair fit.

It's a harsh reality. Geography kills larger schools like North Dakota State and Montana State, and of course Marshall.

Just so you are aware, you might want to look over to the left and look under my name. What’s it say? I stay within the AUP.

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So are we a middling school are we a large school? You labeled us as both in your post. No credibility. Oh, and I love how you fail to address your classless post about the only reason we have branding which, by the way, is a blatant falsehood.

And now this little back and forth is over.