(04-15-2016 09:41 AM)arkstfan Wrote:  

(04-14-2016 09:29 PM)hawghiggs Wrote:  

(04-13-2016 08:34 AM)arkstfan Wrote:  

(04-12-2016 06:45 PM)hawghiggs Wrote:  The state of Arkansas doesn't have financial problems. Nor does it have a population growth problem.

And the state of Arkansas hasn't cut any higher ed funding, there are changes being made to the state formula to reward retention and degree progress but the net impact of that will be MORE money for the state's two FBS programs and less money for several non-FBS programs (Arkansas Tech, UALR, UAPB, SAU for sure). Far more likely to be an issue for UAPB who funds over 77% of athletics from fees and school funds and for UCA who gets 74.5% that way than Arkansas State who gets less than 53% that way.

I'm going to disagree with you on Arkansas Tech. Tech is in line for a increase in state funding. What I mean by an increase is that ATU has been one of the lowest state funded Universities. But times have changed and ATU is the third largest college in the state currently.

Tech will do well on the per student part because of their rapid growth but they are essentially open admission and that tends to lead to poor retention. With the retention component they won't perform as well.

Couldn't ask for better geography, almost halfway between the two largest population areas and the closest non-selective to the NWA corridor with broad offerings.

Arkansas Tech serves disabled people better. While I was there, I was part of the leadership for Students Advocating for People With Disabilities. While I was there, we brought a lot of issues forward, and with the help of the elected reps, we have brought some improvements with more wheelchair access buildings and all that. Tech is now more friendly to people with disabilities. We had a deal of running a one day event to help able body people to participate in how it is like to be disabled. We had some football players and other athletes, cheerleaders, student leaders and all that do an obstacle course in wheelchairs on how it is like trying to get into buildings and all that. We got some respect from others towards people with disabilities. We have politicians that want to cut spending on helping disable people at the state and at the federal levels. I think that is why Tech would not get hurt in the long run like UCA or UAPB or Little Rock. Those schools are playing catch-up with Tech right now. There are a lot of people attend Tech who have some type of disabilities from the area. As for the other schools? UCA, UAPB, UAFS, Little Rock and some others are more of a way for disabled people to attend these schools. Vo-Tech is more for able body people who can do physical work. Many of the disabled get degrees in Pshycology, Sociolology and all that that winds up working for the Government in Social Service areas like Voc-Rehab and the Wel-fare office.

(04-15-2016 10:01 AM)CliftonAve Wrote:  I know I will get some push back from some MAC posters, but I have believed for a while that one or more of the Ohio MAC schools will drop down in the next decade. We have eight FBS schools in the state which is probably too many for a state of 11M people. Does Akron and Kent State both need FBS schools (schools are separated by 17 miles)?

While I am at it I could see one of the Michigan MAC schools dropping down too.

Well a number of people would hope of the three it would be Eastern Michigan but I have not heard anything that would suggest that was even close to happening in any way.

Of the Ohio schools it is doubtful but if there were any going to have trouble it is Akron and to a much lesser extent BGSU. BGSU is having issues with enrollment but is otherwise doing fine. Akron is having a BUNCH of issues nearly all self inflicted (essentially a number of times they gambled on throwing money at many things on campus and it has not paid off for them and they are having issues with retention, enrollment, and have managed to make a whole bunch of locals angry recently with things like the name change and the money problems). I doubt anything happens to either though between the two Akron is much worse off than BGSU. It isn't the first time Akron has put itself into this sort of situation as I understand.

As for Kent since you mentioned them unlike Akron which is dropping sports Kent State just added two sports so it seems Kent State is doing fine (from what I understand is that Kent puts a lot of emphasis on endowing their sports which may explain how they support their sports).

My impression of Houston is that there is a large bandwagon group that will buy tickets and show up when a team is doing well and won't notice bad or mediocre.

^

True except for the NFL. The Texans will always do well as long as they have at least 1-2 mediocre or better seasons per decade. Football is every bit as big if not bigger here as it is in Dallas, Green Bay, Pittsburgh and certainly bigger than in Boston/New England but there just isn't an NFL team to match the popularity, at least not yet. The Texans already wasted Andre Johnson's prime, hopefully they don't do the same for J.J. Watt.

(04-15-2016 10:23 PM)Sultan of Euphonistan Wrote:  

(04-15-2016 10:01 AM)CliftonAve Wrote:  I know I will get some push back from some MAC posters, but I have believed for a while that one or more of the Ohio MAC schools will drop down in the next decade. We have eight FBS schools in the state which is probably too many for a state of 11M people. Does Akron and Kent State both need FBS schools (schools are separated by 17 miles)?

While I am at it I could see one of the Michigan MAC schools dropping down too.

Well a number of people would hope of the three it would be Eastern Michigan but I have not heard anything that would suggest that was even close to happening in any way.

Of the Ohio schools it is doubtful but if there were any going to have trouble it is Akron and to a much lesser extent BGSU. BGSU is having issues with enrollment but is otherwise doing fine. Akron is having a BUNCH of issues nearly all self inflicted (essentially a number of times they gambled on throwing money at many things on campus and it has not paid off for them and they are having issues with retention, enrollment, and have managed to make a whole bunch of locals angry recently with things like the name change and the money problems). I doubt anything happens to either though between the two Akron is much worse off than BGSU. It isn't the first time Akron has put itself into this sort of situation as I understand.

As for Kent since you mentioned them unlike Akron which is dropping sports Kent State just added two sports so it seems Kent State is doing fine (from what I understand is that Kent puts a lot of emphasis on endowing their sports which may explain how they support their sports).

Eastern Michigan receives about 83% of its athletic budget from fees and school revenue the highest subsidy level in FBS so they would be the most sensitive to enrollment declines or state funding cuts. They've been performing very well at growing enrollment so they are probably in good shape.

(04-15-2016 05:38 PM)_C2_ Wrote:  I was fair wasn't I? I said UH doesn't register much here either (the conference title game with Temple didn't come close to selling out). It's just not a good college sports town. The SWAC associated events generally do the best and those are more social events than anyone wanting to watch the game on the field of play.

As for UTH, I've always said UT just needs to take over one of UH's satelitte branches, Texas Southern or make UTMBG a full fledged 4-year school. It makes zero sense to make a new school from scratch.

Finally BillyBobby, it almost happened with Rice in the late 90's and when the Oilers were gone and before the Texans. Rice just seemed to be one game away every year. That option under Hatfield was lethal though.

The Temple/Houston game missed a sellout by 4,729. That sounds pretty close to me. (Percentage of capacity for that game was 89.3%.)

http://www.uhcougars.com/sports/m-footbl...hfb13.html
http://www.uhcougars.com/TDECU_Stadium/Info.html

TDECU Stadium had two sellouts for the season and with a full season average of 84.95% of capacity, the Cougars had one of the highest percentage of stadium capacity numbers for a non-P5 program in 2015.

http://stats.ncaa.org/rankings?sport_cod...ivision=11
(For this link, click on the "Misc Reports" tab and drill down from the "Attendance" link. (I hate it when the URL won't take you directly to the reference.)

The game with SMU knocked 4-5 percentage points off of the season average.

Close to a sellout to me would be within a few hundred. Really, for a CCG, it should be SRO and matching the total for Memphis, though I think what happened is some scalpers bought some hoping to barter some tickets and took a bath.

Who cares about stadium capacity percent, the team was undefeated and ranked for a good part of the year, they should be pushing to expand at this point because of ticket demand. It'll get better but Houston has some of the most fickle fans, both the school and city.

(04-16-2016 12:23 PM)_C2_ Wrote:  Close to a sellout to me would be within a few hundred. Really, for a CCG, it should be SRO and matching the total for Memphis, though I think what happened is some scalpers bought some hoping to barter some tickets and took a bath.

Who cares about stadium capacity percent, the team was undefeated and ranked for a good part of the year, they should be pushing to expand at this point because of ticket demand. It'll get better but Houston has some of the most fickle fans, both the school and city.

C2, do you see Houston getting to 50k in the next 5 years? The goal is 65k, the stadium is capable of that. When do you guess stadium expansion happens for the Coogs?
Cheers!

If they keep winning, 50 K will be a certainty if stadium expansion happens. Otherwise 43K is the cap, this year possibly being in 50's because of the NRG stadium game.

(04-14-2016 02:22 AM)DawgNBama Wrote:  

(04-12-2016 07:08 PM)Carolina_Low_Country Wrote:  FBS Schools I See Struggling In the Future
FIU/FAU (Four Public Schools in FBS is probably enough in Florida)

Georgia State (Do you really need two FBS schools in the same city?)

Coastal Carolina (Just started moving up but doubt if money gets tight)

Middle Tennessee (Not much fan support could see state cutting)

UAB/Troy/South Alabama (Probably just one will survive my money is on South BAMA)

ULM (I think Louisiana (LALA) will survive great fan support and I think Louisiana Tech will too (Tech just needs to get bigger and redo stadium))

New Mexico St. (You know why)

Akron/Kent State/Bowling Green (Not sure who will get cut but Ohio will probably lose some schools especially as population lowers in the north)

EMU/CMU (Same as Ohio)

Ball State (Purdue and Indiana cover the state)

San Jose State (Same area as Cal)

Hawaii (Already have discussed the travel problem population has less interest in football)

Idaho (sigh)

Here's who I see having problems:

FAU: even though Howard Schellenburger started the team, I can still see it struggling in the future because of the fickle nature of football fans from the Miami-Ft. Lauderdale area and nobody wants to watch a losing team in Boca Raton. FIU wins out, IMO, because they're located in Miami, and since FIU is a public institution, it can connect with the locals in Miami better than "U" can because the "U" is private.

I see Georgia State struggling, but not because it's in the same city as North Avenue Trade School (aka GT). People in Atlanta have a lot of options for their entertainment dollar(s) as opposed to people in Tuscaloosa, Eugene (OR), or Norman(OK). Braves baseball, Falcons football, the Mall of Georgia, theaters (both motion picture and plays), hiking, etc. A lot of people in Atlanta like to go to Athens to see the 'Dawgs play, or Auburn to see the Tigers play, or Knoxville to see the Vols. GT is an afterthought, much like Georgia State. IMO, the only regular season game that GT fans get up for is the one vs the Georgia Bulldogs.

Troy, to their credit, has really captured southeast Alabama and made it "Trojan Territory." UAB brought its team back from the dead! The Jags have a ways to go before they catch those two, IMO.

Don't really see NM State, Idaho, Nevada, or Hawaii struggling because they are state flagships. Don't really know on the others, other than UNLV being the Nevada equivalent of UCLA.

People don't seem to be aware how large 6.5M is.

(04-24-2016 02:45 PM)panama Wrote:  

(04-14-2016 02:22 AM)DawgNBama Wrote:  

(04-12-2016 07:08 PM)Carolina_Low_Country Wrote:  FBS Schools I See Struggling In the Future
FIU/FAU (Four Public Schools in FBS is probably enough in Florida)

Georgia State (Do you really need two FBS schools in the same city?)

Coastal Carolina (Just started moving up but doubt if money gets tight)

Middle Tennessee (Not much fan support could see state cutting)

UAB/Troy/South Alabama (Probably just one will survive my money is on South BAMA)

ULM (I think Louisiana (LALA) will survive great fan support and I think Louisiana Tech will too (Tech just needs to get bigger and redo stadium))

New Mexico St. (You know why)

Akron/Kent State/Bowling Green (Not sure who will get cut but Ohio will probably lose some schools especially as population lowers in the north)

EMU/CMU (Same as Ohio)

Ball State (Purdue and Indiana cover the state)

San Jose State (Same area as Cal)

Hawaii (Already have discussed the travel problem population has less interest in football)

Idaho (sigh)

Here's who I see having problems:

FAU: even though Howard Schellenburger started the team, I can still see it struggling in the future because of the fickle nature of football fans from the Miami-Ft. Lauderdale area and nobody wants to watch a losing team in Boca Raton. FIU wins out, IMO, because they're located in Miami, and since FIU is a public institution, it can connect with the locals in Miami better than "U" can because the "U" is private.

I see Georgia State struggling, but not because it's in the same city as North Avenue Trade School (aka GT). People in Atlanta have a lot of options for their entertainment dollar(s) as opposed to people in Tuscaloosa, Eugene (OR), or Norman(OK). Braves baseball, Falcons football, the Mall of Georgia, theaters (both motion picture and plays), hiking, etc. A lot of people in Atlanta like to go to Athens to see the 'Dawgs play, or Auburn to see the Tigers play, or Knoxville to see the Vols. GT is an afterthought, much like Georgia State. IMO, the only regular season game that GT fans get up for is the one vs the Georgia Bulldogs.

Troy, to their credit, has really captured southeast Alabama and made it "Trojan Territory." UAB brought its team back from the dead! The Jags have a ways to go before they catch those two, IMO.

Don't really see NM State, Idaho, Nevada, or Hawaii struggling because they are state flagships. Don't really know on the others, other than UNLV being the Nevada equivalent of UCLA.

People don't seem to be aware how large 6.5M is.

True, but there is a certain amount of awareness required to get the attention of those people...even the 20-50k that Ga State wants. As mentioned above, there are a lot of things going on constantly around the metro Atlanta area on any given day and especially on weekends. Right now you guys are playing the incentives game...the whole "nobody really knows about you/cares about you" thing. When you guys start winning, heads will slowly start to turn which is a good thing. If you get to the point where you start winning BIG games or having huge seasons, that creates more incentive to show up to games/merchandising/etc. Bandwagon or not, it's butts in seats. Like you said...6.5M is a lot of people...You have to get those people excited enough about your program to forego the other Saturday events and come see the Panthers play. Minus the startup issues, GaSouthern has issues vaguely similar to yours. We have fans...many of them are in your 6.5M and have to travel a lot further than the Ga Dome, which in itself creates a lack of incentive every week and impedes our fan growth. Wish we could get more people from the Savannah metro area...

Lets not forget that Florida and other states with a very high population rates are under representative for FBS schools. California needs several more to keep up.

The three Big Sky football schools, Azusa Pacific, Humboldt State, and if Long Beach State, Northridge State, Fullerton State, Santa Clara, Cal-Riverside, Cal. San Diego, Cal-Santa Barbara and others in California do get students, alum, the community and faculty get on board? Than we might be able to see more schools in California. Some of these schools that dropped football was not for the reason of cost and all that. It was some of the ADs hates football, and killed the sport. Since they are long gone from the scene, and students are chanting for football including at Cal-Irvine? The schools might start adding the sport. As it is, the schools want to position themselves to keep up with the P5. That includes non-football schools. But, you might not know who the P5 will take with them if they do break away from the NCAA. The Big 10 might take all the AAU schools from the D3 ranks in their area. PAC 12 could take Cal-Davis and the other Cal system schools.

Boise State might be brought in because they are a top product for TV. Same with several AAC, MWC and a couple of MAC, C-USA and SBC that shows strong tv ratings. Same with some FCS.

(04-14-2016 01:05 AM)wimsmatthew Wrote:  You forgot West Virginia. Only 1.8 million people and multiple FBS Schools: Marshall and WVU

If you think either WVU or Marshall is going to get cut, then you've lost your mind.

Marshall and West Virginia are not going anywhere. Marshall, Old Dominion, Charlotte, Southern Miss, WKU, Rice, UTEP, and UTSA. Will all be fine in CUSA or above

(04-25-2016 07:51 PM)Carolina_Low_Country Wrote:  Marshall and West Virginia are not going anywhere. Marshall, Old Dominion, Charlotte, Southern Miss, WKU, Rice, UTEP, and UTSA. Will all be fine in CUSA or above

Wooaahhh...I never said Marshall or WV would drop football!? Where did I say that? I simply listed the smallest states by population that support multiple FBS football programs. In the OP, I didn't list the state of West Virginia as one of the states with a small population. Someone posted that I forgot to include the state; I added them. I've said that NM St, Idaho, EMU and Louisiana Monroe are the 4 schools in the most trouble trying to sustain their FBS status. Not saying any of them will, but they are the most likely. The USA today numbers that several have posted on here show very small budgets with huge subsidies for those programs. The first two are losing their Conference affiliation.
Cheers!

(04-25-2016 09:34 PM)billybobby777 Wrote:  

(04-25-2016 07:51 PM)Carolina_Low_Country Wrote:  Marshall and West Virginia are not going anywhere. Marshall, Old Dominion, Charlotte, Southern Miss, WKU, Rice, UTEP, and UTSA. Will all be fine in CUSA or above

Wooaahhh...I never said Marshall or WV would drop football!? Where did I say that? I simply listed the smallest states by population that support multiple FBS football programs. In the OP, I didn't list the state of West Virginia as one of the states with a small population. Someone posted that I forgot to include the state; I added them. I've said that NM St, Idaho, EMU and Louisiana Monroe are the 4 schools in the most trouble trying to sustain their FBS status. Not saying any of them will, but they are the most likely. The USA today numbers that several have posted on here show very small budgets with huge subsidies for those programs. The first two are losing their Conference affiliation.
Cheers!

Some of the smaller populated states like Alabama and Mississippi have rabid fan base for football. UAB was kinda of the stand out for low turn out for years.

Some large populated states do have teams that are having troubles getting fans to the games. The Tuesday to Thursday night games in the MAC hurts them.

(04-25-2016 09:34 PM)billybobby777 Wrote:  

(04-25-2016 07:51 PM)Carolina_Low_Country Wrote:  Marshall and West Virginia are not going anywhere. Marshall, Old Dominion, Charlotte, Southern Miss, WKU, Rice, UTEP, and UTSA. Will all be fine in CUSA or above

Wooaahhh...I never said Marshall or WV would drop football!? Where did I say that? I simply listed the smallest states by population that support multiple FBS football programs. In the OP, I didn't list the state of West Virginia as one of the states with a small population. Someone posted that I forgot to include the state; I added them. I've said that NM St, Idaho, EMU and Louisiana Monroe are the 4 schools in the most trouble trying to sustain their FBS status. Not saying any of them will, but they are the most likely. The USA today numbers that several have posted on here show very small budgets with huge subsidies for those programs. The first two are losing their Conference affiliation.
Cheers!

Was responding to the person who brought up West Virginia, not you

(04-26-2016 05:47 AM)Carolina_Low_Country Wrote:  

(04-25-2016 09:34 PM)billybobby777 Wrote:  

(04-25-2016 07:51 PM)Carolina_Low_Country Wrote:  Marshall and West Virginia are not going anywhere. Marshall, Old Dominion, Charlotte, Southern Miss, WKU, Rice, UTEP, and UTSA. Will all be fine in CUSA or above

Wooaahhh...I never said Marshall or WV would drop football!? Where did I say that? I simply listed the smallest states by population that support multiple FBS football programs. In the OP, I didn't list the state of West Virginia as one of the states with a small population. Someone posted that I forgot to include the state; I added them. I've said that NM St, Idaho, EMU and Louisiana Monroe are the 4 schools in the most trouble trying to sustain their FBS status. Not saying any of them will, but they are the most likely. The USA today numbers that several have posted on here show very small budgets with huge subsidies for those programs. The first two are losing their Conference affiliation.
Cheers!

Was responding to the person who brought up West Virginia, not you

Yes, you did. Meant that for that poster. Sorry.
Cheers!

(04-24-2016 10:21 PM)EagleNationRising Wrote:  

(04-24-2016 02:45 PM)panama Wrote:  

(04-14-2016 02:22 AM)DawgNBama Wrote:  

(04-12-2016 07:08 PM)Carolina_Low_Country Wrote:  FBS Schools I See Struggling In the Future
FIU/FAU (Four Public Schools in FBS is probably enough in Florida)

Georgia State (Do you really need two FBS schools in the same city?)

Coastal Carolina (Just started moving up but doubt if money gets tight)

Middle Tennessee (Not much fan support could see state cutting)

UAB/Troy/South Alabama (Probably just one will survive my money is on South BAMA)

ULM (I think Louisiana (LALA) will survive great fan support and I think Louisiana Tech will too (Tech just needs to get bigger and redo stadium))

New Mexico St. (You know why)

Akron/Kent State/Bowling Green (Not sure who will get cut but Ohio will probably lose some schools especially as population lowers in the north)

EMU/CMU (Same as Ohio)

Ball State (Purdue and Indiana cover the state)

San Jose State (Same area as Cal)

Hawaii (Already have discussed the travel problem population has less interest in football)

Idaho (sigh)

Here's who I see having problems:

FAU: even though Howard Schellenburger started the team, I can still see it struggling in the future because of the fickle nature of football fans from the Miami-Ft. Lauderdale area and nobody wants to watch a losing team in Boca Raton. FIU wins out, IMO, because they're located in Miami, and since FIU is a public institution, it can connect with the locals in Miami better than "U" can because the "U" is private.

I see Georgia State struggling, but not because it's in the same city as North Avenue Trade School (aka GT). People in Atlanta have a lot of options for their entertainment dollar(s) as opposed to people in Tuscaloosa, Eugene (OR), or Norman(OK). Braves baseball, Falcons football, the Mall of Georgia, theaters (both motion picture and plays), hiking, etc. A lot of people in Atlanta like to go to Athens to see the 'Dawgs play, or Auburn to see the Tigers play, or Knoxville to see the Vols. GT is an afterthought, much like Georgia State. IMO, the only regular season game that GT fans get up for is the one vs the Georgia Bulldogs.

Troy, to their credit, has really captured southeast Alabama and made it "Trojan Territory." UAB brought its team back from the dead! The Jags have a ways to go before they catch those two, IMO.

Don't really see NM State, Idaho, Nevada, or Hawaii struggling because they are state flagships. Don't really know on the others, other than UNLV being the Nevada equivalent of UCLA.

People don't seem to be aware how large 6.5M is.

True, but there is a certain amount of awareness required to get the attention of those people...even the 20-50k that Ga State wants. As mentioned above, there are a lot of things going on constantly around the metro Atlanta area on any given day and especially on weekends. Right now you guys are playing the incentives game...the whole "nobody really knows about you/cares about you" thing. When you guys start winning, heads will slowly start to turn which is a good thing. If you get to the point where you start winning BIG games or having huge seasons, that creates more incentive to show up to games/merchandising/etc. Bandwagon or not, it's butts in seats. Like you said...6.5M is a lot of people...You have to get those people excited enough about your program to forego the other Saturday events and come see the Panthers play. Minus the startup issues, GaSouthern has issues vaguely similar to yours. We have fans...many of them are in your 6.5M and have to travel a lot further than the Ga Dome, which in itself creates a lack of incentive every week and impedes our fan growth. Wish we could get more people from the Savannah metro area...

No argument there.

I still hate you.

If the NCAA ever decided to enforce the attendance requirement (by using the "actual butts in seats" metric), there would be a $h!# ton of schools in trouble and in danger of being sent down. I would say, EMU, FIU, perhaps a few SunBelt schools, and several in the MAC...