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Group of Five Playoff Idea not going away
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Attackcoog Offline
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Post: #61
RE: Group of Five Playoff Idea not going away
(02-14-2017 05:37 PM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  
(02-14-2017 05:21 PM)miko33 Wrote:  There won't be a group of 5 playoff. However, there may actually be something similar that will come about in the future that will make a new subdivision out of necessity. The brutal honesty is that there are maybe 20 - 30 schools that can legitimately spend at the highest levels to compete. At least 1/2 to 2/3rds of the current P5 setup cannot effectively compete at the highest levels when you look at schools like Alabama, Michigan, OH State, Florida, Texas, and a handful of others and use those as a benchmark for AD spending...it's not sustainable. IMO if your school CANNOT run a revenue neutral AD at the absolute minimum, you do not deserve to be in the highest subdivision. That's the first pass. Second pass, if you cannot spend at a minimum "X" amount of dollars, you have no business being in the highest subdivision. Applying a dual pass filter with these metrics, your ultimate slotting in the subdivisions SHOULD look quite different.

My school cannot compete at the highest levels and it's in a P5 conference. I do not WANT my school to compete at the highest levels. I would rather my school focus more efforts on the academic side AND MORE IMPORTANTLY focus on controlling costs so that tuition is more affordable to the state residents. We're beyond the fun and games at this point. College costs are too high, and playing college sports at the highest levels WHEN YOU CANNOT RUN A REVENUE NEUTRAL AD is morally repugnant in today's world. I no longer GAF if my school can go toe to toe with Ohio State if it means that the AD must be heavily subsidized to do so.

If your school is in a P5 conference (including Pitt), then its football and men's basketball programs are absolutely, 100% making a lot of money. Whether the rest of the athletic department is draining such money and/or there's a lot of creative accounting being employed to show $0 profit or a net loss is another matter.

It's not mutually exclusive for a school like Pitt to have a top level P5 athletic department while also improving academic standards. Once you get past the Ivy League-level schools, there's a pretty strong correlation between academic prestige and P5 membership. A P5 athletic department is also not a reason why tuition is going higher. Public schools everywhere (regardless of whether they are in the P5 or not) are getting little to no state funding these days and private schools have jacked up tuition rates to the point where it's literally funny money if you're attempting to pay out-of-pocket. Don't kid yourself - Pitt isn't going to be more affordable if it drops P5 sports. If anything, that reduces the national name brand of Pitt where they don't attract as many applications from quality students, which then reduces enrollments and then forces the school to squeeze more tuition dollars from its existing students.

I can point to my own home state of Illinois. It's not the University of Illinois (with its Big Ten athletic department) that's hurting due to a complete lack of state funding of higher education (literally) - they've just announced that they've received yet another record number of applications this year. Instead, it's the non-P5 public universities in the state that are getting hammered financially and facing declining enrollments. That's not to say that having P5 athletics is the reason why U of I isn't suffering the same fate as its other in-state brethren, but the point is that it certainly isn't hurting them at all whatsoever. Big Ten membership is a pretty significant plus for U of I in differentiating itself against other schools that are its local competitors, just as ACC membership is a pretty significant plus for Pitt as being a differentiator versus, say, Temple, Delaware or Miami of Ohio.

Which has always been one of my points. Fine. Dump football. Just remember, FBS football attracts students and donations. Without football, the school will need to find a new way to attract enrollment and donation dollars. Its very likely that the marketing to attract these potential students and donations will cost just as much or more than football. And you cant sell tickets or get TV rights to subsidize the cost of a traditional marketing program.
(This post was last modified: 02-14-2017 10:31 PM by Attackcoog.)
02-14-2017 10:29 PM
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chess Offline
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Post: #62
RE: Group of Five Playoff Idea not going away
(02-14-2017 10:29 PM)Attackcoog Wrote:  
(02-14-2017 05:37 PM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  
(02-14-2017 05:21 PM)miko33 Wrote:  There won't be a group of 5 playoff. However, there may actually be something similar that will come about in the future that will make a new subdivision out of necessity. The brutal honesty is that there are maybe 20 - 30 schools that can legitimately spend at the highest levels to compete. At least 1/2 to 2/3rds of the current P5 setup cannot effectively compete at the highest levels when you look at schools like Alabama, Michigan, OH State, Florida, Texas, and a handful of others and use those as a benchmark for AD spending...it's not sustainable. IMO if your school CANNOT run a revenue neutral AD at the absolute minimum, you do not deserve to be in the highest subdivision. That's the first pass. Second pass, if you cannot spend at a minimum "X" amount of dollars, you have no business being in the highest subdivision. Applying a dual pass filter with these metrics, your ultimate slotting in the subdivisions SHOULD look quite different.

My school cannot compete at the highest levels and it's in a P5 conference. I do not WANT my school to compete at the highest levels. I would rather my school focus more efforts on the academic side AND MORE IMPORTANTLY focus on controlling costs so that tuition is more affordable to the state residents. We're beyond the fun and games at this point. College costs are too high, and playing college sports at the highest levels WHEN YOU CANNOT RUN A REVENUE NEUTRAL AD is morally repugnant in today's world. I no longer GAF if my school can go toe to toe with Ohio State if it means that the AD must be heavily subsidized to do so.

If your school is in a P5 conference (including Pitt), then its football and men's basketball programs are absolutely, 100% making a lot of money. Whether the rest of the athletic department is draining such money and/or there's a lot of creative accounting being employed to show $0 profit or a net loss is another matter.

It's not mutually exclusive for a school like Pitt to have a top level P5 athletic department while also improving academic standards. Once you get past the Ivy League-level schools, there's a pretty strong correlation between academic prestige and P5 membership. A P5 athletic department is also not a reason why tuition is going higher. Public schools everywhere (regardless of whether they are in the P5 or not) are getting little to no state funding these days and private schools have jacked up tuition rates to the point where it's literally funny money if you're attempting to pay out-of-pocket. Don't kid yourself - Pitt isn't going to be more affordable if it drops P5 sports. If anything, that reduces the national name brand of Pitt where they don't attract as many applications from quality students, which then reduces enrollments and then forces the school to squeeze more tuition dollars from its existing students.

I can point to my own home state of Illinois. It's not the University of Illinois (with its Big Ten athletic department) that's hurting due to a complete lack of state funding of higher education (literally) - they've just announced that they've received yet another record number of applications this year. Instead, it's the non-P5 public universities in the state that are getting hammered financially and facing declining enrollments. That's not to say that having P5 athletics is the reason why U of I isn't suffering the same fate as its other in-state brethren, but the point is that it certainly isn't hurting them at all whatsoever. Big Ten membership is a pretty significant plus for U of I in differentiating itself against other schools that are its local competitors, just as ACC membership is a pretty significant plus for Pitt as being a differentiator versus, say, Temple, Delaware or Miami of Ohio.

Which has always been one of my points. Fine. Dump football. Just remember, FBS football attracts students and donations. Without football, the school will need to find a new way to attract enrollment and donation dollars. Its very likely that the marketing to attract these potential students and donations will cost just as much or more than football. And you cant sell tickets or get TV rights to subsidize the cost of a traditional marketing program.

UC-Davis, UC-San Diego, UT-Dallas, UIC (Chicago), George Mason, VCU, IUPUI, UMBC, UMKC, UNCW, UNCG, FGCU, etc... We are seeing a rise of newer schools that are big and do not have a football team.

Of course, the alternative to this are schools like Georgia State, UAB, South Florida, UNC-Charlotte, Old Dominion, etc...
(This post was last modified: 02-14-2017 11:11 PM by chess.)
02-14-2017 11:09 PM
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miko33 Offline
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Post: #63
RE: Group of Five Playoff Idea not going away
(02-14-2017 10:29 PM)Attackcoog Wrote:  
(02-14-2017 05:37 PM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  
(02-14-2017 05:21 PM)miko33 Wrote:  There won't be a group of 5 playoff. However, there may actually be something similar that will come about in the future that will make a new subdivision out of necessity. The brutal honesty is that there are maybe 20 - 30 schools that can legitimately spend at the highest levels to compete. At least 1/2 to 2/3rds of the current P5 setup cannot effectively compete at the highest levels when you look at schools like Alabama, Michigan, OH State, Florida, Texas, and a handful of others and use those as a benchmark for AD spending...it's not sustainable. IMO if your school CANNOT run a revenue neutral AD at the absolute minimum, you do not deserve to be in the highest subdivision. That's the first pass. Second pass, if you cannot spend at a minimum "X" amount of dollars, you have no business being in the highest subdivision. Applying a dual pass filter with these metrics, your ultimate slotting in the subdivisions SHOULD look quite different.

My school cannot compete at the highest levels and it's in a P5 conference. I do not WANT my school to compete at the highest levels. I would rather my school focus more efforts on the academic side AND MORE IMPORTANTLY focus on controlling costs so that tuition is more affordable to the state residents. We're beyond the fun and games at this point. College costs are too high, and playing college sports at the highest levels WHEN YOU CANNOT RUN A REVENUE NEUTRAL AD is morally repugnant in today's world. I no longer GAF if my school can go toe to toe with Ohio State if it means that the AD must be heavily subsidized to do so.

If your school is in a P5 conference (including Pitt), then its football and men's basketball programs are absolutely, 100% making a lot of money. Whether the rest of the athletic department is draining such money and/or there's a lot of creative accounting being employed to show $0 profit or a net loss is another matter.

It's not mutually exclusive for a school like Pitt to have a top level P5 athletic department while also improving academic standards. Once you get past the Ivy League-level schools, there's a pretty strong correlation between academic prestige and P5 membership. A P5 athletic department is also not a reason why tuition is going higher. Public schools everywhere (regardless of whether they are in the P5 or not) are getting little to no state funding these days and private schools have jacked up tuition rates to the point where it's literally funny money if you're attempting to pay out-of-pocket. Don't kid yourself - Pitt isn't going to be more affordable if it drops P5 sports. If anything, that reduces the national name brand of Pitt where they don't attract as many applications from quality students, which then reduces enrollments and then forces the school to squeeze more tuition dollars from its existing students.

I can point to my own home state of Illinois. It's not the University of Illinois (with its Big Ten athletic department) that's hurting due to a complete lack of state funding of higher education (literally) - they've just announced that they've received yet another record number of applications this year. Instead, it's the non-P5 public universities in the state that are getting hammered financially and facing declining enrollments. That's not to say that having P5 athletics is the reason why U of I isn't suffering the same fate as its other in-state brethren, but the point is that it certainly isn't hurting them at all whatsoever. Big Ten membership is a pretty significant plus for U of I in differentiating itself against other schools that are its local competitors, just as ACC membership is a pretty significant plus for Pitt as being a differentiator versus, say, Temple, Delaware or Miami of Ohio.

Which has always been one of my points. Fine. Dump football. Just remember, FBS football attracts students and donations. Without football, the school will need to find a new way to attract enrollment and donation dollars. Its very likely that the marketing to attract these potential students and donations will cost just as much or more than football. And you cant sell tickets or get TV rights to subsidize the cost of a traditional marketing program.

Tail wagging the dog. It's not football that attracts students to the U of Illinois. It's the fact that it is the school that gets the most resources from the state and can thus offer the most variety of subjects to major in. C'mon, most of the marketing is being done at the HS level with guidance counselors trying to funnel kids to school and showing the chart where you earn X amount of dollars based on Y level of education. Once again, for the vast majority of students, you are going to the larger state funded schools because of your parental income (middle class), your grade/test entrance exams (good to great, not brilliant) and your desire for the most diverse choices for majors. So let's get this straight. You are a HS student living in the state of Illinois, and you "discover" that the U. of Illinois exists because they play football in the B1G? Nevermind the fact that U of I has been mediocre at best for the majority of it's time in the B1G - just the fact they play in a "big boy conference" has gotten there name out to people who never thought to go there before??? You can't be serious. These land grant schools are making most of their enrollment decisions on in state students. Most of these schools are equivalent from state to state. Cookie cutter institutions. You go to the one that best fits your budget and course offering variety. "Big State U" will have the variety of majors and the economy of scale to have the resources you need to do well. Plus it will have the right cost - instate tuition break for the local student.

If CFB completely goes away tomorrow - the school rankings in the USNews, the name recognition for instate students and the fact these schools have resources based on research contracts and state funding will not change.
02-14-2017 11:35 PM
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Attackcoog Offline
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Post: #64
RE: Group of Five Playoff Idea not going away
(02-14-2017 11:35 PM)miko33 Wrote:  
(02-14-2017 10:29 PM)Attackcoog Wrote:  
(02-14-2017 05:37 PM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  
(02-14-2017 05:21 PM)miko33 Wrote:  There won't be a group of 5 playoff. However, there may actually be something similar that will come about in the future that will make a new subdivision out of necessity. The brutal honesty is that there are maybe 20 - 30 schools that can legitimately spend at the highest levels to compete. At least 1/2 to 2/3rds of the current P5 setup cannot effectively compete at the highest levels when you look at schools like Alabama, Michigan, OH State, Florida, Texas, and a handful of others and use those as a benchmark for AD spending...it's not sustainable. IMO if your school CANNOT run a revenue neutral AD at the absolute minimum, you do not deserve to be in the highest subdivision. That's the first pass. Second pass, if you cannot spend at a minimum "X" amount of dollars, you have no business being in the highest subdivision. Applying a dual pass filter with these metrics, your ultimate slotting in the subdivisions SHOULD look quite different.

My school cannot compete at the highest levels and it's in a P5 conference. I do not WANT my school to compete at the highest levels. I would rather my school focus more efforts on the academic side AND MORE IMPORTANTLY focus on controlling costs so that tuition is more affordable to the state residents. We're beyond the fun and games at this point. College costs are too high, and playing college sports at the highest levels WHEN YOU CANNOT RUN A REVENUE NEUTRAL AD is morally repugnant in today's world. I no longer GAF if my school can go toe to toe with Ohio State if it means that the AD must be heavily subsidized to do so.

If your school is in a P5 conference (including Pitt), then its football and men's basketball programs are absolutely, 100% making a lot of money. Whether the rest of the athletic department is draining such money and/or there's a lot of creative accounting being employed to show $0 profit or a net loss is another matter.

It's not mutually exclusive for a school like Pitt to have a top level P5 athletic department while also improving academic standards. Once you get past the Ivy League-level schools, there's a pretty strong correlation between academic prestige and P5 membership. A P5 athletic department is also not a reason why tuition is going higher. Public schools everywhere (regardless of whether they are in the P5 or not) are getting little to no state funding these days and private schools have jacked up tuition rates to the point where it's literally funny money if you're attempting to pay out-of-pocket. Don't kid yourself - Pitt isn't going to be more affordable if it drops P5 sports. If anything, that reduces the national name brand of Pitt where they don't attract as many applications from quality students, which then reduces enrollments and then forces the school to squeeze more tuition dollars from its existing students.

I can point to my own home state of Illinois. It's not the University of Illinois (with its Big Ten athletic department) that's hurting due to a complete lack of state funding of higher education (literally) - they've just announced that they've received yet another record number of applications this year. Instead, it's the non-P5 public universities in the state that are getting hammered financially and facing declining enrollments. That's not to say that having P5 athletics is the reason why U of I isn't suffering the same fate as its other in-state brethren, but the point is that it certainly isn't hurting them at all whatsoever. Big Ten membership is a pretty significant plus for U of I in differentiating itself against other schools that are its local competitors, just as ACC membership is a pretty significant plus for Pitt as being a differentiator versus, say, Temple, Delaware or Miami of Ohio.

Which has always been one of my points. Fine. Dump football. Just remember, FBS football attracts students and donations. Without football, the school will need to find a new way to attract enrollment and donation dollars. Its very likely that the marketing to attract these potential students and donations will cost just as much or more than football. And you cant sell tickets or get TV rights to subsidize the cost of a traditional marketing program.

Tail wagging the dog. It's not football that attracts students to the U of Illinois. It's the fact that it is the school that gets the most resources from the state and can thus offer the most variety of subjects to major in. C'mon, most of the marketing is being done at the HS level with guidance counselors trying to funnel kids to school and showing the chart where you earn X amount of dollars based on Y level of education. Once again, for the vast majority of students, you are going to the larger state funded schools because of your parental income (middle class), your grade/test entrance exams (good to great, not brilliant) and your desire for the most diverse choices for majors. So let's get this straight. You are a HS student living in the state of Illinois, and you "discover" that the U. of Illinois exists because they play football in the B1G? Nevermind the fact that U of I has been mediocre at best for the majority of it's time in the B1G - just the fact they play in a "big boy conference" has gotten there name out to people who never thought to go there before??? You can't be serious. These land grant schools are making most of their enrollment decisions on in state students. Most of these schools are equivalent from state to state. Cookie cutter institutions. You go to the one that best fits your budget and course offering variety. "Big State U" will have the variety of majors and the economy of scale to have the resources you need to do well. Plus it will have the right cost - instate tuition break for the local student.

If CFB completely goes away tomorrow - the school rankings in the USNews, the name recognition for instate students and the fact these schools have resources based on research contracts and state funding will not change.

I'm serious as a heart attack. By the time a kid even enters middle school---long before he even has a clue what he wants to be when he grows up--he has heard the names of hundreds of schools thousands of times. Not once has he heard those names with any connection to academics. He has heard them in connection with sports. Hell---many kids already know where they want to go to school before they select thier major. They became fans of the schools sports teams long before they knew what a "major" was. There's a reason schools spend money and fight to stay in FBS.

More than half of college applicants have no idea what they want to major in. So half the kids deciding on a college aren't looking for the best astrophysics department. They are picking thier school based on some other appeal---probably just the one they "like" best.
(This post was last modified: 02-15-2017 12:35 AM by Attackcoog.)
02-15-2017 12:28 AM
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Kittonhead Offline
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Post: #65
RE: Group of Five Playoff Idea not going away
(02-14-2017 11:35 PM)miko33 Wrote:  If CFB completely goes away tomorrow - the school rankings in the USNews, the name recognition for instate students and the fact these schools have resources based on research contracts and state funding will not change.

Yes its the reverse. Good academics are a causality for better athletics.

UConn's been on the rise for a couple of decades and growth of their athletic program have followed.

As Florida State then UCF & USF grew up their athletic followed. Growing school demands growing facilities. Florida State was not a major school prior to WWII and did not have a football team.

Schools on the rise have rising athletics.
(This post was last modified: 02-15-2017 01:34 AM by Kittonhead.)
02-15-2017 01:27 AM
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miko33 Offline
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Post: #66
RE: Group of Five Playoff Idea not going away
(02-15-2017 12:28 AM)Attackcoog Wrote:  
(02-14-2017 11:35 PM)miko33 Wrote:  
(02-14-2017 10:29 PM)Attackcoog Wrote:  
(02-14-2017 05:37 PM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  
(02-14-2017 05:21 PM)miko33 Wrote:  There won't be a group of 5 playoff. However, there may actually be something similar that will come about in the future that will make a new subdivision out of necessity. The brutal honesty is that there are maybe 20 - 30 schools that can legitimately spend at the highest levels to compete. At least 1/2 to 2/3rds of the current P5 setup cannot effectively compete at the highest levels when you look at schools like Alabama, Michigan, OH State, Florida, Texas, and a handful of others and use those as a benchmark for AD spending...it's not sustainable. IMO if your school CANNOT run a revenue neutral AD at the absolute minimum, you do not deserve to be in the highest subdivision. That's the first pass. Second pass, if you cannot spend at a minimum "X" amount of dollars, you have no business being in the highest subdivision. Applying a dual pass filter with these metrics, your ultimate slotting in the subdivisions SHOULD look quite different.

My school cannot compete at the highest levels and it's in a P5 conference. I do not WANT my school to compete at the highest levels. I would rather my school focus more efforts on the academic side AND MORE IMPORTANTLY focus on controlling costs so that tuition is more affordable to the state residents. We're beyond the fun and games at this point. College costs are too high, and playing college sports at the highest levels WHEN YOU CANNOT RUN A REVENUE NEUTRAL AD is morally repugnant in today's world. I no longer GAF if my school can go toe to toe with Ohio State if it means that the AD must be heavily subsidized to do so.

If your school is in a P5 conference (including Pitt), then its football and men's basketball programs are absolutely, 100% making a lot of money. Whether the rest of the athletic department is draining such money and/or there's a lot of creative accounting being employed to show $0 profit or a net loss is another matter.

It's not mutually exclusive for a school like Pitt to have a top level P5 athletic department while also improving academic standards. Once you get past the Ivy League-level schools, there's a pretty strong correlation between academic prestige and P5 membership. A P5 athletic department is also not a reason why tuition is going higher. Public schools everywhere (regardless of whether they are in the P5 or not) are getting little to no state funding these days and private schools have jacked up tuition rates to the point where it's literally funny money if you're attempting to pay out-of-pocket. Don't kid yourself - Pitt isn't going to be more affordable if it drops P5 sports. If anything, that reduces the national name brand of Pitt where they don't attract as many applications from quality students, which then reduces enrollments and then forces the school to squeeze more tuition dollars from its existing students.

I can point to my own home state of Illinois. It's not the University of Illinois (with its Big Ten athletic department) that's hurting due to a complete lack of state funding of higher education (literally) - they've just announced that they've received yet another record number of applications this year. Instead, it's the non-P5 public universities in the state that are getting hammered financially and facing declining enrollments. That's not to say that having P5 athletics is the reason why U of I isn't suffering the same fate as its other in-state brethren, but the point is that it certainly isn't hurting them at all whatsoever. Big Ten membership is a pretty significant plus for U of I in differentiating itself against other schools that are its local competitors, just as ACC membership is a pretty significant plus for Pitt as being a differentiator versus, say, Temple, Delaware or Miami of Ohio.

Which has always been one of my points. Fine. Dump football. Just remember, FBS football attracts students and donations. Without football, the school will need to find a new way to attract enrollment and donation dollars. Its very likely that the marketing to attract these potential students and donations will cost just as much or more than football. And you cant sell tickets or get TV rights to subsidize the cost of a traditional marketing program.

Tail wagging the dog. It's not football that attracts students to the U of Illinois. It's the fact that it is the school that gets the most resources from the state and can thus offer the most variety of subjects to major in. C'mon, most of the marketing is being done at the HS level with guidance counselors trying to funnel kids to school and showing the chart where you earn X amount of dollars based on Y level of education. Once again, for the vast majority of students, you are going to the larger state funded schools because of your parental income (middle class), your grade/test entrance exams (good to great, not brilliant) and your desire for the most diverse choices for majors. So let's get this straight. You are a HS student living in the state of Illinois, and you "discover" that the U. of Illinois exists because they play football in the B1G? Nevermind the fact that U of I has been mediocre at best for the majority of it's time in the B1G - just the fact they play in a "big boy conference" has gotten there name out to people who never thought to go there before??? You can't be serious. These land grant schools are making most of their enrollment decisions on in state students. Most of these schools are equivalent from state to state. Cookie cutter institutions. You go to the one that best fits your budget and course offering variety. "Big State U" will have the variety of majors and the economy of scale to have the resources you need to do well. Plus it will have the right cost - instate tuition break for the local student.

If CFB completely goes away tomorrow - the school rankings in the USNews, the name recognition for instate students and the fact these schools have resources based on research contracts and state funding will not change.

I'm serious as a heart attack. By the time a kid even enters middle school---long before he even has a clue what he wants to be when he grows up--he has heard the names of hundreds of schools thousands of times. Not once has he heard those names with any connection to academics. He has heard them in connection with sports. Hell---many kids already know where they want to go to school before they select thier major. They became fans of the schools sports teams long before they knew what a "major" was. There's a reason schools spend money and fight to stay in FBS.

More than half of college applicants have no idea what they want to major in. So half the kids deciding on a college aren't looking for the best astrophysics department. They are picking thier school based on some other appeal---probably just the one they "like" best.

You are correct, many kids are getting inundated with college names thru athletics. However, Ohio State killing it on the gridiron is not attracting Connecticut students. Alabama isn't attracting the best and brightest from the nation because of their trophies. Most of us are choosing which university to attend based on price, scope of degree offerings and geography. In fact, I didn't emphasize the geography point enough. A number of states have more than one prominent university, and I would contend that the students you described above are choosing the closest one that fits the bill for offering a wide variety of choices. Most of the P5 and G5 schools are commodity schools. An undergrad degree in English, mathematics, economics will basically be the same.

Your contention is that sports is the difference maker. It's not. It's a combination of price, quality and geography. Conference affiliation plays no role.
02-15-2017 07:31 AM
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JHS55 Offline
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Post: #67
Group of Five Playoff Idea not going away
Yeah frank , correlation is not causation, didn't you know this ?
02-15-2017 08:02 AM
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Kittonhead Offline
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Post: #68
RE: Group of Five Playoff Idea not going away
Major, academics, price, campus, location are all factors. Louisiana Tech I'm sure wins out over LSU most of the time.

A smaller campus has traditionally been more prestigious than a large land grant university. Truman State over Missouri and Miami U. over Ohio State since a smaller campus gives more of a private school feel.

There are a handful of land grants which have the best of everything, UVA is most likely the best all in one land grant but most have some flaws, starting with supersized enrollments and having to drive to class.
02-15-2017 08:17 AM
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Post: #69
RE: Group of Five Playoff Idea not going away
(02-13-2017 09:25 PM)shere khan Wrote:  No

Ditto. Stupid. The AAC will never agree.
02-15-2017 09:58 AM
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RE: Group of Five Playoff Idea not going away
(02-15-2017 07:31 AM)miko33 Wrote:  
(02-15-2017 12:28 AM)Attackcoog Wrote:  
(02-14-2017 11:35 PM)miko33 Wrote:  
(02-14-2017 10:29 PM)Attackcoog Wrote:  
(02-14-2017 05:37 PM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  If your school is in a P5 conference (including Pitt), then its football and men's basketball programs are absolutely, 100% making a lot of money. Whether the rest of the athletic department is draining such money and/or there's a lot of creative accounting being employed to show $0 profit or a net loss is another matter.

It's not mutually exclusive for a school like Pitt to have a top level P5 athletic department while also improving academic standards. Once you get past the Ivy League-level schools, there's a pretty strong correlation between academic prestige and P5 membership. A P5 athletic department is also not a reason why tuition is going higher. Public schools everywhere (regardless of whether they are in the P5 or not) are getting little to no state funding these days and private schools have jacked up tuition rates to the point where it's literally funny money if you're attempting to pay out-of-pocket. Don't kid yourself - Pitt isn't going to be more affordable if it drops P5 sports. If anything, that reduces the national name brand of Pitt where they don't attract as many applications from quality students, which then reduces enrollments and then forces the school to squeeze more tuition dollars from its existing students.

I can point to my own home state of Illinois. It's not the University of Illinois (with its Big Ten athletic department) that's hurting due to a complete lack of state funding of higher education (literally) - they've just announced that they've received yet another record number of applications this year. Instead, it's the non-P5 public universities in the state that are getting hammered financially and facing declining enrollments. That's not to say that having P5 athletics is the reason why U of I isn't suffering the same fate as its other in-state brethren, but the point is that it certainly isn't hurting them at all whatsoever. Big Ten membership is a pretty significant plus for U of I in differentiating itself against other schools that are its local competitors, just as ACC membership is a pretty significant plus for Pitt as being a differentiator versus, say, Temple, Delaware or Miami of Ohio.

Which has always been one of my points. Fine. Dump football. Just remember, FBS football attracts students and donations. Without football, the school will need to find a new way to attract enrollment and donation dollars. Its very likely that the marketing to attract these potential students and donations will cost just as much or more than football. And you cant sell tickets or get TV rights to subsidize the cost of a traditional marketing program.

Tail wagging the dog. It's not football that attracts students to the U of Illinois. It's the fact that it is the school that gets the most resources from the state and can thus offer the most variety of subjects to major in. C'mon, most of the marketing is being done at the HS level with guidance counselors trying to funnel kids to school and showing the chart where you earn X amount of dollars based on Y level of education. Once again, for the vast majority of students, you are going to the larger state funded schools because of your parental income (middle class), your grade/test entrance exams (good to great, not brilliant) and your desire for the most diverse choices for majors. So let's get this straight. You are a HS student living in the state of Illinois, and you "discover" that the U. of Illinois exists because they play football in the B1G? Nevermind the fact that U of I has been mediocre at best for the majority of it's time in the B1G - just the fact they play in a "big boy conference" has gotten there name out to people who never thought to go there before??? You can't be serious. These land grant schools are making most of their enrollment decisions on in state students. Most of these schools are equivalent from state to state. Cookie cutter institutions. You go to the one that best fits your budget and course offering variety. "Big State U" will have the variety of majors and the economy of scale to have the resources you need to do well. Plus it will have the right cost - instate tuition break for the local student.

If CFB completely goes away tomorrow - the school rankings in the USNews, the name recognition for instate students and the fact these schools have resources based on research contracts and state funding will not change.

I'm serious as a heart attack. By the time a kid even enters middle school---long before he even has a clue what he wants to be when he grows up--he has heard the names of hundreds of schools thousands of times. Not once has he heard those names with any connection to academics. He has heard them in connection with sports. Hell---many kids already know where they want to go to school before they select thier major. They became fans of the schools sports teams long before they knew what a "major" was. There's a reason schools spend money and fight to stay in FBS.

More than half of college applicants have no idea what they want to major in. So half the kids deciding on a college aren't looking for the best astrophysics department. They are picking thier school based on some other appeal---probably just the one they "like" best.

You are correct, many kids are getting inundated with college names thru athletics. However, Ohio State killing it on the gridiron is not attracting Connecticut students. Alabama isn't attracting the best and brightest from the nation because of their trophies. Most of us are choosing which university to attend based on price, scope of degree offerings and geography. In fact, I didn't emphasize the geography point enough. A number of states have more than one prominent university, and I would contend that the students you described above are choosing the closest one that fits the bill for offering a wide variety of choices. Most of the P5 and G5 schools are commodity schools. An undergrad degree in English, mathematics, economics will basically be the same.

Your contention is that sports is the difference maker. It's not. It's a combination of price, quality and geography. Conference affiliation plays no role.

Alabama is the fastest growing flagship university in the nation. It aint due to the astrophysics department. There are mulitple reasons that football makes a difference. There are some kids who wont even consider a school that doesn't play major football. There are others who equate FBS football programs with prestige or being a "major" university. There are reasons that only one school has dropped from the FBS ranks over the last quarter century.
(This post was last modified: 02-15-2017 10:02 AM by Attackcoog.)
02-15-2017 09:58 AM
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EvilVodka Offline
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Post: #71
RE: Group of Five Playoff Idea not going away
I think it's a great idea...as long as the highest rated G5 champ still goes to the NY6 bowls

What do the 4 other champs do? This last year what did the Mountain West, American, C-USA, and Sun Belt champs do?

Start out with a 4 team playoff...it would be something that would be a little different and distinguish itself from the rest of the bowl games.

It is a stupid idea according to small thinkers. Why not try and create a better stage for the champs of these conferences? Sounds better than the stupid New Orleans and Las Vegas Bowls
02-15-2017 10:13 AM
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Frank the Tank Offline
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RE: Group of Five Playoff Idea not going away
(02-14-2017 09:55 PM)miko33 Wrote:  
(02-14-2017 05:37 PM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  
(02-14-2017 05:21 PM)miko33 Wrote:  There won't be a group of 5 playoff. However, there may actually be something similar that will come about in the future that will make a new subdivision out of necessity. The brutal honesty is that there are maybe 20 - 30 schools that can legitimately spend at the highest levels to compete. At least 1/2 to 2/3rds of the current P5 setup cannot effectively compete at the highest levels when you look at schools like Alabama, Michigan, OH State, Florida, Texas, and a handful of others and use those as a benchmark for AD spending...it's not sustainable. IMO if your school CANNOT run a revenue neutral AD at the absolute minimum, you do not deserve to be in the highest subdivision. That's the first pass. Second pass, if you cannot spend at a minimum "X" amount of dollars, you have no business being in the highest subdivision. Applying a dual pass filter with these metrics, your ultimate slotting in the subdivisions SHOULD look quite different.

My school cannot compete at the highest levels and it's in a P5 conference. I do not WANT my school to compete at the highest levels. I would rather my school focus more efforts on the academic side AND MORE IMPORTANTLY focus on controlling costs so that tuition is more affordable to the state residents. We're beyond the fun and games at this point. College costs are too high, and playing college sports at the highest levels WHEN YOU CANNOT RUN A REVENUE NEUTRAL AD is morally repugnant in today's world. I no longer GAF if my school can go toe to toe with Ohio State if it means that the AD must be heavily subsidized to do so.

If your school is in a P5 conference (including Pitt), then its football and men's basketball programs are absolutely, 100% making a lot of money. Whether the rest of the athletic department is draining such money and/or there's a lot of creative accounting being employed to show $0 profit or a net loss is another matter.

It's not mutually exclusive for a school like Pitt to have a top level P5 athletic department while also improving academic standards. Once you get past the Ivy League-level schools, there's a pretty strong correlation between academic prestige and P5 membership. A P5 athletic department is also not a reason why tuition is going higher. Public schools everywhere (regardless of whether they are in the P5 or not) are getting little to no state funding these days and private schools have jacked up tuition rates to the point where it's literally funny money if you're attempting to pay out-of-pocket. Don't kid yourself - Pitt isn't going to be more affordable if it drops P5 sports. If anything, that reduces the national name brand of Pitt where they don't attract as many applications from quality students, which then reduces enrollments and then forces the school to squeeze more tuition dollars from its existing students.

I can point to my own home state of Illinois. It's not the University of Illinois (with its Big Ten athletic department) that's hurting due to a complete lack of state funding of higher education (literally) - they've just announced that they've received yet another record number of applications this year. Instead, it's the non-P5 public universities in the state that are getting hammered financially and facing declining enrollments. That's not to say that having P5 athletics is the reason why U of I isn't suffering the same fate as its other in-state brethren, but the point is that it certainly isn't hurting them at all whatsoever. Big Ten membership is a pretty significant plus for U of I in differentiating itself against other schools that are its local competitors, just as ACC membership is a pretty significant plus for Pitt as being a differentiator versus, say, Temple, Delaware or Miami of Ohio.

Correlation is not causation, Frank. Most schools are P5 today because they were the schools pushed strongly by the states sponsoring these land grant institutions over a hundred years ago. Of course the public schools that get the majority of the financing because they are - the official land grant state universities of choice by the state - they will have the higher ratings. They will have the resources that will get them the best equipment for their schools and the talented phD's to become professors. This in turn will provide the shot in the arm to become strong research centers. That will attract more dollars and more reputation and the cycle will continue. It's a self reinforcing positive feedback loop that was all made possible by significant seed money from the states originally. This doesn't account for the private P5 schools, but that's no biggie since my statements account for the vast majority of P5 schools.

Maybe decades ago before we had all of the info at our fingertips, college sports did act as THE primary marketing tool that prospective students had access to. This paradigm is no longer the dominant model. The best and brightest students are those who are discriminating shoppers who are carefully weighing the strength and weaknesses of various schools. If they are interested in polymer science, they'll choose the school strongest in polymer science that they can get into AND get scholarships to study at.

For the rest of us middle class types who are not rich enough for the Ivy's, not brilliant enough for the Ivy's or not poor enough for the Ivy's...we're choosing the overall best school that we can reasonably afford. Growing up in PA, I already knew I was either going to Pitt or PSU. I applied to both and was accepted to both. It wasn't college athletics that swayed me. These were the 2 best options available for a middle class kid who wants to study engineering. The other options either didn't offer what i was looking for, low quality or too expensive. Conference affiliation had nothing to do with it. For the VAST MAJORITY of people, the dominant state school is what they'll choose as their best available choice if they want access to as many options for degrees as possible. This is common knowledge for the majority of us. It has nothing to do with conference affiliation, and frankly it's stupid to make such an argument.

I completely agree that correlation is not the same as causation and that academic standing and P5 membership are correlated with each other (as opposed to one causing the other).

By the same token, though, there's neither causation nor correlation between eliminating/reducing the size of an athletic department and decreasing the costs of tuition at public universities. They have nothing to do with each other. If you want to state that academic standing has nothing to do with conference affiliation and that it's a "stupid argument", then that's fine. However, it's also just as stupid (or at least naive) of an argument to think that Pitt (or any other school) dropping big-time sports would result in a single cent of savings for its students. Public school tuition is largely driven by the level of state funding (or the lack thereof) and private school tuition is largely driven by charging as high of a rack rate for a certain number of families that can pay out-of-pocket while subsidizing the rest (either through endowments or federally-backed student loans). Pitt dropping P5 sports would simply result in Pitt not having that exposure in that particular high profile venue any further. That might please the anti-sports people on campus, but it certainly won't help ease the actual tuition burden of any of its students.
(This post was last modified: 02-15-2017 10:22 AM by Frank the Tank.)
02-15-2017 10:19 AM
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jacksfan29 Offline
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RE: Group of Five Playoff Idea not going away
(02-14-2017 08:39 AM)ark30inf Wrote:  
(02-14-2017 08:24 AM)cleburneslim Wrote:  
(02-13-2017 05:10 PM)ark30inf Wrote:  No. We are FBS and that's the end of it.

I can take being unfairly excluded from our rightful place.....I cannot tolerate voluntarily accepting a 'separate but equal" system.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G870A using Tapatalk



While ark st. May be fbs there is an ocean of difference between ark st and p5.
It also appears most of the g5 has found their rightful place the G5.
If we all had the same playoff access...like you know...a sports league....then the gap would begin to narrow.

The P5/G5 gap is partially caused by post-season bias...so it can't be used as an excuse to maintain the bias.

Dozens of sports leagues manage to have post-season play without polls, beauty contests, or checking bank accounts. CFB can too.

Arkansas State are going to close the money gap with the University of Arkansas? How? Post season bias has nothing to do with it. The money gap does.

Sorry, you can't compete and you will never compete with the P5 or even the AAC and top of the MWC. The SBC, CUSA and majority of the MAC are not going to thrive in FBS going forward. The money is going to continue to dry up. Your choice down the road will be to find new revenue sources, drop FB or drop down to FCS. In 5 - 10 years the G5 as we know it today will not exist.
02-15-2017 10:40 AM
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Post: #74
RE: Group of Five Playoff Idea not going away
(02-15-2017 09:58 AM)Attackcoog Wrote:  
(02-15-2017 07:31 AM)miko33 Wrote:  
(02-15-2017 12:28 AM)Attackcoog Wrote:  
(02-14-2017 11:35 PM)miko33 Wrote:  
(02-14-2017 10:29 PM)Attackcoog Wrote:  Which has always been one of my points. Fine. Dump football. Just remember, FBS football attracts students and donations. Without football, the school will need to find a new way to attract enrollment and donation dollars. Its very likely that the marketing to attract these potential students and donations will cost just as much or more than football. And you cant sell tickets or get TV rights to subsidize the cost of a traditional marketing program.

Tail wagging the dog. It's not football that attracts students to the U of Illinois. It's the fact that it is the school that gets the most resources from the state and can thus offer the most variety of subjects to major in. C'mon, most of the marketing is being done at the HS level with guidance counselors trying to funnel kids to school and showing the chart where you earn X amount of dollars based on Y level of education. Once again, for the vast majority of students, you are going to the larger state funded schools because of your parental income (middle class), your grade/test entrance exams (good to great, not brilliant) and your desire for the most diverse choices for majors. So let's get this straight. You are a HS student living in the state of Illinois, and you "discover" that the U. of Illinois exists because they play football in the B1G? Nevermind the fact that U of I has been mediocre at best for the majority of it's time in the B1G - just the fact they play in a "big boy conference" has gotten there name out to people who never thought to go there before??? You can't be serious. These land grant schools are making most of their enrollment decisions on in state students. Most of these schools are equivalent from state to state. Cookie cutter institutions. You go to the one that best fits your budget and course offering variety. "Big State U" will have the variety of majors and the economy of scale to have the resources you need to do well. Plus it will have the right cost - instate tuition break for the local student.

If CFB completely goes away tomorrow - the school rankings in the USNews, the name recognition for instate students and the fact these schools have resources based on research contracts and state funding will not change.

I'm serious as a heart attack. By the time a kid even enters middle school---long before he even has a clue what he wants to be when he grows up--he has heard the names of hundreds of schools thousands of times. Not once has he heard those names with any connection to academics. He has heard them in connection with sports. Hell---many kids already know where they want to go to school before they select thier major. They became fans of the schools sports teams long before they knew what a "major" was. There's a reason schools spend money and fight to stay in FBS.

More than half of college applicants have no idea what they want to major in. So half the kids deciding on a college aren't looking for the best astrophysics department. They are picking thier school based on some other appeal---probably just the one they "like" best.

You are correct, many kids are getting inundated with college names thru athletics. However, Ohio State killing it on the gridiron is not attracting Connecticut students. Alabama isn't attracting the best and brightest from the nation because of their trophies. Most of us are choosing which university to attend based on price, scope of degree offerings and geography. In fact, I didn't emphasize the geography point enough. A number of states have more than one prominent university, and I would contend that the students you described above are choosing the closest one that fits the bill for offering a wide variety of choices. Most of the P5 and G5 schools are commodity schools. An undergrad degree in English, mathematics, economics will basically be the same.

Your contention is that sports is the difference maker. It's not. It's a combination of price, quality and geography. Conference affiliation plays no role.

Alabama is the fastest growing flagship university in the nation. It aint due to the astrophysics department. There are mulitple reasons that football makes a difference. There are some kids who wont even consider a school that doesn't play major football. There are others who equate FBS football programs with prestige or being a "major" university. There are reasons that only one school has dropped from the FBS ranks over the lastvious reasons. quarter century.


Why would a taxpayer in Alabama want the school's enrollment to increase? What is the benefit?

Remember a student at a state university on average, pays only about 1/3 of the total cost of their education. It is probably a lot less when you consider the cost to build new classrooms etc. Who pays the rest? Taxpayers and donors.

Naturally school administrators want enrollment to increase for obvious reasons. Job security, ratings etc. No doubt winning football does increase donations, but a lot of that goes to athletics..

When my daughter was entering college, the State of Texas offered something called Tuition Equalization Grants to any student that would attend one of the private schools in the state in lieu of attending a State school. My daughter went to a private school and collected several thousand dollars in TEG grants.

Why did the State do this? Because of the cost to build new classrooms, housing etc. Plus the fact that the State pays a portion for the cost of each student's education.

So the argument that football increases enrollment at Alabama is correct........ BUT that does not mean it is a positive thing or is desirable for all concerned. Because is is not.
(This post was last modified: 02-15-2017 02:23 PM by SMUmustangs.)
02-15-2017 10:46 AM
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Post: #75
RE: Group of Five Playoff Idea not going away
(02-15-2017 10:40 AM)jacksfan29 Wrote:  
(02-14-2017 08:39 AM)ark30inf Wrote:  
(02-14-2017 08:24 AM)cleburneslim Wrote:  
(02-13-2017 05:10 PM)ark30inf Wrote:  No. We are FBS and that's the end of it.

I can take being unfairly excluded from our rightful place.....I cannot tolerate voluntarily accepting a 'separate but equal" system.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G870A using Tapatalk



While ark st. May be fbs there is an ocean of difference between ark st and p5.
It also appears most of the g5 has found their rightful place the G5.
If we all had the same playoff access...like you know...a sports league....then the gap would begin to narrow.

The P5/G5 gap is partially caused by post-season bias...so it can't be used as an excuse to maintain the bias.

Dozens of sports leagues manage to have post-season play without polls, beauty contests, or checking bank accounts. CFB can too.

Arkansas State are going to close the money gap with the University of Arkansas? How? Post season bias has nothing to do with it. The money gap does.

Sorry, you can't compete and you will never compete with the P5 or even the AAC and top of the MWC. The SBC, CUSA and majority of the MAC are not going to thrive in FBS going forward. The money is going to continue to dry up. Your choice down the road will be to find new revenue sources, drop FB or drop down to FCS. In 5 - 10 years the G5 as we know it today will not exist.
Equal access to playoffs for conference champions...like real sports...will ease the recruiting differential, which increases competitiveness, which increases interest in G5 schools, and thus increases overall parity.

Arkansas State will never be the University of Arkansas. Yet that is not a valid excuse to not seek increased parity in a sports league.
02-15-2017 10:55 AM
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Frank the Tank Offline
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Post: #76
RE: Group of Five Playoff Idea not going away
(02-15-2017 09:58 AM)Attackcoog Wrote:  
(02-15-2017 07:31 AM)miko33 Wrote:  
(02-15-2017 12:28 AM)Attackcoog Wrote:  
(02-14-2017 11:35 PM)miko33 Wrote:  
(02-14-2017 10:29 PM)Attackcoog Wrote:  Which has always been one of my points. Fine. Dump football. Just remember, FBS football attracts students and donations. Without football, the school will need to find a new way to attract enrollment and donation dollars. Its very likely that the marketing to attract these potential students and donations will cost just as much or more than football. And you cant sell tickets or get TV rights to subsidize the cost of a traditional marketing program.

Tail wagging the dog. It's not football that attracts students to the U of Illinois. It's the fact that it is the school that gets the most resources from the state and can thus offer the most variety of subjects to major in. C'mon, most of the marketing is being done at the HS level with guidance counselors trying to funnel kids to school and showing the chart where you earn X amount of dollars based on Y level of education. Once again, for the vast majority of students, you are going to the larger state funded schools because of your parental income (middle class), your grade/test entrance exams (good to great, not brilliant) and your desire for the most diverse choices for majors. So let's get this straight. You are a HS student living in the state of Illinois, and you "discover" that the U. of Illinois exists because they play football in the B1G? Nevermind the fact that U of I has been mediocre at best for the majority of it's time in the B1G - just the fact they play in a "big boy conference" has gotten there name out to people who never thought to go there before??? You can't be serious. These land grant schools are making most of their enrollment decisions on in state students. Most of these schools are equivalent from state to state. Cookie cutter institutions. You go to the one that best fits your budget and course offering variety. "Big State U" will have the variety of majors and the economy of scale to have the resources you need to do well. Plus it will have the right cost - instate tuition break for the local student.

If CFB completely goes away tomorrow - the school rankings in the USNews, the name recognition for instate students and the fact these schools have resources based on research contracts and state funding will not change.

I'm serious as a heart attack. By the time a kid even enters middle school---long before he even has a clue what he wants to be when he grows up--he has heard the names of hundreds of schools thousands of times. Not once has he heard those names with any connection to academics. He has heard them in connection with sports. Hell---many kids already know where they want to go to school before they select thier major. They became fans of the schools sports teams long before they knew what a "major" was. There's a reason schools spend money and fight to stay in FBS.

More than half of college applicants have no idea what they want to major in. So half the kids deciding on a college aren't looking for the best astrophysics department. They are picking thier school based on some other appeal---probably just the one they "like" best.

You are correct, many kids are getting inundated with college names thru athletics. However, Ohio State killing it on the gridiron is not attracting Connecticut students. Alabama isn't attracting the best and brightest from the nation because of their trophies. Most of us are choosing which university to attend based on price, scope of degree offerings and geography. In fact, I didn't emphasize the geography point enough. A number of states have more than one prominent university, and I would contend that the students you described above are choosing the closest one that fits the bill for offering a wide variety of choices. Most of the P5 and G5 schools are commodity schools. An undergrad degree in English, mathematics, economics will basically be the same.

Your contention is that sports is the difference maker. It's not. It's a combination of price, quality and geography. Conference affiliation plays no role.

Alabama is the fastest growing flagship university in the nation. It aint due to the astrophysics department. There are mulitple reasons that football makes a difference. There are some kids who wont even consider a school that doesn't play major football. There are others who equate FBS football programs with prestige or being a "major" university. There are reasons that only one school has dropped from the FBS ranks over the last quarter century.

To be sure, Alabama is giving out some of the best academic scholarships to out-of-state students out of any public school anywhere. I live in a Chicago suburb that is about as prestige-college-obsessed as any place in the country, and our local high school districts have gone from sending zero people to Alabama to around 20-30 kids per year. Once again, we're NOWHERE near the South. That's just our own suburb's school districts - we're not even talking about the rest of the Chicago area. Alabama has simply stepped up its out-of-state recruitment game big-time and you see where they're suddenly getting a critical mass of students from the NYC and Chicago areas and elsewhere.

Is football driving those decisions? Not directly. I would definitely say that academic scholarships are clearly the driving factor. However, when you're trying to get a Northerner to attend a school in the Deep South, just look at the attributes that get someone to make that move. They generally look at the attractiveness of the college town, the social nature of the students, whether there's school spirit, how they fit in, etc. The kids getting these scholarships could generally attend a whole bevy of different highly-ranked schools, so those more intangible factors DO matter in recruitment. It might not be all due to football championships themselves, but that campus atmosphere would certainly be entirely different if football didn't exist.

So, is someone turning down Harvard for Alabama? Probably not. However, even if a kid doesn't particularly care about football, don't underestimate the power of what it's like to walk around on a campus on a football Saturday that speaks to those intangible factors that attract many students. I respect the heck out of the University of Chicago on an academic level, but you better believe that the University of Michigan (despite being lower ranked) has won a lot of head-to-head matchups for students because simply walking around Ann Arbor on a fall Saturday (much less entering into the Big House itself) was a completely different college experience.

Frankly, miko33's argument that many degrees (particularly liberal arts degrees) are commodities only serves the point that sports can be an important differentiator. That doesn't mean that it is the ONLY differentiator, but the point is that every school needs SOME type of differentiator in today's competitive higher education market. Obviously, pure academic prowess is one differentiator. Sports are another differentiator. Location (whether in an attractive college town or an urban environment a la NYU) can be a different differentiator. Maybe the differentiator is to go the complete opposite direction of a Bama-type school and instead be a place for quirky students (such as Grinnell). The more differentiators that you have, the more that you can distinguish your "commodity" degrees from everyone else. Once again, I'm not saying that sports are the be-all end-all and it's going to vary highly from student to student, but to simply dismiss them as irrelevant in the competition for students in today's world is very wrong. Once you get past pure tuition cost and academic quality, those intangible factors pretty much mean everything in a student making a college decision.
(This post was last modified: 02-15-2017 11:12 AM by Frank the Tank.)
02-15-2017 11:10 AM
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miko33 Offline
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Post: #77
RE: Group of Five Playoff Idea not going away
(02-15-2017 10:19 AM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  
(02-14-2017 09:55 PM)miko33 Wrote:  
(02-14-2017 05:37 PM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  
(02-14-2017 05:21 PM)miko33 Wrote:  There won't be a group of 5 playoff. However, there may actually be something similar that will come about in the future that will make a new subdivision out of necessity. The brutal honesty is that there are maybe 20 - 30 schools that can legitimately spend at the highest levels to compete. At least 1/2 to 2/3rds of the current P5 setup cannot effectively compete at the highest levels when you look at schools like Alabama, Michigan, OH State, Florida, Texas, and a handful of others and use those as a benchmark for AD spending...it's not sustainable. IMO if your school CANNOT run a revenue neutral AD at the absolute minimum, you do not deserve to be in the highest subdivision. That's the first pass. Second pass, if you cannot spend at a minimum "X" amount of dollars, you have no business being in the highest subdivision. Applying a dual pass filter with these metrics, your ultimate slotting in the subdivisions SHOULD look quite different.

My school cannot compete at the highest levels and it's in a P5 conference. I do not WANT my school to compete at the highest levels. I would rather my school focus more efforts on the academic side AND MORE IMPORTANTLY focus on controlling costs so that tuition is more affordable to the state residents. We're beyond the fun and games at this point. College costs are too high, and playing college sports at the highest levels WHEN YOU CANNOT RUN A REVENUE NEUTRAL AD is morally repugnant in today's world. I no longer GAF if my school can go toe to toe with Ohio State if it means that the AD must be heavily subsidized to do so.

If your school is in a P5 conference (including Pitt), then its football and men's basketball programs are absolutely, 100% making a lot of money. Whether the rest of the athletic department is draining such money and/or there's a lot of creative accounting being employed to show $0 profit or a net loss is another matter.

It's not mutually exclusive for a school like Pitt to have a top level P5 athletic department while also improving academic standards. Once you get past the Ivy League-level schools, there's a pretty strong correlation between academic prestige and P5 membership. A P5 athletic department is also not a reason why tuition is going higher. Public schools everywhere (regardless of whether they are in the P5 or not) are getting little to no state funding these days and private schools have jacked up tuition rates to the point where it's literally funny money if you're attempting to pay out-of-pocket. Don't kid yourself - Pitt isn't going to be more affordable if it drops P5 sports. If anything, that reduces the national name brand of Pitt where they don't attract as many applications from quality students, which then reduces enrollments and then forces the school to squeeze more tuition dollars from its existing students.

I can point to my own home state of Illinois. It's not the University of Illinois (with its Big Ten athletic department) that's hurting due to a complete lack of state funding of higher education (literally) - they've just announced that they've received yet another record number of applications this year. Instead, it's the non-P5 public universities in the state that are getting hammered financially and facing declining enrollments. That's not to say that having P5 athletics is the reason why U of I isn't suffering the same fate as its other in-state brethren, but the point is that it certainly isn't hurting them at all whatsoever. Big Ten membership is a pretty significant plus for U of I in differentiating itself against other schools that are its local competitors, just as ACC membership is a pretty significant plus for Pitt as being a differentiator versus, say, Temple, Delaware or Miami of Ohio.

Correlation is not causation, Frank. Most schools are P5 today because they were the schools pushed strongly by the states sponsoring these land grant institutions over a hundred years ago. Of course the public schools that get the majority of the financing because they are - the official land grant state universities of choice by the state - they will have the higher ratings. They will have the resources that will get them the best equipment for their schools and the talented phD's to become professors. This in turn will provide the shot in the arm to become strong research centers. That will attract more dollars and more reputation and the cycle will continue. It's a self reinforcing positive feedback loop that was all made possible by significant seed money from the states originally. This doesn't account for the private P5 schools, but that's no biggie since my statements account for the vast majority of P5 schools.

Maybe decades ago before we had all of the info at our fingertips, college sports did act as THE primary marketing tool that prospective students had access to. This paradigm is no longer the dominant model. The best and brightest students are those who are discriminating shoppers who are carefully weighing the strength and weaknesses of various schools. If they are interested in polymer science, they'll choose the school strongest in polymer science that they can get into AND get scholarships to study at.

For the rest of us middle class types who are not rich enough for the Ivy's, not brilliant enough for the Ivy's or not poor enough for the Ivy's...we're choosing the overall best school that we can reasonably afford. Growing up in PA, I already knew I was either going to Pitt or PSU. I applied to both and was accepted to both. It wasn't college athletics that swayed me. These were the 2 best options available for a middle class kid who wants to study engineering. The other options either didn't offer what i was looking for, low quality or too expensive. Conference affiliation had nothing to do with it. For the VAST MAJORITY of people, the dominant state school is what they'll choose as their best available choice if they want access to as many options for degrees as possible. This is common knowledge for the majority of us. It has nothing to do with conference affiliation, and frankly it's stupid to make such an argument.

I completely agree that correlation is not the same as causation and that academic standing and P5 membership are correlated with each other (as opposed to one causing the other).

By the same token, though, there's neither causation nor correlation between eliminating/reducing the size of an athletic department and decreasing the costs of tuition at public universities. They have nothing to do with each other. If you want to state that academic standing has nothing to do with conference affiliation and that it's a "stupid argument", then that's fine. However, it's also just as stupid (or at least naive) of an argument to think that Pitt (or any other school) dropping big-time sports would result in a single cent of savings for its students. Public school tuition is largely driven by the level of state funding (or the lack thereof) and private school tuition is largely driven by charging as high of a rack rate for a certain number of families that can pay out-of-pocket while subsidizing the rest (either through endowments or federally-backed student loans). Pitt dropping P5 sports would simply result in Pitt not having that exposure in that particular high profile venue any further. That might please the anti-sports people on campus, but it certainly won't help ease the actual tuition burden of any of its students.

You may be right that it would do nothing. However, it makes no sense to subsidize a money loser. Most P5 schools are running deficits, so the money has to come from somewhere. Universities today do not try to control costs. They are in an extended expansion mode. When your AD is a money loser, it only increases costs overall. You can make the argument that there are bigger levers you can pull to control costs. However, it's a net money loser for most universities. Most of these students are forced to subsidize athletics.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/grad...6#comments

http://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/col...s/2142443/

http://projects.huffingtonpost.com/ncaa/...t-any-cost

If you protest that these 3 articles above are about G5 programs and that the P5 is different? No so fast. Because the article below includes the P5 woes as well. The bottom line is at the G5 level it is glaringly obvious. But you can see the psychology on why school administrators are going all in on college sports. The first article from WaPo talks about the Flutie Effect. Everyone is banking on that, and they are pouring cash into the system with the hope that there schools "wins the lottery" and gets that elusive shot in the arm to make it stronger. In the meantime, the students bankroll these dreams.

http://www.ncaa.org/about/resources/medi...l-minority

Quote:Though the number of athletics departments reporting positive net generated revenues has increased slightly, the average of their net generated revenue has dipped in the past year. Those 24 schools, at the median, generated about $6 million in net revenue, compared to just over $8 million in 2013 and a little more than $2 million a decade ago.

But those 24 schools are a minority. Many more schools saw their expenses exceed their revenue, requiring their colleges and universities to cover the shortfall. The median FBS school spent $14.7 million to help subsidize its athletics department in 2014, up from a little more than $11 million in 2013. That level of spending isn’t unique to FBS schools – median Football Championship Subdivision and non-football schools spent roughly $11 million to help fund athletics in 2014.

"There is still a misperception that most schools are generating more money than they spend on college athletics," said NCAA Chief Financial Officer Kathleen McNeely. "These data show once again that the truth is just the opposite.

The money has to come from somewhere, Frank. If it's coming from the gov't or the students directly, it's a wealth transfer to a select minority of kids who the odds favor for not being able to get admitted to the school on their own academic merits.

What we see happening to the G5 in the articles I posted above can easily happen to the majority of the P5 schools trying to compete with the top programs. There is a major arms race still going in college athletics, and it's one of the biggest reasons why schools continue to take on more and more debt.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/sports/col...story.html

Quote:Facilities spending is one of the biggest reasons otherwise profitable or self-sufficient athletic departments run deficits, according to a Washington Post review of thousands of pages of financial records from athletic departments at 48 schools in the five wealthiest conferences in college sports.

In 2014, these 48 schools spent $772 million combined on athletic facilities, an 89-percent increase from $408 million spent in 2004, adjusted for inflation. Those figures include annual debt payments, capital expenses and maintenance costs.

Big-time college athletic departments are taking in more money than ever - and spending it just as fast

Quote:Clemson's new facility likely will be the best for just a matter of months, critics of college sports said, until the next school decides to transform a corner of its campus into what Drake Group President Gerald Gurney terms "day spas" designed to entice teenagers.

"This is all about pandering to the fantasies of 18-year-olds. It has nothing whatsoever to do with the mission of a university," said Gurney, whose organization advocates an overhaul of commercialized college sports in America.

"What's probably next down the line is a floating river attraction. ... Why don't we have a roller coaster?" said Gurney, who has worked in athletic departments at the University of Maryland and the University of Oklahoma, where he now teaches. "It's embarrassing that we're even discussing this."

Subsidizing the small minority for what? For bragging rights? For connecting the alumni more deeply with their alma mater? Ha! Not in today's world. The model is different. Costs are too high to pay for the "luxury" of the "college experience". It's much more of a cost/benefit calculus for today's students.

I close with this - perhaps the biggest blunder made by a P5 program for athletics.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/...pling-debt

Quote:By another measure, Cal sports are in big trouble. After completing the most expensive college football stadium overhaul ever, the Golden Bears now owe more money than any other college sports program. Hobbled by debt service payments, the athletic department ran a $22 million deficit last year and expects to end this fiscal year deep in the red.

Quote:Football critics nationwide often point to multimillion-dollar coaches as emblems of excess. They should be more worried about debt, which costs more and lasts longer. A high-priced coach might earn $4 million to $5 million a year. Meanwhile, according to public records, athletic departments at least 13 schools in the country have long-term debt obligations of more than $150 million as of 2014—money usually borrowed to build ever-nicer facilities for the football team.

For some schools, millions in TV money can support a high level of debt service. That includes the University of Alabama, which plays Clemson for the national championship on Monday. The Crimson Tide owes $225 million over the next 28 years. In the Big Ten, also flush from a rich media deal, the University of Illinois owes more than $260 million. If that revenue stream fails to grow or starts to drop, as it already has for some programs in the top tier of college football, the results could be crippling.

Quote:There may be limits to how much help can come from central campus. Overall, Cal had a $150 million deficit last year and is up against its borrowing limit. “Not only does athletics have a problem on account of the debt service, but it’s also taking up a huge chunk of our available borrowing,” said physics professor Bob Jacobsen, a faculty representative for athletics. Meanwhile, he added, professors are losing research opportunities due to funding concerns.
02-15-2017 11:18 AM
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ark30inf Offline
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Post: #78
RE: Group of Five Playoff Idea not going away
We should remember that there are colleges that do not sponsor athletics or charge student fees. Nobody is holding a gun to someone's head forcing them to choose to attend a school with FBS football that charges athletic fees.





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02-15-2017 11:59 AM
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miko33 Offline
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RE: Group of Five Playoff Idea not going away
(02-15-2017 11:59 AM)ark30inf Wrote:  We should remember that there are colleges that do not sponsor athletics or charge student fees. Nobody is holding a gun to someone's head forcing them to choose to attend a school with FBS football that charges athletic fees.





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True, but the better quality schools do have athletic programs. That's because the better quality schools are also the older ones - in most cases - where they felt college athletics was something that should be offered. The University of Phoenix has no sports teams to subsidize, but I would never choose them over a better established school that has an AD and offers sports.
02-15-2017 12:24 PM
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miko33 Offline
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RE: Group of Five Playoff Idea not going away
Frank wrote:
Quote:To be sure, Alabama is giving out some of the best academic scholarships to out-of-state students out of any public school anywhere. I live in a Chicago suburb that is about as prestige-college-obsessed as any place in the country, and our local high school districts have gone from sending zero people to Alabama to around 20-30 kids per year. Once again, we're NOWHERE near the South. That's just our own suburb's school districts - we're not even talking about the rest of the Chicago area. Alabama has simply stepped up its out-of-state recruitment game big-time and you see where they're suddenly getting a critical mass of students from the NYC and Chicago areas and elsewhere.

Alabama did not get that pipeline because of Saban and his program. Once Alabama went above and beyond to subsidize out of state tuition to attract out of state students - they showed up. I won't discount that a number of kids make school decisions based on college football. Although I think you would have to be a moron to make that your primary metric for where you go to school, it's a factor. I won't dispute that. What I will strongly question is how valuable a strong sports program is to the schools themselves. You made the argument that sports could be one of the distinguishing features that tips the scales in favor of one school vs another as an add on to my point about a number of degrees being commodities. Maybe in some cases that is a factor. However, I am of the opinion that costs, benefits and proximity trump sports in almost every case. IMHO, very few people would elect to eschew a liberal arts degree from a solid local school in order to pay out of state tuition just so they can go to a P5 school for the "college mystique of Saturdays". Your examples showcase Alabama and Michigan. Does that hold up for Miss St? Wash St? Do people feel that same allure for Kansas St? I'm going to say no.

That circles us back to the very first post I made in this thread. Sports may ultimately be a great marketing tool for the top 25 prominent athletic schools out there. But it breaks down for the lower level P5 who cannot compete without heavy subsidies and debt. Their bang for their buck is much much more muted. And in your example above the mighty Alabama didn't attract those 20-30 Chicago kids because of Saban's great CFB program. They went to where the financial breaks were. It wouldn't surprise me if the out of state Alabama tuition for those Chicago kids was lower than the U of I.
02-15-2017 12:45 PM
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