From his mailbag article on The Athletic:

Why hasn’t the MAC had a consistent powerhouse team similar to a Boise State or UCF? — Jim F., Shanghai, China.

I love the MAC as much as the next guy, but there’s a pretty steep drop-off in resources, facilities, ability to hire and retain good coaches from UCF/Boise State to any program in the MAC. As my colleague and Group of 5 guru Chris Vannini pointed out to me, the “richest” athletic department in the MAC, Buffalo’s, still trails every AAC school and two-thirds of the Mountain West.

There’s also the issue of geography and access to talent. UCF is in Florida. It’s able to sign a ton of kids who could easily be playing for Florida, Florida State or Miami if there weren’t scholarship limits. Boise built up its program in large part by mining California. But those MAC schools are in the Rust Belt, which has been hit hard by population migration over the past 20 years. There’s some surplus talent in Ohio, but not to the extent of Florida/California/Texas.

A couple of MAC programs have had some extended runs, though. Northern Illinois from 2010-14 posted five consecutive seasons of 11 or 12 wins and reached an Orange Bowl, but the Huskies have trailed off since then. And I’m old enough to remember the days of Marshall with Randy Moss, Chad Pennington and Byron Leftwich strutting it in the late ’90s/early 2000s. You could argue the Thundering Herd of that era were Boise State before Boise State. Would you believe Marshall beat Clemson to open the 1999 season and it wasn’t considered remotely surprising?

But that was a much different era for all involved. Buffalo with Lance Leipold and Toledo with Jason Candle are probably best positioned for long-term success in the MAC right now, but of course if they do elevate those programs, it’s a matter of time before somebody poaches them. And not necessarily a blueblood, either. Last year, NIU’s Rod Carey left for Temple. Which was kind of humbling for the conference.

Maybe the MAC should change its name to The Rust Belt. The Sun Belt seems to be doing fine. This just illustrates the difficulty for mid majors in cold climates.

I don't see how a MAC coach leaving for an AAC team is humbling. They can pay more money for a coach. It's always been that way.

I think Stewie sums it up pretty well. Seems to me he is saying conference status/national recognition/recruiting potential etc. etc. is determined by money and some extent geography. Sounds like a simple solution...NIU needs its own T Boone Pickens / multimillionaire/billionaire who has given Oklahoma State huge sums of $ otherwise it’s MAC for a long time.

(02-19-2020 12:30 PM)HOF 08 Wrote:  I think Stewie sums it up pretty well. Seems to me he is saying conference status/national recognition/recruiting potential etc. etc. is determined by money and some extent geography. Sounds like a simple solution...NIU needs its own T Boone Pickens / multimillionaire/billionaire who has given Oklahoma State huge sums of $ otherwise it’s MAC for a long time.

+1, I don't think I can disagree with anything he says. But I'll add this, the more the years go, the more I'm OK with it. I'll always support and donate and have a ton of pride for NIU. But I don't need them to build hundreds of millions of worth of athletic facilities to do so. In fact, most of us would probably all b*tch and moan if all of the sudden 30K people were showing up to all the games and ticket prices went up.

Don't get me wrong, I'd still like to see facility enhancements, more fans in the seats, more and more W's. I just don't think a team being in the Big 12 or new American that exists in 10 years, or whatever, means that we'd all automatically enjoy it more.

(02-19-2020 02:15 PM)17Huskies Wrote:  

(02-19-2020 12:30 PM)HOF 08 Wrote:  I think Stewie sums it up pretty well. Seems to me he is saying conference status/national recognition/recruiting potential etc. etc. is determined by money and some extent geography. Sounds like a simple solution...NIU needs its own T Boone Pickens / multimillionaire/billionaire who has given Oklahoma State huge sums of $ otherwise it’s MAC for a long time.

+1, I don't think I can disagree with anything he says. But I'll add this, the more the years go, the more I'm OK with it. I'll always support and donate and have a ton of pride for NIU. But I don't need them to build hundreds of millions of worth of athletic facilities to do so. In fact, most of us would probably all b*tch and moan if all of the sudden 30K people were showing up to all the games and ticket prices went up.

Don't get me wrong, I'd still like to see facility enhancements, more fans in the seats, more and more W's. I just don't think a team being in the Big 12 or new American that exists in 10 years, or whatever, means that we'd all automatically enjoy it more.

I wasn’t necessarily pushing that solution just presenting one. I agree 100 per cent with what you say about some of the situations about being big time. I had a chance to go to Wisconsin and Kansas State out of high school and yes in some ways that would be nice over the years to go back to some of their games but then with that comes what you’ve mentioned /bigger crowds maybe sitting in an end zone/higher ticket prices/having to donate more to keep tickets+parking/ etc. etc. There is a definite price that comes with the big time. I still enjoy a game at Huskie Stadium.

Imo the MAC will have bigger problems as a conference if/when Buffalo leaves. Tho they have to compete with the Bills, they have the population base, market, academics and budget to make a move. I also think everybody is just kinda waiting 'til 2024-25 when the P5 Tv deals start reworking.

Also agree about not spending millions on facilities. True, Huskie Stadium needs work, but that will only happen if the Olympic Village gets built because soccer, wrestling and gymnastics have facilities inside the west grandstand with nowhere else to go.

(02-19-2020 02:57 PM)pvk75 Wrote:  Imo the MAC will have bigger problems as a conference if/when Buffalo leaves. Tho they have to compete with the Bills, they have the population base, market, academics and budget to make a move. I also think everybody is just kinda waiting 'til 2024-25 when the P5 Tv deals start reworking.

Also agree about not spending millions on facilities. True, Huskie Stadium needs work, but that will only happen if the Olympic Village gets built because soccer, wrestling and gymnastics have facilities inside the west grandstand with nowhere else to go.

Well, with the proposed baseball facility upgrades ($4M), it isn’t moving anywhere, so, I suspect the Olympic Village concept is dead.

https://niuhuskies.com/news/2020/2/19/ni...-plan.aspx

It's not dead, they're talking about putting it where the new baseball field was going to go.

Doing it this way makes sense. They can upgrade the existing baseball facility in stages instead of raising a big amount to build a new field from scratch. They could also, in theory, work on the baseball field and olympic village simultaneously instead of in sequence.

It would make more sense to build the OV just east of the athletic admin building. That way women's gymnastics and men's wrestling can get thru to the Convo without going outside. Also, m/w soccer and women's cc/t&f would be in the OV, and the soccer field and track are right there too.

Hold the site where the new baseball field was going to go for a future new student rec center. That would put indoor/outdoor rec together. The existing rec center site combined with Evans Fieldhouse would make terrific adds to the academic core.

(02-19-2020 09:40 AM)NIU1981 Wrote:  From his mailbag article on The Athletic:

Why hasn’t the MAC had a consistent powerhouse team similar to a Boise State or UCF? — Jim F., Shanghai, China.

I love the MAC as much as the next guy, but there’s a pretty steep drop-off in resources, facilities, ability to hire and retain good coaches from UCF/Boise State to any program in the MAC. As my colleague and Group of 5 guru Chris Vannini pointed out to me, the “richest” athletic department in the MAC, Buffalo’s, still trails every AAC school and two-thirds of the Mountain West.

There’s also the issue of geography and access to talent. UCF is in Florida. It’s able to sign a ton of kids who could easily be playing for Florida, Florida State or Miami if there weren’t scholarship limits. Boise built up its program in large part by mining California. But those MAC schools are in the Rust Belt, which has been hit hard by population migration over the past 20 years. There’s some surplus talent in Ohio, but not to the extent of Florida/California/Texas.

A couple of MAC programs have had some extended runs, though. Northern Illinois from 2010-14 posted five consecutive seasons of 11 or 12 wins and reached an Orange Bowl, but the Huskies have trailed off since then. And I’m old enough to remember the days of Marshall with Randy Moss, Chad Pennington and Byron Leftwich strutting it in the late ’90s/early 2000s. You could argue the Thundering Herd of that era were Boise State before Boise State. Would you believe Marshall beat Clemson to open the 1999 season and it wasn’t considered remotely surprising?

But that was a much different era for all involved. Buffalo with Lance Leipold and Toledo with Jason Candle are probably best positioned for long-term success in the MAC right now, but of course if they do elevate those programs, it’s a matter of time before somebody poaches them. And not necessarily a blueblood, either. Last year, NIU’s Rod Carey left for Temple. Which was kind of humbling for the conference.

Apparently, Mr. Mandel, does not concur with what most of us know on this board, that we appear to be on the fringe of taking this thing to the next level...his commentary kinda reads as an obituary regarding our Golden years...wht Kool - aid has this dude been drinking...huh???

(02-19-2020 07:12 PM)Jb 94 Wrote:  Apparently, Mr. Mandel, does not concur with what most of us know on this board, that we appear to be on the fringe of taking this thing to the next level...his commentary kinda reads as an obituary regarding our Golden years...wht Kool - aid has this dude been drinking...huh???

I agree-just my opinion but I think ? has got another good run coming...starting time/ year for that tbd.

Think about this for a second, since he brought up UCF. UCF has a student enrollment of 69,000. NIU has a student enrollment of 16,000. Let's say both schools have an athletic fee of $500 per year.

69,000 x $500 = $34,500,000
16,000 x $500 = $8,000,000.

UCF athletics is getting heavily subsidized by its large student population.

(02-19-2020 02:15 PM)17Huskies Wrote:  

(02-19-2020 12:30 PM)HOF 08 Wrote:  I think Stewie sums it up pretty well. Seems to me he is saying conference status/national recognition/recruiting potential etc. etc. is determined by money and some extent geography. Sounds like a simple solution...NIU needs its own T Boone Pickens / multimillionaire/billionaire who has given Oklahoma State huge sums of $ otherwise it’s MAC for a long time.

+1, I don't think I can disagree with anything he says. But I'll add this, the more the years go, the more I'm OK with it. I'll always support and donate and have a ton of pride for NIU. But I don't need them to build hundreds of millions of worth of athletic facilities to do so. In fact, most of us would probably all b*tch and moan if all of the sudden 30K people were showing up to all the games and ticket prices went up.

Don't get me wrong, I'd still like to see facility enhancements, more fans in the seats, more and more W's. I just don't think a team being in the Big 12 or new American that exists in 10 years, or whatever, means that we'd all automatically enjoy it more.

I think that one of the bigger problems that NIU faces is the lack of school pride. I spent most of my professional career in Columbus, Ohio as a manager in Financial Planning and Analysis for a multinational company. As a result I had the opportunity to hire and work with graduates from Miami U., Ohio U. and BGSU. These are all good schools with solid academics and one thing that I noticed and admired was the amount of pride that our employees had in their MAC alma matters.

NIU students often feel that they are getting or had a second class college experience. I don't know how much NIU has or might have slipped since I graduated in 1975. I do know that I am very thankful for my NIU education in accounting. It became the foundation that allowed me to earn a CPA and then a masters degree from the University of Denver, While at Denver several of my professors told me how much respect they had for NIU's Accountancy program.
During my career I took the opportunity to teach one course per quarter/semester at schools in both Ohio but also at Aurora University when I lived and worked in Illinois for a period of time. The department chair that hired me at Aurora U. turned out to be the T.A. that I had for my first accounting course at NIU.

I am so grateful for the education that I received at NIU and I am proud to be a lifelong HUSKIE! I know this is a sports board but as an educator I evaluate the MAC on a more holistic manner than some folks on this board and the MAC is a damn good collection of schools.