(04-16-2013 06:26 PM)dbackjon Wrote:  

(04-16-2013 05:50 PM)AndreWhere Wrote:  

(04-13-2013 09:32 PM)perimeterpost Wrote:  Can we please stop diluting FBS by calling up every community college with a goal post in the name of "adding new markets"?

We are not helping ourselves at all. There are already 9 teams that have recently began the transition from FCS to FBS with talks of more on the way.

That's an entire conference worth of FCS schools we've invited ove the last couple of years to share our revenue and exposure with all so we could keep 5 non-AQ conferences when we only need 4.

If it's too late to kick the 9+ newbies back down to FCS can we at least stop with the new additions? Its getting ridiculous.

I agree 100%. The last legit move up was Marshall.

So USF and UConn are legit?

Ehhh---UConn is a unique situation. They were already non-football members of a well known conference. They basically jumped from FCS to an AQ conference. Alot of advantages existed there that are not typically present---but yes, they are legit. Similar situation for USF, the stars aligned for them. That said, a schools of USF's size is a reasonable addition for FBS.

Bottom line, we are now closing in on 130 schools at the top level of football. Theres absolutely no reason for adding one single additional school. The NCAA needs to freeze move ups to the FBS level. There also needs to be a conclave of some sort to deal with the disoranized helter skelter mess that the non-AQ gang of 5 conferneces represent. The independents that dont want to be indy should also be included. The Sunbelt doesnt necessarily need to exist, as long as a solution can be found for its existing members (it could stay if a reasonable solution can be found).

I think ArkStfan has made some good points about the basic model. One western confernece. Three regional conferneces basically east of Texas for the schools that wnat very regional schedules and limited travel. One overlapping large non-AQ conference for the schools that are willing to travel farther to gain slightly larger contracts and exposure. At 64 non-AQ schools thats 4 12-school conferences and one 16 school confernece (or 3 12-school leagues and 2 14 schools conferences).

That said, its probably already too late. At 128, FBS is ridiculously bloated and its just a matter of time until a split comes. The big boys have already insulated themselves from the monetary damage that the move ups do. Its just a matter of time before the existing non-AQ's realize that adding more schools just degrades the situation at every existing FBS school just that much more.

(04-16-2013 05:50 PM)AndreWhere Wrote:  

(04-13-2013 09:32 PM)perimeterpost Wrote:  Can we please stop diluting FBS by calling up every community college with a goal post in the name of "adding new markets"?

We are not helping ourselves at all. There are already 9 teams that have recently began the transition from FCS to FBS with talks of more on the way.

That's an entire conference worth of FCS schools we've invited ove the last couple of years to share our revenue and exposure with all so we could keep 5 non-AQ conferences when we only need 4.

If it's too late to kick the 9+ newbies back down to FCS can we at least stop with the new additions? Its getting ridiculous.

I agree 100%. The last legit move up was Marshall.

Considering Southern Miss went 0-12 last year, they would be the first legit move down.

(04-16-2013 08:44 PM)GSU Eagles Wrote:  

(04-16-2013 05:50 PM)AndreWhere Wrote:  

(04-13-2013 09:32 PM)perimeterpost Wrote:  Can we please stop diluting FBS by calling up every community college with a goal post in the name of "adding new markets"?

We are not helping ourselves at all. There are already 9 teams that have recently began the transition from FCS to FBS with talks of more on the way.

That's an entire conference worth of FCS schools we've invited ove the last couple of years to share our revenue and exposure with all so we could keep 5 non-AQ conferences when we only need 4.

If it's too late to kick the 9+ newbies back down to FCS can we at least stop with the new additions? Its getting ridiculous.

I agree 100%. The last legit move up was Marshall.

Considering Southern Miss went 0-12 last year, they would be the first legit move down.

lol...after 17 winning seasons in a row and coming off a ranked season. They were over due for a bad year or two.

(04-16-2013 07:18 PM)smudge12 Wrote:  It's not really being diluted. In 1985, FBS teams had 95 scholarships and there were approximately 110 programs. Today, there are 130 teams at 85 scholarships each. That's an increase of 600 scholarships, or ~5%. In that same time frame, the nation has grown from 240 million people to almost 320 million - an increase of 33%. So with 80 million more people than we had almost 30 years ago, the available amount of FBS scholarships has increased by 600 (and more kids are playing the game than ever).

Agree with this. Since the 70's, the growth of DI as a whole is roughly parallel with population growth. There's about 800,000 people per DI school, and about 2.2 million people per FBS team.

(04-13-2013 09:32 PM)perimeterpost Wrote:  Can we please stop diluting FBS by calling up every community college with a goal post in the name of "adding new markets"?

We are not helping ourselves at all. There are already 9 teams that have recently began the transition from FCS to FBS with talks of more on the way.

That's an entire conference worth of FCS schools we've invited ove the last couple of years to share our revenue and exposure with all so we could keep 5 non-AQ conferences when we only need 4.

If it's too late to kick the 9+ newbies back down to FCS can we at least stop with the new additions? Its getting ridiculous.

Please tell that to the morons who designed the G5 payouts to force the Sun Belt to have a championship game so we would be forced to take Idaho. Then didn't do anything to stop other conferences from taking teams from us to go to more than 12 teams so that they could try to recover from a massively botched expansion the year before where that unnamed conference took 2 FCS and 1 Division Zero program to go to 14 teams.

If you really wanted to stop expansion dead in its tracks....add this to the G5 payout structure language

"payouts will be based upon a 12 team conference model. Conferences with more than 12 teams will not receive additional shares of revenue for teams over 12"

(04-13-2013 09:32 PM)perimeterpost Wrote:  Can we please stop diluting FBS by calling up every community college with a goal post in the name of "adding new markets"?

We are not helping ourselves at all. There are already 9 teams that have recently began the transition from FCS to FBS with talks of more on the way.

That's an entire conference worth of FCS schools we've invited ove the last couple of years to share our revenue and exposure with all so we could keep 5 non-AQ conferences when we only need 4.

If it's too late to kick the 9+ newbies back down to FCS can we at least stop with the new additions? Its getting ridiculous.

Just a note, but the MAC was the first conference that let an FCS (Division I-AA) school move up when it let Akron into the conference in 1987. So the snowball started in your own backyard.

(04-16-2013 09:08 PM)NoDak Wrote:  

(04-16-2013 07:18 PM)smudge12 Wrote:  It's not really being diluted. In 1985, FBS teams had 95 scholarships and there were approximately 110 programs. Today, there are 130 teams at 85 scholarships each. That's an increase of 600 scholarships, or ~5%. In that same time frame, the nation has grown from 240 million people to almost 320 million - an increase of 33%. So with 80 million more people than we had almost 30 years ago, the available amount of FBS scholarships has increased by 600 (and more kids are playing the game than ever).

Agree with this. Since the 70's, the growth of DI as a whole is roughly parallel with population growth. There's about 800,000 people per DI school, and about 2.2 million people per FBS team.

But most of that growth is in major metropolitan areas that are dominated by pro sports. And the number of under 18 is less than in the 70s. In some states significantly less. 3 or 4 years ago I was reading Ohio had 25% fewer HS seniors than 1980, despite a slight increase in overall population. I'm pretty certain participation hasn't grown anywhere near as fast as the population.

When you look at schools that have moved up, its dominated by commuter schools or small regional schools.

(04-16-2013 08:20 PM)Attackcoog Wrote:  

(04-16-2013 06:26 PM)dbackjon Wrote:  

(04-16-2013 05:50 PM)AndreWhere Wrote:  

(04-13-2013 09:32 PM)perimeterpost Wrote:  Can we please stop diluting FBS by calling up every community college with a goal post in the name of "adding new markets"?

We are not helping ourselves at all. There are already 9 teams that have recently began the transition from FCS to FBS with talks of more on the way.

That's an entire conference worth of FCS schools we've invited ove the last couple of years to share our revenue and exposure with all so we could keep 5 non-AQ conferences when we only need 4.

If it's too late to kick the 9+ newbies back down to FCS can we at least stop with the new additions? Its getting ridiculous.

I agree 100%. The last legit move up was Marshall.

So USF and UConn are legit?

Ehhh---UConn is a unique situation. They were already non-football members of a well known conference. They basically jumped from FCS to an AQ conference. Alot of advantages existed there that are not typically present---but yes, they are legit. Similar situation for USF, the stars aligned for them. That said, a schools of USF's size is a reasonable addition for FBS.

Bottom line, we are now closing in on 130 schools at the top level of football. Theres absolutely no reason for adding one single additional school. The NCAA needs to freeze move ups to the FBS level. There also needs to be a conclave of some sort to deal with the disoranized helter skelter mess that the non-AQ gang of 5 conferneces represent. The independents that dont want to be indy should also be included. The Sunbelt doesnt necessarily need to exist, as long as a solution can be found for its existing members (it could stay if a reasonable solution can be found).

I think ArkStfan has made some good points about the basic model. One western confernece. Three regional conferneces basically east of Texas for the schools that wnat very regional schedules and limited travel. One overlapping large non-AQ conference for the schools that are willing to travel farther to gain slightly larger contracts and exposure. At 64 non-AQ schools thats 4 12-school conferences and one 16 school confernece (or 3 12-school leagues and 2 14 schools conferences).

That said, its probably already too late. At 128, FBS is ridiculously bloated and its just a matter of time until a split comes. The big boys have already insulated themselves from the monetary damage that the move ups do. Its just a matter of time before the existing non-AQ's realize that adding more schools just degrades the situation at every existing FBS school just that much more.

Couple of thoughts.

First, it is interesting that FBS is now approaching the size at which the NCAA broke D1 into separate subdivisions 35 years ago. Not sure if it means anything, but 35 years ago the NCAA thought a D1 with this many teams was too unwieldy and broke it up.

On the other hand, the BCS money that the G5 will be receiving is unprecedented. As recently as 2009, the entire BCS was receiving $110 million per year (5 bowls, 6 AQ conferences). Under the new BCS, the G5 alone will be receiving $90 million per year for delivering one participant.

Arguably, the presence of 5 second tier conferences is better for the 5 major conferences than having 2 mid major conferences. The support of the Sun Belt, CUSA and the MAC gave the Big 5 leverage in their efforts to create the new BCS system in the manner they wanted.

(04-16-2013 09:08 PM)smudge12 Wrote:  Again, the numbers simply don't add up that the FBS is being diluted:

1985
US Population: 240 million
Scholarships Available (110 programs @ 95 scholarships per team): 10450

2015
US Population: 320 million (+80 million, +33%)
Scholarships Available (130 programs @ 85 scholarships per team): 11050 (+600, +5.7%)

More kids are now playing football than ever before, thus turning out an increased amount quality players. At the same time, only 600 scholarships have been added to the FBS in three decades while the US population has increased by 80 million.

Those figures are irrelevent. The quality of college sports is based on its relative quality in relationship to high school and pro sports. On the lower end, High schools sports quality stays realtively stable because the number of schools relative to the population stays pretty stable. On the upper end, pro football has become increasing exclusive, as the NFL has added just 4 teams in the last 35 years. As you show, the population increased by about 33% during that period while the number of teams just increased by 14%. Frankly, there was a time when the college All-American team played against the reigning NFL champs and actually won sometimes. No way in hell the college players could win these days.

(04-17-2013 08:33 AM)bullet Wrote:  

(04-16-2013 09:08 PM)NoDak Wrote:  

(04-16-2013 07:18 PM)smudge12 Wrote:  It's not really being diluted. In 1985, FBS teams had 95 scholarships and there were approximately 110 programs. Today, there are 130 teams at 85 scholarships each. That's an increase of 600 scholarships, or ~5%. In that same time frame, the nation has grown from 240 million people to almost 320 million - an increase of 33%. So with 80 million more people than we had almost 30 years ago, the available amount of FBS scholarships has increased by 600 (and more kids are playing the game than ever).

Agree with this. Since the 70's, the growth of DI as a whole is roughly parallel with population growth. There's about 800,000 people per DI school, and about 2.2 million people per FBS team.

But most of that growth is in major metropolitan areas that are dominated by pro sports. And the number of under 18 is less than in the 70s. In some states significantly less. 3 or 4 years ago I was reading Ohio had 25% fewer HS seniors than 1980, despite a slight increase in overall population. I'm pretty certain participation hasn't grown anywhere near as fast as the population.

When you look at schools that have moved up, its dominated by commuter schools or small regional schools.

Ohio hasn't added FBS schools since Akron, in large part because there isn't enrollment and alumni growth to demand it.

The "commuter schools" are the new UCLA's of the American urban scene. Why shouldn't huge schools like UCF, USF, FIU, UTSA, Ga St, MTSU, ODU, UNCC have FBS football? Because they don't have a historical right? Should a steel wall be constructed so the decisions of the past forever remain in place?


Virginia
1960: 4 mill
2010: 8 mill

Added ODU, maybe JMU

N Carolina
1960: 5.5 mill
20100: 9.6 mill

Added Appy St, Charlotte (soon)

Florida
1960: 5 mill
2010: 19 mill

Added UCF, USF, FAU, FIU

Texas
1960: 10.6 mil
2010: 25.2 mil

Added: Tx St, UTSA, Lost: WTex St, Hardin-Simmons