(07-06-2023 03:43 PM)TerryD Wrote:  

(07-06-2023 11:16 AM)bullet Wrote:  

(07-06-2023 09:48 AM)TerryD Wrote:  

(07-06-2023 09:24 AM)bryanw1995 Wrote:  

(07-06-2023 06:43 AM)TerryD Wrote:  I was discussing things like NIL and undergrad transfers, not realignment.

Although....the administration may be okay with being left behind there too.

People are unaware of the feelings of ND's administration about football overshadowing academics during the last century and how many times it has placed self imposed roadblocks upon its own football program.

ND's administration has run off coaches who were "too successful" in Frank Leahy and Lou Holtz and have done things like place internal scholarship limits below the allowed amount as a "brake" on too much success in the past.

It currently requires more core courses in high school for recruits than the NCAA does, for instance, so NIL and transfer limitations are something pretty par for the course.

Anyway, the point is that some schools like Stanford and ND look at athletics a bit differently in the grand scheme of things than some others may do.

It doesn't mean that either will drop football down to FCS, which was the original point of my post.

They may never win a championship, but neither will about 100 FBS schools who don't have these self imposed limitations.

ND is still thriving in an era of unlimited NIL and graduate transfers, Stanford is not. ND is far and away the top target of the P2, while Stanford can't get anyone to return their calls. Stanford is Harvard West, ND finally joined the AAU like yesterday. They have a few superficial similarities, but they're VERY different institutions.

The overarching point is that both institutions self impose restrictions on themselves that other schools do not.

Stanford is closer to ND in this regard than it is to some other schools.

It is just a fact. It is what it is.

If they would make radical changes, they wouldn't be who they are, or who they want to be.

Imagine if ND completely supported and urged its donors to pour NIL money to recruits, didn't worry about core high school courses or grad rates or whether freshman athletes could pass trigonometry or went to class and if it took unlimited undergrad transfers.

It may just "thrive" a bit more in athletics.

But then again, it wouldn't be ND. It would be something else.

Most schools are not Southeastern West State U. They do look at core HS courses, grad rates and make sure they go to class. Trigonometry depends on the major.
The only places ND differs is they have not YET embraced NIL and they are limiting undergrad transfers.

ND's core course requirement is higher than the NCAA requirement and higher than many schools.

It is a self imposed recruiting limitation.

It is a university first, many schools seem to have failed to remember the core mission. Whether ND stays to fight the big boy fight in FB is likely based on the TV contract more than NIL or transfers. The reality is ND is different than any school in the country. Stanford was mentioned as being "like ND". They aren't, not even close. If what some propose happens, and there is a P2, ND has an invite in hand if they want one. Stanford does not.

(07-06-2023 03:41 PM)TerryD Wrote:  

(07-06-2023 11:02 AM)bryanw1995 Wrote:  

(07-06-2023 09:48 AM)TerryD Wrote:  

(07-06-2023 09:24 AM)bryanw1995 Wrote:  

(07-06-2023 06:43 AM)TerryD Wrote:  I was discussing things like NIL and undergrad transfers, not realignment.

Although....the administration may be okay with being left behind there too.

People are unaware of the feelings of ND's administration about football overshadowing academics during the last century and how many times it has placed self imposed roadblocks upon its own football program.

ND's administration has run off coaches who were "too successful" in Frank Leahy and Lou Holtz and have done things like place internal scholarship limits below the allowed amount as a "brake" on too much success in the past.

It currently requires more core courses in high school for recruits than the NCAA does, for instance, so NIL and transfer limitations are something pretty par for the course.

Anyway, the point is that some schools like Stanford and ND look at athletics a bit differently in the grand scheme of things than some others may do.

It doesn't mean that either will drop football down to FCS, which was the original point of my post.

They may never win a championship, but neither will about 100 FBS schools who don't have these self imposed limitations.

ND is still thriving in an era of unlimited NIL and graduate transfers, Stanford is not. ND is far and away the top target of the P2, while Stanford can't get anyone to return their calls. Stanford is Harvard West, ND finally joined the AAU like yesterday. They have a few superficial similarities, but they're VERY different institutions.

The overarching point is that both institutions self impose restrictions on themselves that other schools do not.

Stanford is closer to ND in this regard than it is to some other schools.

It is just a fact. It is what it is.

If they would make radical changes, they wouldn't be who they are, or who they want to be.

Imagine if ND completely supported and urged its donors to pour NIL money to recruits, didn't worry about core high school courses or grad rates or whether freshman athletes could pass trigonometry or went to class and if it took unlimited undergrad transfers.

It may just "thrive" a bit more in athletics.

But then again, it wouldn't be ND. It would be something else.

You could tell your boosters to go hog wild and they still won't have more money for NIL than half the SEC and much of the B1G, or Clemson, or FSU, or Oregon, or TCU or UH for that matter probably. As far as the trig and the Academics of it, I think it's a selling point to some recruits (and their parents). "Sure you can go to Florida and nobody cares what classes you take as long as you maintain your eligibility, but we'll prepare you for the rest of your LIFE here at ND". The brainy kid who's also an elite Athlete is a niche market, but it's there, and you guys are well-positioned to outcompete the few who try for those same Studs (like Stanford for example).

Do you really think that a private school that raised a $20 billion endowment has less booster/donor money available (if it plays that game) than the schools you listed?

If the "brainy" pitch is so great with blue chip 5 star recruits, why doesn't Alabama or Clemson or Florida try it?

Clearly the "brainy" pitch isn't for very many 4* or 5* studs, but maybe for some 3*s? There can't be too many truly elite athletes who are also geniuses or we'd hear more stories like Myron Rolle's, and even in his case he still chose FSU over a place like Stanford or ND.

As for endowment, Phil Knight is worth $84b and seems to think that Oregon is the most important thing in the world. Tilman Fertita is only worth $8b but if anything he's even more devoted to UH than Knight is to Oregon. I don't know any particulars about TCU, but there's a reason than they've been the best football team in Texas for 15 years, fired the old coach, brought in a new one and did even better the next year. FSU and Clemson have won 5 titles since ND last won a single one. So, if you're asking to compare endowments, whelp, ND wins that one easily, but if you're comparing "Athletic Department booster engagement and enthusiasm"...I think that I'll take the field. Not to denigrate ND by any means, I have a ton of respect for you guys, all I'm saying is that this is not a contest that you can easily win without devoting a significant portion of alumni donations towards "athletics" rather than "general scholarship fund".

And if we start talking about SEC teams rather than high-permforminging non P2s? A couple months ago, I did some research on A&M's and ND's last big fundraising efforts. If memory serves, our total dollars raised was very close, though A&M did it with about 3x as many donations (so about 1/3 the amount per donation). That didn't seem like an unreasonable breakdown considering the academic prestige of ND. However, it does beg the question of what ND will do in 10, 20, 30 years as these large publics, especially in the SEC and B1G, build up more and more of an alumni advantage on ND. I know that A&M has grown more than others, but Texas, UF, tOSU and many others have grown quite a bit over the past few decades. Those graduates are just now getting to a point where we look at big donations to our alma maters, and lo and behold, there's this cool new NIL concept out there. I don't think that we care about winning football more than ND does, but I also don't think that ND will have more NIL resources available than any of the big SEC or B1G schools in the future. You guys will hold your own, and your donors will continue to open up their wallets, but there are just too many of us with too many well-organized small-dollar donations.

(07-06-2023 04:18 PM)bryanw1995 Wrote:  

(07-06-2023 03:41 PM)TerryD Wrote:  

(07-06-2023 11:02 AM)bryanw1995 Wrote:  

(07-06-2023 09:48 AM)TerryD Wrote:  

(07-06-2023 09:24 AM)bryanw1995 Wrote:  ND is still thriving in an era of unlimited NIL and graduate transfers, Stanford is not. ND is far and away the top target of the P2, while Stanford can't get anyone to return their calls. Stanford is Harvard West, ND finally joined the AAU like yesterday. They have a few superficial similarities, but they're VERY different institutions.

The overarching point is that both institutions self impose restrictions on themselves that other schools do not.

Stanford is closer to ND in this regard than it is to some other schools.

It is just a fact. It is what it is.

If they would make radical changes, they wouldn't be who they are, or who they want to be.

Imagine if ND completely supported and urged its donors to pour NIL money to recruits, didn't worry about core high school courses or grad rates or whether freshman athletes could pass trigonometry or went to class and if it took unlimited undergrad transfers.

It may just "thrive" a bit more in athletics.

But then again, it wouldn't be ND. It would be something else.

You could tell your boosters to go hog wild and they still won't have more money for NIL than half the SEC and much of the B1G, or Clemson, or FSU, or Oregon, or TCU or UH for that matter probably. As far as the trig and the Academics of it, I think it's a selling point to some recruits (and their parents). "Sure you can go to Florida and nobody cares what classes you take as long as you maintain your eligibility, but we'll prepare you for the rest of your LIFE here at ND". The brainy kid who's also an elite Athlete is a niche market, but it's there, and you guys are well-positioned to outcompete the few who try for those same Studs (like Stanford for example).

Do you really think that a private school that raised a $20 billion endowment has less booster/donor money available (if it plays that game) than the schools you listed?

If the "brainy" pitch is so great with blue chip 5 star recruits, why doesn't Alabama or Clemson or Florida try it?

Clearly the "brainy" pitch isn't for very many 4* or 5* studs, but maybe for some 3*s?

As for endowment, Phil Knight is worth $84b and seems to think that Oregon is the most important thing in the world. Tilman Fertita is only worth $8b but if anything he's even more devoted UH than Knight is to Oregon. I don't any particulars about TCU, but there's a reason than they've been the best football team in Texas for 15 years, fired the old coach, brought in a new one and did even better the next year. FSU and Clemson have won 5 titles since ND last won a single one. So, if you're asking to compare endowments, whelp, ND wins that one easily, but if you're comparing "Athletic Department booster engagement and enthusiasm"...I think that I'll take the field. Not to denigrate ND by any means, I have a ton of respect for you guys, all I'm saying is that this is not a contest that you can easily win without devoting a significant portion of alumni donations towards "athletics" rather than "general scholarship fund".

And if we start talking about SEC teams rather than high-perming non P2s? A couple months ago, I did some research on A&M's and ND's last big fundraising efforts. If memory serves, our total dollars raised was very close, though A&M did it with about 3x as many donations (so about 1/3 the amount per donation). That didn't seem like an unreasonable breakdown considering the academic prestige of ND. However, it does beg the question of what ND will do in 10, 20, 30 years as these large publics, especially in the SEC and B1G, build up more and more of an alumni advantage on ND. I know that A&M has grown more than others, but Texas, UF, tOSU and many others have grown quite a bit over the past few decades. Those graduates are just now getting to a point where we look at big donations to our alma maters, and lo and behold, there's this cool new NIL concept out there. I don't think that we care about winning football more than ND does, but I also don't think that ND will have more NIL resources available than any of the big SEC or B1G schools in the future. You guys will hold your own, and your donors will continue to open up their wallets, but there are just too many of us with too many well-organized small-dollar donations.

Your thesis assumes that only alumni donate to a school.

At ND, a very large number of non-alumni donate to the school, not just the athletic programs, but to to school itself.

(07-06-2023 04:18 PM)bryanw1995 Wrote:  

(07-06-2023 03:41 PM)TerryD Wrote:  

(07-06-2023 11:02 AM)bryanw1995 Wrote:  

(07-06-2023 09:48 AM)TerryD Wrote:  

(07-06-2023 09:24 AM)bryanw1995 Wrote:  ND is still thriving in an era of unlimited NIL and graduate transfers, Stanford is not. ND is far and away the top target of the P2, while Stanford can't get anyone to return their calls. Stanford is Harvard West, ND finally joined the AAU like yesterday. They have a few superficial similarities, but they're VERY different institutions.

The overarching point is that both institutions self impose restrictions on themselves that other schools do not.

Stanford is closer to ND in this regard than it is to some other schools.

It is just a fact. It is what it is.

If they would make radical changes, they wouldn't be who they are, or who they want to be.

Imagine if ND completely supported and urged its donors to pour NIL money to recruits, didn't worry about core high school courses or grad rates or whether freshman athletes could pass trigonometry or went to class and if it took unlimited undergrad transfers.

It may just "thrive" a bit more in athletics.

But then again, it wouldn't be ND. It would be something else.

You could tell your boosters to go hog wild and they still won't have more money for NIL than half the SEC and much of the B1G, or Clemson, or FSU, or Oregon, or TCU or UH for that matter probably. As far as the trig and the Academics of it, I think it's a selling point to some recruits (and their parents). "Sure you can go to Florida and nobody cares what classes you take as long as you maintain your eligibility, but we'll prepare you for the rest of your LIFE here at ND". The brainy kid who's also an elite Athlete is a niche market, but it's there, and you guys are well-positioned to outcompete the few who try for those same Studs (like Stanford for example).

Do you really think that a private school that raised a $20 billion endowment has less booster/donor money available (if it plays that game) than the schools you listed?

If the "brainy" pitch is so great with blue chip 5 star recruits, why doesn't Alabama or Clemson or Florida try it?

Clearly the "brainy" pitch isn't for very many 4* or 5* studs, but maybe for some 3*s?

As for endowment, Phil Knight is worth $84b and seems to think that Oregon is the most important thing in the world. Tilman Fertita is only worth $8b but if anything he's even more devoted UH than Knight is to Oregon. I don't any particulars about TCU, but there's a reason than they've been the best football team in Texas for 15 years, fired the old coach, brought in a new one and did even better the next year. FSU and Clemson have won 5 titles since ND last won a single one. So, if you're asking to compare endowments, whelp, ND wins that one easily, but if you're comparing "Athletic Department booster engagement and enthusiasm"...I think that I'll take the field. Not to denigrate ND by any means, I have a ton of respect for you guys, all I'm saying is that this is not a contest that you can easily win without devoting a significant portion of alumni donations towards "athletics" rather than "general scholarship fund".

And if we start talking about SEC teams rather than high-perming non P2s? A couple months ago, I did some research on A&M's and ND's last big fundraising efforts. If memory serves, our total dollars raised was very close, though A&M did it with about 3x as many donations (so about 1/3 the amount per donation). That didn't seem like an unreasonable breakdown considering the academic prestige of ND. However, it does beg the question of what ND will do in 10, 20, 30 years as these large publics, especially in the SEC and B1G, build up more and more of an alumni advantage on ND. I know that A&M has grown more than others, but Texas, UF, tOSU and many others have grown quite a bit over the past few decades. Those graduates are just now getting to a point where we look at big donations to our alma maters, and lo and behold, there's this cool new NIL concept out there. I don't think that we care about winning football more than ND does, but I also don't think that ND will have more NIL resources available than any of the big SEC or B1G schools in the future. You guys will hold your own, and your donors will continue to open up their wallets, but there are just too many of us with too many well-organized small-dollar donations.

Not really. Texas hit 50,000 sometime between 1980 and 1982 and has stayed put. Ohio St. was over 50k around that time, shrunk a little and has gotten bigger again.
A&M is not like many of the other enormous state universities that have been enormous for a long period. Most hit a comfortable enrollment and stayed there. A&M got up to 45k in the mid 90s and stayed there until Gov. Perry pressured them to supersize.

A lot of the SEC schools have grown, but they were a lot smaller than the Big 10 schools. Other than Arizona St., the big Pac schools have been big for a long time.

The Ivy League has enough big money donors, they won't be outspent by the "middle class" public schools. Notre Dame will be fine as well.