Tag Archives: FBS

The Price Of Moving Up

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Jerry Moore, Appalachian State Head Coach

It’s ironic to me as NDSU gets set to face Wofford out of the Southern Conference this weekend in the FCS Playoffs that the Terriers very likely in a couple years may be the powerhouse of the SoCon, just because the two teams that we have grown used to ruling that league; will try things out in the big boy division. And it appears that for some schools you either better be behind that decision or you’re out. The most glaring example of this came Sunday when Appalachian State fired longtime head coach Jerry Moore, the man who put App State on the map. Here’s a pretty good column illustrating the difference of opinion in Boone.

 

Moore won 215 games at App State, 10 conference titles and oh yeah that run of 3 straight FCS titles from 2005-07, perhaps even more impressive was App State’s 2007 win at Michigan that every college football fan will remember. Moore was outspoken that the Mountaineers should stay  in FCS, where they draw 30K for each game and are consistently a playoff contender. App State Charlie Cobb thought differently, even going so far back in May to publicly court Conference USA for App State, this is a letter he sent to the student base about C-USA.

Georgia Southern’s longtime athletic director Sam Baker resigned over just this disagreement over the summer. You’ll remember the story came out in April that GSU was all for moving up to FBS, just waiting for a conference invite that never came. The student body voted for an increase in fees to make it happen fiscally but Baker never got behind the move that his president wanted so badly. There is one striking contrast to these schools where Moore was pretty public about staying FCS, Jeff Monken has tweeted constantly about moving the Eagles up to FBS.

Each of these schools have not received any official invitations from FBS leagues, with the Sun Belt’s recent additions, one figures that Georgia Southern can’t be too far away from an invite, while Appalachian State’s long-time hope of playing in the same league with East Carolina seems to be shot with the Pirates on their way to the Big East. I wonder if moving  up to the next division is worth losing two guys who helped lead the schools to national prominence and distinction.

Around The Valley – Week 3

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While NDSU rests this Saturday and heals up after a bruising win at Colorado State, there’s some interesting matchups for the rest of the Valley teams in this the last non-traditional weekend before conference play begins. Illinois State hosts Eastern Illinois; interesting game here, the Panthers won at home against Southern Illinois two weeks ago, the Redbirds may have a letdown after their win against Eastern Michigan, ISU has shown they’ll be a contender all year long. SDSU has its home opener this weekend with a Big Sky foe, Cal Davis in Brookings; Indiana State hosts non-scholarship Drake, Missouri State finally gets to play an FCS school after 2 payday games when they host Murray State. Dale Lennon has to be nervous in Carbondale these days, the Salukis got lit up in their opener with Eastern, then lost at Miami of Ohio last weekend. Now they come home to host Southeast Missouri, a team that made the FCS playoffs a couple years ago, Lennon and company cannot afford an 0-3 start even before Valley play begins.  The game that’s caught my eye will be in Youngstown this Saturday when the Penguins host Albany, the champs of the Northeast Conference. Great Danes gave Stony Brook a good game in playoffs last year, this will be a good test for YSU, especially before conference opener next week with UNI. Two teams play FBS games this weekend, Western Illinois, who has barely won games against Butler and Indianapolis, now gets an Iowa State team that just beat Iowa for the 2nd straight year, Cyclones are going in the right direction under Paul Rhoads, that game with NDSU in 2014 should be great. Finally, Northern Iowa plays its 2nd FBS game of the season at Iowa this Saturday in a game that might be a lot closer than we thought even a month ago. I’m not sure honestly what to make of the Panthers yet, the score with Wisconsin I think surprised even the most faithful readers of this blog, it did me, but then the Badgers go and lose to a bad Oregon State team. So let’s see what happens this week, remember UNI nearly got Iowa in 2009, they had 2 field goal tries at the end of the game and had both blocked. Jeff and I detailed the gauntlet that the Panthers had to start the year with Wisconsin, Iowa, Youngstown and NDSU as 4 of their first 5 games, they may come out better than anyone would have thought.

Speaking of UNI, plenty of news has circulated this week after Troy Dannen, the AD said he’s contemplating a move up to FBS. Of course I know how this will spark Bison fan outrage here, cause if UNI moves up NDSU has to as well, and while I don’t disagree with that take, I don’t think Northern Iowa is in any hurry to make the move. From what I’ve read on this subject, Dannen has plenty of ideas on his plate, from going to non-scholarship football to make the ultimate move. I interviewed Mark Emmert from the Des Moines Register on this subject, he talked to Dannen on the move, you can listen to that interview here. I posted the question on Twitter a couple days ago and I know it’s a sore subject with some here, but I’m afraid the topic isn’t going anywhere until the new structure of college football is settled, could the Valley as a conference make the move  up to FBS? I don’t think so, I only believe four schools could pull it off at this moment (NDSU, UNI, Youngstown and Southern Illinois); Illinois State has talked about it, but needs renovations to it’s stadium, plus the four schools I just mentioned would all need to do some major improvements before they can think FBS. They also need a league so if the entire Valley doesn’t go, that’s the other stumbling block. I know some will think I’m beating a dead horse, but topic isn’t going away. FCS Pick ‘Em games back tomorrow.

Georgia Southern Is Going For It

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I’d like to say that Jeff and I are always on the front lines of what happens in the world of FCS, but this move even surpises me. Late last night, the Statesboro Herald reported that Georgia Southern will move its football program to the FBS. Two parts to this story...  Here are the two links to the story.

For those that missed our discussion last week, Jeff and I talked about Georgia Southern moving up, fast forward to about 8 minutes in.

  • GSU President believes moving from FCS to FBS makes school more national than regional university.
  • Soaring to Victory Campaign; it’s an 8 year, 36.6 million dollar campaign to ensure future athletic success, with 5 phases, the most expensive going towards Stabilizing the Program (15.5 mill) that’s towards recruiting advantages and paying their coaches, to upgrading facilites, the centerpiece is the Football Operations Center, a 57,000 square foot building that will cost 10 million dollars, the school believes can transform the program.
  • 5.1 million dollars has already been raised, if GSU gets the necessary 10 million, they believe construction can begin in 12-18 months, they have not yet begun a marketing campaign to raise the remaining money.
  • GSU’s Athletic Budget is 12 million dollars, the school says they’d need a minimum addition of 4.4 million annually to cover everything from travel costs to more scholarships (going from 63 to 85)
  • Georgia Southern’s budget ranks 95th out of 125 schools in FCS
  • Part of the expansion project would be to expand Paulson Stadium from it’s current 18,000 seats to nearly 25,000 and a new scoreboard.
  • Interesting comments from the President, saying “Locker Rooms are atrocious, don’t show it to recruits” also went on to say, “No one gets excited about FCS, no one knows where Frisco, Texas is and who plays in the Championship Game”
  • No Conference lined up yet, several in discussion
My initial thoughts are stunned and surprised, if I thought one member of the Southern Conference would leave it would be Appalachian State, which entertained thoughts right around this time last year. The article reads that GSU is not moving up to one-up Georgia State, which just moved up to the Sun Belt earlier this month. If GSU leaves, it’s a huge blow to the FCS, losing a 6-time champ. It also begs two questions, why leave as a top member of one division to be a lower level school at the top division? The second and more pressing to this blog, if Georgia Southern is moving up, should NDSU be considering it?
 
Much more on this topic in the coming days, working on having GSU Athletic Director Sam Baker join Dizzo’s Den, he was on during the week of the NDSU-GSU playoff game and much more from the Bison end. 

 

Be Careful Moving Up

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Another FCS team is on its way up to FBS, Georgia State made the announcement yesterday they will leave the Colonial (before they even play a down in the league) and head to the Sun Belt in 2013. Georgia State just started playing football in 2010, they hired former Alabama and Kentucky head coach Bill Curry to jump-start the team, the Panthers play in the Georgia Dome, and was their intention once the team was created to play at the FBS level, much like North Carolina-Charlotte, which will start playing football at the FCS level next year with an eye towards FBS in 2015. It’s a road that’s proven to be VERY difficult for nearly everyone in the last 10 years. I looked at the six most recent schools that I could find that made the transition and the best way to describe the results are mixed.

  • Connecticut: Moved up to 1-A or FBS in 2000, after some initial struggles, Huskies have turned themselves into a contender in the Big East, making a BCS Bowl Game two years ago.
  • Troy: School that most fans in this part of the world are familiar with, the Trojans beat NDSU 18-17 for the 1984 Division 2 National Championship. Troy had some initial success, still playing a majority of FCS teams, but since they moved into the Sun Belt, they’ve become a very solid program, making five bowl games since 2004.
  • South Florida: The Bulls moved up to FBS in 2001 and have developed a terrific program, based in Tampa, Jim Leavitt had USF ranked in the top 10 just a few years ago, they have a 81-52 record since moving up, but consider the area they play in and also underwent an off-field scandal with Leavitt reportedly hitting players and was fired.
  • Florida Atlantic: The Owls made the transition in 2005, Howard Schellenberger has been the only coach they’ve ever known until this year, Carl Pelini has taken this job, FAU’s record is not impressive 58-74; most fans will remember they beat the Gophers in 2007, and went to a bowl game that year, the fastest ever a program made a bowl game in just it’s 7th year.
  • Florida International:  The Panthers have had a tough time in the big boy division, and to be honest they weren’t all that good at the FCS level, playing three years between 2002-04 and the most games they won was two. FIU is located in Miami, best remembered for the on-field brawl they had with Miami a few years ago, when they moved up in 2005, they were the fastest program to move up to the highest level and it hasn’t been pretty.
  • Western Kentucky: It hasn’t been pretty for the Hilltoppers either, perhaps next to FIU, the biggest case against moving up to FBS. WKU moved up in 2008, and the first three years they played FBS had 2 wins, zero wins and 2 wins. Western finally had a breakthru season this  year in 2011, going 7-5, but one of the five losses was to FCS member Indiana State.

There are also a couple themes I noticed here, nearly every team here underwent a coaching change two or three years into the transition, and also four of these teams moved into the Sun Belt (Troy, WKU, FIU and FAU) The Sun Belt is a fine league, but we’re not talking about the cream of the crop of FBS football. There are four other test cases everyone should look at this year that are moving from FCS to FBS:

  • South Alabama (Sun Belt)
  • Texas State (WAC)
  • Texas-San Antonio (WAC)
  • Massachusetts (MAC)

Two of the teams I’ve mentioned (Georgia State and UMass) play in NFL stadiums, those you know will be empty a majority of the time, South Florida plays in Tampa’s stadium but has had success to at least draw a respectable crowd. I have not even mentioned money at all during this topic, which we know would be a massive increase to fund a FBS team, it’s a dangerous road, one that’s seen much more losing than success.

 

The Schedule Situation

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It’s the hottest talker right now surrounding the Bison football team thanks to Mr. Kolpack, wrapping up the schedule for the 2012 season. Now I know Florida State, Oklahoma, Michigan State and Pittsburgh are all sexy options and the fans would love to see how NDSU would stack up against the upper echelon competition. But I hate to throw cold water on these thoughts, but it’s NOT a good idea. Craig Bohl and Gene Taylor have stressed to me and Jeff over the past couple of years they want to play FBS games against teams they feel they have a chance to compete. (And beat in my opinion) As impressive as NDSU’s wins over Minnesota, Central Michigan, Ball State and Kansas are, these are not Florida State, Michigan State and Oklahoma. I’m not against NDSU playing one of those schools once every five years or so, but here are the potential downsides of playing an upper-echelon FBS School:

  • Injuries (I know you can get hurt in any football game, but the chance certaintly goes up playing against most of the time bigger and sometimes quicker athletes)
  • Potential Mental Injury – If NDSU loses say 47-7 to Oklahoma or Florida State, what does that do to the pysche of the team? Could it carry over to a game against a FCS or MVFC opponent and lose to a team that they should beat? Could ruin a potential great season.
  • Leads to my third point, I firmly believe NDSU thinks they have the potential of another national championship with this class, either 2012 or 2013 and a loss to a team like a Nebraska, Wisconsin or FSU could de-rail some of those hopes.

Now I did a little research on five other Missouri Valley Schools and they’re FBS matchups, because the detractors to this post will point at SDSU and USD.

SDSU                                                                           USD

  • 2010 – at Nebraska                                       - at Minnesota
  • 2011 – at Illinois                                            – at Air Force, at Wisconsin
  • 2012 – at Kansas                                           – at Northwestern
  • 2013 – at Nebraka                                         - at Kansas
  • 2014 – at Missouri                                         TBD
  • 2015 – at Minnesota                                     – at Kansas State

My opinion (and mine alone) looks at SDSU and USD and says those two schools are in a way different boat than NDSU. SDSU is trying to fund money to renovate it’s football stadium and a couple of big paydays at Nebraska and Missouri can certaintly help in that way; and facing regional schools near it’s backyard. NDSU fans would argue that Nebraska isn’t far away either, but I believe that Bohl just doesn’t want that game.  South Dakota is wrapping up it’s D-1 transition and multiple games against FBS is a common trend (think 2007, NDSU played Central Michigan and Minnesota; a strategy Bohl and Taylor said he would NOT go back to) Now there a couple teams on these schedules that could/should appeal to NDSU; Illinois and Northwestern. Both are bowl teams (most years) and Illinois is an area NDSU in the past loved to hit for recruiting. Both also are matchups that NDSU can certaintly think heading into the matchup that they have a solid shot of winning the football game.

Western Illinois                                  Northern Iowa                             SIU

  • 2010 – at Purdue                           at Iowa State                         at Illinois
  • 2011 -at Missouri                          at Iowa State                         at Mississippi
  • 2012 – at Iowa State                     at Wisconsin, at Iowa           at Miami (OH)
  • 2013 – at Minnesota                      at Iowa State                       at Illinois
  • 2014 – at Northwestern                 at Iowa                                 at Purdue

We know UNI’s situation in terms of funds and the reason they’re playing both Wisconsin and Iowa next season. But you look at Western and SIU and the teams are reasonable in terms of location and skill. And for those poo-pooing NDSU’s future FBS teams a closer look says these squads are pretty good:

2010 – Kansas (Game was announced in June of 2009, NDSU coming off 6-5 season, KU was coming off an Orange Bowl win in 07 and a Insight Bowl win in 08, no reason to think the Jayhawks weren’t going to be pretty good until the Mark Magino blowup in 2009)

2013 - Kansas State ( Wildcats are coming off a 10-3 season in 2012 and a appearance in the Cotton Bowl, one of the oldest bowl games around, losing to Arkansas, I may be the only one in the boat saying this may be the best team NDSU has faced)

2014 - Iowa State ( Paul Rhoades has turned around the Cyclones, enough to beat Nebraska, Texas and this year Oklahoma State, giving OSU it’s only loss of the year, safe to say that’s a pretty good game when NDSU heads to Ames.)

2016 - Iowa ( Normally in the top tier of the Big 10 and almost always playing in a bowl game, you can bet if not Kansas State, then the Hawkeyes take the top spot of toughest team faced yet)

 So there you go, definetly sense a Video Blog dedicated to this topic the longer an 11th game is an option! Gene Taylor has told me he wants that 11th game at HOME, the last option to him would be to play an FCS on the road in a home and home series, meaning they’d come to Fargo in 2014 (since 2013 schedule is done) And remember looming for NDSU is a home and home with Montana and Montana State coming to Fargo. Things looked pretty good on the schedule front.