Virginia Redbird
Well-known member
I found this article from the Toledo Blade. The short version is with the loss of revenue to many athletic budgets due to the virus, some universities in FBS are discussing dropping down to FBS. Maybe more accurately the faculty, fans, and media are discussing the pros and cons. This writer makes the case for the University of Toledo Rockets remaining in FBS although in my opinion he cherry-picks stats throughout the entire article to support his view that dropping to FBS would be a disaster for the Rockets. He picks out JMU as an example of essentially robbing students the first day on campus since student fees support a large part of the JMU athletic department. That is true but while most FCS schools rely more on student fees not all are at the JMU level. Actually, the group of 5 schools has to rely much more on student fees that the Power 5 big boys. He sort of concedes that being part of a national tournament with a chance to win a national title would be more exciting than playing in the local IHOP nobody cares Bowl (okay, that was my sarcastic response to the meaningless Group of 5 bowl games). Still he says he would take a crowed home field game against Colorado or Missouri any day over a December playoff game against Illinois State with a few thousand fans in attendance (a significant slap at the Redbirds). He also makes the point that attendance would suffer from a move down. He states that UT had an average announced attendance of 20,399 fans last season. Announced is not actual attendance but I am not going to quibble on that point. He then goes on to point out that the top league in FCS, Missouri Valley, had only an average attendance of 8,928 fans a game. That may or not be true but he took the average attendance of the entire league. MSU has one of the lowest attendance stats in FCS and is going to bring down the average. I could not find NDSU attendance for 2019 but in 2017 their average attendance was 18,333 a game and was only number 7 in FCS (Attendance at Football Games by the Numbers: Top 20 in Division I (FCS)). Toledo was 6-6 last season, 3-5 in the MAC. They had a big win over Brigham Young but it was a very unimpressive season otherwise.
There were the usual faculty arguments against FBS Football. Schools having to drop other sports and such. There has been a spirited discussion on this board before about the benefits of moving up to FBS. I do not agree with the writer. I don't think UT Rocket football would be impacted all that much by a move down to FCS. Outside of NW Ohio nobody really knows they exist anyway. In the current environment I can see some Group of 5 teams moving down. I can see some conferences going out of existence. Time will tell of course but I personally like FCS Football and the tournament. UT can keep the IHOP nobody cares bowl...if they can even make that! They could not beat NIU last season. Sorry for the long post and not really ISU related, except for the dig by the writer, but there is not much else to talk about and I thought this was interesting.
There were the usual faculty arguments against FBS Football. Schools having to drop other sports and such. There has been a spirited discussion on this board before about the benefits of moving up to FBS. I do not agree with the writer. I don't think UT Rocket football would be impacted all that much by a move down to FCS. Outside of NW Ohio nobody really knows they exist anyway. In the current environment I can see some Group of 5 teams moving down. I can see some conferences going out of existence. Time will tell of course but I personally like FCS Football and the tournament. UT can keep the IHOP nobody cares bowl...if they can even make that! They could not beat NIU last season. Sorry for the long post and not really ISU related, except for the dig by the writer, but there is not much else to talk about and I thought this was interesting.
Briggs: Why Toledo and BG football dropping to FCS is an 'absolute non-starter'
Given the foreboding drip, drip, drip of news coming out of the Mid-American Conference — Bowling Green cutting baseball here, Akron dropping sports there, ...
www.toledoblade.com