New DII Program in Illinois/Chicago

[MadBird]

Was looking for a place to stick this w/o starting a new thread, but nothing jumped out at me. Roosevelt University, now at NAIA level, is planning on moving to DII, and playing in the Great Lakes Conference, one of the best in DII FB.

https://footballscoop.com/news/d-ii-football-will-soon-have-official-presence-in-chicago

 

[topiarydan]

They pull a lot of good Chicagoland area talent and I can see them fielding a solid D2 team.

 

[topiarydan]

Sad thing is was reading about UCentral Florida now in Big 12 and remembering beating them in 1985 at Hancock when they were D2 and building their program up. Boy we missed the boat then

 

[Bird Friend]

Sad thing is was reading about UCentral Florida now in Big 12 and remembering beating them in 1985 at Hancock when they were D2 and building their program up. Boy we missed the boat then

I don’t think we missed. I think we were waving as it sailed by . . .

 

[Reggie Redbird]

Sad thing is was reading about UCentral Florida now in Big 12 and remembering beating them in 1985 at Hancock when they were D2 and building their program up. Boy we missed the boat then

UCF has an enrollment of about 66k students. You could take U of I and us together and we would be slightly bigger but comparable. They also have about $75 million in student athletic fees.

We have a lot of expansion to do as a campus if we want to catch up with them, or even get to half their size.

 

[TBS_20]

AND, its Florida. It's a football and meth crazed state.

 

[Reggie1857]

UCF has an enrollment of about 66k students. You could take U of I and us together and we would be slightly bigger but comparable.

That’s a great point! Illinois State athletics “leadership” couldn't be bothered to try and keep pace with Big 12 schools that Illinois State compares very favorably, enrollment wise. Why would we have expected anything less than letting UCF race right past them?

 

[Seven]

People who blame ISU or ISU’s administration for UCF (the 2nd highest enrollment in the country) zooming past them in enrollment don’t have a raging clue how this stuff works and should probably refrain from commenting before embarrassing themselves further.

 

[topiarydan]

People who blame ISU or ISU’s administration for UCF (the 2nd highest enrollment in the country) zooming past them in enrollment don’t have a raging clue how this stuff works and should probably refrain from commenting before embarrassing themselves further.

No one is comparing ISUs (also tying in the Bloomington-Normal geo area) to UCF (also tying in an interrnational city) at this point in time. Rather in 1985 our school was already way further established and even to this day had - so before you go playing mightier than thou - compare ISU with UCF in 1985 from enrollment, academic credentials and sports programs and also look at decisions admins made between 1985 and 1992. There were options then

 

[Birddog]

People who blame ISU or ISU’s administration for UCF (the 2nd highest enrollment in the country) zooming past them in enrollment don’t have a raging clue how this stuff works and should probably refrain from commenting before embarrassing themselves further.

Other factors play in in enrollment which in turn plays a role in athletic funding.

Florida population in 1985 = 11,350,000
Illinois population in 1985 = 11,400,000

Florida population in 2023 = 22,500,000 (estimate)
Illinois population in 2023 = 12,480,000 (estimate)

However, that still doesn’t tell the entire story here. I think a better comp is Appalachian State. All in on football perhaps at the expense of other sports. While ISU went for basketball while allowing football to flounder. And we know basketball never became what they thought it would.

Also, so much more football talent in Florida than in Illinois and neighboring states.

 

[isuquinndog]

Hindsight is an amazing thing.

 

[Bird Friend]

Hindsight is an amazing thing.

And just like foresight . . . it can be wrong or misinterpreted or skewed to favor one's arguments . . .

 

[fourthandshort]

People who blame ISU or ISU’s administration for UCF (the 2nd highest enrollment in the country) zooming past them in enrollment don’t have a raging clue how this stuff works and should probably refrain from commenting before embarrassing themselves further.

This !!

They raced past too many schools to count ... an amazing success story, maybe the most amazing success story in college history. They were able to grow gangbusters and maintain their academic standards from what I have read.

So comparing ISU to UCF makes absolutely no sense. And when considering the headwinds of all of our true peer schools in Illinois and MVC, we do very well on all fronts .. too many facts support this. But yes, we don't measure up to UCF or Ohio St or Michigan or U of I, etc. But that is not ISUs mission or objective. And yet we thrive and do very well playing in our lanem while many of our peer schools struggle, some a lot.