UAB to the MVC?

[Redbird Recon]

Question for UNI fans: which is better? FCS National Championship or NCAA Sweet 16?

They've never achieved one of those.

[Dean Wormer]

Question for UNI fans: which is better? FCS National Championship or NCAA Sweet 16?

They've never achieved one of those.

Certainly, the level of self grandeur coming from the UNI fans is nearly unbearable in this thread, however, I would strongly suggest you re-think this response.

I would also lay off the slamming of the WSU Bowling Program. Collegiate Bowling is a fast growing sport, and even I am aware of the dominance of Wichita State.

[Mikovio]

Division 2 and 3 title games get nationally televised too. Doesn't mean anybody cares.

I looked it up and the FCS title game got 1.4 million viewers on ESPN2. Which might sound like a lot, but despite a good timeslot it was less than 36 of the 39 FBS bowl games, and the games they did beat out were a. on a Monday at 2, b. opposite Sunday Night Football, and c. the final game of a 5 game marathon pitting two 6-6 teams. I'm not trying to be mean here but comparing that to the exposure from an NCAA run is crazy.

[Someone_Else]

FYI, if the football schools left for the Summit then they would lose aprox $400,000 per school based on the MVC having 21 shares over the last six years compared to the summit with 6. If the MVC was dissolved then WSU, UNI and Creighton would take their own shares. This assumes the Summit would go to 14.

The moral of the story is that we are all stuck together, because those that would want you cost money and the ones with the money don't.

[BCPanther]

The bottom would fall out of donations to the AD if UNI dropped football.

Basketball gets whatever it wants, Jake isn't going without anything he wants. If we dropped football tomorrow, basketball's budget wouldn't change at all.

[Drakey]

Here is the deal. UNI has had a better basketball program than Drake, Bradley, Evansville and Loyola over the past 15 years. The reason they have is because they were fortunate to have two coaches who were able to produce winners in spite of where they coached. UNI is probably good as long as Jacobsen hangs around. UNI is like SIU was under Webber and Painter. It can end.

Regardless of the current situation I feel that Drake, Evansville, Loyola and Bradley have more POTENTIAL to build long term successful basketball programs than UNI. Based on what I have observed nationally the most successful basketball programs overall that are not from the traditional power Football conferences are those schools that have embraced basketball and not focused on football. Look at Gonzaga, Butler, Dayton, Virginia Commonwealth and others. Also look at how the West Coast Conference and the Atlantic Ten have continued to elevate their basketball status over the past decade.

[unipanther99]

Iowa is 16-1 vs UNI in football. I don't think you've shown them you can compete.

You'll get the warm tinglies from fall football if you dropped the scholarships or went club just the same, right? What does it matter if you're beating Murray State or Drake? Either way you're just the tallest midget and everybody knows it. Might as well pour those dollars into basketball so maybe you can get to the next weekend in March while America is paying attention.

**** or get off the pot.

Just curious what you think axing our football team and pouring the supposed savings into basketball would do for us? We have the coach we want, we're paying him well, flying to games we should be flying to, we're going to pay our players like the big boys, we have a new-ish arena, upgraded locker rooms and team area, we pay our assistant coaches very well, and we've had sustained success?

What more should we be doing?

[unipanther99]

Question for UNI fans: which is better? FCS National Championship or NCAA Sweet 16?

Our Sweet Sixteen run was better for the University than our FCS national title game run. We've never won the thing, so I can't say with 100% certainty, but I would assume the Sweet Sixteen still means more.

That doesn't mean the FCS playoffs aren't great for our university and fans. Clearly those experiences have been very positive. But as I said before, basketball comes first.

[Wufan]

Iowa is 16-1 vs UNI in football. I don't think you've shown them you can compete.

You'll get the warm tinglies from fall football if you dropped the scholarships or went club just the same, right? What does it matter if you're beating Murray State or Drake? Either way you're just the tallest midget and everybody knows it. Might as well pour those dollars into basketball so maybe you can get to the next weekend in March while America is paying attention.

**** or get off the pot.

Just curious what you think axing our football team and pouring the supposed savings into basketball would do for us? We have the coach we want, we're paying him well, flying to games we should be flying to, we're going to pay our players like the big boys, we have a new-ish arena, upgraded locker rooms and team area, we pay our assistant coaches very well, and we've had sustained success?

What more should we be doing?

I agree that it wouldn't do anything for UNI in the here and now.

[uniftw]

Iowa is 16-1 vs UNI in football. I don't think you've shown them you can compete.

You'll get the warm tinglies from fall football if you dropped the scholarships or went club just the same, right? What does it matter if you're beating Murray State or Drake? Either way you're just the tallest midget and everybody knows it. Might as well pour those dollars into basketball so maybe you can get to the next weekend in March while America is paying attention.

**** or get off the pot.

Just curious what you think axing our football team and pouring the supposed savings into basketball would do for us? We have the coach we want, we're paying him well, flying to games we should be flying to, we're going to pay our players like the big boys, we have a new-ish arena, upgraded locker rooms and team area, we pay our assistant coaches very well, and we've had sustained success?

What more should we be doing?

I agree that it wouldn't do anything for UNI in the here and now.

I'll see if I can dig the study that was done in 2008/2009ish regarding football. UNI paid an outside firm to look at what to do with football. At that time the NCAA was within a year or two of lifting the moratorium on moving from FCS to FBS and was kind of the peak of the previous ADs budget issues. Since then things have gotten better.

The study looked at 5 options for UNI football:
1. Stay FCS
2. Move FBS should an invite happen
3. Stay FCS but go non scholarship (see Drake)
4. Move D2 (would mean all sports move D2)
5. Drop football


I might be misremembering but I'm pretty sure the report but I'm pretty sure it said if football was dropped you may as well drop D3 because donations and enrollment would suffer an immediate and nearly catastrophic. I believe the order the report suggested was:
1. Stay FCS
2. Move FBS
3. Stay FCS but go non sholarship
4. Move D2
5. Drop football

I'm also pretty sure the gap between 2 and the rest was large.

The thing with UNI football is that it might not have a B1G fan base. It might not beat the Iowa's of the world. It might not make millions of dollars. It might not get nationally televised. It is, however, vitally important to the alumni and donor base. Iowa is a football crazed state, especially college. UNI has had football since 1895 (sans 2 years in World War 2 when most programs were shut down and the 1905/1906 season). That's 115 seasons of football. Basketball is going to get what it wants and have first choice of what it wants and makes more money. Football is what drives the entire bus though. In bad years UNI still brings 12-13k people to the Dome. It draws people from all over the state on those Saturdays. Every single UNI game was broadcast in HD across the entire state last season.

The donor base isn't going to just dump money into a university that dropped it's biggest and longest standing sport. There was a loss of donations with baseball dropping. It might eventually come back, deacades later after the generations that were alive at the time of the drop are dead. It's tough to look at schools that have never had football and say "See...do what they do when you drop football" but it doesn't quite work like that.

I'll be completely honest, the day UNI drops football is the day I quit caring about UNI athletics.