OT: UMass looking to drop to FCS
After Idaho dropped, EMU refuted talk of dropping, UMass is pushing for dropping out of FBS and going back to FCS at their faculty senate meeting.
UMass has been an utter disaster since joining FBS.
Once a proud FCS program that won a national championship in 1998, UMass joined FBS in 2012 and gained MAC membership as an affiliate member with a requirement to join the league in all sports a couple years later or get booted like Temple did.
UMass has gone 8-40 overall and 7-25 in the MAC since the jump. They went 2-22 in their first two seasons. Michigan played them in their first FBS season in 2012, a game which was a far cry from the 2010 meeting where the #17 ranked FCS team put a scare into us.
UMass was booted from the MAC recently after not joining for all sports, so now they face a similar fate as Idaho. Play as an independent or drop.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/ncaaf/2016/04/27/umass-football-fa…
The University of Massachusetts faculty senate continues to call for the school to either drop down to FCS or cancel its program altogether, a revised agenda for Thursday's upcoming meeting revealed.The faculty senate, meeting for its second-to-last session of the spring semester, does not have the power to bring on the change but has a motion that will urge the university's chancellor, president and board of trustees to "end Division I football (Football Bowl Subdivision) at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and either move to a different division or discontinue NCAA football."
What about Rutgers?
Haven't you heard?? Ash is locking down NJ being leaders and they'll soon be a powerhouse!
/s
Really the problem is that the MAC and other mid major conferences should not be considered the same division as Power 5 conferences.
The P5 should really be a separate league / division. I also think that P5 schools should only be allowed to schedule each other for the most part (maybe 1 G5 game per year). I know that screws the smaller schools, but I also don't care.
I'd much rather schedule USC, LSU, ND, Arkansas, etc than early season MAC snacks. Making P5 teams play more games against other P5 teams will elevate the level of competition and make all the teams play better football in the long-term.
We don't play a MAC team again until 2020.
as shorthand for all non-P5 teams.
Notre Dame = MAC?
I like it.
That's against Ball State. I could see that going away by then, too.
The P5 is the power and these teams should be playing each other. Instead of 1 FCS game a year, make it one game outside the P5 a year.
I think being a little bigger than just the P5 is advisable. Maybe include the AAC and MWC plus Army, BYU and ND as independents. If you're just the P5, you're either going to have a new class of P5 schools that settle as the consistent body bags for the powers in college football, or you have a lot of powers that have to get used to losing more than 4 games on a pretty regular basis. Neither scenario is great for the long term health of college football.
I do agree that the MAC/C-USA/Sun Belt should be playing FCS football.
I'm definitely on board here. I mean, really, hearing that Idaho was dropping a division to play against teams like Montana and NDSU... it's not much different at all, is it? How much worse could it be for EMU to play Youngstown State instead of Bowling Green? They might as well all be in the same pool.
FWIW I don't mind Michigan playing one of these snacks a year, and I kind of like giving the smaller local schools a chance to come to Michigan Stadium. But let's call it what it is.
The SEC is finally requiring members to play at least one P5 opponent in non-conf. I really don't see the need to kill off the smaller programs. It certainly doesn't help the players to have fewer scholarshps available.
Then P5 schools should stop losing to MAC teams.
There are just way too many teams in FBS that shouldn't be there. They're not even competing for the same thing as power five teams. MAC teams shouldn't be in there either. They should create a new division between FBS and FCS.
Can you imagine how awesome college football would be if every team had to play at least 11 regular season games against a Power 5 opponent?
It's called the 1980s and prior.
Michigan didn't play a MAC team from 1944-1994.
That drought would have been longer had original schedules stayed that same. 1995 Miami-Ohio replaced what originally was going to be the OTHER Miami. But the Canes cancelled after completely retooling their schedule.
Likewise, Oklahoma State was originally going to come to the big house in 2000 (like they did in 1992) but they pulled out and we had to replace them with Bowling Green.
Once we got in the 2000's, it became some unwritten requirement to play MAC schools.
Sent from MGoBlog HD for iPhone & iPad
Correct me if I'm wrong but wasn't the Big Ten schedule 9 games and the whole regular season either 10-11 games? That wouldn't leave much room to schedule a MAC opponent.
It was a 9 game schedule for just a couple years in the early 80's and one year, some Big Ten teams played played 9 and some played 8. In 1984, all Big Ten schools went back to the 8 conference game format.
Sent from MGoBlog HD for iPhone & iPad
I would argue that some of the "other 5" conference teams are far and away better than say..... Rutgers...
Sent from MGoBlog HD for iPhone & iPad
We played Notre Dame, Florida State, and at Boston College in 1991. That's a damn good home schedule.
The BC game was in Massachusetts. I believe Desmond had 4 TDs that day and Derrick Alexander shredded his knee, clearing the path for Desmond's Heisman.
And the FSU game basically sucked, as it was a) hot, b) I accidentally smacked my good friend in the head while throwing a marshmallow and c) I think FSU returned two Grbac passes for TDs, amongst other big plays.
The ND game made up for it though -- Desmond's catch!
Some of them are up for the challenge.
Georgia Southern won the Sun Belt in their first season in the FBS. They went 8-0 and 9-3 overall. They also upset Florida and went to OT with Georgia recently.
App State went 11-2 in 2015 and won a bowl game.
That still stings.
is amazing is that we did not see it coming on some level. We had really snuck by a couple of cupcakes in the previous years (having to hold on to beat Ball State at home the previous year), we were absolutely terrible against the spread, App. St. was a last second fill in that had not been scouted at all, and we were in someways ridiculously overrated having lost to OSU and getting smoked by SC and then losing 7 defensive starters. At the time, I was all "no F-ing way," but reading about it and watching it since it actually isn't that surprising.
Lloyd knew it was coming.
Yeah but those are major upsets that only happen once and a while and usually only to teams like Minnesota, Kansas, Oregon State. Florida was poop under Muschamp and we shit the bed against App State. Those teams still wouldn't win a NC. Everyone was all "Ohhh Northern Illinois deserves a shot" in 2012 and they were stomped. The only teams that have proven legit from lower conferences are TCU and Boise State.
Both TCU and Utah had some growing pains when they moved into the Big 12 and Pac-12. They weren't going 1-11, but they didn't just initially keep going 10-2 when they moved into the Power 5 conference.
I would hope that if some movement occurs to establish a "Power 5" division or some such that a few of the better non-P5 schools get a bump under whatever Notre Dame clause is produced. BYU, Boise, etc.
A Power 5 division might wind up having to be a Power 6 division, or a division in which existing conference affiliations are significantly restructured. We're already getting there in the B1G, and if the occasionally discussed (at least by us) 16-team league happens the B1G as we know it is basically already gone.
On the other hand, Indiana has gone 6-5 against the MAC in their last eleven. Purdue is 5-5 in their last ten with one win over EMU and another a very close bowl game (37-32) against a WMU team that finished 3rd(!) in their division. The bottom of the MAC is terrible, but the bottom of the P5 isn't really any better than a solid MAC team. Look at what Bowling Green did to Maryland last year, or Toledo to Arkansas. Those were hardly generational MAC teams and yet they pretty much disposed of middle of the road Big Ten and SEC teams, on the road.
Of course, Indiana and Purdue will get grandfathered in and the MAC teams will get screwed when the split inevitably happens. And I'd love to see a G5 playoff. But there's significantly more overlap here than people are admitting.
The only mid-major eith sustained success is Boise St. Otherwise you only need look back at recent mid-major powers to see how quickly it crumbles. Southern Miss, Fresno St, Northern Illinois, etc. All of them hope to get to double digit wins once a decade or pull of a miracle upset but 9 times out of 10 you're a non-descript 7-5 mid-major team
As mentioned above, TCU and Utah were both mid-majors in their glory years and were so successful that they received major conference bids. Louisville also had a lot of success while in Conference USA, though their move to the ACC was not a football-only marriage.
I believe that this is only the beginning
They probably should. In fact, there are several schools that should move to FCS.
I hate when traditional FCS powers jump to a conference like the MAC or Sun-Belt. I am one of those guys that really enjoys FCS football and their playoff format. Schools like Appalachian State and UMass who jump divisions usually end up hurting themselves and hurting the quality of FCS football as well.
The only time I could see it making sense is if you are jumping to a conference that makes sense: P5 or the American.
I go to Toledo and it would be much more enjoyable to see them with a chance to win a national title than have their ceiling be the GMAC bowl win. That being said it was fun to see them beat Bert last year.
This post made me wonder if they shouldn't make a new division for fbs mid major conferences? They could have their own 4 team playoff. People would watch. Having their season be in the spring would make them even more money.
Really not a bad idea for them to have their own division. I went to a Conference USA school and one argument was always, "What are we playing for really -- the New Orleans Bowl?" I would definitely love to watch a Boise State v. Air Force, Navy v. Toledo G5 Playoff. That would be fun.
It would also give life to the fan bases who believe their teams have a shot for a national championship down the stretch. There are good enough programs to make it competitive year in and year out.
Instead of going to the New Mexico Bowl, get the group of 5 conferences to send their top 4 conference champs (with the exception of any qualifying for the full CFP) to a 4 team tournament to be played during the bowl season. its a way to give these teams something to play for against other high level talent within the group of 5.
If they get their own division, separate from 1-AA (which would give us 3 Division 1 subdivisions, not something I expect to happen) they can just go all-in for their own 16-team playoff.
And that would be a lot of fun.
That's the fun of MACtion!
I think the MAC should stay FCS and just stop lighting money on fire. Over the last 15 years the investment in MAC football has gone through the roof with returns on the field remaining roughly the same. The MAC does have more bowl bids now but that's just because of the number of bowls has grown and they used to have a terrible deal where one team went bowling (IIRC Urban had a 9 or 10 win BGSU squad with Josh Harris at QB had to sit at home one year). Believe the schools all lose money on the bowls outside of whatever they're calling the Detroit bowl today.
That's two down, and only about half a dozen to go.
I really could see Hawaii just closing up shop and dropping their football program. With the cost of everything and the lack of interest in football in the state of hawaii plus added travel costs it would make sense.
This is a good point. Wasn't this something that was rumored to be on the table already?
Likely a good move, much like Idaho they'll have a lot more local rivals from making the drop down and the level of interest will be better.
I don;t have a problem with teams trying to make the leap, but I also want them to acknowledge reality when it doesn't quite work out.
Really everyone in FBS but for Power 5 schools and some select mid-majors are all just glorified FCS programs. Instead of playing to get to the FCS playoffs they play to get paid beating from Power 5 teams and then hope to go 9-3 and go to a decent bowl game. Power 5 should probably just be the 60 or so teams with an actual shot at a title and FCS should get bigger.
6 Conferences with 12 teams a piece-- every team has a stadium requirement (50k?).
Every Conference plays a 9 game conference schedule with 1 out of conference game.
Top 16 tournament: 6 Conference winners, 10 at large, with profits split evenly among conferences.
Top seeds host the first two rounds; "final four" similar to today follows.
Every team in the tournament gets 4 games.
16-32 has a "second-level" tournament played throughout december
Rest of the teams get randomly selected for home/home games.
Larger FCS schools and the rest of D-1 form a new D-II.
won't happen. Anything that is going to happen will have to done within the confines of a bowl structure. The best we are going to get within the next 10-15 year is an expansion to 8 teams with Sugar, Rose, Peach, Fiesta, Cotton, and perhaps Citrus all hosting playoff games of in either the round of 8 and 4 each year. This actually may not be that far off.
If I wanted this type of format I'd just watch pro football.