kreed5120

A few things. Toledo also plays midweek games. Akron in the past has hosted big events on game days. I remember a few years ago they even offered a free concert headlined by Soul Asylum prior to kickoff. I've seen other similar kid events that you shared that Akron has hosted. I don't think Toledo is doing much more than Akron besides establishing a winning culture and having competent decision makers/ADs. Akron has been miserable for so long that apathy has settled in. I was an undergrad during the Coach I years. I remember pregaming with friends to go to the games and by the time we'd sober up around half-time we were down 3 scores and were bored so we'd leave. Eventually we just quit going to the games altogether. I've tried offering these same friends free tickets after graduating to attend, but nobody wants to go because they remember how terrible the experience was. It's not fun watching "your team" lose by 20-30 points each week for a decade plus. The Browns were terrible for many years, but still most games were decided by 10 points or less. Akron games have historically been over at half-time. Put a product on the field that's worth investing 4-6 hours of one's time to attend and then maybe people will show up.

I see the excitement for this game is brewing. Only a handful of posts today.

I don't know the details behind it, but if it remains P5 on a technicality, I can guarantee the Big 10, SEC, Big 12, and ACC will fix that during the next round of negotiations.

Sure it's a cultural one. There is a reason why the Big East is all private schools, excluding UConn. That's how the conference presidents, who have a vote, want it. If this was the Big 10 or SEC I would agree with you as those conferences only care about the money. Cultural differences nearly destroyed the Big East in the past. They won't go down that road again.

It's not a cultural fit. They would never accept us. Excluding UConn, which they have history with, the Big East is made up of Private (predominately Catholic) schools. We're a public university. If we were a Private University, like Case Western, that might be a possibility.

Notre Dame is often overrated. I don't really attribute it to a Jesus thing. It's a combination of them playing a lot of softer ACC schools, which pads their win totals and from name recognition of being a blue blood. Nebraska was also overrated for many years in the early 2000s. Surviving on their prior success. Eventually the bottom gave out and anyone with have a brain could see they were no longer elite. Notre Dame is still a good/great program today. They're just clearly a tier below the elite programs that they often get grouped with. Regardless, phenomenal win by NIU. As AL Davis use to say, "just win, baby." They do that and they will continue to add more votes. Polls this early in the season shouldn't carry much weight.

I'm not really sure a P4 job, even as an OC, would be any less stressful. The pressure to win would be much higher and you still have to worry about NIL and re-recruiting you players every year. At least in the MAC you're on relatively even footing compared to your competition (other MAC schools) and you don't have 100s of callers calling into sports talk radio shows every Monday criticizing every micro decision you do or calling for your job. Edit: Joe could get off the bus when he returned from Rutgers and take his wife to Luigi's or Lockview and it's likely not a single person would recognize him. That wouldn't be the case for Ryan Day in Columbus. Imagine the heckling he had to deal with after each loss to Michigan. You don't have to worry about that at Akron because Joe Akron frankly doesn't care.

I stumbled on this today. It's the MAC'S most recent tax filing. If you go to form 990 you can see the MAC distribution to each MAC school. Akron received just over $2 million. Ohio and Toledo received the most money at ~2.8 million. I presume this was based off of performance incentives for football and Ohio earning the MAC an extra NCAA tournament credit when they made the round of 32 a few years back. https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/310682486/202411369349308926/full

If you want to use that logic then OSU and Cincinnati athletic departments are also taxpayer funded therefore us taxpayers should be eligible to free tickets for those events as well. After all those schools athletic programs wouldn't exist if the school didn't. I'll go ahead and take my free tickets for the OSU-Michigan game. That way I can sell them and pocket the money.

The game has changed a lot at the B10, SEC, B12, ACC level, but has much changed at the MAC level? I know NIL exists, but are there many, if any, MAC schools that are spending $1 million plus? I'm coming for a position of ignorance so that's a genuine question.

I don't really think it's the taxpayers funding athletics. The institutional support athletics receives from the University comes from student fees. The students already receive free admission. Edit: Ohio already ranks near the bottom in state funding per full time student. We're currently 44th out of 50 states. It's hard for taxpayers to make a justifiable complaint considering we're already getting shown up by much poorer states like West Virginia, Alabama, Mississippi, etc. https://ncses.nsf.gov/indicators/states/indicator/state-support-for-higher-education-per-fte-student

I don't feel it would be my place to tell anyone how they should spend their money. Theoretically it would still help the University if it meant the University no longer had to subsidize the cost of athletics.

This is kind of where I stand. Financially we're kind of constrained as a University. We simply can't out spend all MAC schools in everything. At least not without some billionaire alumni magically coming forward to fund the athletic department as part of a vanity project. We could theoretically strip funding from basketball and soccer to use towards football, but that's what other MAC schools have already done. Instead of having 2 great programs and 1 bad, we'd have 3 mediocre ones. The reality is our dollars go further funding basketball or soccer than they do football because you have fewer schools spending to compete in those sports. I'm sure hearing this won't be a popular take on the football board in northeast Ohio, where football is supreme, but it's the sad reality.

More like we can barely afford to fund the program as is. What's the alternative? Take money away from a football program that's already near the bottom of the MAC in funding and using it to pay a mid six figure buyout to bring in another coach?

I'm not really sure, nor care. What I do know is BGSU has a TE with over 100 yards receiving and a TD at the half against a top 10 ranked Penn State team. He played his high school ball at McKinley. It would be nice if we could keep the best MAC caliber recruits from our area away from our rivals.

Rutgers doesn't even look good and they're handing it to Akron. This looks like another 2-10 or 3-9 season for the Zips. When does basketball season start again?

Ohio's roster seems to be the only one that didn't see major turnover. It's probably fair they're the preseason favorites as it will take all the other contending team time to build chemistry. What's important is that we fully hit our stride come March.

Intramural football or Esports, while nice to offer students to enhance the college experience, isn't paying the bills. That's why I specifically made mention that it would be nice if it could be used more for concerts or other major events as those actually bring money to the school. You were probably right that Blossom makes it challenging to do.

I don't feel it has to be an either or. Likely all 3 things contributed to declined attendance.

@Captain Kangaroo also didn't account for the revenue from the CFP. The MAC's share would be $1.8 million per school. That improves the situation some. If you exclude the football stadium, which is a sunk cost, the football program generates enough revenue that it about breaks even. It might slightly still be in the red. The stadium is a huge burden on the athletic department financially. It would be great if they could utilize it more to host concerts or whatever else to help generate additional revenue. The same would be true for the JAR. There just must not be any demand for that for whatever reason.

Rutgers had a few horrendous years under Chris Ash. With Schiano at the helm they're a below average-to-mid Big 10 team, which puts them on par or slightly above top echelon MAC caliber teams. If we can keep this within 17, I'd be pleased.

Honestly, I feel that's tough to judge at this stage. We likely won't face another pass rush remotely as talented as OSU the rest of the season. We couldn't really judge the downfield passing because frankly Finley was getting lit up while waiting for the play to develop. If we see the same struggle against a good, but not great, Rutgers squad then I'll agree.

If being a fundraiser for the athletic department is the objective, they're failing there as well. The debt financing on Infocision the last I saw alone was $4.5 million. If you add in all the other costs (scholarships, travel, staff pay, coach buyouts, equipment, etc.), at best they're operating at a slight deficit. That's assuming 100% of the TV money and other shared conference revenue is allocated to football since its the main driver.

I think this team will go 4-8.

I don't have the figures, but I'd imagine we're near the bottom. As several of the ADs mentioned, we spread out our spend into sports like soccer and basketball. Many MAC schools are throwing everything they have at football, which is a big reason why the MAC has regressed so much in MAC basketball. You only have Akron, Kent, Toledo, and Ohio spending on the sport.