UA1996MAENG

It's sad to say but if a university is not in the Power4, we're all desperate "losers" in tems of athletics. What C-USA has on the MAC is population. Too many MAC universities are in real trouble with a decline in enrollment. Similarily, remember back when we all used to laugh at the Sunbelt in the ealry 2000s? Seems like the Sunbelt has the advantage now, and part of that is a rich recruiting territory.

The MAC did just that with the addition of UMASS, but I'd say most people on this site were at a minumum underwhelmed by that move. If expansion is done to increase regional exposure and subsequently improve TV audience/ratings, I'm not sure how much a university like WKU adds.

Exactly. Power4 and G5 have to make an official division split. Matching up universities with enormous disparity in budgets and scholarships and NIL, etc. is grotesque. The disparity between the BIG10 and the MAC, for example, was always a grossly unfair fight. It’s far worse now. Even within the Power4 conferences, there will be huge differences in the level of teams and programs. Half of the Big10, though stronger by and large than most G5 teams, will never sniff a playoff berth.

General Booty? Is this guy like 40 by now?

My big fear not only for UA in particular but for the Group of 5 in general is that the Transfer Portal has made a difficult job even more difficult if not impossible. For many programs in G5, any level of team or individual success results in the gutting of the team just at the moment it's making progress. Hearing Saban basically admit to tampering with a Toledo player I think is indicative of what's going on now and this will only get worse. It seems that every G5 program has to rebuild each year as they do not have the NIL money to keep their best athletes. It's a shame. I'm old so it all seems very mercenary to me.

Thank you for this spring assesment. I'm hoping for the best as I don't think Moorhead survives another 2-10 year. Do you think this team can win 5-6 games? Is that enough to keep Moorhead?

After this 45 million dollar renovation, what will Polsky be used for? When I was on campus 93-96, I only had a vague notion of what was there. Personally, I only entered Polsky twice to meet with the international exchange program coordinator.

I agree that the Polsky building and Quaker Square should be sold. However, the problem with that type of sale is how difficult it is to unload a building or complex of that type in a small city. As my dad would have said, "Who the hell would want it? Imagine the heating bills!" I'm suprised that the Akron Public Schools could not utilize it for one of its high schools. However, APS is already looking to end its lease on the Central Hower HS building - yet another large propertyy that UA simply does not need.

My experience as a UA student was long ago and very good. My expereince as a parent of a current UA freshamn has been very postive. Everyone with whom I have had contact has been great (admissions, Office of Academic Retention Services, Williams Honors College, The College of Engineering, etc.), and my son is having a great expereince. So my current sense is that there are a lot of people on campus who care a lot about UA. I don't doubt there are problems, as there are on many campuses, but I feel like the current leadership is overall very good.

Yes, the college landscape has changed, and NEO indeed has a high concentration of colleges and universities, both public and private. Still, UA has a lot to offer and must find a way to bring in more students. I wish I had the answer.

I think it's certainly good that the campus has something desireable to offer in terms of housing. However, it's important to increase overall enrollment. We have a campus made for a population of 25 - 30k. UA might not ever get back to that, but certianly getting back to 18-20 would be a benefical across the board.

I was a graduate student at UA from 1993 to 1996. Compared to what we had in those days in regard to bars and restaurants, downtown Akron is a gem today.

Having grown up in Cincinnati, I can tell you that crime there was and continues to be much worse than in Akron. I've done everything in my neck of the woods to talk up Akron and UA. I sent my son to UA and he loves it. I wish we all coud reach a larger audience as alumni and parents.

Ohio picked up a larger freshman class but it has suffered a long-term enrollment decline that is still a problem. Miami, of course, is not in the same dire straits as other universities we've discussed, but the univeristy is cutting programs and the admin citied decling enrollment as one of the factors in that decison.

The on-campus housing cost and value certainly seems to attract the students vs. off-campus apartments, etc.

I didn't include BGSU. BG and Kent are doing well. The urban factor is important, but then how do we account for University of Cincinnati gaining significant enrollment? Different cities have different pluses and minuses, but the crime and decay in some cities really does hurt the local universities.

I heard the same thing. My son lives in the Honors Complex. That's the paradox about UA - the dormatory space is filled but enrollment is down.

The trend is that universities in a small-town setting like Kent, Bowling Green and others are indeed holding on to students and in some cases increasing their enrollment. Urban centers like Akron and Toledo (but not Cincinnati) are losing students. Talking to parents in my town (Columbus suburbs) many are simply afraid of the crime in Akron and the perception that it is not safe. My son is a freshman at UA; he liked the university and UA was very nice and supportive in the recruiting process. Out of his graduating class of almost 450 kids, he is the only one to enroll at UA. UA recruiting has to go deeper into these outerbelt central Ohio school districts where there are many college-viable students and quite a bit of hesitancy to go to Ohio State due to its size. Also, OSU is so big now and selective that a kid like mine with a good ACT score and a 3.6 GPA could not get onto main campus for his preferred major. UA and other Ohio universities have to exploit this.

UA carries significant debt and is facing an on-going enrollment decline-stagnation much like Toldeo, Wright State, Ohio, Miami and others. "Winning" in the lanscape of NIL and the Transfer Portal requires money that our university simple does not have. Significant money is never going to come from our affiliation with the MAC. I think the largest share of UA's athletics revenue comes from the 2-3 football games each year with Power 5 teams. Other than that, where's the money coming from to "win"?

As much as I hate to see it and as much as I dislike Greg Schiano, I think Rutgers is an 8-win team in 2024. Knights will be tough.

I wish I could lay out the entire ESPN conspiracy to destroy conferences and hurt the mid-majors, but it's just too big to tackle at my age. The Kennedy assasination is an easier topic. Blaming Wilbon is good enough in my book for the sake of brevity.

The greed system is already in place or we wouldn't be witnessing the destruction of the Pac 12 and the early signs that the SEC and Big10 are aligning to dominate the playoff selection process and seedings to undercut the Big 12 and ACC and eventually demote those conferences into the second tier, at least a large number of those conference members. Within 5 years it'll be wery different and none of those cghanges are good for the G5.

I think YSU cares about those championships and that's enough. To stick with YSU as our subject, YSU really cannot rise any higher. Even if the university had aspirations to move up to D1-A (as we used to call it), the university simply does not have the resources to make that move plus stagnant and decling enrollement ends any hope of that move for many universities. The entire MAC, so-called D-1A, is now at risk of falling even lower than they have ever been due to circumstances that these universities did not create; if the MAC and other G5 conferences were second-tier to the P5 before 2023, now we're a de facto farm system for the Power 4. In this environment, how often do you think a MAC member will make this playoff system that begins this fall? I think the answer is never, but that does not mean I'll not support the Zips within any subdivision they end up in or for any post-season level in which they participate.

" Who?" TV Money + NCAA impotence = who. Money will dicate everything as it already does. I cannot imagine that the universities left out of the big boy playoff (including AP ranked teams) will allow themselves to be left out of the proposed G5 playoff. The NCAA, always a weak and visionless institution, is crumbling as we speak. The "who" will be whatever new governing body or bodies that take over in the power vacuum.

I don't mean they would. That's the problem. Those programs love the revenue but are at the same time not going to every be a part of the playoff system. The Indianas, Purdues, Northwesterns have had a century of Big10 affiliation and riches and never (or once in a generation) competed at the top. So, if the G5 becomes its own subdivison with its own playoff, I can't imagine that those "Power" programs that are left out of thier own playoff wouldn't somehow be put into the second-tier playoff...because TV money. Sad as it is, a 7-5 Purdue team (likey ranked above almost the entire MAC, for example) is a bigger TV draw than a (God willing) 10-4 Akron.