The World of College Football

[zippy5]

Anyway I don't subscribe to Cains. Do they cutting all money games or just back to one annually?

[GP1]

14 hours ago, ZipCat said:

 

It's behind a paywall, but how does this make any sense? The Football Program doesn't cover costs, so if you're cutting "money games" you're cutting the ability to fund the program, and the University is in a debt crisis. How does this make ANY sense?

Maybe every decision at a public university shouldn't be driven by money. 

[GP1]

13 hours ago, kreed5120 said:

 

Define long time because its only been relatively recent (the last 6-8 years) that we started scheduling more than 1 of those games a year. It's not like we were exactly thriving before that.

There were several seasons prior to 8 years ago we were guilty of it. 

 

Scheduling is way more than who you play. It's also about what time you play and what day of the week you play. Both of these can be out of a schools control and can only be solved if G5 programs come together to solve their problems. Our problem is when we get to pick the day and time, we fall flat on our face.

[kreed5120]

8 hours ago, GP1 said:

There were several seasons prior to 8 years ago we were guilty of it. 

 

Scheduling is way more than who you play. It's also about what time you play and what day of the week you play. Both of these can be out of a schools control and can only be solved if G5 programs come together to solve their problems. Our problem is when we get to pick the day and time, we fall flat on our face.

 

The problem is 10, 15, 20+ years ago we could have competed. Not at the OSU level, but at the upper level of a G5. Back then if we had more than 1 P5 school on our schedule it was because we were hosting a school like an Indiana or Iowa State. Those are the type of schools, if you're aspiring to be an upper echelon G5, you need to schedule and on occasion beat.

 

For the bulk of two decades we experienced extreme ineptitude on multiple levels and failed to capitalize. Fast forward to today and the landscape of college athletics has vastly changed as has Akron's financial situation. We can't compete with the upper half of the G5 financially any longer. Even EMU collective a few years ago reportedly made a $1 million offer for a QB. Meanwhile we can't even afford a training table...

Edited 4 hours ago by kreed5120

[ZipCat]

11 hours ago, GP1 said:

Maybe every decision at a public university shouldn't be driven by money. 

 

I naturally agree, but not sports ... not when the University is in debt, and a lot of it has to do with the debt burden from supporting athletics with that white Elephant of a stadium.

[ZipCat]

On 7/17/2025 at 4:38 PM, zippy5 said:

maybe they can try to win games and build a fanbase - we've tried the money game route for a long time and it appears it might not actually work

 

I'm as much of a diehard as any Zip fan, but this is just delusional. You stand a better chance of building a fanbase by having a signature win in a season you go undefeated, than you do by playing Somebody-Nowhere-University. Remember Indiana University 4OT loss?

[ZipCat]

5 hours ago, kreed5120 said:

 

The problem is 10, 15, 20+ years ago we could have competed. Not at the OSU level, but at the upper level of a G5. Back then if we had more than 1 P5 school on our schedule it was because we were hosting a school like an Indiana or Iowa State. Those are the type of schools, if you're aspiring to be an upper echelon G5, you need to schedule and on occasion beat.

 

For the bulk of two decades we experienced extreme ineptitude on multiple levels and failed to capitalize. Fast forward to today and the landscape of college athletics has vastly changed as has Akron's financial situation. We can't compete with the upper half of the G5 financially any longer. Even EMU collective a few years ago reportedly made a $1 million offer for a QB. Meanwhile we can't even afford a training table...

 

Bingo. The days of being a competitive G5 team that can "build a fanbase" are gone folks. OSU is king here, and OU and Cincinnati take whatever is leftover. Maybe you could have done it in 2013 by beating Michigan, enduring Akron into the OSU fandom's hearts or something...but that was really the last window. You're not doing it in 2025...how many times are we doing to double-down on the fallacy that Akron can be competitive at Football?

[GP1]

43 minutes ago, ZipCat said:

 

Bingo. The days of being a competitive G5 team that can "build a fanbase" are gone folks.

I'm of the opinion that if G5 schools snap out of it and begin to use their athletic departments to benefit the athletes students alumni fans and general community around their schools, their greatest days could be ahead of them. 

 

Further, I believe there is room for only one professional football league dominating the attention of Americans in the fall and winter. That league is the NFL. I believe over time Americans will grow weary with the pro football of the P4 schools when they realize only 3-4 schools are capable of winning the league. It won't happen overnight, but interest will erode. When that happens, people will look for other ways to spend time with their family and friends. OSUlike games are out of reach for most families. Why can't G5 schools provide games at a time and day of the week when families can attend? Get people to the games and everything else the school offers is on display for the taxpayers. Make it a great day for them and then you have something.