The World of College Football

[ZippyDoo]

I thought the crowd for Eastern was much larger than UNLV.  I know it was homecoming and the weather was great, was that a normal homecoming crowd?  I was wondering if it was larger than the RMU crowd

[ZippyRulz]

On 10/12/2026 at 10:36 AM, exit322 said:

 

The Sun Belt absolutely becomes a possibility, and I think Miami/Ohio might go there as a combo.  The MAC is in deep deep trouble, and no number of empty stadium night games is going to fix that.

 

I wouldn't rule out Miami & OU going to the SBC as a combo if they believe it's going to be a better springboard into the American, but they wouldn't make more money in the SBC until possibly 2031 with a new media deal. SBC talking heads on YouTube seem to think they can pluck OU alone if they want to. OU is fairly close to Marshall but I still don't think they would do it alone.

 

[kreed5120]

23 minutes ago, ZippyDoo said:

 

I would like to see the Zips keep those larger school games and get paid for them, it would be nice to have a Rutgers from this year on the schedule or team they could have beat but you can't have everything I guess.  

 

I think we scheduled that game when Wake Forest was coming off a 4-8 season (1-7 in ACC).

 

Both Minnesota and Wake Forest are winnable opponents for MAC teams. Wake might be a little better this year than others, we'll see, but these games are booked years in advance and rosters turnover so rapidly. It's hard to know which P4 teams will be horrendous 5 years from vs those who will just be bad to mediocre.

 

Indiana pre vs post Cignetti is a perfect example of that. Akron nearly beat them and they were very much in the Rutgers tier of P4. Now they're defending national champs and if we played them today we' lose by 50.

[exit322]

9 minutes ago, ZippyDoo said:

I thought the crowd for Eastern was much larger than UNLV.  I know it was homecoming and the weather was great, was that a normal homecoming crowd?  I was wondering if it was larger than the RMU crowd

 

It was noticeably larger than both of the earlier crowds.

[GP1]

2 hours ago, kreed5120 said:

 

If I'm TBH if Akron is to lose by 25+ I'd rather just get the $1.3 million to lose to a Minnesota, Penn State, or Michigan St. than not get paid it to lose by the same margin to JMU. 

 

To anyone that went to the UNLV game, do any of you look back and view that day as a great way you spent 5-6 hours of your Saturday? Now remember JMU is at or slightly above UNLV level. If we lost that game it's no loss to me. If we were at the level of a WMU that would be a different story. We're not there and I wouldn't expect us to be by 2029.

What else would be involved other than the game?

[GP1]

37 minutes ago, kreed5120 said:

 

I think we scheduled that game when Wake Forest was coming off a 4-8 season (1-7 in ACC).

 

Both Minnesota and Wake Forest are winnable opponents for MAC teams. Wake might be a little better this year than others, we'll see, but these games are booked years in advance and rosters turnover so rapidly. It's hard to know which P4 teams will be horrendous 5 years from vs those who will just be bad to mediocre.

 

Indiana pre vs post Cignetti is a perfect example of that. Akron nearly beat them and they were very much in the Rutgers tier of P4. Now they're defending national champs and if we played them today we' lose by 50.

Wake might be a little better?  Let me help. This is the best Wake Forest team I've seen in my 18 years of going to games. They outplayed Miami by a lot in the second half of their game. They beat an improved Purdue on the road. They had back to back road wins against Top 25 teams for the first time since Peahead Walker was coach. They beat a very good Louisville on the road and destroyed NC State on the road last week. I can't think of a better coaches team. 

[kreed5120]

15 minutes ago, GP1 said:

Wake might be a little better?  Let me help. This is the best Wake Forest team I've seen in my 18 years of going to games. They outplayed Miami by a lot in the second half of their game. They beat an improved Purdue on the road. They had back to back road wins against Top 25 teams for the first time since Peahead Walker was coach. They beat a very good Louisville on the road and destroyed NC State on the road last week. I can't think of a better coaches team. 

 

I honestly haven't followed college football that closely this year to weigh in. That's why I phrased it the way I did. The only game I've seen was when they played Akron and that's not a good litmus test. They could drastically be improved. I'm not going to dispute it.

 

The bigger point I was making is Wake Forest over the last 20-30 years hasn't been a good P4 program nor was it at the time we scheduled it. It's easy to use hindsight that we should have scheduled X team instead of Y team, but you can't predict a historical bad program, like an Indiana or Wake Forest (as you're claiming), to rapidly become good.

Edited 8 hours ago by kreed5120

[tpsjugglerdude]

3 hours ago, ZippyRulz said:

 

I wouldn't rule out Miami & OU going to the SBC as a combo if they believe it's going to be a better springboard into the American, but they wouldn't make more money in the SBC until possibly 2031 with a new media deal. SBC talking heads on YouTube seem to think they can pluck OU alone if they want to. OU is fairly close to Marshall but I still don't think they would do it alone.

 

Miami is headed to the American shortly.

[exit322]

25 minutes ago, tpsjugglerdude said:

Miami is headed to the American shortly.

 

What a wild world we live in.  They won't be the last one to announce a MAC departure in the next 12 months.

[kreed5120]

46 minutes ago, tpsjugglerdude said:

Miami is headed to the American shortly.

 

The only person I've seen claim it online is some dude on Twitter who has 3,500 followers. I'm not saying it isn't going to happen, but I need to see a more credible source before I believe it.

[LZIp]

1 hour ago, kreed5120 said:

 

The only person I've seen claim it online is some dude on Twitter who has 3,500 followers. I'm not saying it isn't going to happen, but I need to see a more credible source before I believe it.

Especially when the AAC basically said they weren’t interested in Miami like a month ago.

[exit322]

16 minutes ago, LZIp said:

Especially when the AAC basically said they weren’t interested in Miami like a month ago.

 

They also said they weren't interested in JMU.

Edited 3 hours ago by exit322
I don't words good

[LZIp]

1 hour ago, exit322 said:

 

They also said they weren't interested in JMU.

Valid point

[exit322]

44 minutes ago, LZIp said:

Valid point

 

But yeah JMU just feels like it makes a lot more sense than Miami.  While the empty stadium games hurt everyone in the MAC and probably aren't fully indicative of what the teams can draw with a decent schedule, Miami doesn't draw much better than Akron.

Edited 57 minutes ago by exit322

[exit322]

Accidental repost

Edited 5 minutes ago by exit322
Accidental repost