Just curious - Keep football or don't?

[4Q_iu]

... And it’s not the National Championship.
It’s the 1-AA championship.

Georgia is the national champion...

I see your point but Georgia is the CFP National Champion. The NCAA doesn't sanction a title at the FBS level.

The CFP is as "national" as the UPI and AP titles

 

[sycamore tuff]

I see your point but Georgia is the CFP National Champion. The NCAA doesn't sanction a title at the FBS level.

The CFP is as "national" as the UPI and AP titles

You are correct sir. South Dakota State is the NCAA D1 champion.

 

[Bobbyk60]

So next Saturday then? Around 3:30

Naaaa it will go away. It’s an annual tradition nothing will happen we’re just talking on here. We’ve said our peace now. Back to regularly schedule programming

I wish. But, I’ve heard that talk before. Losing fires the flame of drop football.

 

[BrokerZ]

I think there appears to be some kind of misconception about where those of us who are voting to drop football are coming from.

NOBODY is happy about the thought of dropping football. People are making it sound like we get some kind of joy around thinking of or talking about the idea of no football. Completely false. It’s a sad and pathetic state of affairs, one of which I’m embarrassed for and certainly not proud. Of course I’d much rather our school have a rich history of success while at least somewhat consistently producing a quality product. That, unfortunately, is not reality.

The long term health of the university’s athletic department points to a future without football. The apathy amongst the fan base, sans a few, has atrophied. There’s no turning it back around. People say turning the titanic is hard; well, this titanic has already sunk.

Sometimes the hard decisions need to be made despite how much it hurts.

 

[WOZ]

I think there appears to be some kind of misconception about where those of us who are voting to drop football are coming from.

NOBODY is happy about the thought of dropping football. People are making it sound like we get some kind of joy around thinking of or talking about the idea of no football. Completely false. It’s a sad and pathetic state of affairs, one of which I’m embarrassed for and certainly not proud. Of course I’d much rather our school have a rich history of success while at least somewhat consistently producing a quality product. That, unfortunately, is not reality.

The long term health of the university’s athletic department points to a future without football. The apathy amongst the fan base, sans a few, has atrophied. There’s no turning it back around. People say turning the titanic is hard; well, this titanic has already sunk.

Sometimes the hard decisions need to be made despite how much it hurts.

When do you guys think the football program became absolutely hopeless?

I’m not necessarily for saving football, but I do remember how fun it was to attend our games in the 80’s when we would draw 15,000 - 17,000 and the band was really good.

I can remember Dennis Raetz complaining about budget restraints back then.
Or, was that the time to consider what it would take to maintain that level, and then make that commitment?
Ball State and other MAC teams did. Or, are their futures on thin ice too?

 

[Sycamorefan96]

If some of you are all about saving money I think I know a way we could save $14-16M a year. Just get rid of all of ISU athletics. There's 8000 or so students and on a good day / night there's maybe 200 of them at a basketball or football game. Why keep throwing money at something that they don't care about? Either knock it off of their tuition or use the money to advance academics.

 

[Jason Svoboda]

When do you guys think the football program became absolutely hopeless?

I’m not necessarily for saving football, but I do remember how fun it was to attend our games in the 80’s when we would draw 15,000 - 17,000 and the band was really good.

I can remember Dennis Raetz complaining about budget restraints back then.
Or, was that the time to consider what it would take to maintain that level, and then make that commitment?
Ball State and other MAC teams did. Or, are their futures on thin ice too?

It's been a series of steps that has gotten it to the place of no return:

1) First, I'll put onus on President Landini and administration in the late 70's for not properly capitalizing on the strength of the athletics program as a whole. He eventually owned up to it later, but it was the first big domino. That would have been the time for Indiana State to move up to the MAC off the backs of both revenue sports being very good as well as non-revenue sports putting out Olympians.

"You seize the day, and we did not," said Richard Landini, president of Indiana State. "We did not build upon that reputation, that extraordinary three years of Bird. It was a combination of inexperience, a lack of vision at the time."

2) Fast forward to the 90s, where they probably let Dennis Raetz stay too long. Was he a great guy? Yep. Was he great in the community? Also yes. Was he a great coach? Nope. He had 2 winning seasons in 13 years after the playoff appearances. While the program was stagnant to declining, peers were building. That would have been the time to start fundraising for an on campus stadium, and again, Indiana State administration lacked vision. Then they let him stay, and stay, and stay.

3) The hiring of Andi Myers and the gutting of the football program through her leadership. Whether it was true or not, the underlying belief was she was hired to eliminate football. We saw a nepotism hire (from the Raetz tree) in Tim McGuire and then the ultimate hire of all-time in Lou "What's Football?" West. However, if closing the program was truly the goal, cowardice to gut them but not put them out of their misery won out and instead we were essentially funding a program at a D2 level.

4) But not all was lost... Trent Miles answered the call and returned home and despite lack of funding, started turning the program around. When he started, he was not even allowed to fully recruit out-of-region players and he had no budget. He signed some key recruits on both sides of the ball and the program became respectable. By his last year, the school started pumping money into the program (off the backs of the students, but hey, enrollment was trending up, up, up) but Trent took the big Georgia State payday and we were onto the Sanford era. After Miles recruits aged out, Sanford was quickly gone and is now coaching HS ball here in Vegas.

5) Those early 2010s was a time where fans had exciting football, the onus turned to them to show they would be willing to support the program. They didn't. Average paid attendance for the decade was in the 5k range (ranked in the high 70s to low 80s out of 115 FCS teams) which is simply not enough to sustain a program financially without heavy student or school subsidies.

6) Onto Mallory. Cut from the Raetz cloth, he is by all accounts a great man and community leader. Unfortunately, he is stuck in the 90's with his offensive philosophy and the game has passed him by. Or, if you believe his offense can win in today's age, he is a below average recruiter or talent evaluator. This is year 7 and his best finish was the 7-4 year. You remove that and he is 12-35 through 2 games this year. What would you do to a coach with a 33% winning percentage? Extend him through 2027 obviously!

7) Finally, the college football landscape has drastically changed over the last decade. We've seen the consolidation among power conferences, we've seen media deals push those power schools further off the competitive landscape, we've seen the introduction of full cost of attendance and stipends, we've seen the introduction of NIL and now they are kicking around revenue sharing for all sports -- gotta be Title IX complaint! We wouldn't be competitive in a FBS conference so to spend the money on "lesser" football is simply dead money, especially when football revenues are out of the collection and distribution of the NCAA. College basketball is the ONLY revenue sport that the NCAA collects and distributes and that's why it should be the top funded sport at any non-P5 school. Full stop. To think otherwise simply says you cannot grasp simple economic concepts.

The bottom line is the next decade we will become even less competitive due both institution and economic factors. We will be forced to make tough funding decisions based on our declining enrollment since there will be less student fees collected. While we still have Memorial Stadium which they have to bring in Quikcrete to patch the crumbling mess. Most of all, we still do not have a fan base that cares greatly about FCS football. If you want Indiana State to continue to fund football, cool, but the onus should be on the fans that want it to start paying for it outside of the laughable $60 season ticket. I posted in another thread we'd need $100 million tomorrow to essentially restart the program and we'd still be in FCS football and nobody would care.

Sometimes the truth hurts no matter how we feel about something. Sometimes you just have to let things end. Sycamore football is one of them unless you proponents can fundraise a significant amount of cash. Again, every time I bring this up, the lot of supporters dodge like it is going out of style because they want football as long as they don't have to pay for it.

 

[Jason Svoboda]

If some of you are all about saving money I think I know a way we could save $14-16M a year. Just get rid of all of ISU athletics. There's 8000 or so students and on a good day / night there's maybe 200 of them at a basketball or football game. Why keep throwing money at something that they don't care about? Either knock it off of their tuition or use the money to advance academics.

We're 9 pages deep and your reading comprehension is still that of a 3rd grader. Impressive.

 

[Bobbyk60]

It's been a series of steps that has gotten it to the place of no return:

1) First, I'll put onus on President Landini and administration in the late 70's for not properly capitalizing on the strength of the athletics program as a whole. He eventually owned up to it later, but it was the first big domino. That would have been the time for Indiana State to move up to the MAC off the backs of both revenue sports being very good as well as non-revenue sports putting out Olympians.

"You seize the day, and we did not," said Richard Landini, president of Indiana State. "We did not build upon that reputation, that extraordinary three years of Bird. It was a combination of inexperience, a lack of vision at the time."

2) Fast forward to the 90s, where they probably let Dennis Raetz stay too long. Was he a great guy? Yep. Was he great in the community? Also yes. Was he a great coach? Nope. He had 2 winning seasons in 13 years after the playoff appearances. While the program was stagnant to declining, peers were building. That would have been the time to start fundraising for an on campus stadium, and again, Indiana State administration lacked vision. Then they let him stay, and stay, and stay.

3) The hiring of Andi Myers and the gutting of the football program through her leadership. Whether it was true or not, the underlying belief was she was hired to eliminate football. We saw a nepotism hire (from the Raetz tree) in Tim McGuire and then the ultimate hire of all-time in Lou "What's Football?" West. However, if closing the program was truly the goal, cowardice to gut them but not put them out of their misery won out and instead we were essentially funding a program at a D2 level.

4) But not all was lost... Trent Miles answered the call and returned home and despite lack of funding, started turning the program around. When he started, he was not even allowed to fully recruit out-of-region players and he had no budget. He signed some key recruits on both sides of the ball and the program became respectable. By his last year, the school started pumping money into the program (off the backs of the students, but hey, enrollment was trending up, up, up) but Trent took the big Georgia State payday and we were onto the Sanford era. After Miles recruits aged out, Sanford was quickly gone and is now coaching HS ball here in Vegas.

5) Those early 2010s was a time where fans had exciting football, the onus turned to them to show they would be willing to support the program. They didn't. Average paid attendance for the decade was in the 5k range (ranked in the high 70s to low 80s out of 115 FCS teams) which is simply not enough to sustain a program financially without heavy student or school subsidies.

6) Onto Mallory. Cut from the Raetz cloth, he is by all accounts a great man and community leader. Unfortunately, he is stuck in the 90's with his offensive philosophy and the game has passed him by. Or, if you believe his offense can win in today's age, he is a below average recruiter or talent evaluator. This is year 7 and his best finish was the 7-4 year. You remove that and he is 12-35 through 2 games this year. What would you do to a coach with a 33% winning percentage? Extend him through 2027 obviously!

7) Finally, the college football landscape has drastically changed over the last decade. We've seen the consolidation among power conferences, we've seen media deals push those power schools further off the competitive landscape, we've seen the introduction of full cost of attendance and stipends, we've seen the introduction of NIL and now they are kicking around revenue sharing for all sports -- gotta be Title IX complaint! We wouldn't be competitive in a FBS conference so to spend the money on "lesser" football is simply dead money, especially when football revenues are out of the collection and distribution of the NCAA. College basketball is the ONLY revenue sport that the NCAA collects and distributes and that's why it should be the top funded sport at any non-P5 school. Full stop. To think otherwise simply says you cannot grasp simple economic concepts.

The bottom line is the next decade we will become even less competitive due both institution and economic factors. We will be forced to make tough funding decisions based on our declining enrollment since there will be less student fees collected. While we still have Memorial Stadium which they have to bring in Quikcrete to patch the crumbling mess. Most of all, we still do not have a fan base that cares greatly about FCS football. If you want Indiana State to continue to fund football, cool, but the onus should be on the fans that want it to start paying for it outside of the laughable $60 season ticket. I posted in another thread we'd need $100 million tomorrow to essentially restart the program and we'd still be in FCS football and nobody would care.

Sometimes the truth hurts no matter how we feel about something. Sometimes you just have to let things end. Sycamore football is one of them unless you proponents can fundraise a significant amount of cash. Again, every time I bring this up, the lot of supporters dodge like it is going out of style because they want football as long as they don't have to pay for it.

Agree with all those points. Landini and Myers’s are The Ones that chap my ass. Still want football.

 

[IndyTreeFan]

It's been a series of steps that has gotten it to the place of no return:

1) First, I'll put onus on President Landini and administration in the late 70's for not properly capitalizing on the strength of the athletics program as a whole. He eventually owned up to it later, but it was the first big domino. That would have been the time for Indiana State to move up to the MAC off the backs of both revenue sports being very good as well as non-revenue sports putting out Olympians.

"You seize the day, and we did not," said Richard Landini, president of Indiana State. "We did not build upon that reputation, that extraordinary three years of Bird. It was a combination of inexperience, a lack of vision at the time."

2) Fast forward to the 90s, where they probably let Dennis Raetz stay too long. Was he a great guy? Yep. Was he great in the community? Also yes. Was he a great coach? Nope. He had 2 winning seasons in 13 years after the playoff appearances. While the program was stagnant to declining, peers were building. That would have been the time to start fundraising for an on campus stadium, and again, Indiana State administration lacked vision. Then they let him stay, and stay, and stay.

3) The hiring of Andi Myers and the gutting of the football program through her leadership. Whether it was true or not, the underlying belief was she was hired to eliminate football. We saw a nepotism hire (from the Raetz tree) in Tim McGuire and then the ultimate hire of all-time in Lou "What's Football?" West. However, if closing the program was truly the goal, cowardice to gut them but not put them out of their misery won out and instead we were essentially funding a program at a D2 level.

4) But not all was lost... Trent Miles answered the call and returned home and despite lack of funding, started turning the program around. When he started, he was not even allowed to fully recruit out-of-region players and he had no budget. He signed some key recruits on both sides of the ball and the program became respectable. By his last year, the school started pumping money into the program (off the backs of the students, but hey, enrollment was trending up, up, up) but Trent took the big Georgia State payday and we were onto the Sanford era. After Miles recruits aged out, Sanford was quickly gone and is now coaching HS ball here in Vegas.

5) Those early 2010s was a time where fans had exciting football, the onus turned to them to show they would be willing to support the program. They didn't. Average paid attendance for the decade was in the 5k range (ranked in the high 70s to low 80s out of 115 FCS teams) which is simply not enough to sustain a program financially without heavy student or school subsidies.

6) Onto Mallory. Cut from the Raetz cloth, he is by all accounts a great man and community leader. Unfortunately, he is stuck in the 90's with his offensive philosophy and the game has passed him by. Or, if you believe his offense can win in today's age, he is a below average recruiter or talent evaluator. This is year 7 and his best finish was the 7-4 year. You remove that and he is 12-35 through 2 games this year. What would you do to a coach with a 33% winning percentage? Extend him through 2027 obviously!

7) Finally, the college football landscape has drastically changed over the last decade. We've seen the consolidation among power conferences, we've seen media deals push those power schools further off the competitive landscape, we've seen the introduction of full cost of attendance and stipends, we've seen the introduction of NIL and now they are kicking around revenue sharing for all sports -- gotta be Title IX complaint! We wouldn't be competitive in a FBS conference so to spend the money on "lesser" football is simply dead money, especially when football revenues are out of the collection and distribution of the NCAA. College basketball is the ONLY revenue sport that the NCAA collects and distributes and that's why it should be the top funded sport at any non-P5 school. Full stop. To think otherwise simply says you cannot grasp simple economic concepts.

The bottom line is the next decade we will become even less competitive due both institution and economic factors. We will be forced to make tough funding decisions based on our declining enrollment since there will be less student fees collected. While we still have Memorial Stadium which they have to bring in Quikcrete to patch the crumbling mess. Most of all, we still do not have a fan base that cares greatly about FCS football. If you want Indiana State to continue to fund football, cool, but the onus should be on the fans that want it to start paying for it outside of the laughable $60 season ticket. I posted in another thread we'd need $100 million tomorrow to essentially restart the program and we'd still be in FCS football and nobody would care.

Sometimes the truth hurts no matter how we feel about something. Sometimes you just have to let things end. Sycamore football is one of them unless you proponents can fundraise a significant amount of cash. Again, every time I bring this up, the lot of supporters dodge like it is going out of style because they want football as long as they don't have to pay for it.

This is the best synopsis of the true state of the issue. But you left out one major thing - back in the Miles/Sanford years, there was a big push to get serious donations from football alumni to build the program. They couldn't even get those guys to seriously put their money where their mouth was.

But yeah, you're totally arguing that we should get rid of all sports, because basketball and football are the same. No difference whatsoever...

 

[Hooper]

It's been a series of steps that has gotten it to the place of no return:

1) First, I'll put onus on President Landini and administration in the late 70's for not properly capitalizing on the strength of the athletics program as a whole. He eventually owned up to it later, but it was the first big domino. That would have been the time for Indiana State to move up to the MAC off the backs of both revenue sports being very good as well as non-revenue sports putting out Olympians.

"You seize the day, and we did not," said Richard Landini, president of Indiana State. "We did not build upon that reputation, that extraordinary three years of Bird. It was a combination of inexperience, a lack of vision at the time."

2) Fast forward to the 90s, where they probably let Dennis Raetz stay too long. Was he a great guy? Yep. Was he great in the community? Also yes. Was he a great coach? Nope. He had 2 winning seasons in 13 years after the playoff appearances. While the program was stagnant to declining, peers were building. That would have been the time to start fundraising for an on campus stadium, and again, Indiana State administration lacked vision. Then they let him stay, and stay, and stay.

3) The hiring of Andi Myers and the gutting of the football program through her leadership. Whether it was true or not, the underlying belief was she was hired to eliminate football. We saw a nepotism hire (from the Raetz tree) in Tim McGuire and then the ultimate hire of all-time in Lou "What's Football?" West. However, if closing the program was truly the goal, cowardice to gut them but not put them out of their misery won out and instead we were essentially funding a program at a D2 level.

4) But not all was lost... Trent Miles answered the call and returned home and despite lack of funding, started turning the program around. When he started, he was not even allowed to fully recruit out-of-region players and he had no budget. He signed some key recruits on both sides of the ball and the program became respectable. By his last year, the school started pumping money into the program but Trent took the big Georgia State payday and we were onto the Sanford era. After Miles recruits aged out, Sanford was quickly gone and is now coaching HS ball here in Vegas.

5) Those early 2010s was a time where fans had exciting football, the onus turned to them to show they would be willing to support the program. They didn't. Average paid attendance for the decade was in the 5k range (ranked in the high 70s to low 80s out of 115 FCS teams) which is simply not enough to sustain a program financially without heavy student or school subsidies.

6) Onto Mallory. Cut from the Raetz cloth, he is by all accounts a great man and community leader. Unfortunately, he is stuck in the 90's with his offensive philosophy and the game has passed him by. Or, if you believe his offense can win in today's age, he is a below average recruiter or talent evaluator. This is year 7 and his best finish was the 7-4 year. You remove that and he is 12-35 through 2 games this year. What would you do to a coach with a 33% winning percentage? Extend him through 2027 obviously!

7) Finally, the college football landscape has drastically changed over the last decade. We've seen the consolidation among power conferences, we've seen media deals push those power schools further off the competitive landscape, we've seen the introduction of full cost of attendance and stipends, we've seen the introduction of NIL and now they are kicking around revenue sharing for all sports -- gotta be Title IX complaint! We wouldn't be competitive in a FBS conference so to spend the money on "lesser" football is simply dead money, especially when football revenues are out of the collection and distribution of the NCAA. College basketball is the ONLY revenue sport that the NCAA collects and distributes and that's why it should be the top funded sport at any non-P5 school. Full stop. To think otherwise simply says you cannot grasp simple economic concepts.

The bottom line is the next decade we will become even less competitive due both institution and economic factors. We will be forced to make tough funding decisions based on our declining enrollment since there will be less student fees collected. We still have Memorial Stadium which they have to bring in Quikcrete to patch the crumbling mess. Most of all, we still do not have a fan base that cares greatly about FCS football. If you want Indiana State to continue to fund football, cool, but the onus should be on the fans that want it to start paying for it outside of the laughable $60 season ticket.

Great historical overview Jason. I would only add Indiana is D-1 heavy and frankly "college sports heavy" per capita compared to the Dakotas etc. Indy kids (or Indiana kids in general for that matter) with D-1 talent that want to stay close to home have over 10 D-1 FCS/FBS programs to chose from within a 2 hour drive or so....Butler, IU, Purdue, Dayton, Cincy, ND, Ball, ISU, EIU, Valpo, the Ville all close. UIndy is a good D-2 option, and there's great educations with high-profile alumni connections at uber-wealthy D-3s like Wabash, Hanover, and DePauw.

How many storied/monied colleges are 2 hours from Fargo? Sioux Falls? They're the only game in town and no professional sports either so you get much bigger fan bases, attendance, and media attention.

So in addition to what Jason said the landscape in Indiana is hyper-competitive for college sports. That is why ISU needs to realistically support athletics with that competition in mind and it hasn't over the years. The last President said "I'll never pay a coach more than a Provost" and the rumor on here is the current one won't allow a coach to make more than her. Add a BOTs and certain key administrators that just doesn't get it or don't care and here we are.

I still think ISU beats Murray and WIU though. And as I've noted a few times this is the easiest schedule ISU has seen in a long, long time. If what we saw against EIU is what we see the rest of the year Murray and WIU will be the only wins in this historically easy schedule. That's a problem.

 

[Sycamorefan96]

We're 9 pages deep and your reading comprehension is still that of a 3rd grader. Impressive.

So basically the same as your math skills?

 

[WOZ]

It's been a series of steps that has gotten it to the place of no return:

1) First, I'll put onus on President Landini and administration in the late 70's for not properly capitalizing on the strength of the athletics program as a whole. He eventually owned up to it later, but it was the first big domino. That would have been the time for Indiana State to move up to the MAC off the backs of both revenue sports being very good as well as non-revenue sports putting out Olympians.

"You seize the day, and we did not," said Richard Landini, president of Indiana State. "We did not build upon that reputation, that extraordinary three years of Bird. It was a combination of inexperience, a lack of vision at the time."

2) Fast forward to the 90s, where they probably let Dennis Raetz stay too long. Was he a great guy? Yep. Was he great in the community? Also yes. Was he a great coach? Nope. He had 2 winning seasons in 13 years after the playoff appearances. While the program was stagnant to declining, peers were building. That would have been the time to start fundraising for an on campus stadium, and again, Indiana State administration lacked vision. Then they let him stay, and stay, and stay.

3) The hiring of Andi Myers and the gutting of the football program through her leadership. Whether it was true or not, the underlying belief was she was hired to eliminate football. We saw a nepotism hire (from the Raetz tree) in Tim McGuire and then the ultimate hire of all-time in Lou "What's Football?" West. However, if closing the program was truly the goal, cowardice to gut them but not put them out of their misery won out and instead we were essentially funding a program at a D2 level.

4) But not all was lost... Trent Miles answered the call and returned home and despite lack of funding, started turning the program around. When he started, he was not even allowed to fully recruit out-of-region players and he had no budget. He signed some key recruits on both sides of the ball and the program became respectable. By his last year, the school started pumping money into the program (off the backs of the students, but hey, enrollment was trending up, up, up) but Trent took the big Georgia State payday and we were onto the Sanford era. After Miles recruits aged out, Sanford was quickly gone and is now coaching HS ball here in Vegas.

5) Those early 2010s was a time where fans had exciting football, the onus turned to them to show they would be willing to support the program. They didn't. Average paid attendance for the decade was in the 5k range (ranked in the high 70s to low 80s out of 115 FCS teams) which is simply not enough to sustain a program financially without heavy student or school subsidies.

6) Onto Mallory. Cut from the Raetz cloth, he is by all accounts a great man and community leader. Unfortunately, he is stuck in the 90's with his offensive philosophy and the game has passed him by. Or, if you believe his offense can win in today's age, he is a below average recruiter or talent evaluator. This is year 7 and his best finish was the 7-4 year. You remove that and he is 12-35 through 2 games this year. What would you do to a coach with a 33% winning percentage? Extend him through 2027 obviously!

7) Finally, the college football landscape has drastically changed over the last decade. We've seen the consolidation among power conferences, we've seen media deals push those power schools further off the competitive landscape, we've seen the introduction of full cost of attendance and stipends, we've seen the introduction of NIL and now they are kicking around revenue sharing for all sports -- gotta be Title IX complaint! We wouldn't be competitive in a FBS conference so to spend the money on "lesser" football is simply dead money, especially when football revenues are out of the collection and distribution of the NCAA. College basketball is the ONLY revenue sport that the NCAA collects and distributes and that's why it should be the top funded sport at any non-P5 school. Full stop. To think otherwise simply says you cannot grasp simple economic concepts.

The bottom line is the next decade we will become even less competitive due both institution and economic factors. We will be forced to make tough funding decisions based on our declining enrollment since there will be less student fees collected. While we still have Memorial Stadium which they have to bring in Quikcrete to patch the crumbling mess. Most of all, we still do not have a fan base that cares greatly about FCS football. If you want Indiana State to continue to fund football, cool, but the onus should be on the fans that want it to start paying for it outside of the laughable $60 season ticket. I posted in another thread we'd need $100 million tomorrow to essentially restart the program and we'd still be in FCS football and nobody would care.

Sometimes the truth hurts no matter how we feel about something. Sometimes you just have to let things end. Sycamore football is one of them unless you proponents can fundraise a significant amount of cash. Again, every time I bring this up, the lot of supporters dodge like it is going out of style because they want football as long as they don't have to pay for it.

You’re right about Landini. We did have a few professors on staff with business/marketing skills that prepared a plan to capitalize on the Bird era. All Landini had to do was give his thumbs up, stay out of the way, and let them implement the plan.

 

[Sycamorefan96]

The bottom line is the next decade we will become even less competitive due both institution and economic factors. We will be forced to make tough funding decisions based on our declining enrollment since there will be less student fees collected.

That long post was pretty good and I actually agree with a lot of your points. However I just quoted this part because this is the most important part if the equation. If ISU drops football because of upcoming tough funding decisions, I don't believe for a second that they will put more money into the basketball program. We just won't have a football program anymore.

 

[Bobbyk60]

That long post was pretty good and I actually agree with a lot of your points. However I just quoted this part because this is the most important part if the equation. If ISU drops football because of upcoming tough funding decisions, I don't believe for a second that they will put more money into the basketball program. We just won't have a football program anymore.

They might, but it won’t help. Our alums won’t give NIL money to get good recruits.

 

[Sycamorefan96]

They might, but it won’t help. Our alums won’t give NIL money to get good recruits.

And even when we land a good one, with the transfer portal being the way it is, they'll be gone first really good offer they get from a big school. When it comes to conference realignment, coaching, and student athletes there is very little loyalty anymore in college athletics. It's all about the money.

 

[Bobbyk60]

And even when we land a good one, with the transfer portal being the way it is, they'll be gone first really good offer they get from a big school. When it comes to conference realignment, coaching, and student athletes there is very little loyalty anymore in college athletics. It's all about the money.

That’s the huge piece of the puzzle the other guys are choosing to ignore. For some reason, dropping football will solve the athletic problems. If the students didn’t want to pay for it, then they would say so.

 

[bent20]

That long post was pretty good and I actually agree with a lot of your points. However I just quoted this part because this is the most important part if the equation. If ISU drops football because of upcoming tough funding decisions, I don't believe for a second that they will put more money into the basketball program. We just won't have a football program anymore.

Yes, and that is fine with most of us. It's not about putting more money into other programs, it's about ending the charade that we have a football program. This thing we've seen under Mallory for a few years now, it's not a football team.

 

[Jason Svoboda]

Second verse, same as the first...

Is there a guarantee? Of course not. But the sheer opportunity cost that we have to spend $8-10m between football and accompanying Title IX requirements means we will never find out one way or the other. The students literally win either way because they either get fees rebated back to them or the money goes to basketball post closure.

 

[Darth Sycamore]

Hello Sycamore Nation. Apologies for this extremely long, first post! I tried so hard to refrain from doing this, but I feel like I can add something to the conversation, so why not. I don't claim to be a financial guru, mathematician or AD with all the answers. What I am is a fan since birth, alum and donor to multiple programs. I was lucky enough to oversee The Forest during the largest enrollment the organization ever had, and I say that not to brag, but to establish that I BLEED blue and will ride-or-die with my alma mater. However, I can see the difficulties facing the department, and more specifically, the football program.

For one, the narrative that fans (especially students) don't/won't support basketball more than football is just not true. A big reason for students? Hulman Center is a five minute walk down the road while, you guessed it, Memorial Stadium is two miles off campus. Doesn't seem like it should be a big deal, but to the students on campus, it is. It's infinitely easier to get students to support .500 basketball teams than fringe FCS playoff teams. That's just the reality of it, unfortunately. And that's how it was when I was a student. We worked our asses off to get students to the stadium with the resources available: free food, free tailgates, free transportation, free shirts, a point system for the Greek Organizations, cool giveaways, contests in association with the athletic department...it just didn't matter. Double that when IU or Purdue are playing at the same time as us. Now do all of those things for a .500 basketball team? It may not completely fill the student section, but in my experience, it works. And we could get Hulman Center rocking in a way Memorial Stadium never could.

Another big point is that our atmosphere at football is just not good enough to bring in locals or fair-weather fans on a consistent basis. It doesn't matter where the blame lies, at the end of the day there just isn't enough funds or investment into the program to change that. Especially at a stadium that is at the bottom of FCS, and probably towards the bottom in D2. I mean, for God's sake we had to stop fireworks for a time because people living near the stadium complained about their dogs shitting. Again here - advantage basketball, if even just for the facility, let alone the atmosphere.

The last BIG point I'll make is this. It is FAR easier to complete on the field/court against the big names in basketball and baseball than football. We've beaten IU in basketball. We've beaten Purdue and Notre Dame. Those have positive impacts on the department, university and community. As much as we all would like to see football beat those schools, it just won't happen, especially in the new era of NIL. Basketball CAN provide image-changing results on a large scale.

Emotionally, I'm 100% against cutting football. Some of my favorite memories have been at football games with family and friends, and I'd bet sitting next to many of you. As mentioned by others, with the current enrollment trend, university budget, and administration (don't get me started on that one), building a sustainable winner isn't in the cards. It also sucks because I'm well-aware it will destroy Homecoming (but let's also not pretend like our joke of a President didn't try to do that first) and that's something that is VERY hard to accept as well. Chalk that up as a loss for the university, fans and alums in this scenario.

In a perfect world, the money all goes to basketball and baseball. In a real world, we know Dr. Curtis and the BOT would never let that happen. I mean we can't even pay a basketball coach more than her lolol. Is it worth the risk? Maybe, maybe not, but we wouldn't be in a worse place financially.

Quick hits on some other points. If we keep football, dropping to the Pioneer League is absolutely foolish. Lose any recruiting advantage, no schollies, and then pretend like we can afford to travel to San Diego, Stetson, Marist, etc. on a consistent basis is crazy. The notion of going independent and just playing FBS schools is comical as well. Guess what doesn't look good for a university? Getting blasted every single week by the big boys of college football.

What shouldn't get lost in all of this is everyone is here for the same reason. People that post here are fanatics. Die-hards. Whether they root for another school outside of ISU or not, or whether they believe the program should get cut. Nothing wrong with rooting for Purdue or Notre Dame (I'm not sure about the others...JK). But I bet if you asked the majority, if ISU takes the field or court against those teams they'll be repping Blue. To insinuate anyone who posts here isn't a real fan is ridiculous. Stepping off my platform now and back into obscurity. ROLL TIMBER and BEAT TESTICLE TECH!