Football Scholarships

[DFW HOYA]

The article on the front page discusses the growing sentiment among PL coaches for the league to offer up to 63 full scholarships in football in lieu of preferential financial aid. What are your thoughts on the matter?

[TigerHoya]

I think it will make recruiting a lot easier.

[hoya4ever]

I think Georgetown's gut reaction would be "Let's leave the Patriot League" -- unfortunately. Would be soooo cool though.

[theexorcist]

Oh, goody. More expenses that we can't afford.

[98hoya]

I agree that it'd be very cool, however, if we're going to commit to 63 scholarships, wouldn't it make more sense to commit to 80-something scholarships, throw a few extra thousand seats on the someday-to-be-completed-MSF and go 1-A?

1-AA scholarship football doesn't make much sense to me. It's like you have 90% of the expense of 1-A, but 5% of the benefit.

[Lurking Dog]

98hoya said:

I agree that it'd be very cool, however, if we're going to commit to 63 scholarships, wouldn't it make more sense to commit to 80-something scholarships, throw a few extra thousand seats on the someday-to-be-completed-MSF and go 1-A?

1-AA scholarship football doesn't make much sense to me. It's like you have 90% of the expense of 1-A, but 5% of the benefit.

First, you'll need to draw more fans. Minimum attendance for the top level is 15,000 paid or actual attendance per home game--one out of every two years (bylaw 20.9.7.3)

www.ncaa.org/library/membership/division_i_manual/2006-07/2006-07_d1_manual.pdf

[RusskyHoya]

I'd have to think this one over a bit. My first thought is that it's hard to gauge how big of an impact it would have. If most of the players are currently already receiving heavy financial aid, then a transition to full scholarships would not add as much to the cost as it might first seem. If, on the other hand, the financial aid is being allocated sparingly to team members right now, then it could make a big difference. There's also the question if such a change would shift the funding from financial aid/endowment budgets to athletic budgets.

IF Georgetown could afford such a change (a big if), I think it could only help our recruiting. Whether or not it would be a good change for I-AA football as a whole, I don't know.

[2ndRyan]

I think scholarships would result in a general uplift in PL talent.

If you look at the 1980's records of schools like Holy Cross, which pre-PL did offer scholarships, against the Ivies, I think you'll find a marked difference to the 90's and the current decade.

With an athletic scholarship, a Holy Cross or a Lehigh competes with Penn. If the playing field is level ie grants-in-aid for both, the Ivies win.

[theexorcist]

Scholarships would result in a general uplift in PL talent. This seems pretty basic. I'd assume some money might be drained out of the budget for facilities, etc., but that should pretty much remain constant.

The question is whether universities can fund this. Georgetown's athletic department does not operate in the black. Where is this additional funding going to come from? Just because you can offer 63 scholarships doesn't mean you will, and Georgetown may quickly been consigned to the bottom of the Patriot League (or joining the ever-shortening list of eastern I-AA non-scholarship programs).