Patriot League Future Schedules

[DFW HOYA]

Here are the major college (Division I-A) opponents already being scheduled by Patriot teams over the next 3-6 years. Georgetown is the only PL school not doing so.

Bucknell
at Army 2015

Colgate
at Navy 2015
at Syracuse 2016
at Buffalo 2017

Fordham:
at Army 2015
at Navy 2016
at Army 2017
at Charlotte 2018
at Tulsa 2019
at Hawaii 2020
at South Florida 2021

Holy Cross:
at Connecticut 2017
at South Florida 2017 (reported but not confirmed)
at Boston College 2018
at Syracuse 2019
at Boston College 2020

Lafayette:
at Army 2016
at Army 2018

Lehigh:
at Navy 2018

[thebin]

I love that BC had to renew the HC rivalry after jumping to the ACC.

[bogie]

Apr 10, 2015 10:48:40 GMT -5 DFW HOYA said:

Here are the major college (Division I-A) opponents already being scheduled by Patriot teams over the next 3-6 years. Georgetown is the only PL school not doing so.

This brings the old-line PL schools back to where they were roughly 25 or 30 years ago. I don't know of a Patriot League fan who doesn't want Georgetown to be right there as well, fully in the thick of it.

Seriously fellas, you can do this. We did it. It took a lot of schmoozing and even more in the way of donation pledges but we did it. Trustworthy sources report that there are several more such teams on the horizon for the "core" PL schools (Duke, Rutgers, Temple, Rice, Vanderbilt). You guys want a schedule that includes, say, Princeton, Harvard, Navy, Duke and Virginia, in addition it PL stalwarts such as Fordham, Colgate and Holy Cross? Sound good to you? Would you really rather be an ersatz, make-pretend Ivy or play in the Pioneer whatever-it-is? Really? Seriously?

We're all doing it because we stood up and took a stance. You can as well. You just have to parse your support from everything else, earmark it, and withhold beneficence from elsewhere until it's done. Or something like that. Whatever. Just do it.

[puppydog100]

Bogie, the environment at Georgetown is not conducive to building a football culture.

No real leadership at the alumni or university level, little monetary support. GU cannot compete at the Division I-A level, let alone in the Patriot league. All of the scheduled games with Division 1-A opponents and PL institutions are road games. GU does not present an attractive match up.

It will be interesting to see what happens down the road when GU's contract with the PL comes up for renewal, not sure when that happens.

If there is a culture change at GU, I would do my part to support the effort. For now, just sitting on the sidelines. Just don't think it's in the cards, hope I'm wrong.

[RusskyHoya]

Apr 11, 2015 1:24:31 GMT -5 bogie said:

Would you really rather be an ersatz, make-pretend Ivy or play in the Pioneer whatever-it-is? Really? Seriously?

Yep! Seriously.

I'm not kidding, and people who don't understand this are doing themselves a disservice by not understanding the thought process of University leadership and key stakeholders.

That leadership could not care less what our friends in Easton (ranked #35 among National Liberal Arts Colleges by US News) are doing, no disrespect to them intended (certainly not by me, anyway. You do you, Pards). They have molded Georgetown's athletics into an Ivy-light program, with more sports than the vast majority of Division-I institutions. There are various reasons for this that we can drill down into if you really want, but the broader point remains: getting throttled by Duke, Rice, or the United States Military Academy in exchange for $300,000 is of zero interest to those at the wheel of the Hoya Ship of State. They would rather players stay clean, fiddle around the margins of I-AA (same as the Ivies), and go on to lucrative, hopefully non-concussion-inducing careers.

[puppydog100]

RusskyHoya, there is no reason that Georgetown cannot be a quality education institution, with a competitive football program.

[RusskyHoya]

Apr 11, 2015 20:46:03 GMT -5 puppydog100 said:

RusskyHoya, there is no reason that Georgetown cannot be a quality education institution, with a competitive football program.

This is a meaningless statement. No, there is no single, immutable reason why Georgetown can't be both an academic and a football powerhouse. The same is, presumably true for every other university. And yet, there aren't very many schools who manage to do both. One has to therefore assume that this isn't the easiest thing to do, else everyone would be doing it. There are probably very many reasons that limit schools' ability to achieve one or the other or both.

So it is with Georgetown.

[puppydog100]

RusskyHoya, there are 230 +/- football programs, GU is in the bottom 5%. We can do much better.

[RusskyHoya]

Apr 12, 2015 10:41:52 GMT -5 puppydog100 said:

RusskyHoya, there are 230 +/- football programs, GU is in the bottom 5%. We can do much better.

Sure, we can. But in order to do so, we have to understand what is and is not practical given the context in which we operate. An infeasible strategy is no strategy at all.

We have to understand that there are no massive infusions of University money coming, no strategic re-prioritization that puts football at or near the top of the University's To Do list. Any success will be incremental and within the confines of a pretty hefty set of institutional constraints.

I've laid out before what I think is within the realm of feasibility. Making the leap to scholarship football and competing with the lower tier of DI-A is not in there.

[puppydog100]

You seem to have taken my previous post to the extreme, I never stated that Georgetown should become a "powerhouse." What I said was competitive.

Funding is not going to come from the University, it's going to come from the alumni. That's where it starts.

I get it, but unlike you, I haven't given up on the notion of improving the football program and supporting GU's outstanding student athletes.

[RusskyHoya]

Apr 12, 2015 14:37:53 GMT -5 puppydog100 said:

You seem to have taken my previous post to the extreme, I never stated that Georgetown should become a "powerhouse." What I said was competitive.

Funding is not going to come from the University, it's going to come from the alumni. That's where it starts.

I get it, but unlike you, I haven't given up on the notion of improving the football program and supporting GU's outstanding student athletes.

Short of a spontaneous, self-organized, grassroots mobilization by alumni in support of football - something I don't consider too terribly likely - any significant money from alumni is going to have to be fundraised. The more significant the sum, the more significant the fundraising effort on the part of Advancement and other University officials. There is no appetite in Advancement for a major, concerted fundraising effort around football. The closest you'll get to that is the MSF, which can accurately be portrayed as serving several sports, as well as getting heavy student activities use.

I haven't given up on anything (perhaps you have me confused with Problem of Dog?), but I do think we need to stop with the pie-in-the-sky stuff and focus on achievable progress, which will be incremental and limited at best. The MSF is the most obvious place to start - just shedding some light on that black hole of information, so that the broader alumni base (and not just the handful of donors big enough to secure access to information) has an idea of what the status is and what the plans are, would be a significant win in my book.

[DFW HOYA]

Apr 11, 2015 13:07:55 GMT -5 puppydog100 said:

It will be interesting to see what happens down the road when GU's contract with the PL comes up for renewal, not sure when that happens.

Associate members of the Patriot League have three year terms, which in Georgetown's case would be be a renewal after the 2015 season.

But before anyone spins this up as an issue, the PL auto-renews this clause one year in advance of the term and the associate member must give one year's notice at that time, so it is more than likely that Georgetown was renewed for three more seasons in 2014.

[puppydog100]

DFW HOYA, why is everything so secret? If the PL renewed our affiliation for three more season, why didn't the AD put out a press release.

The lack of communication is one of the obstacles we face in building support for the football program.

[puppydog100]

DFW HOYA, no longer "likely." GU just recently signed to extend their affiliation with the PL until 2018.

[RusskyHoya]

Well, the 2015 schedule is out. Now just swap out St. Francis-Loretto (doesn't quite have the same ring as St. Francis-Brooklyn, does it?) and Marist for Princeton and Brown and we'll be half-way to DFW's "Ivy-Plus" model! I know that doesn't work because of Ivy scheduling, but, ya know, maybe they'll make an exception for us haha.


Sept. 5 at St. Francis (Pa.)Noon
Sept. 12 MARIST 6 p.m.
Sept. 19 DARTMOUTH Noon
Sept. 26 at Columbia TBA
Oct. 3 at Harvard TBA
Oct. 10 LAFAYETTE*! 2 p.m.
Oct. 17 COLGATE*# Noon
Oct. 24 at Bucknell* TBA
Oct. 31 at Lehigh* TBA
Nov. 14 FORDHAM*& Noon
Nov. 21 Holy Cross* TBA

All home games in BOLD
* denotes Patriot League game
! denotes Homecoming
# denotes Community Day/Parents Weekend
& denotes Senior Day

[DFW HOYA]

Noon starts...ugh. Great for visiting teams to save a night on hotels, not so great for student attendance and out of town fans.

The temporary field has lights, Georgetown ought to use them more than once a year. Four of the five home games are before Oct. 17 and it's not like it's too cold for a 5:00 pm start in early October.

[happyhoya1979]

Well, the 2015 schedule is out. Now just swap out St. Francis-Loretto (doesn't quite have the same ring as St. Francis-Brooklyn, does it?) and Marist for Princeton and Brown and we'll be half-way to DFW's "Ivy-Plus" model! I know that doesn't work because of Ivy scheduling, but, ya know, maybe they'll make an exception for us hahaNoty

Not half but that would be 5/8ths or over 60% there.

[bogie]

Apr 17, 2015 9:03:44 GMT -5 DFW HOYA said:

Noon starts...ugh. Great for visiting teams to save a night on hotels, not so great for student attendance and out of town fans.

The temporary field has lights, Georgetown ought to use them more than once a year. Four of the five home games are before Oct. 17 and it's not like it's too cold for a 5:00 pm start in early October.

Noon starts are an Ivy staple. They've been doing it as long as I can remember (especially Princeton). You just have to roll with it. The wins tend to overshadow the possibly-hungover attendance over time. You can do this, Hoya fans.