Meanwhile in Wilmington, 30K seats for IAA?

[thebin]

Our old friend Bernard Muir is pushing for the expansion of Delaware's stadium to 30,200 with suites and club seats and a lounge. Too bad he couldn't get us 6K. Could that be a move towards IA/Big East? Awfully big for even CAA IAA.

I always thought it was curious that we lost Muir to a school like UD- but if they promised him the opportunity to take UD to full IA status.....

www.udreview.com/sports/expansion-planned-for-stadium-1.1550862

[theexorcist]

I'd really doubt it. Delaware is remarkably successful in I-AA, and they turn people out for it - they actually sell out their stadium on a pretty constant basis. Upgrading the stadium makes sense.

Upgrading to I-A would cost Delaware a lot of their uniqueness - whereas they're usually a championship contender in I-AA, they'd never win the national championship. Delaware is cool with that.

If you ever get a chance, go to a game. Delaware has a nice tailgating culture.

[thebin]

I'm very aware of how succesful they are in IAA.

That's kind of like saying the best AAA baseball players don't have any interest in the Majors because they're so dominant in AAA and they don't want to mess with a good thing. They would lose their uniqueness? From our perspective (thrilled with a few PL wins) that might seem like all you need to be happy- being a good team in the best IAA conference. But like feeling wealthy, it's all relative. Don't know how the Blue Hens can spend buckets to create a IA-worthy stadium and NOT want more than occasional CAA titles. I'm not sure about that logic is the kindest thing I can think of to say.

30K is enormous for a IAA stadium and they are a state school who I'm absolutely sure would salivate at the prospect of hosting Maryland over Maine and Rutgers over Richmond. It would be downright irresponsible of the universtity and the state no less to consider making such an expensive renovation and NOT doing so in consideration of IA return$. UD already has among the biggest IAA stadiums in the country and, as you correctly point out, has really nothing left to prove in IAA.

[PhillyHoya]

UD is in Newark. Not Wilmington.

[theexorcist]

Sept 16, 2010 11:34:13 GMT -5 thebin said:

I'm very aware of how succesful they are in IAA.

That's kind of like saying the best AAA baseball players don't have any interest in the Majors because they're so dominant in AAA and they don't want to mess with a good thing. They would lose their uniqueness? From our perspective (thrilled with a few PL wins) that might seem like all you need to be happy- being a good team in the best IAA conference. But like feeling wealthy, it's all relative. Don't know how the Blue Hens can spend buckets to create a IA-worthy stadium and NOT want more than occasional CAA titles. I'm not sure about that logic is the kindest thing I can think of to say.

30K is enormous for a IAA stadium and they are a state school who I'm absolutely sure would salivate at the prospect of hosting Maryland over Maine and Rutgers over Richmond. It would be downright irresponsible of the universtity and the state no less to consider making such an expensive renovation and NOT doing so in consideration of IA return$. UD already has among the biggest IAA stadiums in the country and, as you correctly point out, has really nothing left to prove in IAA.

I'm from Delaware and went there for two years. While I have friends there now, I haven't been back in a while, though I still read the News Journal online.

Delaware has always had a group that wants to "upgrade" to I-A and play Navy and whomever else. They've always - at least for now - lost.

Delaware also can fill the stadium playing Maine and Richmond. There's no need to upgrade.

I'm not saying they might not move, but they don't really need to.

[thebin]

I forgot Wilmington is on the other side of the state from Newark....so a 20 minute drive then.

There is no need to upgrade? The stadium? Agreed. No need to upgrade the stadium for status quo. But I'm not the one pushing for a game-changing renovation. Given that hypothetical fact, I'd say the "need" changes drastically if you are going to be able justify such a massive cost. Stadium as it is? No need to upgrade. Keep in mind they are not proposing adding 5k in cheap seats which you could do for probably $5MM tops. They are talking about a massive overhaul and the addition of suites and club seats at 10 times the cost of just bumping up capacity a little. You think you do that in this day and age for IAA football? I want some of what your smokin....and I've grown up on east coast IAA football.

I'm just reading the writing on the wall. No way you make that kind of huge investment to go from probably the best and biggest CAA stadium to......the best CAA stadium BY FAR! That's a very long climb for a very short slide.

You really don't see a reason to upgrade from CAA to say the Big East if you already have a 30K stadium. The road game receipts would triple overnight for starters. Hmmm....play at Pitt in front of 40K on ESPN1? Or at URI in front of 6k on local radio? That's a tough one. The former is so big time but the latter preserves UD's "uniqueness" in the way that UD can still claim to be the king of the IAA attendance dip$hits if I can quote Sixteen Candles.

The possibility of one day playing in a Orange bowl might entice quite a few people not to mention elite players. Playing national schools on ESPN, shooting for bowls in Florida rather than the totally-ignored IAA playoffs and getting a much larger amount of TV MONEYin the process......Come on man. This is ridiculous.

I agree UD is doing well in IAA and there is no crushing need to improve to IA. But I'm not the one that is talking about dropping probably $100 million clams into upgrading a stadium that is already the biggest I think in the league. You don't do that to up the avg game attendance from 20 to 25k, it will take 150 years to payoff. That makes no sense. Luxury suites in the CAA huh? Yeah, that seems like a sane way for the state of Delaware to invest 10 figures. It would be asinine for a state school to drop massive amounts of money to upgrade what is already a very large IAA stadium without making the obvious leap in competition which could do so much to put the school and state on the national map in a way that we all know even the very best IAA will never do.

This renovation may never happen. But I refuse to believe that anyone who is seriously considering it is doing so because wouldn't it be great to get 8k more people in for the UNH game. The phrase killing a fly with a sledgehammer comes to mind.

[DanMcQ]

Muir is already rumored to be looking longingly at the vacant Kansas job...

www2.kusports.com/news/2010/sep/08/ad-successor-midwestern-ties-likely/

[theexorcist]

Delaware's playing Pitt in 2012 and 2014.

Delaware's also officially a private school.

[theexorcist]

www.delawareonline.com/article/20101013/SPORTS07/10130346/-1/SPORTS13

See the attached link. A few interesting items (most on the second page):

1. Rhode Island is probably moving to the NEC in two years.

2. There's an expectation that the I-AA landscape may alter.

3. Delaware is out there as a logical candidate for I-A, but hasn't been offered (note that Tresolini is a UD alum, though he's usually pretty fair).

[thebin]

Wow, URI to the NEC....I don't understand why they don't just drop football instead. How can they not continue to play Umass, UNH, Maine every year- turning in mid-sized natural-rival New England state schools for small NY regional catholic schools? They thought they had a tough time drawing crowds in the CAA, wait till the URI student body has never heard of the team they are playing. I could understand why Northeastern dropped football, and to a lesser extent Hofstra. But it seems to me its a bad idea for the entire state of Rhode Island to let this happen.

[theexorcist]

Oct 14, 2010 8:30:26 GMT -5 thebin said:

Wow, URI to the NEC....I don't understand why they don't just drop football instead. How can they not continue to play Umass, UNH, Maine every year- turning in natural rival New England state schools for NY regional catholic schools? They thought they had a tough time drawing crowds in the CAA, wait till the URI student body has never heard of the team they are playing. I could understand why Northeastern dropped football, and to a lesser extent Hofstra. But it seems to me its a bad idea for the entire state of Rhode Island to let this happen.

1. URI doesn't draw anybody now.

2. They haven't made the playoffs in more than twenty years.

3. They can still play UMass or UNH as a one-off.

4. The incoming schools to the CAA have massive budgets that will further threaten the Rams.

[thebin]

1. I know that...and think of how much worse it will get when Umass and UNH are not coming to town. They can't afford to draw even fewer people- but this is a gauranteed way to do just that.

2. IAA playoffs really don't mean squat- they have never been the driving force of IAA football, certainly not in the northeast. IAA football is about playing schools you know on Saturdays in the fall. Doing so against Sacred Heart is a worthless excercise for URI.

3. Those non-conference one offs just are not the same thing when your league games mean less than your non-cons, do they? Pretty soon, you realize when your league games feel like exibition games and Umass is beating you now by 50, it wasn't a good move.

4. Then quit altogether, because NEC football is still very expensive in the world of URI athletics money but an NEC title will do nothing for the school- NOTHING. Or man up and make the adjustment to an even better CAA and go for it. Even staying put, not spending any more, and getting creamed every game seems like a less-worse option to me than moving to a league they don't belong in like the NEC.

But this half-measure stinks to high heaven. For what its worth, Rhode Island is as much a home state to me as any, and I have a modest rooting interest in the Rams because of it. I do NOT want them to kill football, but moving to the NEC for them is even worse in my opinion.

[DFW HOYA]

Oct 14, 2010 8:30:26 GMT -5 thebin said:

Wow, URI to the NEC....I don't understand why they don't just drop football instead. How can they not continue to play Umass, UNH, Maine every year- turning in mid-sized natural-rival New England state schools for small NY regional catholic schools?

I think you're confusing the NEC with the defunct MAAC. NEC schools include Albany, Central Connecticut, Monmouth, Wagner, Duquesne, St. Francis, Sacred Heart, Robert Morris and Bryant. Three Catholic schools, none in NY.

I think it's a good move for URI, and there's why. The CAA isn't the Yankee conference of old, and increasingly the focus of the CAA is places like Georgia State and Old Dominion, with Charlotte and perhaps Kennesaw State (GA) in its future. There's a real drive by some CAA schools to push to I-A and the New England schools are seen as impediments to long term progress (kind of like how some in the PL view Georgetown). If Villanova leaves, the CAA will have a wider gap between north and south, and everything in that league is pointing south.

URI can continue to get demoralized in the CAA, lose what's left of the fan base, and go the way of Vermont, BU and Northeastern (all former Yankee/A-10 programs), or use the time in the NEC to rebuild the program in advance of the inevitable consolidation of I-AA New England schools into a regional league of its own, the core of the old Yankee Conference (UMass, URI, New Hampshire, Maine) plus Albany, Stony Brook, Central Connecticut and (maybe) Fordham.

Oh, and this one thing--a move to the NEC probably saves $1.0-1.2 million a year in scholarships and travel . Not a inconsequential factor.

[thebin]

If URI remains with UMASS, UNH, and Maine then they would be fine. That's a pretty big leap though from the facts that we know. Further I'm not sure that's realistic as I can't see UMass or UNH coming down to the NEC and more to the point URI are leaving it would seem on their own which tells me the other schools are still committed to winning in the CAA. And I'm afraid to me it seems as though the NEC today is only marginally a more attractive league than the MAAC was in the late 1990s. No matter how many of those schools are Catholic or technically in NY the bottom line is those are not sexy names for URI students/alums who would rather be killed by Uconn than kill Cent Conn State.

I would think URI probably did reach out to UNH, UMASS, Maine and couldn't get any suitors on a pre-emptive surrender of big time IAA football in New England.

[theexorcist]

Oct 14, 2010 9:46:27 GMT -5 thebin said:

If URI remains with UMASS, UNH, and Maine then they would be fine. That's a pretty big leap though from the facts that we know. Further I'm not sure that's realistic as I can't see UMass or UNH coming down to the NEC and more to the point URI are leaving it would seem on their own which tells me the other schools are still committed to winning in the CAA. And I'm afraid to me it seems as though the NEC today is only marginally a more attractive league than the MAAC was in the late 1990s. No matter how many of those schools are Catholic or technically in NY the bottom line is those are not sexy names for URI students/alums who would rather be killed by Uconn than kill Cent Conn State.

I would think URI probably did reach out to UNH, UMASS, Maine and couldn't get any suitors on a pre-emptive surrender of big time IAA football in New England.

The NEC does have its own playoff bid, which the MAAC never did. The idea of "playing down" has worked for Temple, who was dead before the MAC and is now doing much better, even on attendance.

Also, the presence of Hofstra and Northeastern in the CAA as a higher league didn't save their programs - in both cases, they were dropped. Keeping URI there with a hope that they won't get vaporized just because they're not at the NEC level doesn't make sense.