prhoya
Blue & Gray (over 10,000 posts)
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Post by prhoya on Sept 29, 2013 10:28:57 GMT -5
A visit to the football field will only cement Elbert's mind that basketball is #1 at GU.
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Post by proudhoya on Sept 29, 2013 15:45:29 GMT -5
The lack of investment in the football program is an insult to the student athletes who are putting in the effort academically and athletically to represent the University. We are beginning to see the recruiting results of the decision not to invest in scholarships and not to invest in the stadium. Why would anyone come here to play football? The Ivies will pick off every kid whose primary criteria is academics. And for those kids who want a competitive football program, we are at a distinct disadvantage to almost every other school in the FCS.
Unfortunately, we can only play Davidson once a year.
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Post by hoyafbdad13 on Sept 30, 2013 12:53:49 GMT -5
I think it's about time the school starts looking at replacing the head coach. I know this is going make some people mad...don't blame the coach....blah...blah...blah. The fact is my son played FB at Gtown for the head coach. He has already graduated so I have no horse in the race. We have friends who's son plays for Princeton and was told about the game and then saw the other scores from this year and felt the need to write this. When my son was recruited one of his older friends who played for a Rival HS team had already come to Gtown two years earlier to play for Coach K. During our recruitment which is now 6 or 7 years ago when talking with his parents and other parents of kids on the team they all said the same thing....the coach isn't great, the offense runs the same plays (some of you will remember that coach), the team has some great kids, and the education is top notch. They (and we) were told things were changing, but were doubtful. But again...the education and location were phenomenal. At that time the field was still an embarassment, but there was talk about upgrading and at that time they were building the business building (?) behind the field so we assumed they might actually upgrade the field. So he came to play FB at Gtown and everything we heard was true...the school was great, he made some great friends on the team, the coaching was sub-par compared to his HS coaches, and the team was terrible. It was really an embarrassment to both us and my son who played for a powerhouse HS team. The saving grace was he was getting an education from Georgetown. The point being....this broken record has been going on for years and nothing has changed. If you go back through this board and read prior year blogs you will read the same things being said year after year. If anything is going to change it needs to start by replacing Coach K. Just my opinion.
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Post by Problem of Dog on Sept 30, 2013 12:59:08 GMT -5
I think it's about time the school starts looking at replacing the head coach. I know this is going make some people mad...don't blame the coach....blah...blah...blah. The fact is my son played FB at Gtown for the head coach. He has already graduated so I have no horse in the race. We have friends who's son plays for Princeton and was told about the game and then saw the other scores from this year and felt the need to write this. When my son was recruited one of his older friends who played for a Rival HS team had already come to Gtown two years earlier to play for Coach K. During our recruitment which is now 6 or 7 years ago when talking with his parents and other parents of kids on the team they all said the same thing....the coach isn't great, the offense runs the same plays (some of you will remember that coach), the team has some great kids, and the education is top notch. They (and we) were told things were changing, but were doubtful. But again...the education and location were phenomenal. At that time the field was still an embarassment, but there was talk about upgrading and at that time they were building the business building (?) behind the field so we assumed they might actually upgrade the field. So he came to play FB at Gtown and everything we heard was true...the school was great, he made some great friends on the team, the coaching was sub-par compared to his HS coaches, and the team was terrible. It was really an embarrassment to both us and my son who played for a powerhouse HS team. The saving grace was he was getting an education from Georgetown. The point being....this broken record has been going on for years and nothing has changed. If you go back through this board and read prior year blogs you will read the same things being said year after year. If anything is going to change it needs to start by replacing Coach K. Just my opinion. Bingo. Harping on the major things like finishing the MSF or scholarships aren't going to make us respectable in the short term. Refusal to consider hanging the coach is just as much an issue of "lack of investment in the program" as anything else. There's a lot that needs to change with Georgetown football, but a better product on the field consistently will encourage more people to see that. Changing the product on the field is the first step to drawing attention to the larger issues, and Coach Kelly isn't doing anything to help that.
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derhoya
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Post by derhoya on Sept 30, 2013 15:18:26 GMT -5
What's Kelly's contract situation again? I seem to remember he's on a year to year time frame. Given our new TV deal, will the influx of more $ mean we can spend some $ on fball coaches now? Will all boats rise with the influx? I think Reed should go down to Coastal Carolina with a blank check and not come back without Pertunde (sp).
Kelly is a boring, uninspiring dude, and a result from former events. I think the program has paid enough penance by now. Screw scholarship talk, start HC/OC/DC endowments that draw and keep top talent and we'll be better off. Gtown will never be a full FCS schollie power, but inspiring, innovative coaches can win games over 20-30 extra schollies. Hell, most scholarships sit on the sidelines anyways at other schools. Like hoyafbdad13 said, the school and location sell itself.
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Post by Problem of Dog on Sept 30, 2013 20:11:08 GMT -5
What's Kelly's contract situation again? I seem to remember he's on a year to year time frame. Given our new TV deal, will the influx of more $ mean we can spend some $ on fball coaches now? Will all boats rise with the influx? I think Reed should go down to Coastal Carolina with a blank check and not come back without Pertunde (sp). Kelly is a boring, uninspiring dude, and a result from former events. I think the program has paid enough penance by now. Screw scholarship talk, start HC/OC/DC endowments that draw and keep top talent and we'll be better off. Gtown will never be a full FCS schollie power, but inspiring, innovative coaches can win games over 20-30 extra schollies. Hell, most scholarships sit on the sidelines anyways at other schools. Like hoyafbdad13 said, the school and location sell itself. I think you get the largest ROI/dollar spent on your coaches. The amount of money required to make up the difference between a contract that would attract a solid, young, up and coming head coach and Kelly's would be maybe equivalent to the cost of one scholarship. One scholarship player won't make the difference that a new HC would.
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thebin
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Post by thebin on Oct 1, 2013 10:16:21 GMT -5
"Bingo. Harping on the major things like finishing the MSF or scholarships aren't going to make us respectable in the short term. Refusal to consider hanging the coach is just as much an issue of "lack of investment in the program" as anything else."
I think this misses the point. What good coach is going to come to a program that has refused to make good on its facilities promises for 20 years now? (As a recruit in 1995 I heard rumblings of a real stadium that was soon to come.) What good coach is going to come to a program that is intent on hamstringing the program with no scholarships in a scholarship league? As stated earlier in this thread, the Ivy league will pick off all of the best recruits for whom academics is the top priority. That leaves us with no niche. Oh, and we don't pay our coaches well at all. Other than that, I'm not sure why we don't just go out and pluck the next Chip Kelly. It is so simple, problem solved right?
The utter lack of any football infrastructure on campus speaks loudly to recruits and potential coaches....the program is forever on the chopping block. Doesn't matter that the University says to the contrary- the actions or inactions speak much more plainly. It is a temporary program playing in a temporary dump. If we were able to luck out and land a great coach he would be GONE MINUTES after his first successful season, as Kelly would have been had Yale been stupid enough to hire him after our one good year in the last 15. I firmly believe that investing in the stadium is step one and there is no going around it any longer if this is every going to work out. The stadium and finally the sense of a permanence that it will provide is the only thing that will let us get back in the game with those good Ivy recruits who value education above all. They are our only hope. But which one of them would choose Gtown over ANY Ivy given the current astonishing gap in infrastructure between the us and every other school we pretend to compete with? Any recruit doing his homework will certainly by now take any assurances of a stadium upgrade with the world's smallest grain of salt.
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Post by indianhoop on Oct 1, 2013 13:00:55 GMT -5
As an outsider, take this for what it's worth (probably not much) but I see 3 possibilities:
1. Suck it up and spend the $$$ on a program upgrade/scholarships. I realize that isn't as easy as it sounds but with a PL almost all having better facilities already, adding up to 60 scholarships is going to make it near impossible for GTown to compete, much less not get embarrased, against the PL schools (Fordham, Lehigh, Colgate, hopefully HC) that really buy into FCS scholarship football. Many of the HC freshmen on scholarship are already making significant contributions this year and logically we will only impove with each succeeding scholarship class that comes to HC.
2. Drop out of the PL and join the Pioneer League.
3. Drop football entirely.
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DFW HOYA
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Post by DFW HOYA on Oct 1, 2013 13:23:30 GMT -5
The NEC is a much more viable option than the Pioneer, yet fans from other Patriot teams never mention it.
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Post by Problem of Dog on Oct 1, 2013 14:54:21 GMT -5
"Bingo. Harping on the major things like finishing the MSF or scholarships aren't going to make us respectable in the short term. Refusal to consider hanging the coach is just as much an issue of "lack of investment in the program" as anything else." I think this misses the point. What good coach is going to come to a program that has refused to make good on its facilities promises for 20 years now? (As a recruit in 1995 I heard rumblings of a real stadium that was soon to come.) What good coach is going to come to a program that is intent on hamstringing the program with no scholarships in a scholarship league? As stated earlier in this thread, the Ivy league will pick off all of the best recruits for whom academics is the top priority. That leaves us with no niche. Oh, and we don't pay our coaches well at all. Other than that, I'm not sure why we don't just go out and pluck the next Chip Kelly. It is so simple, problem solved right? The utter lack of any football infrastructure on campus speaks loudly to recruits and potential coaches....the program is forever on the chopping block. Doesn't matter that the University says to the contrary- the actions or inactions speak much more plainly. It is a temporary program playing in a temporary dump. If we were able to luck out and land a great coach he would be GONE MINUTES after his first successful season, as Kelly would have been had Yale been stupid enough to hire him after our one good year in the last 15. I firmly believe that investing in the stadium is step one and there is no going around it any longer if this is every going to work out. The stadium and finally the sense of a permanence that it will provide is the only thing that will let us get back in the game with those good Ivy recruits who value education above all. They are our only hope. But which one of them would choose Gtown over ANY Ivy given the current astonishing gap in infrastructure between the us and every other school we pretend to compete with? Any recruit doing his homework will certainly by now take any assurances of a stadium upgrade with the world's smallest grain of salt. Just like good players, with offers from FBS schools, come to Georgetown because the school sells itself, it would be an easy sell to a young FBS assistant. And this concern about a good coach leaving us soon after being successful? Ummm...okay, let's keep a stunningly inadequate head coach because we're worried about having a good enough year to have a new coach poached. You can't complain about how we make no significant investments in the program and not have a reasonable solution as to how to use our limited resources to get the greatest ROI. Bitching and moaning isn't going to get us a million dollar influx into the program. Let's start at the level it would take to upgrade our coach and see if the spigots start to flow a little.
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Post by indianhoop on Oct 1, 2013 21:52:00 GMT -5
The NEC is a much more viable option than the Pioneer, yet fans from other Patriot teams never mention it. I think the Pioneer is the better option for GTown because it's somewhat of a better league in terms of peer institutions (Davidson, Butler, Drake et. al.) and the NEC is actually getting better and better with 40 schollies. The fact of the matter is that GTown joined the PL at the "right time" in the 1990s....a lot of the schools were down through either downgrading football (HC.... and Colgate to an extent), were never really strong at the 1-AA level (Bucknell and Fordham) or were "good but not that good" (Lehigh and Lafayette) but now that the league is getting stronger (or at least looking to get potentially stronger) GTown is still operating on a mid-1990s PL-model. It's really Pioneer or bust imho.
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DFW HOYA
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Post by DFW HOYA on Oct 1, 2013 22:34:09 GMT -5
The NEC is a much more viable option than the Pioneer, yet fans from other Patriot teams never mention it. I think the Pioneer is the better option for GTown because it's somewhat of a better league in terms of peer institutions (Davidson, Butler, Drake et. al.) and the NEC is actually getting better and better with 40 schollies. The fact of the matter is that GTown joined the PL at the "right time" in the 1990s....a lot of the schools were down through either downgrading football (HC.... and Colgate to an extent), were never really strong at the 1-AA level (Bucknell and Fordham) or were "good but not that good" (Lehigh and Lafayette) but now that the league is getting stronger (or at least looking to get potentially stronger) GTown is still operating on a mid-1990s PL-model. It's really Pioneer or bust imho. 1. Davidson, Butler, and Drake are not peer institutions. The Pioner is not a conference but a long distance scheduling arrangment for schools that cannot find a home elsewhere. Those that do (Austin Peay State, Mercer, etc.) eventually leave. 2. The NEC is getting better but Georgetown is much more competitive with these schools on the field and certainly would be without the PL's Ivy Index to control its admissions. 3. Georgetown did not join the PL in the 1990's, having played in the MAAC until 1999. There is no institutional interest in the Pioneer model.
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thebin
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Post by thebin on Oct 2, 2013 8:15:00 GMT -5
To me it isn't Pioneer or bust. It isn't NEC or bust. It is actually Patriot League or bust.
The Pioneer league is an ugly combination of small time schools and hideous travel arrangements. The NEC is better travel-wise but slightly worse in terms of selection of peer institutions/interesting rivals. I guess the good news is we wouldn't need a real college stadium anymore in either case since those are not real college conferences. The Patriot league is the only league outside of the Ivy league (which is as likely to invite us for football as the ACC) that I have any interest in seeing us play in. And keep in mind I'm in the top 1% of Gtown alums who care about this program- as are all of you reading this board. If we can't get excited about games vs Morehead State, Campbell, St. Francis, or Bryant....well you can expect the crowds to go from 2k down to 800 again. Returning to a MAAC, even a slightly warmed over one, holds zero appeal for me and I have to think even less for the vast majority of Hoya fans, students and alums.
We've already invested a ton of man hours and dollars and sweat into the PL. We were a game away from winning that league very recently. The league makes a concerted move to improve itself, floating all boats, and our response is to retreat into a league that doesn't care enough to do so because it is full of schools with no name, resources or ambition? That's really the plan, to align ourselves with the St. Francis's of the world? Pulling out now to join a (much) lesser league that holds no interest among the GU community would be an irresponsible abrogation of duties and can't be justified given that it would still be an expensive program relative to our other also struggling athletic programs. Better to kill the program than continue to throw good money after bad. Give the money to soccer and lacrosse and make them true national powers. Playing football in the NEC or Pioneer would still be very expensive, but fewer people would care about it. This program can't sustain a dip in already very low interest with the attendant 7-figure budget that BCS football requires as an entrance fee. How exciting is a move to the NEC? I just advocated giving the money to the lacrosse program instead. And then I threw up in my mouth.
I'd honestly rather see the program cut than pretending to get excited to host Central Connecticut State or Wagner in an NEC showdown. I don't even like having Wagne now as a non-league team...and they are better than we are right now! Imagine having to revert to being excited to upset Wagner in a league contest? No thanks. I just don't know how to go back to that a couple of years removed from trouncing Colgate at Homecoming and a virtual PL title game in a setting like Goodman stadium. It is just such a shame that nothing was done to harness that momentum (and that of beating Princeton on national television the next year) to move towards a stadium, schollies, etc. Not a big stadium mind you. And not necessarily even 40 schollies. But something to keep us moving in the right direction. That is looking increasing like the high water mark in the modern history of Hoya Football. So much effort went into getting the team there from the early MAAC days. Was it really all squandered? It would be if it meant our new choice is Pioneer or NEC.
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Post by indianhoop on Oct 2, 2013 10:24:10 GMT -5
It's really pretty much all about the "the Jimmy's and the Joe's not the X's and O's" if you want to be even somewhat successful at the FCS level. Obviously there are other factors: institutional/alumni support, facilities etc but at some level you have to have the players i.e. having scholarships to have any real success which then leads to greater support, better facilities (a "good" vicious cycle if you will).
I apologize for being both an interloper and Holy Cross-centric here but in HC's case, dropping football scholarships basically gutted what was once one of the premiere FCS programs in the country. Losing season followed losing season, enthusiasm waned, schedules started to be dotted with "lesser" programs (and then losing to such programs) that only furthered the disillusionment of many alumni and other HC fans (yes...they actually once existed).
The Gilmore-hire and lucky break of Dom Randolph falling into our lap buffered some of this over the last decade but the damage had been done. HC really couldn't compete with CAA programs anymore, there was no hope of a yearly BCS game against BC or Army etc etc It was only the resumption of football schollies that brought life back to HC football.
Believe me, I know we are far from out of the woods but like thebin stated here, if HC had continued playing non-scholarship football, I think many associated with HC football would have rathered they'd drop football than continue playing at the level they were.
I realize GTown's situation is different than Holy Cross' but I really hope that somehow GTown finds a way to fund for scholarships at some point.
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thebin
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Post by thebin on Oct 2, 2013 12:11:36 GMT -5
As to the Jimmy's and Joe's argument: I don't agree that is a seperate argument to the facility problem: I think they are very much two sides of the same recruiting coin. Especially in a segment of the college football world where if your parents don't have a lot of money you're not going to be paying much tuition anyway. I think they are both major roadblocks to recruiting top tier fb players from this point on. Scholarships are not the only thing that attract top notch student athletes who are being recruited by several IAA programs: stadiums (and the attending sense that this is really A COLLEGE program) do too. And while we can already currently grant top athletes virtual scholarships, we can't offer them virtual real facilities yet.
No smart kid could possibly look at the MSF at this point and not have some doubt that the program will even be around for the next 4 years. Furthermore they are justified to want some baseline college-level facility like a stadium that isn't smaller and worse than the one they were playing in when they were still going through puberty. Any of these kids who we will want to land with a scholarship will have several other scholarship offers from schools with real college stadiums. If they are academic minded and very good players with decent grades, you can be sure they will have offers from Ivies who already offer much more generous aid packages than we ever will and also have real stadiums. You don't really think that Harvard or Penn or Brown's top football talent are paying much of anything in the way or tuition or room and board do you? I assure you the top guys in the Ivies are already on virtual scholarship unless their parents are loaded. That said, the student athletes we want will have full scholarships offers from schools with real stadiums AS WELL as acceptance with virtual scholarship from schools ranked ahead of us academically who also have real stadiums.
You see what I'm getting at here? We have the edge on NOBODY if we continue to play in a temporary high school dump- EVEN if we did have scholarships. Unless the plan is to build this program around the elite scholar athletes of America who are determined to see a career as a career foreign service officer. We've got that niche locked up tight as a drum until Tufts steps up to the NEC. Then we'll have a dogfight on our hands but until then......
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Post by indianhoop on Oct 2, 2013 12:38:22 GMT -5
I hear ya'....we were lucky enough to have a had a football stadium (2nd oldest to UPenn's Franklin Field in continous use btw) all along, though it does need some upgrading. The thing is though, Fitton is really too big (23,500) for PL play...I highly doubt we ever sell it out for a PL game. Point being, GTown really doesn't need a ginormodome/huge upgrade to be on a par stadium-wise with most Ivies/PL teams.
I know land is scarce and pricey but I think a well done football stadium of about 8-12K would more than suffice...I don't know if this could be done where the MSF currently resides or not.
Again, I'm not discounting the problems you have facility-wise. I agree they are inter-related with recruiting but I still think the bigger hurdle the Hoyas have to jump is getting football scholarships. The divide on the field with the rest of the PL will soon be much greater than it is in the stadiums imo.
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DFW HOYA
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Post by DFW HOYA on Oct 2, 2013 12:47:35 GMT -5
Georgetown is not philosophically opposed to football scholarships but there is a tightrope to be walked as it relates to minimum funding for Big East sports that PL teams do not face, which is wyt Jack DeGioia was clear about stepping back from the 60-scholarship position of other PL schools. There are comparatively few men's scholarships to go around at Georgetown, a lot fewer than people realize, so doubling-down on a single non-Big East sport is a non-starter.
As to the MSF, it simply can't support a footprint of 8,000-12,000. There is no room for cantilervering that many seats and there is even less room for digging down as it is already surroudned by buildings. If someone wanted to float the idea of razing Yates and building a sunken stadium in its footprint, fine, but that's well above my giving level.
That having been said, there is room for debate on what it would take to be competitive in a 60-scholarship league. The NEC (with its limit of 40) isn't the first choice but a NEC program with a non-conf schedule of two Ivies, two PL, and a Howard or Davidson is probably more competitive on annual basis than getting ground into the dust in the PL with the recruiting damage that would entail, and without the admissions constraints the PL places on schools. Student and alumni interest in Duquesne or Wagner isn't much, granted, but it's not like Bucknell or Lafayette draws much more interest anyway.
Attendance-wise, NEC vs. PL is probably a wash, something that would be nonexistent in the Pioneer--it's not like there are a contingent of several hundred Mercer or Valpo fans that would travel to a game at the MSF. So, yes, being in the PL is a safe harbor, but not at the expense of going 1-10 every year just to do so.
If I can get some time this week, I'll write down some positive suggestions in this matter. I reject the "fully fund or cut it" argument above, though--if that was Georgetown's philosophy, it might not have enough teams to run a Division I program.
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thebin
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Post by thebin on Oct 2, 2013 12:48:36 GMT -5
I hear ya'....we were lucky enough to have a had a football stadium (2nd oldest to UPenn's Franklin Field in continous use btw) all along, though it dues need some upgrading. The thing is though, Fitton is really too big (23,500) for PL play...I highly doubt we ever sell it out for a PL game. Point being, GTown really doesn't need a ginormodome to be on a par stadium-wise with most Ivies/PL teams. I know land is scarce and pricey but I think a well done football stadium of about 8-12K would more than suffice...I don't know if this could be done where the MSF currently resides or not. Again, I'm not discounting the problems you have facility-wise. I agree they are inter-related with recruiting but I still think the bigger hurdle the Hoyas have to jump is getting football scholarships. The divide on the field with the rest of the PL will soon be much greater than it is in the stadiums imo. Oh you are preaching to the choir on this one. 12K would actually be WAY too large. The need won't be there and even if it were it would be a parking nightmare that the local zoning authorities would never let happen in any case. Realistically all we need is a nice 5-7K tops. But a NICE stadium worthy of its place as one of the last open places on a COLLEGE campus. Maybe with a grass bowl-type endzone that provides spill-over for another 2K if it every becomes necessary. Given the number of tall buildings surrounding the field now, it actually would be a very loud and impressive setting for college football that I think would compare very nicely with the much bigger, older and mostly empty stadia of most of the PL and Ivy. I think we could go from the worst stadium in PL/Ivy BY FAR, to one of the better (not bigger) ones for probably about $10mm. Maybe $15mm. I'm very familiar with Fitton. I used to go see Harvard play there a bit. It probably is too large and isn't all that nice- but that is a MUCH MUCH better problem to have than a stadium that looks like it belongs to a poorly funded high school. Conversely, I think Princeton is a good example of a stadium where a school spent way too much and overbuilt for IAA football. That stadium looks empty pretty much every single game. Every other year it is half full for the Yale game. And it was built recently enough so that this was fairly predicatble.
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thebin
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Post by thebin on Oct 2, 2013 13:04:11 GMT -5
To be clear DFW, I don't think we need to "fully fund" or cut. I think if we had a facility that didn't put us at a major disadvantage, and we offered maybe 15-30 well placed schollies we could be competitive in the PL. Because of our name, I think we can have a large scholarship gap or a large stadium gap and compete in the PL- but not both. Since the kids we'd be likely to attract would be more of the Ivy type, I think we might be better placed to concentrate on the stadium gap first since we won't have a scholarship gap with the kids who want to go to Gtown or Penn or Brown since they don't have schollies either.
And frankly I would rather struggle (if I'm being honest) in the PL than do pretty well (not a forgone conclusion by any means) in the NEC while looking more forward to a few non-league PL/Ivy games a year than the league games. Presumably the PL is going kill us in those games too according to your theory- why not play them all instead of being happy with 2 high profile beatings a year?
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Post by Problem of Dog on Oct 2, 2013 16:55:49 GMT -5
Here's the thing: we continue to get kids that have FBS or FCS offers at better programs because, as so many alumni of the program and parents of former players say on this board, "the school sells itself". Is that sufficient to sustain a winning program? No. Will it continue at the level it used to, now that PL teams have more scholarships? No. But it still should work well enough to keep the team from turning into a complete dumpster fire, like it was under Kelly pre-Patenaude.
What is Kelly making right now? I don't believe he was one of the university's five highest paid employees, so it can't be that much.
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