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Post by FrazierFanatic on Nov 11, 2013 19:58:11 GMT -5
We are not anywhere near the level of the Ivy League. I am not arguing that we should not have football - just that we should stop kidding ourselves, and drop down to a conference more suited to our abilities. Note that I didn't say that the thinking is to be on par with the Ivies in competitiveness (although that's certainly the aspiration). Clearly, we are not. Rather, the current objective, such as it is, is merely to keep football 'in its proper place,' e.g. at roughly the same relative footprint as at the Ivies. None of the Ancient Eight will be confused for football schools, The Game notwithstanding. The current Georgetown model most likely would be competitive with the Ivies - some of them, anyway - if it were backed by an Ivy-level resource base. But will we even do that? |
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Post by FrazierFanatic on Nov 11, 2013 20:00:17 GMT -5
We are not anywhere near the level of the Ivy League. I am not arguing that we should not have football - just that we should stop kidding ourselves, and drop down to a conference more suited to our abilities. And what conference would that be? I dunno - Northeast Conference? |
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RusskyHoya
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Post by RusskyHoya on Nov 11, 2013 20:01:31 GMT -5
I had a high school teammate who was recruited to play for Columbia. I'm not sure how long it was before he quit, but it couldn't have been much more than a year. Had nothing to do with ability, either - he was a Junior Olympian-caliber weightlifter, deeply intelligent, and held his own against plenty of D I-A prospects. Once you're in, they're not gonna kick you out, so for many, the question becomes: what's the point of staying on a non-competitive team? This happens plenty at Georgetown too, and not just in a high permanent injury potential sport like Georgetown. No shortage of ex-recruited athletes walking around the Hilltop.
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Post by Problem of Dog on Nov 11, 2013 20:01:40 GMT -5
And what conference would that be? I dunno - Northeast Conference? Those schools all fund more scholarships than we're willing to offer. Not to mention there would be even less interest in a football program that has games against Bryant and Robert Morris. |
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Post by FrazierFanatic on Nov 11, 2013 22:47:31 GMT -5
A couple more seasons getting routed by 20-30 points will decimate interest faster than being competitive in a lesser conference.
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Post by Problem of Dog on Nov 12, 2013 0:41:04 GMT -5
A couple more seasons getting routed by 20-30 points will decimate interest faster than being competitive in a lesser conference. How is the NEC that much different from the Patriot League? We will still be funding less scholarships than our counterparts and we will be adopting a group of athletic peers that don't remotely resemble our academic peers. |
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DFW HOYA
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Post by DFW HOYA on Nov 12, 2013 7:06:39 GMT -5
How is the NEC that much different from the Patriot League? We will still be funding less scholarships than our counterparts and we will be adopting a group of athletic peers that don't remotely resemble our academic peers. The NEC isn't the Patriot League, but to the average Georgetown fan, Duquesne and Sacred Heart isn't much different than Bucknell and Lafayette. What the NEC does offer that the PL does not is the freedom for Georgetown to recruit and admit who it wants rather than through the PL's Academic Index, an arcane set of rules designed to maintain competitive parity with Ivy League schools. In brief, Georgetown cannot recruit athletes to play football beyond one standard deviation of an SAT and GPA range set by the league office. If GU wants a lineman with an SAT at 1250, for example, it must also find, recruit, and admit someone at 1550 to balance it out, regardless of skill. You could be Nick Foles and be interested in Georgetown, but Georgetown can't recruit you if your SAT doesn't fit into the right range. This makes recruiting for depth very challenging and against schools which can build a class on scholarships, almost impossible. This leads to position imbalances (seven QB's, four kickers, etc.) because a bell curve is judged by the league as more important than actual team needs. One would have to think there are kids nationwide to whom the Georgetown brand carries some weight, but Georgetown can't even look at them because the Patriot League mandates it so. The only conferences nationwide which use this process are the Ivy, Patriot and the NESCAC in Division III. |
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RusskyHoya
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Post by RusskyHoya on Nov 12, 2013 9:05:51 GMT -5
Right, but that's kind of the point - Georgetown's administration wants the academic index because it ensures that the football program remains in a respectable, Ivy-like footprint. If not in terms of competition, then at least in terms of academic reputation.
College athletics are largely dictated by recruiting, though, so if you do not have the resources to recruit on a remotely level playing field as your competitors, your results will be similarly lopsided. You might get away with it and stay competitive in some sports, like tennis or golf, where the number of athletes is smaller and their average socioeconomic status tends to be much higher. But it's not gonna work for football.
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DFW HOYA
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Post by DFW HOYA on Nov 12, 2013 12:58:21 GMT -5
Right, but that's kind of the point - Georgetown's administration wants the academic index because it ensures that the football program remains in a respectable, Ivy-like footprint. I've never heard anyone say they want the AI, it's merely the cost of doing business in the PL. There was no such index in the MAAC, for example. And while there are admissions criteria in every GU sport, football is the only one held to an arbitrary numerical standard. |
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Post by TrueHoyaBlue on Nov 13, 2013 16:35:58 GMT -5
The current Georgetown model most likely would be competitive with the Ivies - some of them, anyway - if it were backed by an Ivy-level resource base. Bingo -- and without that resource base, upgrading football will require a philanthropic champion that wants to see football take that step and is willing to donate/invest the resources in making it happen. At one point, I'm fairly certain that at least a couple of NFL teams had G.U. alumni as owners. If they (or, for example, Mr. Tagliabue) don't see upgrading Georgetown football to a Patriot/Ivy/CAA level as something worth investing in, I'm not sure who has the combination of interest and resources to drive that train. |
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Post by proudhoya on Nov 13, 2013 18:19:12 GMT -5
Which unfortunately is exactly word for word what I and my child experienced. The only positive, which is why he decided to come anyway, was he graduated with a Georgetown degree which is what helped him get his first job upon graduation in a time when finding jobs for all Americans, especially college grads, is tough. Unfortunately, you hear this story over and over on this board. I somehow fell into a rabbit hole on the internet when searching for whether there had been suggestions for Columbia to drop football lately and found this unintentionally hilarious and crazy, but thorough account of a Columbia football player's career (from recruiting to graduation) by his dad: www.johntreed.com/matsdad.html (be sure to read the part about Columbia's racism against his white running back son  ) Wow. That IS hilarious and crazy but sad. I certainly never want to be that Dad and, somehow, reading some of his rants made me feel better about Hoya football. My son is a Hoya junior. He did not play and did not travel his first two years. His high school program was better supported. He's had friends who quit. He's 1-8. But guess what? He loves Georgetown. And football, has been a a huge part of that. It's given him a "fraternity" of buddies. It's given him discipline. It's given him a reason to get up early. It's given him a point of distinction with friends, family and employers. And, committing to play for four years, despite all the challenges, has given him something to be proud of. So despite, the countless "opportunities" that cause me frustration, the program has only been a benefit to my son's educational experience. I'm not trying to say that is the case for all football players but I do feel fortunate that it is the case for some. |
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RusskyHoya
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Post by RusskyHoya on Nov 14, 2013 10:27:11 GMT -5
Note that I didn't say that the thinking is to be on par with the Ivies in competitiveness (although that's certainly the aspiration). Clearly, we are not. Rather, the current objective, such as it is, is merely to keep football 'in its proper place,' e.g. at roughly the same relative footprint as at the Ivies. None of the Ancient Eight will be confused for football schools, The Game notwithstanding. The current Georgetown model most likely would be competitive with the Ivies - some of them, anyway - if it were backed by an Ivy-level resource base. But will we even do that? I mean... in terms of footprint, I think we're already more or less there. Football plays just as large (read: small) a part in campus life at Georgetown as it does in the Ivies. So, on that count, mission accomplished - there is zero danger of us selling our soul to the Football Gods (Devils?) in pursuit of the golden ring. When I say Ivy-level resource base, I mean on a University-wide scale, because it is the University-wide financial aid resources and policies that are allowing the Ivies to do what they do. Right, but that's kind of the point - Georgetown's administration wants the academic index because it ensures that the football program remains in a respectable, Ivy-like footprint. I've never heard anyone say they want the AI, it's merely the cost of doing business in the PL. There was no such index in the MAAC, for example. And while there are admissions criteria in every GU sport, football is the only one held to an arbitrary numerical standard. That just means you aren't going to the right cocktail parties, JR. In almost every other GU sport, you have a recruiting base to choose from that has many more higher-tier academic prospects. Tennis, golf, sailing, swimming, rowing, soccer, field hockey, volleyball, etc. Lacrosse remains a pretty elite/elitist sport, so you can balance out the recruiting class there academically as well. These teams are also much smaller that football. In the case of basketball, the recruiting classes are sufficiently small that it doesn't matter that you're taking students who are many hundreds of SAT points below the average for GU students - the effect is easily diluted. Football, though, suffers from a number of complications, including the fact that the recruiting class is so much bigger. You can't admit 25 kids right at the NCAA qualification cutoff - it would have a real impact on the entire incoming class's numbers, and it would be noticeable in the classroom as well. The faculty doesn't look too keenly on having 10% of the student body be athletes as it is - imagine the reaction if the academic quality took an even bigger hit than it already does through athletic preference. So, long story short, even without an externally imposed Academic Index, you would have to have an internally imposed one that operated in a very similar way. The benefit to having the Patriot League do it for us is that it allows us to publicly broadcast it and play up the academic component (as opposed to all those *snicker* football schools), something we couldn't/wouldn't do if it were internal. |
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Post by AustinHoya03 on Nov 14, 2013 15:38:51 GMT -5
I doubt anyone has these figures, but did moving from a conference without an Academic Index to a conference with an Academic Index have any impact on things like graduation rates for football players? Does the AI provide tangible benefits to the school and/or football players, or is it merely "we're like the Ivies" PR?
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RusskyHoya
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Post by RusskyHoya on Nov 19, 2013 23:44:39 GMT -5
I doubt anyone has these figures, but did moving from a conference without an Academic Index to a conference with an Academic Index have any impact on things like graduation rates for football players? Does the AI provide tangible benefits to the school and/or football players, or is it merely "we're like the Ivies" PR? Graduation rate? Probably not. Recall how high Pops' graduation rate was for players who stayed all four years. That was with a cohort of players that was no doubt far below that of football recruits, on average. The support structure in place is such that, given sufficient work ethic, you can make the grade (cue Marc Egerson jokes) and make it over the finish line. Like I said, I think that even in the absence of an externally-mandated AI, Georgetown would have to impose something rather similar internally, so the effect of a mandate on academic quality is not that great. Having said that... who's to say that "'we're like the Ivies' PR" doesn't constitute a tangible benefit? I suspect it very well might. |
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thebin
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Post by thebin on Nov 20, 2013 10:26:07 GMT -5
I think you can only spin that "we're like the ivies" gambit when you are in the Patriot League, a league that exists for that very purpose and whose identity is more tied to the Ivy league than any other two athletic conferences in the country are tied to one another. Once you drop into a league with WAY worse name recognition, history, proximity, academics, etc., I'm not sure that play works at all, even if you are getting dusted twice a year by Yale and Brown.
One thing I can tell you for sure is that for the kinds of college football players we need to attract to be decent, the PL membership is the most valuable asset by far the program has going for it in football terms. Even if we had a non-embarassing stadium, it still would be, but given we have no stadium, it is doubly so. Our hard-won PL association should be preserved at all costs if the program is to be preserved at all. It brings us some of that Ivy stardust more than the mere fact that we play a couple of ivies per year. It is difficult to overstate the link between the two leagues historically. A move to the NEC or Pioneer would be a disaster and the begining of what I suspect will be a very short end game.
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