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BlueGoldAg
1.2kBob has said this before and he's saying it again:
A sleeping giant like UC Davis that desires to excel in every endeavor it undertakes, academic or otherwise, cannot long tolerate wallowing in this gridiron backwater.
There are, of course, some folks who say you have to win one division before moving up to another, but UC Davis never won a Division II national championship before moving up to I-AA.
If the Aggies stepped up their game and started regularly playing Southern California instead of Southern Oregon, or Penn State instead of Portland State, they’d need to quadruple the size of their current stadium to accommodate the crowds.
If we can get 100,000 people to Picnic Day, we can get 40,000 people to a football game.
The Mountain West Conference, with three California schools, is in the FBS and has been sniffing around for new members. Maybe Montana. Maybe North Dakota State. Why not UC Davis?
It’s hard to overstate the enthusiasm such a move would generate among fans, alumni, future student-athletes, the media and an entire region that has never had a collegiate football team competing with the best of the best.
Ag school, law school, med school, vet school, engineering school, fourth-ranked public university in the land. This is not an FCS campus.
The UC Davis philosophy of student first, athlete second, is so ingrained in our DNA that it will never be compromised, whether we’re playing the Colorado School of Mines or the Alabama Crimson Tide.
Integrity is integrity. It has nothing to do with the level at which your athletic teams compete.
Let’s knock heads with the best and see what happens.
Go Ags. Go far
https://www.davisenterprise.com/sports/bob-dunning-column-time-to-promote-aggies-football/ -
Riveraggie
249Bob’s column shows the pernicious effects of the two subdivisions. He seems to think that the comparison is to USC and Penn State if we move up. Its not, it’s to San Jose State. Is there going to be huge enthusiasm about a San Jose State level program? Is it going to be more exciting to have a slim chance at a minor bowl than it is to have a playoff game?
My preferred outcome would be if the NCAA ditched the distinction between FCS and FBS as far as Scholarships are concerned. Both divisions should have something like 70. Then when the two division members play you wouldn’t hear the constant “from the FCS” talk. I watched part of the Grambling Houston game and I didn’t hear FCS mentioned, with the same commentator that made that his key storyline in our game with Tulsa. Teams aren’t divided by a sharp line, it’s a gradient.
No different than basketball but basketball has uniform rules, football should too.
Does Bob think that our basketball team is now a peer of UCLA? Is there a demand for more seats like Pauley Pavillion? -
DrMike
742you don’t think the greater Davis-Dixon metroplex would come out in droves for a Friday night 8:00 kickoff with New Mexico? MWC teams don’t HOST USC or Penn State. San Jose is playing in a stadium with one side of the stadium closed to fans and STILL don’t fill.
I imagine the MWC stopped looking when the Big 12 filled their two openings with teams outside the MWC.
I just remember South Alabama coming in 10 years ago ready to take the FBS by storm. They rarely get 20k in football crazy Mobile. I think we’d have a similar fate in the MWC, especially if we’re filling spots vacated by Boise, San Diego, etc (filled by other Big Sky teams or New Mexico State!) -
Riveraggie
249The Sac Bee would still cover us like a backwater, and Dunning would write. That we need to be in Pac12
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zythe
109can you imagine the turnout if we play Cal or UCLA??? We would absolutely pack that stadium… -
movielover
534DI A programs are bleeding money. Imagine the added debt with the Bears poor football season so far. -
72Aggie
322"Since joining FBS in 2012, South Alabama has never won more than six games." - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Alabama_Jaguars_football
Quick, what conference is South Alabama in? Hint, the same conference in which the Idaho Vandals, who we didn't exaclty blow off the field, joined as a football only member before voluntarily returning from FBS to FCS. Before moving up to FBS in 1995 the Vandals were regulars in the 1AA/FCS post-season. They first joined the Big West Conference, but after about ten years in the Big West it dropped football, so they moved to the WAC but after eight years there it dropped football. So they join the Sun Belt (the conference of struggling FBS wannabes....) and eventually it withdraws its invitation to Idaho and NMSU...so Idaho voluntarily returns to FCS/1AA.
Name two other schools in South Alabama's conference.
Yeah, after Saturday's game it's clear we're spinning our wheels in FCS and are ready for a Power 5 FCS conference. Just think what our teams, and not just football, would do in a Pac 14 Conference. Basketball? Volleyball? Softball? I don't even want to think about baseball.
Did anyone watch WSU at Cal on TV last weekend? Did you get a look at the crowd in the stands? That was Cal's Homecoming game. Very few people came home. -
agalum
332Stirring the kettle sells papers. I wonder how much of the fbs talk BD really believes. And I consider myself one of his fans, i usually enjoy reading his stuff.
And talking S. Alabama. Loosing to those guys was a real low point for me. Remember all the coaches they had? They had enough to field a team, lol. -
69aggie
377I agree with DRM and agalum. Very unlikely that we move to FBS for a number of reasons some previously stated. First, it would be enormously unpopular with present CA FBS member schools some of which are experiencing a lot of financial stress to their overall programs due to the cost of running an FBS football program. Just for example, Cal feels that Sac is “their territory” for recruiting and it has many alum (many more than UCD) there which they count on financially. Fresno feels the Central Valley is theirs for some good reason. Second, attendance. Cal cannot get its students to their games, so how can we? Ditto San Jose St. Cal alum told me that his kids at Cal “do not go to football games- boring”. Game v. WSU there were empty stands in a facility that just took hundreds of millions of dollars to upgrade. So where do we get the fans for the games? The only obvious place would be Sacramento. Why would they come all the way to Davis when they have their own team in town. And then there’s the media. Davis has no real newspaper or TV. The DE? It’s a 5 day a week understaffed joke; almost like a advertisement paper you would get free at the Safeway. OK, so we rely on the Bee? Sac TV? Good luck with that. So all that nonsense about how our stadium will be “packed” is just b******t and BD knows that. Oh, and I forgot. We will have to upgrade our stadium to handle all these new fans. Should we hire the Cal engineers to get all this done for under $400,000,000? BD used to be happy with Jim Socher or BB during their reigns in DII. Why the switch? -
72Aggie
322I doubt there is a single team in the Pac 12 that would vote to ask UCD to join after looking at UCD attendance...the visitors share of the gate receipts wouldn't be that much. IF they were looking to expand I imagine they would be looking at Fresno State, San Diego State, the Nevada schools, Boise State....They lost out on BYU....
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aggie08
53I might be in the minority here, but I’d rather see the top of the Mountain West conference than EWash, Montana and Weber. No disrespect to the latter as these are all perennial FCS contenders. We’d probably get a Power 5 game or two every year on top of that. And in the past 5 years, Boise St, Air Force, Fresno and Utah St all had at least one top 25 finish. And SDSU is currently #24. Not a bad league to take a step up in our national profile. -
Bige70
69@aggie08 I agree with you, but also believe this is an unrealistic dream. Would be some great potential rivalries with Reno and Fresno (own the Valley), but to say this is an uphill battle is an understatement. Great home attendance so far this year, but student interest seems to fade as the year goes on. Not sure if it's just the level of competition, the type of students UCD attracts, or maybe generational apathy (Cal and Stanford student apathy should be a warning). It would be critical to own the Sacramento market and draw fans from there (Sacramento is more football crazy than Berkely and Palo Alto). That is a lot of money to hope for "if you build it, they will come." I'd love to see it, and would rather see Boise State than Northern Colorado, but not going to get my hopes up. -
Toke69
325I wonder how much the alumni have to do with teams moving up to the higher division, not only in football but other sports. It's an ego extension thing "I went to the University of Football and they're great." I wasn't even in favor of the move to Div. I. For those older among us, I think this might be a common opinion, but as the younger generations age, I can see the day come when they pressure the school to move to the FBS, but I agree with everything posted here: Pac-12 not at all likely, MWC not a good fit, etc. On the broadest scale, the entire future of college football is like a broken crystal ball: not visible. -
Riveraggie
249I think it’s pretty simple. If we were assured we would average 15000 fans per game then it would make sense. That would likely pay for the extra 20 scholarships and I think the stadium was designed to allow that level of expansion. Not sure 15000 would show up on average.
Cross that hurdle and it makes sense if we were in the same conference as SJSU, Reno Fresno and San Diego State. Some natural rivalries there. -
elfan
4
The math is even a little tougher than that. For the sake of argument let's use the MWC, which sponsors ~ 15 conventional sports. To be just barely competitive in football and cover incremental travel for the other 14 sports that would be forced into the conference would require at least an additional $10m per year of revenue. In this scenario, you would eventually pick up a few bucks from TV but until you get there (typically phased once you join a conference) all you have is the gate. Assuming 6.5 home games, which is generous for an upstart G5 program, you need 30,000 per game at an average price of just over $50. Clearly, the economics here are prohibitive. -
Riveraggie
249Hawaii is a football only member. But why the added expense since the rest of our sports are D1? We have seventeen sports.
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Riveraggie
249But the attendance is apparently required per Wikipedia.
“FBS schools must have an average home attendance of at least 15,000 (over a rolling two-year period). An FBS school must sponsor a minimum of 16 varsity intercollegiate teams (including football), with at least six men's or coeducational teams and at least eight all-female teams.”
I think attendance would be an issue for us to maintain that average.
Regarding TV money I think Sacramento area, and Northern California in general is a attractive market.
As you point out there are two decisions, should we want to and would they want us. -
DrMike
742I think the attendance requirement is loose. SJSU currently has a max of something like 15k and they, and many others, aren’t close to the 20k requirement on average attendance . Even Reno was only at 16k in 2019
https://nevadasportsnet.com/news/reporters/mountain-west-football-posts-its-lowest-attendance-ever-heres-why -
aggie08
53There’s still a chance the Big 12 could go after more AAC or MW schools. There are rumors Boise and Memphis are on their radar. And they might push for even more to get to 16. The MW might need to replenish if it’s raided. Unfortunately don’t think we’re ready to move up now.
That said, in the long run can we succeed in the MW? Not sure. Can our brand recognition in Sac could translate to ticket sales and tv viewers? Will average residents in Sac watch Aggie football on their tv screen? We’ll likely play 1 or 2 nationally ranked teams per year in the MW which should help but not sure it’s enough. We’d need students to come out, a core of loyal community fans, and probably regional support for this to make sense. But it should elevate our brand -
fugawe09
1921. To be competitive in FBS you have to cheat— one or more of financial, academic, or behavior funny business. It’s not that Stanford is above this, it’s that they are much better about being subtle and covering their tracks than say Florida State. To date, Mrak Hall has been better at showing its a** in the Bee than covering it.
2. There is a demographic problem. Until athletics either generate more interest among Asian and female students or demographics change, growing the student attendance is tough. If today’s students aren’t interested, they won’t be as tomorrow’s alumni either and I don’t think division changes that.
3. Part of the money equation is corporate sponsorship. The biggest operations in the Sac area are government agencies, quasi government adjacent things like UCD health and SMUD, and credit unions. To Rocko’s credit we have tapped some of those. What Sac doesn’t have is home or hub offices for a lot of Fortune 500 companies that want to put their name on things and then buy a skybox where executives can get drunk and look at said logo.
4. Neither UCD or CSUS have successfully marketed themselves to potential community fans with no ties to the university. Maybe there’s a case for division here but build-it-and-they-will-come is a risky gamble considering we would likely not be good for some time.
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