I don't think it's up to them. UCD is what is mainly in the way of UCD joining the FBS. And why do it ? You expand seating to 60,000 and you'll have 52,000 empty seats. The students aren't going to be less indifferent just because better teams (Not CAL, they still won't come) come to steamroll the Aggies.
This the kind of thing I'm talking about when I say the university acts like it's too big for its britches. The D- I move has slowly been killing the fun atmosphere since 2005. Luckily bball brought a little of it back.
Cal and UCLA are a non-factor. The commenters on the board are right. We are good in FCS and need to focus on our issues first. Cal and UCLA wouldn't care if it was the MW or some other mid major conference because they'd still be top dogs along with Stan/U$C. Its not an Alabama vs UAB situation at all.
I don't think UCLA and Cal are holding UCD back at all. A move to FBS is totally irrelevant at this point because we don't have the support from the students or community to support it nor are we consistently competitive at the FCS level. I'm not saying that a move up will never happen, but currently we aren't even close and should just focus on making our program competitive where we are now. We have to be able to walk before we try running.
The last time I looked an FCS school had to average 15,000 fans for two years to even qualify for FBS status. Our stadium does not even have that capacity much less the attendance. Next there’s the scholarship money issue: 22 more schlarships for FBS. Next there’s the TIX issues- woman’s sports expenditures will have to equal the men’s sclarships increase. Next there’s the operational expenses issue: at least 4-5 million dollars in new coaches, travel, equipment, etc. etc. . . I believe only Liberty was able to do this recently and they fill their 19,000+ stadium every game. So, Cal UCLA are the least of the worries. CSN just a lot of blah, blah, blah for its readers and no helpful insight at all.
Not even worth talking about, need to focus on winning more games and filling up the stadium first. I think if the team wins, the students will come out. But in general the overall fan base for football and basketball is just not there. I was surprised at the small attendance at the Northern Colorado basketball game. I noticed they had pulled out the center bleachers and was hoping the stands would fill in, but the attendance was lousy.