Looking to discuss, or debate: the future of CFB.

NorthTexasWeLove · June 5

8 hours ago, NT80 said:

The record is the issue. Fans and networks only support winners. These super powers are used to no more than 3 losses in a season, max. When they start having 5-6 losses in a season, then they become the new "second tier" or lessor programs of the power schools. None of those fan basses want or will support second tier.

They'll normalize the losing. That's a fact. The media (fox and espn) will lead that charge. Believe in that.

NorthTexasWeLove · June 5

1 minute ago, NT80 said:

It's lipstick on a pig. 6-5 USC playing 7-4 Wisconsin doesn't move the needle for me to even attempt to watch, regardless of how they spin it. Records matter. And Lincoln Riley is in hot water with their fan base if USC is 6-5, lol.

When 8-4's and 9-3's are in the playoffs, 7-5 will be spinned as "almost there."

wardly · June 5

11 hours ago, GrandGreen said:

My take is a bit different. Not disagreeing with NT having poor financial support is an issue, but I do think this has a lot more to do with outside forces than it does NT.

One factor, that is rarely mentioned is that NT's early integration played a substantial role in NT not being in a Texas conference . Being in the MVC certainly didn't help create fans as the SWC ruled the state and did everything they could to maintain that status.

This may be ancient history, but I believe the effect still lingers.

Students that wanted a rah rah sports oriented school did not pick NT if they had other options

College student support is now becoming more equal not because of NT's progress, but now most students are just not as interested as in the past in college sports.

Teams are propped up by rich alums that grew up when college sports were much more popular.

This audience will fade away.

College sports has thus far survived NIL, title 9 and other government intervention; but at some point unless massive changes are made, it will not in the future.

I was a freshman in 61' when we were in the MVC, where we stayed until Hayden Fry took us independent 50 years ago. Your reference to North Texas being is the Valley is way past ancient history as is dropping down to 1AA as a excuse for lack of alumni and student support for our athletic programs. Everyone refers to Fry's coaching tenure as the golden age of Eagle football forgetting that our average home attendance in his 6 years here was only 13,300.

MAX KOCH · June 5

On 5/31/2024 at 6:56 PM, untcampbell said:

It isn't unusual for the doomsayers to dominate a discussion. Kind of like some are more likely to complain out loud about bad food or service than reflecting it in a tip. That said, the general trend is that CFB is changing, and not for the better. Especially for fans of less esteemed (rich) teams. If it is inevitable that the smaller schools will have to find a way to stay/become relevant, consider this (and by the way, I subscribe to the "there are no original thoughts remaining" so this isn't likely the first time you have seen this):

Adapt a major league baseball, farm system model.

The 50 or so elites can contract with 3 lessers to be their farm teams. Lessers might be considered A, AA, AAA. The current G5s, perhaps not all, could negotiate with the 50 to be their AAA team, hopefully with a regional bias. Current FCS teams might be AA, and whoever is left can negotiate their way into the A spots. Championships could be played at each level.

Each "farm" team would run their programs independent of their Major League team. Clearly the Major would want some influence but their would also be organic back and forth discussions about recruits, and it might even be part of the Major's recruiting strategy. "We really like you but we are stocked at RB and we would like to get you on the field in the Minors for a year, then bring you up. Here is an extra $150k to supplement what the Minor program will offer while you are there." But the Major would be given, for the contracted price, the right to "call up" any player on the farm teams. Players could go up and down in the system. Some Major signees may be sent down if they don't perform to the value of their NIL, some Minor players would move up. The Major could elect to continue to pay the Major NIL price that those sent down signed up for, to keep them in the system or not. Each minor level could offer its own NIL, and some of that funding could come from the revenue generated by its relationship with the Major.

To make it a bit more challenging, the minors could agree to run the same offense and defense as the major. It may be part of the negotiation amongst G5s as to who they may line up with. Even in-season call ups would be more natural if the player is in the same system as the Major team calling him up. Players might get called up for the bowl game when a Major player opts out of its bowl game. UTSA would likely line up with UT, as an example, and adopt similar playing styles.

Free agency would be restricted to certain times, just like the transfer portal is now. And money is going to play a big part in that. But maybe teams might offer more money for a longer commitment to stay, that either player or team could get out of for a price (say part of the NIL payment is escrowed for a period of time to be clawed back if the player opts to leave, or a separation payment is paid by the team to get rid of a kid it no longer wants).

To me, the upside for the minors is their place in the sport has more relevance, and likely more revenue (the two are related) through their relationship to the Major.

There are likely many issues to make this impossible. I'd like to hear them, and there is likely more to add on the positive side.

Flame away, friends.

GMG

SO NO SUCH THING AS A STUDENT Anymore?

SMU2006 · June 5

12 hours ago, NT80 said:

Your money won't buy you onto the split list. The scam will be over!

Yes b/c money has never been able to accomplish an otherwise unlikely goal.....

SMU2006 · June 5

14 hours ago, untjim1995 said:

If you think you or Tulane are gonna be included in a power setup among the top 24-48 schools, you need to use your $$$$ towards psychotherapy

Its not going to be limited to 48. The mother of all antitrust lawsuits would be coming down the pike not to mention certain schools are tethered politically to some that would potentially be left out of your scenario. For example, the state of North Carolina just passed legislation that UNC and NC State are all but bound together at the hip and any attempt by UNC to leave NC State in the lurch could result in the loss of state funds. NC state politics are wild. You'll see similar bills passed into law in other states with potentially vulnerable schools.

The split will be the P4 from the G5. The only question is whether or not any of the top G5's are going to get the last call up. The problem for them is SMU has set the bar for entry at a financial level no school in the G5 can offer. That will be the opening asking price for any G5 to move up. Rice could do it if they cared about athletics (they don't). USF is intriguing b/c of AAU status and being in Tampa. SDSU is in a huge market but doesn't seem to have the financial commitment. Memphis is an academic dumpster fire but actually fits nicely into the Big 12 if they choose to expand.

TheColonyEagle · June 5

15 hours ago, untjim1995 said:

If you think you or Tulane are gonna be included in a power setup among the top 24-48 schools, you need to use your $$$$ towards psychotherapy

Man....the delusion is just amazing. It's unbelievable how blinded they are

TheColonyEagle · June 5

12 hours ago, NorthTexasWeLove said:

When 8-4's and 9-3's are in the playoffs, 7-5 will be spinned as "almost there."

that's 100% correct

We have to think of College Football as the NFL now.

Remember when the Giants beat the undefeated Patriots in the Superbowl? Anyone remember the Giants record? I don't. But I remember the Superbowl ring they got.

Get ready...there will be a .500 or barely above .500 national champion in the future. Gonna be some 1 loss teams not win.

We have to stop looking at College Football the way we always have. It's different now.

Put it another way:

They would prefer a loss to a big time opponent than a 50 point blowout against a G5. When I say "they" I mean TV. That's who is in charge. And when that loss to a big time opponent doesn't hurt their playoff chances, the fans won't care.

Edited June 5 by TheColonyEagle

NT80 · June 5

2 hours ago, wardly said:

Everyone refers to Fry's coaching tenure as the golden age of Eagle football forgetting that our average home attendance in his 6 years here was only 13,300.

NT enrollment then was under 17k. Denton population was under 50k.

SMU2006 · June 5

50 minutes ago, NT80 said:

Well, it did accomplish the Death penalty for you, so yes, it was a success!

We were just a few decades ahead of the curve. Trailblazers!

Edited June 5 by SMU2006

untjim1995 · June 5

2 hours ago, SMU2006 said:

Its not going to be limited to 48. The mother of all antitrust lawsuits would be coming down the pike not to mention certain schools are tethered politically to some that would potentially be left out of your scenario. For example, the state of North Carolina just passed legislation that UNC and NC State are all but bound together at the hip and any attempt by UNC to leave NC State in the lurch could result in the loss of state funds. NC state politics are wild. You'll see similar bills passed into law in other states with potentially vulnerable schools.

The split will be the P4 from the G5. The only question is whether or not any of the top G5's are going to get the last call up. The problem for them is SMU has set the bar for entry at a financial level no school in the G5 can offer. That will be the opening asking price for any G5 to move up. Rice could do it if they cared about athletics (they don't). USF is intriguing b/c of AAU status and being in Tampa. SDSU is in a huge market but doesn't seem to have the financial commitment. Memphis is an academic dumpster fire but actually fits nicely into the Big 12 if they choose to expand.

You are not even close to being correct. The anti-trust lawsuit you are talking about would have already been tried if it could even come close to working. Hint, it can't. The legislatures and justices are dominated by the grads/fans of these power schools, which fund a ton of stuff in their states. That ain't SMU, pal.

There are 24 major CFB brands: USC, UCLA, Oregon, Washington, Texas, Texas A&M, Oklahoma, Nebraska, Iowa, Wisconsin, Michigan, Michigan State, Ohio State, Penn State, Notre Dame, North Carolina, Clemson, FSU, Florida, Georgia, Alabama, Auburn, Tennessee, and LSU.

Add in any of these brands that you want: Stanford, Arizona, Arizona State, Utah, Colorado, Kansas, Kansas State, Texas Tech, Oklahoma State, Arkansas, Mizzou, Iowa State, Indiana, Purdue, Illinois, Minnesota, Kentucky, Louisville, WVU, Pitt, Maryland, Virginia, Va Tech, NC State, South Carolina, Georgia Tech, Miami, Ole Miss, Mississippi State, Syracuse, BC, and Rutgers. All 32 of these brands will not make the cut. So, add in anywhere between 0 to 24 teams to that final list. My guess is that its 48, just to be able to get the major institutions with lots of eyeballs.

wardly · June 6

20 hours ago, NT80 said:

NT enrollment then was under 17k. Denton population was under 50k.

So was Arkansas/ Fayetteville,Baylor/Waco, and others. If we really had a chance to get in the SWC these numbers would be much higher as there were still a large number of grads in DFW. Basketball also seemed to have larger attendance during this time than now. The harsh reality is that we have had a mediocre athletic program at best . The few exceptions were during the time when both the SWC and SEC did not take black athletics and early 2000's when we dominated the Sun Belt. Other than that we have had an underfunded athletic program with little financial support from both alumni and the university. Granted there have been exceptions but they have been few and far between. Even when our basketball program beat Purdue in the NCAA's and won the NIT the following year our home attendance was a mere 4,000 with enrollment 10 times that and Denton population around 100,000 or so. The students just don't seem to care and our alumni generally throw quarters around like manhole covers, yours truly included. I'd say we are lucky to be a G6 program instead of back in 1AA.

NT80 · June 6

3 hours ago, wardly said:

So was Arkansas/ Fayetteville,Baylor/Waco, and others. If we really had a chance to get in the SWC these numbers would be much higher as there were still a large number of grads in DFW. Basketball also seemed to have larger attendance during this time than now. The harsh reality is that we have had a mediocre athletic program at best . The few exceptions were during the time when both the SWC and SEC did not take black athletics and early 2000's when we dominated the Sun Belt. Other than that we have had an underfunded athletic program with little financial support from both alumni and the university. Granted there have been exceptions but they have been few and far between. Even when our basketball program beat Purdue in the NCAA's and won the NIT the following year our home attendance was a mere 4,000 with enrollment 10 times that and Denton population around 100,000 or so. The students just don't seem to care and our alumni generally throw quarters around like manhole covers, yours truly included. I'd say we are lucky to be a G6 program instead of back in 1AA.

NT has mostly liberal arts majors that don't care about athletics or supporting it. We don't have wealthy doctors, lawyers, or engineers as graduates that can donate large $$ like many of the P5 schools have. Yet, here we are in the AAC with great athletic facilities.

We have a lot of athletic history playing upper level schools while not being in an upper level conference like the SWC. Yet, here we are in a conference with Rice, Army, Tulane, Memphis, and $mut...until they bought their way out. Still, it is surprising with such negative fans on our own quickly-fading fan board the school even sponsors athletics.

NorthTexasWeLove · June 6

2 hours ago, NT80 said:

NT has mostly liberal arts majors that don't care about athletics or supporting it. We don't have wealthy doctors, lawyers, or engineers as graduates that can donate large $$ like many of the P5 schools have. Yet, here we are in the AAC with great athletic facilities.

We have a lot of athletic history playing upper level schools while not being in an upper level conference like the SWC. Yet, here we are in a conference with Rice, Army, Tulane, Memphis, and $mut...until they bought their way out. Still, it is surprising with such negative fans on our own quickly-fading fan board the school even sponsors athletics.

Because the football program is currently lifeless. A what is looking to be a terrible hire is steering the ship. The football program hasn't won a conference trophy in over 20 years. We haven't won a bowl game in over a decade. Our football history is pretty poor. Our students are weirdos and our city doesn't care. It's not that fans are being negative, it's just the facts that are negative. Yet, we dump money into football as if we have it to dump and as if we're a prolific football program.

Dannymacfan · June 6

3 minutes ago, NorthTexasWeLove said:

Because the football program is currently lifeless. A what is looking to be a terrible hire is steering the ship. The football program hasn't won a conference trophy in over 20 years. We haven't won a bowl game in over a decade. Our football history is pretty poor. Our students are weirdos and our city doesn't care. It's not that fans are being negative, it's just the facts that are negative. Yet, we dump money into football as if we have it to dump and as if we're a prolific football program.

To follow-up on that I just don't see any coordinated strategy from Morris et al. I get that NIL and portal have screwed the pooch, but insisting on a high school focused strategy just seems like putting lipstick on a pig. Why in hades would we sign a high school player when we know that if they are any good they will bail on us.

To me, if we weren't going to improve upon Littrell, why go to the trouble of buying out another coaching salary?

NT80 · June 6

29 minutes ago, Dannymacfan said:

To follow-up on that I just don't see any coordinated strategy from Morris et al. I get that NIL and portal have screwed the pooch, but insisting on a high school focused strategy just seems like putting lipstick on a pig. Why in hades would we sign a high school player when we know that if they are any good they will bail on us.

To me, if we weren't going to improve upon Littrell, why go to the trouble of buying out another coaching salary?

Morris went 5-7 in his first year here with mostly Littrell's recruits. He did bring in QB Chandler Rogers, our best QB since Mason Fine. We had the lead late but lost to Conference Champ Tulane by only 7... in New Orleans. We lost other games by 3, 3, 7, and 8 points. Easily could have been 9-3 with any defense. Defense is what needed fixed, and Morris went after experienced transfers on that side of the ball.

NT80 · June 6

49 minutes ago, NorthTexasWeLove said:

Because the football program is currently lifeless. A what is looking to be a terrible hire is steering the ship. The football program hasn't won a conference trophy in over 20 years. We haven't won a bowl game in over a decade. Our football history is pretty poor. Our students are weirdos and our city doesn't care. It's not that fans are being negative, it's just the facts that are negative. Yet, we dump money into football as if we have it to dump and as if we're a prolific football program.

Football drives the bus in Texas and College sports in general, and brings in the revenue. Our NIT basketball Title barely got any mention for us. Conference realignments and most Program revenues are based on Football.

We have elevated from 1-AA Southland to Indy to Big West to CUSA to AAC in fairly short time. We have great facilities and good programs in the conference. I don't wish for the days back with Nichols St, ULM, SFA, NW St, et al.

wardly · June 6

5 hours ago, NT80 said:

NT has mostly liberal arts majors that don't care about athletics or supporting it. We don't have wealthy doctors, lawyers, or engineers as graduates that can donate large $$ like many of the P5 schools have. Yet, here we are in the AAC with great athletic facilities.

We have a lot of athletic history playing upper level schools while not being in an upper level conference like the SWC. Yet, here we are in a conference with Rice, Army, Tulane, Memphis, and $mut...until they bought their way out. Still, it is surprising with such negative fans on our own quickly-fading fan board the school even sponsors athletics.

The UNT system has a law school in Dallas, medial school in Ft. Worth, engineering and business in Denton. While I am not comparing us to U.T. we do have graduates in the professions you mentioned that can but don't financially support Mean Green athletics.

NT80 · June 6

1 hour ago, wardly said:

The UNT system has a law school in Dallas, medial school in Ft. Worth, engineering and business in Denton. While I am not comparing us to U.T. we do have graduates in the professions you mentioned that can but don't financially support Mean Green athletics.

That's like telling UTSA alums to support the Longhorns. Different campuses, different schools. UNT-Law is part of UNT-Dallas (intentionally).

wardly · June 7

14 hours ago, NT80 said:

That's like telling UTSA alums to support the Longhorns. Different campuses, different schools. UNT-Law is part of UNT-Dallas (intentionally).

I understand what you are saying but it's what we have to work with. I never understood why the Dallas programs were set up separate.

Jonnyeagle · June 12

On 6/5/2024 at 1:05 PM, untjim1995 said:

My guess is that its 48, just to be able to get the major institutions with lots of eyeballs.

It may be less than that actually.

untjim1995 · June 12

4 hours ago, Jonnyeagle said:

It may be less than that actually.

You may very well be right, but I figure that the first iteration of a minor league CFB division will include more of the power schools currently than less. But it could be just 24-32 teams, too.