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Making the Jump

M

MaxieMan98

New member
First and foremost I would like to introduce myself on this board. I am a first-year university student at a school which is not Eastern :D. My affiliation with the school is that I attended football camps with my team during my junior and senior seasons. My HC in Highschool was a starting QB at Eastern in the 90's and has been bringing his teams to the EWU Football camp for about 15 years. During my time visiting EWU, I grew to love the school and the football program and I have since adopted them as my 2nd favorite CFB team (behind USC).

Enough about me and now onto the discussion.

Can you see EWU making the jump from FCS to FBS in the future? If so when(near or distant)? Do you, as a fan or alumni of the school want to see Eastern make the jump?

Personally, I believe purely based on results that eastern could compete at the FBS level. But as we all know, being an FBS football program requires more than just that. It requires a committed and dedicated fan base, very good facilities, a large stadium, among other things.


Would love to get some feedback!
 
Regardless of whether the fans support it, we are nowhere near having the football facilities to move to FBS.
 
I personally do not want us to move up anytime in the near future. I love the FCS brand and we have come a long way to be a perennial powerhouse. Realistically, we'd be setting ourselves back about 30 years and making the playoffs every year is far superior than being in a meaningless conference trying to get into meaningless bowl games.

That being said, I do love it when we play FBS/P5 teams.
 
FormerEag said:
I personally do not want us to move up anytime in the near future. I love the FCS brand and we have come a long way to be a perennial powerhouse. Realistically, we'd be setting ourselves back about 30 years and making the playoffs every year is far superior than being in a meaningless conference trying to get into meaningless bowl games.

That being said, I do love it when we play FBS/P5 teams.
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I agree with this. I don't want anything to do with the FBS until they incorporate an ACTUAL playoff system.
 
No way Maxie, Look at what Boise has done over the last years and they get not respect. We would have to be part of the pac 12 and even if we could Wazzu would never let us in because we would take their fan base

Hope you enjoy the board.
 
I'll join the others in confirming that EWU does not have the resources to be a BCS team.

But, I love the FCS level. I think we play exciting football in the Big Sky and I love the thrill of a true playoff system. I think Eastern is wonderfully competitive at this level and truly belongs.

Someone else pointed out BSU as the likely best case scenario for jumping up. So I'll offer an even closer example of the worst case scenario. The attempt by IU to move up has destroyed the Vandals program and left them depleted, when they move back down in two years (the correct choice if you ask me) they likely won't even be competitive for a BSC championship. At least that's the way it appears to me.
 
Rjones61 said:
FormerEag said:
I personally do not want us to move up anytime in the near future. I love the FCS brand and we have come a long way to be a perennial powerhouse. Realistically, we'd be setting ourselves back about 30 years and making the playoffs every year is far superior than being in a meaningless conference trying to get into meaningless bowl games.

That being said, I do love it when we play FBS/P5 teams.
Click to expand...

I agree with this. I don't want anything to do with the FBS until they incorporate an ACTUAL playoff system.
Click to expand...

I agree as well. The Pac-12 isn't sending us an invite and some reincarnation of the WAC is a step down from where we are today. The only chance I'd support it is if the non-Power 5 formed a second tier that abandoned the bowl system in favor of a playoff.

Alas, as previously mentioned, it's not feasible due to,our stadium situation. It's all rhetorical.
 
The important thing to consider is that the FBS, as it is now, is going to look considerably different 10 years from now once the P5 conferences have broken off. This will open some new opportunities to improve the "second Tier" of Division I. As it stands right now, there's really three Tiers in Division I football: The P5, the non-P5 FBS, and the FCS. From a competitive aspect, there's really no difference between the upper levels of the FCS and non-P5 FBS schools other than roughly 18 scholarships.

We don't necessarily need to be talking about "moving up" when we're thinking about positioning ourselves for the future in terms of a program. Whatever that second Tier of Division I football ends up looking like, that's where we want to be. We still have some work to do, and the stadium isn't really the biggest obstacle in terms of just having a place to play. If it were just a capacity issue, we could go back to playing games in 25k seat Joe Albi. The real spark to positioning ourselves is getting an on campus facility built. Once that happens, I truly believe that everything else will fall into place.

So, to paraphrase...no, we won't be "moving up" anytime soon (there's currently no FBS conference on the west coast we could even go), but that doesn't mean that there isn't still a lot of room for growth. The FBS won't look the same soon anyway, so it's all about making sure we're in that second Tier, whatever it looks like.
 
Ranger speaketh the truth. Once P5 breaks away the remaining D1 teams will restructure. P5 will be bowl games cause that's where the money is...money hmmm. Football is getting very expensive for most teams(very few outside P5 make money) and when the remaining FBS and top FCS teams gell together money will be a major factor. Look at scholarship changes to FCS level/lower of min. stadium size/D1 National Championship tourny/lowering of min D1 sports requirement similar to FCS...all of those will make keeping football affordable and that is huge moving forward. I believe this is what will work for EWU...heck we can't make a descent upgrade happen so no way we can go full compliance in the FBS..monetarily speaking.
 
The only way I'm on board for making the jump is if the G5 break off and choose to have a playoff for their postseason. I'm not looking for a Potato Bowl trophy.
 
EWU could generally compete in the MWC tomorrow! 2-2 in the last 4 with Pac-12, and I can't remember the last time the Eags got blown out by an FBS school (Slaton and White @ WVU?). However, MWC/Pac 12 North invite is just not coming! The product on the field is a lot closer than fans of either FBS conference would care to admit. The infrastructure, especially in football, is miles and miles away.
 
Palm Springs Eag said:
EWU could generally compete in the MWC tomorrow! 2-2 in the last 4 with Pac-12, and I can't remember the last time the Eags got blown out by an FBS school (Slaton and White @ WVU?). However, MWC/Pac 12 North invite is just not coming! The product on the field is a lot closer than fans of either FBS conference would care to admit. The infrastructure, especially in football, is miles and miles away.
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2009 @ Cal 59-7. But I see your point! :D
 
Thanks 2010, was having a good day till I saw that!
*I'm the guy in the black t-shirt.

vuI5f.gif
 
It amazes me that Eastern hasn't been able to parlay your success into a new stadium.

Guess you're looking at farmland north of Roos now and building an entirely new stadium?

That to me seems like the best option, start from scratch, and get a really good layout, without the track.

You can build a stadium that looks as big as the Gateway project for half the price.. and more symmetrical.

You guys (and Poly as well) Just need to figure out how Montana state paid only 10 million for a 7,200 seat expansion., Cal Poly paid I think almost 30 million for about 3.5K seats in 2007.. Just chose a bad site for the stadium with a road underneath it, and next to the train tracks.

How Montana State got so many seats for so little money is hard to understand.. Yes, there aren't any box seats, but that's good value. They aren't a right to work state either. I have a feeling it was a Honduran mafia connected construction company for that price.. anyway, it's something to be learned from.
 
An entirely new structure would be the most ideal situation.The current infrastructure along Washington St. is insufficient for future expansion. Heck, it took us an hour the other day just to get down Washington St. and find parking. Setting something up on an entirely new site is definitely the way to go. They could use the existing upper parking and tie it into the new site as well.
 
Eags12 said:
An entirely new structure would be the most ideal situation.The current infrastructure along Washington St. is insufficient for future expansion. Heck, it took us an hour the other day just to get down Washington St. and find parking. Setting something up on an entirely new site is definitely the way to go. They could use the existing upper parking and tie it into the new site as well.
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+1
 
I'm shocked no one else would want to move up...I'd love for Eastern to take a chance at the FBS. Now there is no way its going to happen as we don't have the support, stadium, or anything close to the $$$ but if we had a bigger stadium and more financial support I would absolutely love Eastern to move up. In a few years, the remaining bigger players in the FCS who haven't already left, will be gone.
 
marceagfan5 said:
I'm shocked no one else would want to move up...I'd love for Eastern to take a chance at the FBS. Now there is no way its going to happen as we don't have the support, stadium, or anything close to the $$$ but if we had a bigger stadium and more financial support I would absolutely love Eastern to move up. In a few years, the remaining bigger players in the FCS who haven't already left, will be gone.
Click to expand...

Then we get to become six-peat champions!
 
Rjones61 said:
marceagfan5 said:
I'm shocked no one else would want to move up...I'd love for Eastern to take a chance at the FBS. Now there is no way its going to happen as we don't have the support, stadium, or anything close to the $$$ but if we had a bigger stadium and more financial support I would absolutely love Eastern to move up. In a few years, the remaining bigger players in the FCS who haven't already left, will be gone.
Click to expand...

Then we get to become six-peat champions!
Click to expand...

Haha...true...but when you are beating the Mississippi Valley States and Western Oregon's to do it, it starts to loose its luster...
 
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