The PAC/MWC Dominoes Begin to Fall

[stingthemgood]

Ya’ll are on some drugs

 

[SDHornet]

CalNow agreement made any chance for CSU’s to keep top level football very difficult. Applaud those that did, but LB never could get a stadium, and Fullerton cut FB as their stadium opened, which isn’t really FBS ready, but is a good starting point. UCSB also had an acceptable stadium at the time, but again cut football in early 70’s, and then played in lower divisions during a brief revival as non scholarship.

In new NIL and revenue world, all Big West schools are effectively lower divisions. Most can’t afford the new scholarship limits.

This is an awful take that lets weak/poor admin off the hook for not having the balls to keep football. Sac State, and all the other CA publics that still have football, faced the same issues from the CalNow fallout. It all boils down to having admin with the balls to do what it takes to keep football. Any CA public that had/has a field with 5k+ capacity was/is capable of sponsoring a football program. CalNow was just used as an out by weak/pathetic admin to cut football, I'll never believe otherwise on this topic.

I'm not buying the scholarship limit comment either. With the House Agreement, there are no longer scholarship limits but roster limits. Programs that "opt-in" can maintain a roster size of 105 players; how many of those are put on scholarship are limited by 2 factors:

1. How many their respective conference will allow. My speculation is that this was part of our decision to leave the BSC as it doesn't sound like the BSC is budging from its FCS scholarship limit of 63. You can't maximize the advantage of opting in if you are still limited by the conference you are in.
2. How many scholarships leadership is willing to fund. There are Title IX implications here, but as with CalNow, this circles back to the wherewithal of the leadership and the effort they are willing to take to be on the leading edge of the changes related to the House Agreement. Note that all NCAA sponsored sports roster limits were also adjusted, so the Title IX balance will still need to be maintained in conjunction with football scholarships.

Interesting tidbit for the "opt outs" moving forward:

https://twitter.com/x/status/1951672863972335968

 

[StockonLB]

This is an awful take that lets weak/poor admin off the hook for not having the balls to keep football. Sac State, and all the other CA publics that still have football, faced the same issues from the CalNow fallout. It all boils down to having admin with the balls to do what it takes to keep football. Any CA public that had/has a field with 5k+ capacity was/is capable of sponsoring a football program. CalNow was just used as an out by weak/pathetic admin to cut football, I'll never believe otherwise on this topic.

I'm not buying the scholarship limit comment either. With the House Agreement, there are no longer scholarship limits but roster limits. Programs that "opt-in" can maintain a roster size of 105 players; how many of those are put on scholarship are limited by 2 factors:

1. How many their respective conference will allow. My speculation is that this was part of our decision to leave the BSC as it doesn't sound like the BSC is budging from its FCS scholarship limit of 63. You can't maximize the advantage of opting in if you are still limited by the conference you are in.
2. How many scholarships leadership is willing to fund. There are Title IX implications here, but as with CalNow, this circles back to the wherewithal of the leadership and the effort they are willing to take to be on the leading edge of the changes related to the House Agreement. Note that all NCAA sponsored sports roster limits were also adjusted, so the Title IX balance will still need to be maintained in conjunction with football scholarships.

Interesting tidbit for the "opt outs" moving forward:

https://twitter.com/x/status/1951672863972335968

CalNow affected CSU’s, not the UC’s, so not all public’s were affected the same. UC’s could still use on of the three prong approaches for Title IX compliance. Most used the progress model to gradually get in compliance (or still are showing progress each year and really aren’t truly in compliance on roster or spending amount) . CSU’s had to up the roster spots or cut sports in 6 years.

CSU system agrees to equity in sports programs - UPI Archives

The California State University system Thursday announced a landmark lawsuit settlement with the National Organization of Women in which it agrees to reach...

www.upi.com

Now I agree it was a hard change that needed tough leadership. LB had no stadium. Fullerton got the stadium and played four games in theirs and still couldn’t make it work… https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2009-mar-08-sp-titans-football8-story.html
They needed leaders who could rally the alumni community around the idea of division 1 football. They failed.

Which is why Sac has a good chance. Their leaders are all in. They don’t care if the effort fails, they know they have to make the effort to raise athletics.

 

[SDHornet]

LBSU played in Veteran's Memorial Stadium, which wasn't theirs but nothing was preventing them from continued use until they figured out an on-campus venue. They had (and still have) the field space for a multi-sport facility if their leadership had the wherewithal to get it done.

Good article on Fullerton, thanks for posting that. They had the facility coming on-line which makes their failure more significant.

Both LBSU and Fullerton always had strong enrollments, so it has always been a matter of having the fortitude to implement an athletics fee to fund football. That's what Sac State did when they were in the same situation back in the day. My point is that if a program like ours was able to keep football alive then those universities could have figured it out. All lot of it falls on their respective leadership, or lack thereof, at the time.