FBS move-up handwriting on the wall!

[nanacat]

Interesting how many FBS coaches are making statements publicly about the NIL/Portal now that the bowl season is almost over. Wonder if their opinions are being shared with the NCAA? One coach, can't remember his name now, spoke of how wrong it is that the portal opens before the season is over and what problems that is causing. I mean with college semesters ending and transfers needing to be completed before classes start in January, I get it, but to have players sitting out, or leaving the team before the final game is just bad. However, one comment I read said coaches need to be held to that timing issue too, and I agree. I know it's been discussed in other threads, but there should be a standard. Recruiting/hiring of players or coaches should be done after the season ends, imo. I'm sure that's not realistic and maybe not even possible, but college football is just a train wreck and something needs to be done about it. Not thinking anything will change though.

Why would a transfer need to leave prior to spring semester? I get that coaches have a strong preference to have everyone there for Spring practice...but that hardly seems justification.

Move the portal to after Jan 1, then move ALL signings to Feb 1. You could hold coaches to the same standard: NCAA members are not allowed to interview coaches for vacancies until after Signing Day. (Does that hurt recruiting for schools that just fired a coach? Yep. Who cares.)

Honestly, the NCAA is so far beyond inept, its getting to be shocking.

Curious to see if the NCAA takes any action after what happened this year. Opt outs for injury is far different than what happened with Florida State. Maybe it wasn't the portal as much as a protest. But the writing is on the wall.

If I was an AD, you can 100% guarantee that EVERY scholarship was contingent of suiting up when medically appropriate & that there would be clawback provisions for sitting out a bowl game. Might not mean much to a Caleb Williams or Marvin Harrison, but there are a lot of marginal NFL draft picks & potential UDFA not suiting up. I'd think twice about trying to pay back a Stanford or USC football scholarship with a practice squad salary.

Definitely!

[RickRund]

If they were required to wait until Jan 9th, ex: this year's cfp final, would that give anyone an advantage? Just wait until the season is over.

[Berkeley_Griz]

The peak scenario for a program like Liberty or any other G5 also-ran will be to get boat-raced in a road playoff game as a 12-seed. How fun. Oregon could put up 70 if they wanted.

How is that different than the current FCS playoffs? By my count, 7 out of the 22 games were blowouts (at least 3 scores).

I guess as Cat fans we are happy cause our team is winning instead of losing the blowouts?

How is that a serious question. The difference is - since this is a thread about MSU moving up, located on an MSU board, where presumably we're discussing how this relates to MSU - that currently, MSU has the potential to play for national titles. If they move up, during their best ever seasons they can aspire to getting shellacked by Bama/ Oregon/ etc. The obvious insinuation from PapaG's post was about "how fun" it would be if that were the most MSU could aspire to each season.

[Berkeley_Griz]

How about those "mighty" Minnesota Gophers going 5-7 and having the honor of going to the "Quick Lane " bowl....and winning over the six win Bowling Green Falcons! ( I had to google to look up the mascot for BG.) What an honor! What an accomplishment! Enjoyed by dozens in the cavernous Ford Field Dome and hundreds more yawning in front of their TV sets at home. Just think how excited we would be for the Cats to play in such a bowl game!

And someday it could all be ours too. Yippeee. Just need a modest boost of institutional support first.

The Quick Lane Bowl had roughly the same attendance last year as the NDSU-UM Semifinal (double the attendance of the SDSU Albany Semi).

Viewership of these bowls is still double the viewership of the FCS games.

https://www.sportsmediawatch.com/colleg ... v-ratings/

I guess I don't understand the "pointlessness" of games with far more interest than FCS football. (And I'm a fan of the FCS, I wish FBS would do a playoff too...)

So last year, a last game of the year between two universities with a combined enrollment nearly 20,000 more than UM+NDSU and with a combined alumni base nearly twice of UM+NDSU were able to almost equal the fans present at a second to last game of the year between UM and NDSU, though the bowl game was played in a stadium with nearly triple the attendance number. Neither team won any sort of championship by playing, and multiple players from both teams sat the game out. If that's not pointless, I don't know what is.

More people watch bowls because 1) bowls are all over big networks and lots of randos just bowl surf this time of year and 2) there's a strong correlation between being an FBS school and having a larger enrollment than many FCS schools. None of that negates the fact that all but the biggest bowls are truly meaningless, and only becoming more so.

And yet, more people still care about the Quickie Lube Bowl than an FCS championship game. Tells you something about the level at which we are playing..

No, it tells you about the size of those schools' fanbases and tells that random TV sport surfers will run a game in the background. Neither of those things makes a bowl game meaningful. You said yourself only the final three are meaningful. So nothing in your argument is denying that bowl games are pointless - something you initially were trying to refute. Rather, you're just changing your argument to "well, more people will watch it on TV" which just reflects alumni base and the craving for college ball when the season is at an end. If Baylor and Texas played in the same bowl game on different years, there's going to be a lot more people watching when Texas plays, because Texas is a huge public school. That doesn't make the bowl game magically more meaningful than the year that Baylor played in it.

So we're back to 1) the bowls are pointless, and 2) joining the FBS would make it impossible for UM or MSU to ever even dream of a championship ever again, instead being relegated to aspiring to go to one of those meaningless bowls in a half empty stadium (or in the greatest season ever, getting the last seed of the expanded playoff and ending the season with a 70-0 bludgeoning by Alabama). All while having to rely more and more on out of state recruits and pouring millions into NIL in a failed attempt to compete.

You need to quit posting here. I hate agreeing with a gris fan.

[Long Time Cat]

This is my solution: A 12 team P4 playoff, a 16 team G5 playoff, and keep the 20 team FCS playoff. All semifinals and finals to be in bowl games (in warm locations ). FCS starts one week before G5 which starts one week before P4. Games on Thursday night, all day Friday and Saturday. Every level has a legitimate shot at a Chipper, the best locations get bowl games and ESPN has a lot of games to broadcast. P4 might want to keep some additional bowl games because they do seem to get pretty good attendance at those games, they have decent TV ratings and they could be played on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday over Christmas break to fill in the gaps. G5 bowl games are a waste of time. Makes sense to me but I'm sure it would need some tweaks.

[PapaG]

Interesting how many FBS coaches are making statements publicly about the NIL/Portal now that the bowl season is almost over. Wonder if their opinions are being shared with the NCAA? One coach, can't remember his name now, spoke of how wrong it is that the portal opens before the season is over and what problems that is causing. I mean with college semesters ending and transfers needing to be completed before classes start in January, I get it, but to have players sitting out, or leaving the team before the final game is just bad. However, one comment I read said coaches need to be held to that timing issue too, and I agree. I know it's been discussed in other threads, but there should be a standard. Recruiting/hiring of players or coaches should be done after the season ends, imo. I'm sure that's not realistic and maybe not even possible, but college football is just a train wreck and something needs to be done about it. Not thinking anything will change though.

Why would a transfer need to leave prior to spring semester? I get that coaches have a strong preference to have everyone there for Spring practice...but that hardly seems justification.

Move the portal to after Jan 1, then move ALL signings to Feb 1. You could hold coaches to the same standard: NCAA members are not allowed to interview coaches for vacancies until after Signing Day. (Does that hurt recruiting for schools that just fired a coach? Yep. Who cares.)

Honestly, the NCAA is so far beyond inept, its getting to be shocking.

Curious to see if the NCAA takes any action after what happened this year. Opt outs for injury is far different than what happened with Florida State. Maybe it wasn't the portal as much as a protest. But the writing is on the wall.

If I was an AD, you can 100% guarantee that EVERY scholarship was contingent of suiting up when medically appropriate & that there would be clawback provisions for sitting out a bowl game. Might not mean much to a Caleb Williams or Marvin Harrison, but there are a lot of marginal NFL draft picks & potential UDFA not suiting up. I'd think twice about trying to pay back a Stanford or USC football scholarship with a practice squad salary.

The potential liability for the university by basically forcing a player to play an exhibition game if a player gets a major injury makes this idea impossible to enforce. Players would just say they have knee or back soreness in that instance and if the AD doesn’t believe him and the player gets injured, hello lawsuit. Or, they play half-assed in a game that doesn’t matter and actually hurt the team’s success. Plus, you're essentially ripping away their scholarship after they played well enough all season to put you in the bowl and apparently you feel will be missed if they won’t/can’t play? Won’t happen, ever. One of those fantasy world ideas that have no basis in reality.

[Camo_Cat]

So all you NIL experts, will the founders start to put clauses in agreements to claw back money if they skip Bowl games?

Good point. Was watching the DirecTV Holiday Bowl last night. Both teams - USC & Louisville - had a bunch of guys not playing because they entered the portal or had declared for the draft. Do boosters want their money going to athletes who won't even finish a full season with their team?

Not a NIL expert but I would think being a member of the team would be a prerequisite for any payments. Claw back..no. Once paid, the money is gone.

I like this guy's take on opt-outs of bowl games and playoff games....

https://mikefarrellsports.com/college/w ... zjKGPB9tTw

[Long Time Cat]

So all you NIL experts, will the founders start to put clauses in agreements to claw back money if they skip Bowl games?

Good point. Was watching the DirecTV Holiday Bowl last night. Both teams - USC & Louisville - had a bunch of guys not playing because they entered the portal or had declared for the draft. Do boosters want their money going to athletes who won't even finish a full season with their team?

Not a NIL expert but I would think being a member of the team would be a prerequisite for any payments. Claw back..no. Once paid, the money is gone.

I like this guy's take on opt-outs of bowl games and playoff games....

https://mikefarrellsports.com/college/w ... zjKGPB9tTw

The one of those that should be the case already is 5. It truly seems like a no brainer.

5. And finally, we won’t be paying for your travel to our bowl game, you won’t be allowed on the sidelines even if you pay your own way and you won’t be getting any of the gifts/perks from our bowl sponsor. This is all for bowl participants only.

[kennethnoisewater]

So all you NIL experts, will the founders start to put clauses in agreements to claw back money if they skip Bowl games?

Good point. Was watching the DirecTV Holiday Bowl last night. Both teams - USC & Louisville - had a bunch of guys not playing because they entered the portal or had declared for the draft. Do boosters want their money going to athletes who won't even finish a full season with their team?

Not a NIL expert but I would think being a member of the team would be a prerequisite for any payments. Claw back..no. Once paid, the money is gone.

I like this guy's take on opt-outs of bowl games and playoff games....

https://mikefarrellsports.com/college/w ... zjKGPB9tTw

The one of those that should be the case already is 5. It truly seems like a no brainer.

5. And finally, we won’t be paying for your travel to our bowl game, you won’t be allowed on the sidelines even if you pay your own way and you won’t be getting any of the gifts/perks from our bowl sponsor. This is all for bowl participants only.

It all seems like a no brainer to me. We've gotten to this place where a full scholarship isn't worth enough...even though college is more expensive than ever. I'm not saying players shouldn't be able to profit off their name, image and likeness; I like the concept and think we need to keep it with some adjustments. I get it, there's a lot of money at stake in terms of NFL contracts. But maybe the players or the NFLPA need to be responsible for paying back SOMEBODY. I just think there needs to be a consequence for sitting out, and yes I know it's going to be hard to tell a kid who's actually injured to sit out. So I don't think this will ever work, because the first time a guy aggravates an injury that the team knew about and it prevents him from being drafted, the whole thing blows up.

But here's a possible silver lining to this: This was easily the worst bowl season I have ever seen. So many uninteresting games. I have been hoping for years that people who love college (amateur) football were going to lose interest in the highest level of "college" football and start following the lower levels. I say let the Power-5/4 keep their 12 team playoff and that will be fun to watch. The other bowl games will continue to be dogsh!t and people will quit watching. Reconfigure the rest of Division I football to include the rest of the FBS and some of the more serious FCS programs, and have a 24 team tournament at the end of the season. People are going to watch the FBS playoffs, obviously, and MSU isn't sniffing that level in the next 50 years, if ever. Play those games on Saturdays in December and January, and play the FCS/G5 games on Thursdays and Fridays. If it means adding G5 schools to the FCS or moving a dozen or so programs from the FCS up to the G5, it doesn't matter.

[RockyBearCat]

The one of those that should be the case already is 5. It truly seems like a no brainer.

5. And finally, we won’t be paying for your travel to our bowl game, you won’t be allowed on the sidelines even if you pay your own way and you won’t be getting any of the gifts/perks from our bowl sponsor. This is all for bowl participants only.

I can't believe that isn't the case already. Those guys playing and having their stars laughing it up on the sidelines should demand this.

[BleedingBLue]

Not sure where I saw it, but there is a new proposal to create a pay to play subdivision in which players would get at least 30k a year. Didn't read all the specifics but it sounded interesting.

[onceacat]

The peak scenario for a program like Liberty or any other G5 also-ran will be to get boat-raced in a road playoff game as a 12-seed. How fun. Oregon could put up 70 if they wanted.

How is that different than the current FCS playoffs? By my count, 7 out of the 22 games were blowouts (at least 3 scores).

I guess as Cat fans we are happy cause our team is winning instead of losing the blowouts?

How is that a serious question. The difference is - since this is a thread about MSU moving up, located on an MSU board, where presumably we're discussing how this relates to MSU - that currently, MSU has the potential to play for national titles. If they move up, during their best ever seasons they can aspire to getting shellacked by Bama/ Oregon/ etc. The obvious insinuation from PapaG's post was about "how fun" it would be if that were the most MSU could aspire to each season.

Kinda like getting shellacked by NDSU in the title game?

I guess I dont really see that its that big a difference.

[onceacat]

The peak scenario for a program like Liberty or any other G5 also-ran will be to get boat-raced in a road playoff game as a 12-seed. How fun. Oregon could put up 70 if they wanted.

How is that different than the current FCS playoffs? By my count, 7 out of the 22 games were blowouts (at least 3 scores).

I guess as Cat fans we are happy cause our team is winning instead of losing the blowouts?

How is that a serious question. The difference is - since this is a thread about MSU moving up, located on an MSU board, where presumably we're discussing how this relates to MSU - that currently, MSU has the potential to play for national titles. If they move up, during their best ever seasons they can aspire to getting shellacked by Bama/ Oregon/ etc. The obvious insinuation from PapaG's post was about "how fun" it would be if that were the most MSU could aspire to each season.

A chance to play for a national title that nobody cares about?

Whoop de do.

[Montanabob]

https://syndication.bleacherreport.com/ ... 4.amp.html

[coloradocat]

https://syndication.bleacherreport.com/ ... 4.amp.html

Interesting who would have played in that game this bowl season.

[AFCAT]

https://syndication.bleacherreport.com/ ... 4.amp.html

Interesting who would have played in that game this bowl season.

Do they get to wear "Champions" t-shirts like all the other bowl winners? I always laughed when a 6-6 team wears a "Champions" shirt for winning the Who Cares Bowl.

[PapaG]

The peak scenario for a program like Liberty or any other G5 also-ran will be to get boat-raced in a road playoff game as a 12-seed. How fun. Oregon could put up 70 if they wanted.

How is that different than the current FCS playoffs? By my count, 7 out of the 22 games were blowouts (at least 3 scores).

I guess as Cat fans we are happy cause our team is winning instead of losing the blowouts?

How is that a serious question. The difference is - since this is a thread about MSU moving up, located on an MSU board, where presumably we're discussing how this relates to MSU - that currently, MSU has the potential to play for national titles. If they move up, during their best ever seasons they can aspire to getting shellacked by Bama/ Oregon/ etc. The obvious insinuation from PapaG's post was about "how fun" it would be if that were the most MSU could aspire to each season.

A chance to play for a national title that nobody cares about?

Whoop de do.

Players don’t care about winning a national championship? Fans? Why do you even follow an FCS program, let alone post frequently about it? I get the vibe you feel it’s beneath you which makes it odd you spend time on it.

I’ve had season tickets to an elite P5 program (Oregon) along with an elite FCS program (MSU). Having my teams at both levels compete for national titles has been and is now for me a lot more fun than whatever fans of Sam Houston or Florida International have to look forward to this Fall.

[Long Time Cat]

https://syndication.bleacherreport.com/ ... 4.amp.html

Interesting who would have played in that game this bowl season.

There are probably 2 dozen or more bowl games already that could be called the “irrelevant bowl.” Why add another one.

[RickRund]

https://syndication.bleacherreport.com/ ... 4.amp.html

Interesting who would have played in that game this bowl season.

In fbs the bottom two were Akron at 2-10 and Kent St at 1-11.

[onceacat]

The peak scenario for a program like Liberty or any other G5 also-ran will be to get boat-raced in a road playoff game as a 12-seed. How fun. Oregon could put up 70 if they wanted.

How is that different than the current FCS playoffs? By my count, 7 out of the 22 games were blowouts (at least 3 scores).

I guess as Cat fans we are happy cause our team is winning instead of losing the blowouts?

How is that a serious question. The difference is - since this is a thread about MSU moving up, located on an MSU board, where presumably we're discussing how this relates to MSU - that currently, MSU has the potential to play for national titles. If they move up, during their best ever seasons they can aspire to getting shellacked by Bama/ Oregon/ etc. The obvious insinuation from PapaG's post was about "how fun" it would be if that were the most MSU could aspire to each season.

A chance to play for a national title that nobody cares about?

Whoop de do.

Players don’t care about winning a national championship? Fans? Why do you even follow an FCS program, let alone post frequently about it? I get the vibe you feel it’s beneath you which makes it odd you spend time on it.

I’ve had season tickets to an elite P5 program (Oregon) along with an elite FCS program (MSU). Having my teams at both levels compete for national titles has been and is now for me a lot more fun than whatever fans of Sam Houston or Florida International have to look forward to this Fall.

Players care about winning games.

It feels like you are totally misinterpreting what I'm saying. I 100% love the FCS system & the fact that it has a real playoff. I'd much rather have that system than anything FBS has (although a 12 team playoff feels about right).

But NAIA and D3 teams & fans care about their national championships too. Should MSU drop to D3 in order to win more championships? Of course not. And as FCS becomes increasingly watered down, the FCS playoffs are increasingly meaningless. Fans know it, thats why attendance is so meagre, and why TV ratings are meh.

MSU & UM should be playing sports against peer institutions like OSU, WSU, Utah State, Wyoming, Colorado State etc instead of Portland State, Dixie State, Stetson, Southeast Missouri, Western Illinios, etc.