Not arguing that RIGHT NOW, football, is what drives the athletic budget. 5 years from now we'll be looking at home football attendance at sub-9000 fans. Anyone remember the Babich years?
When that happens, the revenue that football produces will be greatly diminished. It would be wise to accept that as our future, cut funding now to get ahead of it and try to put some life into Basketball. If we don't do that, not only will our football revenue suck, our basketball team will then have less money as well.
What I wish for is an opportunity to grow football but I am a realist. If we can't grow football, then grow something else. Relying on a diminishing sport is not good.
If the FCS continues to deteriorate in terms of competition, we'll be spending a lot of money for even fewer competitive games...that will have to be taken into consideration. A declining fanbase, a declining student body, and declining competition could put us in the same position we were in back in the D2 days. Much as El Chapo will hate it, bringing back the old NCC, maybe in some sort of collaboration with some of the Big Sky schools, might be our only option.
I’m sure it’s been discussed plenty before but I don’t wish to read through 1200 pages of thread to find the answer…
What about FBS independent at this point? You might be able to schedule home and homes with the likes of UCONN/Umass/Navy, and have a whole season of road FBS games otherwise. Sure, you don’t have real long term plans, but with how volatile college football is now, you’re poised to guarantee that 2nd tier/G5 status when the whole thing continues to blow up.
I guess my general feeling (while fully admitting I’m not thinking about all the nitty gritty details/considering ALL factors) is that FCS is a slow death. Since you’re already diagnosed with a terminal ailment (FCS), you don’t have THAT much risk going FBS independent if that ends up blowing up in your face. Doing it now, increasing scholarship allotment and so forth, “communicates” to the college football world where your intentions/commitments are. I would imagine that you could embarrassingly drop back down to FCS if it didn’t work out (…Idaho for example)