Quote Originally Posted by td577 View Post
The problem with FCS is having the requirement football has to be D1 for other sports to be D1. So for 50% of FCS, it is the hobby subdivision. They don't want to invest a single dime into football more than they have to but want to have football. It has to be D1, so there we have FCS. The G5 conference schools want football, want to fund football, and are somewhat serious about putting a decent product out there or they would have gone to FCS a long time ago. The middle ground is to disconnect football from the D1 requirement for the other sports, let the scholarship capable mid-majors have their own division of football which would be a mix of the top tier of FCS and the G5 conferences, and let the schools who don't want to offer scholarships for football or reduce scholarships, play at lower divisions.

It won't work unless the G5 conferences fully realize they are not at the big boy table. It also won't work if the G5 thinks they are a super subdivision who can play alongside the big boys with premium budgets. I have said it before, but I think the future of G5 and the top schools in FCS is someplace in the middle of the two where they are not trying to match the P5 conferences dollar wise and create their own brand. Maybe it is 75 scholarships split between the 85 on the roster to save some costs. I don't know. But it will have to be a little leaner. I don't think it would drop all the way to the FCS level because too many schools would complain about what happened to Richmond and NDSU when they started getting some injuries. More Richmond, but NDSU hurt, as well. There was an issue with experienced depth or talent that a few more scholarships would have helped mitigate from the FCS level. 10 scholarships with COA and doubling it because of Title IX is somewhere in the range of $300k+.

I have also said before the G5 conferences are sitting in no man's land right now. One school gets to compete in a big boy bowl. That school isn't necessarily the best program, but the best combination of schedule and talent. You have to be good, but if you are in a weaker conference and go undefeated because you carefully selected your OOC schools, you are golden. Western Michigan had an easier schedule than NDSU this season. It isn't W.Michigan's fault two of the B10 schools they scheduled sucked really bad this year, but it goes to show you the right schedule is as important as the quality of your football team. The rest of the G5 gets the really moldy cheese regardless if they are possibly better than the Broncos.
The MAC hasn't won a bowl game yet this year 0-5, W Mich is going to get destroyed imo..