Thought this be interesting for a number of people.

A few years ago asked the question differently and was more focused on attendance issues on the MAC board. Buffalo fans said the excitement wore off after several successful seasons and it was until this past year they started performing well. South Alabama is performing well so like to hear their story along with other schools.

My gut tells me the program was on an upswing going into transition with same good coaching staff. Like to ask what makes it successful. Are able to successful recruit at the next level. How has dollars changed, from the university, any athletic fee increases, donations changed from the fans and business community? Any facility issues, attendance trending etc. What were the scheduling philosophy or were there financial pressures for buy games. Were there any adjustments after the transition year?

For USA, its been pretty smooth for us. We had a lot of advantages that other moveups did not have.

1) When we started our program, we knew exactly when we'd be moving up as we had a place to play
2) We didn't have to build a stadium as the City of Mobile gave us a free place to play
3) Being in a hot recruiting area, we've not had too many scheduling issues
4) We have been helped by moving up with a group of other moveups

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1) Donations to USA have increased, but its not clear that it was football related. USA received a 50 million dollar donation last year from a single, private, donor.
2) Athletic fees have gone up, but USA is still very inexpensive
3) Attendance has been 'meh', but two years ago we stunk (2-11), and last year, our home games were marred by awful weather (1 game was during a Hurricane Watch, another was in a 40 degree rainstorm, etc.

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I don't know what USA's scheduling philosophy is. It does look like USA does participate in selling one game per year to a P5 team. We avoid FCS teams (we only played one last year as we needed a last minute replacement when the SBC schedule fell by one game due to defections).

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As far as success, I think we want to increase our attendance next year (which we should do as we host Troy, Mississippi State, and Navy), have a winning season, participate in a bowl game and get a plan for an On Campus Stadium ready. We are also happy in the Sun Belt.

Simple have the right coach and not have a HC who was on the downward swing while still in FCS....Set us up for failure right off the bat...Amazing we ditch the guy on downswing quickly, we hire our next HC (Taggart) and immediately we were good again....

(05-26-2014 09:31 PM)WKUFan518 Wrote:  Simple have the right coach and not have a HC who was on the downward swing while still in FCS....Set us up for failure right off the bat...Amazing we ditch the guy on downswing quickly, we hire our next HC (Taggart) and immediately we were good again....

That is encouraging, we had the same scenario, except the coach we hired was a career assistant and pissed everyone off. Hope and expect Whipple will be that good coach to turn us around. We do make references to you on how after a few years you guys turned it around.

TXST students forced the hand of the admin and voted to increase their own student fees, thus given the admin no out for funding. A lot of money from a few donors helped build new facilities (baseball, softball, T&F, stadium upgrades, etc.) along with other funding.

TXST was not a powerhouse but we were established and then hired Franchione. I suppose it put a "face" on the program. The students, fans, alums, wanted this. The transition wasn't easy but we are getting better recruiting and recruits every year. We are about to be down to the last remnants of FCS recruits so I expect another year or 2 of growing pains.

I don't downplay 6-6 in our first full FBS year but we expect more and I think I'll live to see TXST be a thorn in other teams' sides.

I also think the name change helps (sorry WT grads, it did)

Others can probably put the full out Drive to FBS in better format and wording but I hope this helps some.

(05-26-2014 09:31 PM)WKUFan518 Wrote:  Simple have the right coach and not have a HC who was on the downward swing while still in FCS....Set us up for failure right off the bat...Amazing we ditch the guy on downswing quickly, we hire our next HC (Taggart) and immediately we were good again....

One mistake Western made (but turned out to be a good move for WT) was redshirting just about every player for 2 classes. So we were still playing with players we recruited to play FCS. What happen? just like most games of FBS vs FCS we stayed in a ton of games and even led going into the 4th qt in a lot of those game...

only to get wore out later in the game and end up losing. Some of those losses were on bad play calling/coaching. Others we just didn't have the size to compete for 4 qts

We thought we could compete and be about average with our FCS players. That wasn't the case but I think that move helped us over the last 3 years. A lot of the key players we had over those 3 years were recruited by our former coach and redshirted.

Generally, you increase donors for creating excitement. From the Arkansas State perspective, we've gained more donors in the last few years from our football success than we had probably done in the decade prior.

If a school has an excited fan base, such as an App or GS, a smart administration would be able to use the move to gain donations. But keep in mind both of those schools, and USA to an extent are in football towns, and are in football first places. I am not sure the same theory can be applied to Amherst. While I admittedly have never been to the Northeast, it is my understanding that College Football is not as big in that area as it is down south, and not to mention that Umass has always been a basketball first school.

(05-26-2014 10:07 PM)CatMom Wrote:  TXST students forced the hand of the admin and voted to increase their own student fees, thus given the admin no out for funding.

That's virtually the same thing that happened at USA. The students started a petition and voted to increase fees for football. There were a couple of halfhearted attempts by the school to start football back in the early 90's, but there really wasn't much support. I think that there was a set goal of 6000 or so season tickets to be sold before starting a program, but there was virtually no advertising and no real push from the admins outside of the AD. If it wasn't for the students' vote, we probably wouldn't have football.

As for being successful, I agree that getting the right coach is the most important thing. Joey Jones didn't have a lot of experience at the college level (even though he was the first coach at Birmingham Southern), but he was a well thought of home town guy, well liked, and just fits the part.

(05-26-2014 10:43 PM)HCJag Wrote:  

(05-26-2014 10:07 PM)CatMom Wrote:  TXST students forced the hand of the admin and voted to increase their own student fees, thus given the admin no out for funding.

That's virtually the same thing that happened at USA. The students started a petition and voted to increase fees for football. There were a couple of halfhearted attempts by the school to start football back in the early 90's, but there really wasn't much support. I think that there was a set goal of 6000 or so season tickets to be sold before starting a program, but there was virtually no advertising and no real push from the admins outside of the AD. If it wasn't for the students' vote, we probably wouldn't have football.

As for being successful, I agree that getting the right coach is the most important thing. Joey Jones didn't have a lot of experience at the college level (even though he was the first coach at Birmingham Southern), but he was a well thought of home town guy, well liked, and just fits the part.

Just emulate what Georgia Southern does in the next 3 years!

Georgia Southern does have a lot of advantages.
Expanding the stadium before the move is a great move .
The expansion helps the feeling of stepping up and builds excitement.
Texas State is a similar situation giving fans the big time feel.

Idaho Won a bowl game in its third year . That would have been the time to expand seating.
UMass moving up while changing stadiums is unique.
I see Gillette as a big plus for one game a year. Gillette would have been a good option for half the games if UMass started in the Big East. Seems like adding some end zone seating to get to twenty thousand would have been done. I am pulling for UMASS independence is tough on a program. UMASS can turn it around they have won before .

Biggest fail is how apathetic our AD is. When you compare his passion to taht of UTSAs you really get a sense of why or donantions and attendance is good but not as high as some expect. You can tell this wasn't a part of his plan while being AD but his hand was forced by the students. If we could do one thing diferent it would have been to have an AD in place with the same passion as the student base that voted to pursue FBS football.

I think the biggest thing we got right was the stadium expansion. It looks great and next level. Doesn't have the erector set look that many smaller schools have. Really proud of the stadium and it helps recruiting as well.

(05-26-2014 11:38 PM)CatMom Wrote:  

LOL!!!

(05-27-2014 08:37 AM)slycat Wrote:  Biggest fail is how apathetic our AD is. When you compare his passion to taht of UTSAs you really get a sense of why or donantions and attendance is good but not as high as some expect. You can tell this wasn't a part of his plan while being AD but his hand was forced by the students. If we could do one thing diferent it would have been to have an AD in place with the same passion as the student base that voted to pursue FBS football.

This was the case for us as well. We had a President who spent 10 years growing the academic side and not touching the athletic side (which is great for the academic side) and an AD who was basically hired to make the budget get in the black.

Both did a great job at what they were doing but the AD pissed off entire conferences and fans when discussions of FBS came up.

Once we got a new president on board we had a student vote for an FBS move. The old AD was basically pushed out of the way. He "retired" about two years ago. Now our new AD is younger and hungry. He's making lots of changes (that seem to be for the better, not just for change sake). I don't know how long he'll be AD at Georgia Southern but he's working to make this move successful so he can jump to a bigger school in a few years.

(05-27-2014 11:29 AM)panama Wrote:  

(05-26-2014 11:38 PM)CatMom Wrote:  

LOL!!!

By the way, I always imagine these pronouncements coming from this guy:

Feel like we had a good AD that got complacent and petered out. You will probably
have some defenders come on here to say it's not true, but that is the way a lot of
people see it. He even finagled a contract extension before our old chancellor left.
Few seemed to believe it justified. We need new energy.

(05-27-2014 08:39 AM)slycat Wrote:  I think the biggest thing we got right was the stadium expansion. It looks great and next level. Doesn't have the erector set look that many smaller schools have. Really proud of the stadium and it helps recruiting as well.

Yea, your stadium is drool worthy. Props.

(05-27-2014 11:31 AM)southern edumacation Wrote:  

(05-27-2014 08:37 AM)slycat Wrote:  Biggest fail is how apathetic our AD is. When you compare his passion to taht of UTSAs you really get a sense of why or donantions and attendance is good but not as high as some expect. You can tell this wasn't a part of his plan while being AD but his hand was forced by the students. If we could do one thing diferent it would have been to have an AD in place with the same passion as the student base that voted to pursue FBS football.

This was the case for us as well. We had a President who spent 10 years growing the academic side and not touching the athletic side (which is great for the academic side) and an AD who was basically hired to make the budget get in the black.

Both did a great job at what they were doing but the AD pissed off entire conferences and fans when discussions of FBS came up.

Once we got a new president on board we had a student vote for an FBS move. The old AD was basically pushed out of the way. He "retired" about two years ago. Now our new AD is younger and hungry. He's making lots of changes (that seem to be for the better, not just for change sake). I don't know how long he'll be AD at Georgia Southern but he's working to make this move successful so he can jump to a bigger school in a few years.

At least you got a new AD. We still have a President focused on academics (which is good) and the same AD who makes it seem like this is all a burden. Who knows maybe he is excited and working hard everyday but the public image hes created sure doesn't seem that way.

(05-27-2014 02:54 PM)slycat Wrote:  

(05-27-2014 11:31 AM)southern edumacation Wrote:  

(05-27-2014 08:37 AM)slycat Wrote:  Biggest fail is how apathetic our AD is. When you compare his passion to taht of UTSAs you really get a sense of why or donantions and attendance is good but not as high as some expect. You can tell this wasn't a part of his plan while being AD but his hand was forced by the students. If we could do one thing diferent it would have been to have an AD in place with the same passion as the student base that voted to pursue FBS football.

This was the case for us as well. We had a President who spent 10 years growing the academic side and not touching the athletic side (which is great for the academic side) and an AD who was basically hired to make the budget get in the black.

Both did a great job at what they were doing but the AD pissed off entire conferences and fans when discussions of FBS came up.

Once we got a new president on board we had a student vote for an FBS move. The old AD was basically pushed out of the way. He "retired" about two years ago. Now our new AD is younger and hungry. He's making lots of changes (that seem to be for the better, not just for change sake). I don't know how long he'll be AD at Georgia Southern but he's working to make this move successful so he can jump to a bigger school in a few years.

At least you got a new AD. We still have a President focused on academics (which is good) and the same AD who makes it seem like this is all a burden. Who knows maybe he is excited and working hard everyday but the public image hes created sure doesn't seem that way.

Makes me grateful for the guy we have. The only thing I can ask for improvement from him is I hope this football hire is a little better than last year's.