(01-15-2015 12:45 PM)cdsniner Wrote:  

(01-15-2015 12:27 PM)Flat Tire 2 Wrote:  In Virginia, you can go the UVA or VA Tech if you want college athletics. Those schools don't take much money, if any, from tuition to pay for their programs.

I'm assuming by your comment that those schools have 100% acceptance rates.

It should not matter what level of football you are playing if you are looking out for the students the cap on what percentage of student fees that can be used toward athletics should be the same. For that reason this does come off as sour grapes from the JMU grad to me.

Thats exactly what it is. Like I said above...if you look closely at the bill it truly only only targets FBS (ODU) to 20%. For FCS (JMU) the bill cites 70%. JMU not getting the invite for FBS wants to keep that 70% but wants to stick it to ODU for making the jump to FBS without them. If the ODU fans and administration cant see what the JMU grad is trying to pull off then I have some Ocean front property in Arizona that I will sell for cheap. Just PM me if interested.

Playing devil's advocate, why would the JMU grad want to make it harder (impossible?) for JMU to make the move eventually? Would be pretty short-sided to do this out of spite to ODU. It would kill JMU ever making the jump.

(01-15-2015 01:36 PM)galojah Wrote:  Playing devil's advocate, why would the JMU grad want to make it harder (impossible?) for JMU to make the move eventually? Would be pretty short-sided to do this out of spite to ODU. It would kill JMU ever making the jump.

I believe that is why a previous poster said that he is posturing. I'm guessing the hope is the folks at ODU would help them get a CUSA invite.

(01-15-2015 11:53 AM)ThreeifbyLightning Wrote:  

(01-14-2015 10:35 PM)FriscoDawg Wrote:  IMO no more than 50% of a university's athletic revenues should come from student fees or non-self generated sources. That is the standard that every C-USA member should be working to reach or to maintain if already there.

It's convenient you picked a round number that's closest to what La Tech is doing. This should be an institutional decision not a conference decision.

As this new world order of athletics reigns upon us I will be very interested in how your school is able to remain competitive across the board.

Your budget is half of ODU's and 25% less than the mid tier of the conference. I have talked about this before (and studied it extensively) on how budgets are directly correlated to long-term sustained competitiveness. So, far Tech has hung in there pretty admirably if look over a very small sample of time, but as we go forward I see Tech as a school that is going to be challenged to maintain a competitive balance with this league.

This league always has been one where the schools grow their budgets over time and almost all the schools who have come in recently fit this profile. If Tech continues to try to do this on the cheap I think you're going to find it becoming increasingly difficult to be competitive consistently unless you pour of preponderance of your budget into one sport like Marshall does and only care about that one sport.

Hmm...interesting points. I have three questions.

1.) What is a "very small sample of time?" 6 years? Granted LTU did not have success from 2002-2007. I count 1997-2001 as very successful. So what is the sample size?

2.) What is success? And are we talking about "success" as football only or....?

3.) Can you point to current CUSA members who fit this model? Better yet, can you point to current CUSA members who consistently in the top 25% of the league and never achieved this mythical standard of "success?"

I'm not disagreeing or tearing down your points at all. I just want to understand your metrics here.

(01-14-2015 10:49 PM)paintedblue2 Wrote:  

(01-14-2015 10:35 PM)FriscoDawg Wrote:  IMO no more than 50% of a university's athletic revenues should come from student fees or non-self generated sources. That is the standard that every C-USA member should be working to reach or to maintain if already there.

The Bill proposes to cap it at 20%. What really galls me is that like many states the Commonwealth of VA. has been steadily defunding higher education for years, thereby shifting financial burdens on to students in the form of increased fees. In the case of ODU increases in student fees have been driven more by state defunding than by athletics. This Bill's sponsor, Delegate Cox (a JMU grad) is posturing.

Our Governor has floated cutting 350 Million from higher education to balance his budget. Because Higher Education is not protected like other programs in the budget, it and Hospitals are always the first to get cut. It also doesn't help that we have about 6 too many Universities in the state.

(01-15-2015 11:53 AM)ThreeifbyLightning Wrote:  

(01-14-2015 10:35 PM)FriscoDawg Wrote:  IMO no more than 50% of a university's athletic revenues should come from student fees or non-self generated sources. That is the standard that every C-USA member should be working to reach or to maintain if already there.

It's convenient you picked a round number that's closest to what La Tech is doing. This should be an institutional decision not a conference decision.

As this new world order of athletics reigns upon us I will be very interested in how your school is able to remain competitive across the board.

Your budget is half of ODU's and 25% less than the mid tier of the conference. I have talked about this before (and studied it extensively) on how budgets are directly correlated to long-term sustained competitiveness. So, far Tech has hung in there pretty admirably if look over a very small sample of time, but as we go forward I see Tech as a school that is going to be challenged to maintain a competitive balance with this league.

This league always has been one where the schools grow their budgets over time and almost all the schools who have come in recently fit this profile. If Tech continues to try to do this on the cheap I think you're going to find it becoming increasingly difficult to be competitive consistently unless you pour of preponderance of your budget into one sport like Marshall does and only care about that one sport.

I think Tech has maintained success despite our small budget. If we had ODU's budget its scary to think were and what we could do. We have certain inherent advantages that schools like MTSU doesn't have and will probably keep us competitive in the long run. We are also growing our budget to fit the needs of CUSA.

(01-15-2015 01:36 PM)galojah Wrote:  Playing devil's advocate, why would the JMU grad want to make it harder (impossible?) for JMU to make the move eventually? Would be pretty short-sided to do this out of spite to ODU. It would kill JMU ever making the jump.

Maybe because the door on JMU to FBS has been closed? I dont know for sure. Just speculating. The propose gap between FBS (20%) and FCS (70%) is pretty wide.

(01-15-2015 02:14 PM)MUHERD76 Wrote:  

(01-15-2015 01:36 PM)galojah Wrote:  Playing devil's advocate, why would the JMU grad want to make it harder (impossible?) for JMU to make the move eventually? Would be pretty short-sided to do this out of spite to ODU. It would kill JMU ever making the jump.

Maybe because the door on JMU to FBS has been closed? I dont know for sure. Just speculating. The propose gap between FBS (20%) and FCS (70%) is pretty wide.

Lawmakers bring up stupid bills all the time. Sometimes they doing to get a point across, sometimes to garner attention, sometimes it just because its the right thing to do. I think this bill is designed to get somebody's attention. Whose, I don't know.

(01-15-2015 02:14 PM)MUHERD76 Wrote:  

(01-15-2015 01:36 PM)galojah Wrote:  Playing devil's advocate, why would the JMU grad want to make it harder (impossible?) for JMU to make the move eventually? Would be pretty short-sided to do this out of spite to ODU. It would kill JMU ever making the jump.

Maybe because the door on JMU to FBS has been closed? I dont know for sure. Just speculating. The propose gap between FBS (20%) and FCS (70%) is pretty wide.

Not disagreeing that the door has closed, but this guy is also on record as consistently being in the loudest of the vocal minority of JMU folks against JMU moving up. In fact, if anything he seems to be enjoying using his position to try to usurp whatever decisions/plans are being discussed/made by JMU's admin and BOV (though I tend to agree those plans don't mean much now when you've already missed the boat).

(01-15-2015 01:54 PM)papa_dawg Wrote:  

(01-15-2015 11:53 AM)ThreeifbyLightning Wrote:  

(01-14-2015 10:35 PM)FriscoDawg Wrote:  IMO no more than 50% of a university's athletic revenues should come from student fees or non-self generated sources. That is the standard that every C-USA member should be working to reach or to maintain if already there.

It's convenient you picked a round number that's closest to what La Tech is doing. This should be an institutional decision not a conference decision.

As this new world order of athletics reigns upon us I will be very interested in how your school is able to remain competitive across the board.

Your budget is half of ODU's and 25% less than the mid tier of the conference. I have talked about this before (and studied it extensively) on how budgets are directly correlated to long-term sustained competitiveness. So, far Tech has hung in there pretty admirably if look over a very small sample of time, but as we go forward I see Tech as a school that is going to be challenged to maintain a competitive balance with this league.

This league always has been one where the schools grow their budgets over time and almost all the schools who have come in recently fit this profile. If Tech continues to try to do this on the cheap I think you're going to find it becoming increasingly difficult to be competitive consistently unless you pour of preponderance of your budget into one sport like Marshall does and only care about that one sport.

Hmm...interesting points. I have three questions.

1.) What is a "very small sample of time?" 6 years? Granted LTU did not have success from 2002-2007. I count 1997-2001 as very successful. So what is the sample size?

2.) What is success? And are we talking about "success" as football only or....?

3.) Can you point to current CUSA members who fit this model? Better yet, can you point to current CUSA members who consistently in the top 25% of the league and never achieved this mythical standard of "success?"

I'm not disagreeing or tearing down your points at all. I just want to understand your metrics here.

No, fair question. I guess that's for each school/alum/fan to decide on their own. Personally, I don't look at just football, but again I suppose you could if you were so inclined and it was intentional that something like 80% of your budget was going to it and the leadership didn't care about anything else.

So, if we look at things over time let's say 20 to 25 years when is the last time you went to the NCAA Tournament in basketball or how many times during that period? Conference championships? What's your number of seasons in football with seven or more wins and similarly conference titles during that time. If you only have two/three conference titles during that span is that success? And then so on for all the other sports. Again, that's really not my call it's in the eye of the beholder. We only have two since '98 so not good enough for me. Mine may be different than yours. Maybe you only care about one sport?

Personally, I like having a well-rounded athletics program, but only to a degree. Football, basketball and then baseball to a lesser degree are far more important IMO because they carry the flag for the university.

But the more salient point I believe I was attempting to make was more about the future than the past and if you feel like your university can deliver what you want them to with a budget under $20 million then a tip of the hat if they can. However, in my personal view I don't believe an athletic dept can be consistently good even in one sport if they are spending less than $20 million. There just isn't enough to go around to support 16/17 sports which are mandatory to stay Division I -- even if you only support those other sports the minimum possible.

This bill is nothing more than a blatant attempt to harm Old Dominion. The proposed caps would require little to no action in order to be met by almost every school, except for one: ODU.

Somehow playing FBS football means that ODU needs to reduce it's portion of student fees in its budget from ~70% to 20% but schools like VCU and JMU are allowed to continue to rely on a budget subsidized by 70% student fees.

I'm not concerned about this bill one bit. It will not pass and certainly not in its current language would it make it out of the General Assembly. This isn't the first state politician to take a shot at ODU's football ambitions, and likely not the last.
There is a lot of bad blood and hurt feelings from ODU's departure from the CAA and it's rebirth of football, as our former foes cannot stand to see the type of success ODU has had to date in football and basketball. ODU will be fine.

(01-15-2015 03:59 PM)ThreeifbyLightning Wrote:  

(01-15-2015 01:54 PM)papa_dawg Wrote:  

(01-15-2015 11:53 AM)ThreeifbyLightning Wrote:  

(01-14-2015 10:35 PM)FriscoDawg Wrote:  IMO no more than 50% of a university's athletic revenues should come from student fees or non-self generated sources. That is the standard that every C-USA member should be working to reach or to maintain if already there.

It's convenient you picked a round number that's closest to what La Tech is doing. This should be an institutional decision not a conference decision.

As this new world order of athletics reigns upon us I will be very interested in how your school is able to remain competitive across the board.

Your budget is half of ODU's and 25% less than the mid tier of the conference. I have talked about this before (and studied it extensively) on how budgets are directly correlated to long-term sustained competitiveness. So, far Tech has hung in there pretty admirably if look over a very small sample of time, but as we go forward I see Tech as a school that is going to be challenged to maintain a competitive balance with this league.

This league always has been one where the schools grow their budgets over time and almost all the schools who have come in recently fit this profile. If Tech continues to try to do this on the cheap I think you're going to find it becoming increasingly difficult to be competitive consistently unless you pour of preponderance of your budget into one sport like Marshall does and only care about that one sport.

Hmm...interesting points. I have three questions.

1.) What is a "very small sample of time?" 6 years? Granted LTU did not have success from 2002-2007. I count 1997-2001 as very successful. So what is the sample size?

2.) What is success? And are we talking about "success" as football only or....?

3.) Can you point to current CUSA members who fit this model? Better yet, can you point to current CUSA members who consistently in the top 25% of the league and never achieved this mythical standard of "success?"

I'm not disagreeing or tearing down your points at all. I just want to understand your metrics here.

No, fair question. I guess that's for each school/alum/fan to decide on their own. Personally, I don't look at just football, but again I suppose you could if you were so inclined and it was intentional that something like 80% of your budget was going to it and the leadership didn't care about anything else.

So, if we look at things over time let's say 20 to 25 years when is the last time you went to the NCAA Tournament in basketball or how many times during that period? Conference championships? What's your number of seasons in football with seven or more wins and similarly conference titles during that time. If you only have two/three conference titles during that span is that success? And then so on for all the other sports. Again, that's really not my call it's in the eye of the beholder. We only have two since '98 so not good enough for me. Mine may be different than yours. Maybe you only care about one sport?

Personally, I like having a well-rounded athletics program, but only to a degree. Football, basketball and then baseball to a lesser degree are far more important IMO because they carry the flag for the university.

But the more salient point I believe I was attempting to make was more about the future than the past and if you feel like your university can deliver what you want them to with a budget under $20 million then a tip of the hat if they can. However, in my personal view I don't believe an athletic dept can be consistently good even in one sport if they are spending less than $20 million. There just isn't enough to go around to support 16/17 sports which are mandatory to stay Division I -- even if you only support those other sports the minimum possible.

I personally could care less about most other sports. I hope they do well and cheer them on during NCAA tournaments but my love is for the football. Tech is 152-151-3 since joining FBs in 1989. We have been to 5 bowls in that time, with several teams not getting that reward in the early years. We boast only 2 WAC titles in the decade we spent there, tied for 2nd most behind Boise. Tech boast a .56788 winning percentage over all in its football career and every coach save one has brought its team to a bowl game. The single coach that did not was Gary Crowton. The only reason several of his teams did not go to a bowl was because we were Independent. We have grown and continue to grow both monetarily and structurally. I think that the sky is the limit for us in CUSA. What on earth makes you think that we are always gonna have a 20 million dollar budget??

(01-15-2015 12:27 PM)Flat Tire 2 Wrote:  In the Commonwealth of VA, it alrady against the law to use tax dollars to build athletic facilities; so Virginia has a history "against" college athletic spending. I think you will see some sort of action to lower the amount of student fees going to athletics at some point in the near future. JMHO.

You can debate the value of athletics, but the parents of students are looking for lower tuition costs. In Virginia, you can go the UVA or VA Tech if you want college athletics. Those schools don't take much money, if any, from tuition to pay for their programs.

Yeah, because they are in the cartel conferences. If the SEC or ACC come calling and invite all the CUSA schools to join, they yeah, I think we could take that money and reduce fees. Otherwise this is just some jerkwad trying to make the rich richer and keep the have nots from making any forward progress.

(01-15-2015 04:40 PM)monarx Wrote:  

(01-15-2015 12:27 PM)Flat Tire 2 Wrote:  In the Commonwealth of VA, it alrady against the law to use tax dollars to build athletic facilities; so Virginia has a history "against" college athletic spending. I think you will see some sort of action to lower the amount of student fees going to athletics at some point in the near future. JMHO.

You can debate the value of athletics, but the parents of students are looking for lower tuition costs. In Virginia, you can go the UVA or VA Tech if you want college athletics. Those schools don't take much money, if any, from tuition to pay for their programs.

Yeah, because they are in the cartel conferences. If the SEC or ACC come calling and invite all the CUSA schools to join, they yeah, I think we could take that money and reduce fees. Otherwise this is just some jerkwad trying to make the rich richer and keep the have nots from making any forward progress.

Its a very typical tactic. These major conferences dole out mega bucks to their schools from tv contracts. Thats were a lot of seperation comes from.

(01-15-2015 04:38 PM)pilot172000 Wrote:  

(01-15-2015 03:59 PM)ThreeifbyLightning Wrote:  

(01-15-2015 01:54 PM)papa_dawg Wrote:  

(01-15-2015 11:53 AM)ThreeifbyLightning Wrote:  

(01-14-2015 10:35 PM)FriscoDawg Wrote:  IMO no more than 50% of a university's athletic revenues should come from student fees or non-self generated sources. That is the standard that every C-USA member should be working to reach or to maintain if already there.

It's convenient you picked a round number that's closest to what La Tech is doing. This should be an institutional decision not a conference decision.

As this new world order of athletics reigns upon us I will be very interested in how your school is able to remain competitive across the board.

Your budget is half of ODU's and 25% less than the mid tier of the conference. I have talked about this before (and studied it extensively) on how budgets are directly correlated to long-term sustained competitiveness. So, far Tech has hung in there pretty admirably if look over a very small sample of time, but as we go forward I see Tech as a school that is going to be challenged to maintain a competitive balance with this league.

This league always has been one where the schools grow their budgets over time and almost all the schools who have come in recently fit this profile. If Tech continues to try to do this on the cheap I think you're going to find it becoming increasingly difficult to be competitive consistently unless you pour of preponderance of your budget into one sport like Marshall does and only care about that one sport.

Hmm...interesting points. I have three questions.

1.) What is a "very small sample of time?" 6 years? Granted LTU did not have success from 2002-2007. I count 1997-2001 as very successful. So what is the sample size?

2.) What is success? And are we talking about "success" as football only or....?

3.) Can you point to current CUSA members who fit this model? Better yet, can you point to current CUSA members who consistently in the top 25% of the league and never achieved this mythical standard of "success?"

I'm not disagreeing or tearing down your points at all. I just want to understand your metrics here.

No, fair question. I guess that's for each school/alum/fan to decide on their own. Personally, I don't look at just football, but again I suppose you could if you were so inclined and it was intentional that something like 80% of your budget was going to it and the leadership didn't care about anything else.

So, if we look at things over time let's say 20 to 25 years when is the last time you went to the NCAA Tournament in basketball or how many times during that period? Conference championships? What's your number of seasons in football with seven or more wins and similarly conference titles during that time. If you only have two/three conference titles during that span is that success? And then so on for all the other sports. Again, that's really not my call it's in the eye of the beholder. We only have two since '98 so not good enough for me. Mine may be different than yours. Maybe you only care about one sport?

Personally, I like having a well-rounded athletics program, but only to a degree. Football, basketball and then baseball to a lesser degree are far more important IMO because they carry the flag for the university.

But the more salient point I believe I was attempting to make was more about the future than the past and if you feel like your university can deliver what you want them to with a budget under $20 million then a tip of the hat if they can. However, in my personal view I don't believe an athletic dept can be consistently good even in one sport if they are spending less than $20 million. There just isn't enough to go around to support 16/17 sports which are mandatory to stay Division I -- even if you only support those other sports the minimum possible.

I personally could care less about most other sports. I hope they do well and cheer them on during NCAA tournaments but my love is for the football. Tech is 152-151-3 since joining FBs in 1989. We have been to 5 bowls in that time, with several teams not getting that reward in the early years. We boast only 2 WAC titles in the decade we spent there, tied for 2nd most behind Boise. Tech boast a .56788 winning percentage over all in its football career and every coach save one has brought its team to a bowl game. The single coach that did not was Gary Crowton. The only reason several of his teams did not go to a bowl was because we were Independent. We have grown and continue to grow both monetarily and structurally. I think that the sky is the limit for us in CUSA. What on earth makes you think that we are always gonna have a 20 million dollar budget??

That $20 million figure is a moving number. It's 20 now. A few years from now it will be 25. But everyone is going to be growing their budgets too, so this is not a static figure or number. You may break $20 million next year but everyone else may be breaking $30 or whatever the case may be. It's all relative.

Unless I'm mistaken Tech has the lowest budget of any school in the league. And I have already answered the key element that's hidden within the question you are really raising. In most cases budget has a direct correlation to performance such as championships, postseason, etc. So, if you only care about football and then maybe a higher percentage of Tech money goes into football than any other school in the league then you end up being financially competitive in football and not much else. If we're just talking football I honestly don't know what percentage of Tech's budget goes to football as opposed to other schools in the league or if it's a much higher percentage than the other schools in the league. But as an athletic dept as a whole Tech's budget is not line with the median of the league. So, that's why I think it will be interesting to observe where you guys go from here and how you're able to a) compete across the board in the league and b)grow that budget going forward. I actually believe C-USA will help you guys in that regard much moreso than it did when you were in the WAC.

ODU should be concerned by this unless they have some of their own folks in the state legislature to fight back which I'm sure they probably do. Whether the motivations of it are legit or not, it's certainly never stopped stupid stuff from passing before regardless of what state it is.

(01-15-2015 04:05 PM)monarchoptimist Wrote:  This bill is nothing more than a blatant attempt to harm Old Dominion. The proposed caps would require little to no action in order to be met by almost every school, except for one: ODU.

Somehow playing FBS football means that ODU needs to reduce it's portion of student fees in its budget from ~70% to 20% but schools like VCU and JMU are allowed to continue to rely on a budget subsidized by 70% student fees.

Very well said. Exactly my point in my prior posts and I agree.

One thing is for sure....whether this goes through or not, the JMU fans can thank that politician/JMU alum for destroying any dream of getting into CUSA with ODU. I think its very likely that ODU would yank any future support of them getting in. That door would be forever closed. Real stupid move on the Politiican/JMU alum's part IMO.

(01-15-2015 10:13 PM)MUHERD76 Wrote:  

(01-15-2015 04:05 PM)monarchoptimist Wrote:  This bill is nothing more than a blatant attempt to harm Old Dominion. The proposed caps would require little to no action in order to be met by almost every school, except for one: ODU.

Somehow playing FBS football means that ODU needs to reduce it's portion of student fees in its budget from ~70% to 20% but schools like VCU and JMU are allowed to continue to rely on a budget subsidized by 70% student fees.

Very well said. Exactly my point in my prior posts and I agree.

One thing is for sure....whether this goes through or not, the JMU fans can thank that politician/JMU alum for destroying any dream of getting into CUSA with ODU. I think its very likely that ODU would yank any future support of them getting in. That door would be forever closed. Real stupid move on the Politiican/JMU alum's part IMO.

The delegate in question has been a vocal critic of JMU moving up. He doesn't want it and knows that this bill would kill any chance of it happening and would kill any chance of ODU staying.

It's intended to break those programs because the 50% difference in FCS and FBS rates is arbitrary, ODU football more or less breaks even so its FBS status is irrelevant.

(01-15-2015 03:59 PM)ThreeifbyLightning Wrote:  

(01-15-2015 01:54 PM)papa_dawg Wrote:  

(01-15-2015 11:53 AM)ThreeifbyLightning Wrote:  

(01-14-2015 10:35 PM)FriscoDawg Wrote:  IMO no more than 50% of a university's athletic revenues should come from student fees or non-self generated sources. That is the standard that every C-USA member should be working to reach or to maintain if already there.

It's convenient you picked a round number that's closest to what La Tech is doing. This should be an institutional decision not a conference decision.

As this new world order of athletics reigns upon us I will be very interested in how your school is able to remain competitive across the board.

Your budget is half of ODU's and 25% less than the mid tier of the conference. I have talked about this before (and studied it extensively) on how budgets are directly correlated to long-term sustained competitiveness. So, far Tech has hung in there pretty admirably if look over a very small sample of time, but as we go forward I see Tech as a school that is going to be challenged to maintain a competitive balance with this league.

This league always has been one where the schools grow their budgets over time and almost all the schools who have come in recently fit this profile. If Tech continues to try to do this on the cheap I think you're going to find it becoming increasingly difficult to be competitive consistently unless you pour of preponderance of your budget into one sport like Marshall does and only care about that one sport.

Hmm...interesting points. I have three questions.

1.) What is a "very small sample of time?" 6 years? Granted LTU did not have success from 2002-2007. I count 1997-2001 as very successful. So what is the sample size?

2.) What is success? And are we talking about "success" as football only or....?

3.) Can you point to current CUSA members who fit this model? Better yet, can you point to current CUSA members who consistently in the top 25% of the league and never achieved this mythical standard of "success?"

I'm not disagreeing or tearing down your points at all. I just want to understand your metrics here.

No, fair question. I guess that's for each school/alum/fan to decide on their own. Personally, I don't look at just football, but again I suppose you could if you were so inclined and it was intentional that something like 80% of your budget was going to it and the leadership didn't care about anything else.

So, if we look at things over time let's say 20 to 25 years when is the last time you went to the NCAA Tournament in basketball or how many times during that period? Conference championships? What's your number of seasons in football with seven or more wins and similarly conference titles during that time. If you only have two/three conference titles during that span is that success? And then so on for all the other sports. Again, that's really not my call it's in the eye of the beholder. We only have two since '98 so not good enough for me. Mine may be different than yours. Maybe you only care about one sport?

Personally, I like having a well-rounded athletics program, but only to a degree. Football, basketball and then baseball to a lesser degree are far more important IMO because they carry the flag for the university.

But the more salient point I believe I was attempting to make was more about the future than the past and if you feel like your university can deliver what you want them to with a budget under $20 million then a tip of the hat if they can. However, in my personal view I don't believe an athletic dept can be consistently good even in one sport if they are spending less than $20 million. There just isn't enough to go around to support 16/17 sports which are mandatory to stay Division I -- even if you only support those other sports the minimum possible.

Understood. You guys have been successful in tennis too. Several of those years in the last 20 we were FBS independent and would have won a few conference championships because those were some of our better teams. I agree that we need to raise our budget, and as many new opportunities as I've been asked to participate in recently I'd say increasing our budget is a top priority for this administration. But like you said, our success given the size of our budget is admirable.

(01-15-2015 01:11 PM)MUHERD76 Wrote:  

(01-15-2015 12:45 PM)cdsniner Wrote:  

(01-15-2015 12:27 PM)Flat Tire 2 Wrote:  In Virginia, you can go the UVA or VA Tech if you want college athletics. Those schools don't take much money, if any, from tuition to pay for their programs.

I'm assuming by your comment that those schools have 100% acceptance rates.

It should not matter what level of football you are playing if you are looking out for the students the cap on what percentage of student fees that can be used toward athletics should be the same. For that reason this does come off as sour grapes from the JMU grad to me.

Thats exactly what it is. Like I said above...if you look closely at the bill it truly only only targets FBS (ODU) to 20%. For FCS (JMU) the bill cites 70%. JMU not getting the invite for FBS wants to keep that 70% but wants to stick it to ODU for making the jump to FBS without them. If the ODU fans and administration cant see what the JMU grad is trying to pull off then I have some Ocean front property in Arizona that I will sell for cheap. Just PM me if interested.

I haven't looked at the details of the bill. There is recent study by a higher education group in VA, citing the high fees charged to students for athletics. My guess is that Cox's bill is a first attempt at reducing the fees. Cox is know as a fiscal conservative and is tying to help parents with the high cost of college. I don't it is a JMU conspiracy. VA is not WV or NC when it comes to college athletics. Citizens are upset about paying $500 to $1200 per semester supporting athletics that don't enhance their kids diploma value.

Again, the media and parents have been beating the drum about the high athletic fees. VA has a history of not supporting athletics. They now have a study by an educational group questioning the high fees. I think Cox's bill is the first attempt at reducing he costs. I know my legislator is in favor of reducing the fees and he is a graduate of Princeton.