Matt Brown of Extra Points published a story today entitled, "So what's in a football feasibility study, anyway?"

According to a follow-up tweet, he even got more feasibility studies than what he initially added in his article (and may share those there?).

Anyhow, in light of the recent shakeup at the FCS level - I though it would be worthwhile amongst this group of realignment & expansion lovers to ask - what school(s) do you feel are under the most pressure to add NCAA football at their institutions?

Are these schools that have had football before? Schools that are in the geography of the conferences wheeling and dealing right now? Who are these schools in your opinion?

Quote:You know what isn’t free? Starting a college football team.
In fact, it’s really expensive! It also takes a long time, and like anything else involved with higher education, it requires an ungodly amount of paperwork.

One of the first bits of paperwork in that process, or at least, one of the first bits of paperwork that anybody outside the university hears about? The feasibility study.

If your favorite program hasn’t started the process around a feasibility study, chances are, they aren’t particularly serious about starting that program.

https://www.extrapointsmb.com/p/so-whats...easibility

FYI I just checked his twitter and him and David Street have still been going at it.

I’d say:

UTA
UALR
UNF
FGCU
GCU
UTRGV—committed to football by 2024
Kansas

I think some elements within the OVC that will push Moorehead St to switch to scholarship football.

UTRGV has not yet actually committed to football, it's still being explored by them

Whenever a "study" is done at a corporation or a university, the bottom line is that it's done to support the conclusions of whomever wanted the study to be done.

You want to show that having an FBS program would be a major benefit to your university? Then you hire someone in the business of producing studies that say that.

You want to show that it would be a terrible idea for your university to start a football team? Then you hire someone who is extremely skeptical about the value of college football.

(02-01-2021 02:05 PM)Fighting Muskie Wrote:  I’d say:

UTA
UALR
UNF
FGCU
GCU
UTRGV—committed to football by 2024
Kansas

I think some elements within the OVC that will push Moorehead St to switch to scholarship football.

I see what you did there.

Quote:If the only goal is “profitability”, or at least becoming financially self-sufficient, then these PDFs would be much smaller documents. Essentially, they would become single-paged documents that read “you should not start a college football program.”

That says it all

(02-01-2021 02:39 PM)TDenverFan Wrote:  UTRGV has not yet actually committed to football, it's still being explored by them

That report in exploring to add football was finished 2 years ago. They wasted money on hiring Mack Brown to help in that study.

If California higher ed decides to merge CSU-Bakersfield and Bakersfield Community College? Both athletics departments would merge which CSU-Bakersfield would take over the football program. Bakersfield Community College already plays in a city stadium that is already FBS ready.

(02-01-2021 02:54 PM)quo vadis Wrote:  Let's face it - other than at Notre Dame, the SEC and B1G schools and some of the ACC, Big 12 and PAC schools, football is infeasible.

I think we've reached peak football.

We will see more schools dropping than adding over the next couple of decades.

Faculty (where presidents come from) is more opposed than ever. HS participation is down. Costs are through the roof.

More and more of these small privates will start dropping.

Additions will come only in the South and mostly in growing commuter schools.

(02-01-2021 02:05 PM)Fighting Muskie Wrote:  I’d say:

UTA
UALR
UNF
FGCU
GCU
UTRGV—committed to football by 2024
Kansas

I think some elements within the OVC that will push Moorehead St to switch to scholarship football.

GCU has zero pressure on it to start football. The President of the school said at the WAC expansion press conference that GCU has zero desire for football.

I think you are going to start seeing more schools quietly conducting football viability studies. And yes there are consutants in atht space. And yes, who they choose to hire as consultants predestines the results.

(02-01-2021 03:05 PM)Wedge Wrote:  Whenever a "study" is done at a corporation or a university, the bottom line is that it's done to support the conclusions of whomever wanted the study to be done.

You want to show that having an FBS program would be a major benefit to your university? Then you hire someone in the business of producing studies that say that.

You want to show that it would be a terrible idea for your university to start a football team? Then you hire someone who is extremely skeptical about the value of college football.

Yeah, it’s either full stop or full steam ahead. These studies cost money and they aren’t done just for due diligence (though maybe they should IAH?).

Personally, starting football isn’t as interesting to me as FCS and D2 programs’ studies to upgrade to FBS. Who these programs benchmarked and where they projected or wanted to for a conference home. From what I’ve read and heard over the years, so so many programs projected to CUSA. Imagine all of these random FCS programs, like Missouri State or Delaware projecting they could hang with Memphis, UCF, or Houston? It’s always been why I suspected the MAC never budged or bit on a FCS upgrade beyond UMass...those schools were overreaching. Irony is that now, those aspiring FCS schools wouldn’t be overreaching, and CUSA could be a decent fit...spare the programs you wanted to avoid when you ran the study.

(02-01-2021 04:47 PM)DavidSt Wrote:  If California higher ed decides to merge CSU-Bakersfield and Bakersfield Community College? Both athletics departments would merge which CSU-Bakersfield would take over the football program. Bakersfield Community College already plays in a city stadium that is already FBS ready.

What a fundamental lack of understanding about the California Community College system and California State University system.

It's impossible. You have no idea what you just suggested.

Interesting tidbit—apparently Matt Brown grew up in the next town over from me

(02-02-2021 03:43 PM)Fighting Muskie Wrote:  Interesting tidbit—apparently Matt Brown grew up in the next town over from me

I'm interested and can't find it...what town is he from?

(02-02-2021 03:56 PM)cubucks Wrote:  

(02-02-2021 03:43 PM)Fighting Muskie Wrote:  Interesting tidbit—apparently Matt Brown grew up in the next town over from me

I'm interested and can't find it...what town is he from?

He’s from Granville. I came across it in his bio when I found a book he wrote on Amazon. He did a “what if”s of conference realignment—the kind of stuff Nerdlinger and I both live for.

(02-02-2021 04:09 PM)Fighting Muskie Wrote:  

(02-02-2021 03:56 PM)cubucks Wrote:  

(02-02-2021 03:43 PM)Fighting Muskie Wrote:  Interesting tidbit—apparently Matt Brown grew up in the next town over from me

I'm interested and can't find it...what town is he from?

He’s from Granville. I came across it in his bio when I found a book he wrote on Amazon. He did a “what if”s of conference realignment—the kind of stuff Nerdlinger and I both live for.

Ha! I lived in Granville for a few years. Renovated a home there and was actually married at the Bryn Du Mansion. Town is absolutely beautiful, but too liberal for me, personally.
Steve Carell and Jennifer Garner both went to college at Denison in Granville. He actually visited the college while we lived there and did some kind of project with the theater class there.

We've lived all over ohio, but Granville means the world to us. As I mentioned, we were married there plus had our first child while living there.

Did Matt Brown do sports for CNN at one time?

(02-02-2021 04:20 PM)cubucks Wrote:  

(02-02-2021 04:09 PM)Fighting Muskie Wrote:  

(02-02-2021 03:56 PM)cubucks Wrote:  

(02-02-2021 03:43 PM)Fighting Muskie Wrote:  Interesting tidbit—apparently Matt Brown grew up in the next town over from me

I'm interested and can't find it...what town is he from?

He’s from Granville. I came across it in his bio when I found a book he wrote on Amazon. He did a “what if”s of conference realignment—the kind of stuff Nerdlinger and I both live for.

Ha! I lived in Granville for a few years. Renovated a home there and was actually married at the Bryn Du Mansion. Town is absolutely beautiful, but too liberal for me, personally.
Steve Carell and Jennifer Garner both went to college at Denison in Granville. He actually visited the college while we lived there and did some kind of project with the theater class there.

We've lived all over ohio, but Granville means the world to us. As I mentioned, we were married there plus had our first child while living there.

Did Matt Brown do sports for CNN at one time?

What a small world! It’s a beautiful town but yes, far too liberal for my taste—my wife and I joke that we’d move there but only if all the current residents left first. My old boss was the volunteer accountant for Bryn Du. The college has some pretty renowned alumni—former Disney czar Michael Eisner went there too, or at least shelled out a crap ton to get his name on their new performing arts center.

I’m not sure if he worked for CNN or not. I know he wrote for SB Nation for a time.

(02-02-2021 04:20 PM)cubucks Wrote:  

(02-02-2021 04:09 PM)Fighting Muskie Wrote:  

(02-02-2021 03:56 PM)cubucks Wrote:  

(02-02-2021 03:43 PM)Fighting Muskie Wrote:  Interesting tidbit—apparently Matt Brown grew up in the next town over from me

I'm interested and can't find it...what town is he from?

He’s from Granville. I came across it in his bio when I found a book he wrote on Amazon. He did a “what if”s of conference realignment—the kind of stuff Nerdlinger and I both live for.

Ha! I lived in Granville for a few years. Renovated a home there and was actually married at the Bryn Du Mansion. Town is absolutely beautiful, but too liberal for me, personally.
Steve Carell and Jennifer Garner both went to college at Denison in Granville. He actually visited the college while we lived there and did some kind of project with the theater class there.

We've lived all over ohio, but Granville means the world to us. As I mentioned, we were married there plus had our first child while living there.

Did Matt Brown do sports for CNN at one time?

I'll take living in Granville over living in Newark or Heath or even New Albany, if I had to live in Licking County.