Briggs: Why Toledo and BG football dropping to FCS is an 'absolute non-starter'

By David Briggs / The Blade
Sat, 23 May 2020 15:36:45 GMT

Given the foreboding drip, drip, drip of news coming out of the Mid-American Conference — Bowling Green cutting baseball here, Akron dropping sports there, budgets slashing everywhere — more than a few readers have understandably asked the question.

Is there a better way?

More specifically ...

Is it time for schools in the MAC to have a real conversation about their place in the college football ecosystem?

Is it time for universities to stop throwing money they don’t have into an arms race they can’t sustain, and consider a cost-saving move from the highest level of Division I to the lower-stakes Football Championship Subdivision?

If these questions seem unthinkable, so do the times, and, as the thinking goes, nothing should be off the table.

Not even a reckoning for the sport that is both the front porch and money pit of mid-major athletic departments.

To play devil’s advocate, the logic of dropping to what was formerly known as Division I-AA — where football programs can offer 63 scholarships compared to 85 in the FBS — is simple: Schools could shave millions of dollars from their football budget and have the opportunity to compete on a national level.

Whereas now the best Toledo and Bowling Green seasons are rewarded with nothing more than a trip to the Ambien Bowl, they could contend for championships in the FCS.

“Don’t you think it’s time?” one former BG athlete emailed.

“It’s a no brainer,” a professor in the MAC added.

Right?

Well, actually ...

“This is an absolute non-starter,” Toledo athletic director Mike O’Brien said. “Let me just put it this way. A large segment of our fans would be disappointed, and that’s an understatement.”

With that, we agreed to ... agree.

Let’s put this to bed right here.

To be sure, the financial crisis born of the coronavirus has forced all college athletic departments to reassess their spending, especially those outside the Power Five conferences.

And no expense is more out of control than football.

Evidence the boom over the past decade, including at our four area colleges.

In 2009, Ohio State and Michigan spent $31.7 million and $18.3 million on football, respectively. Toledo invested $5.5 million, Bowling Green $4.1 million.

By last year, as enormous TV contracts left the blue bloods with more money than they could burn, Ohio State was pouring $60.7 million into football while Michigan anted up $47.4 million. Toledo and Bowling Green spent $11.7 million and $7.8 million.

It was all obscene, but the difference, of course, is Ohio State and Michigan could afford this rate of growth. Toledo, Bowling Green, and every other heavily subsidized Group of Five program feigning to keep up could not.

I’ll state the obvious: It’s time the latter group draws a line in the gridiron dirt, if not begins to funnel some toothpaste back into the tube. (The MAC ending the practice of home teams staying in hotels the night before football games and reducing the size of travel rosters is a good start.)

Still, a move to a lower division is not the panacea some might believe.

Let us break down the three main arguments of the reform advocates:

■ 1. Dropping to the FCS would save mountains of money:

This isn’t necessarily true.

Sure, your expenses would go down, namely through fewer scholarships and lower coaching salaries. But the loss in revenue — not counting the value of brand exposure (do I have my administrator-speak correct?) — would offset the difference.

Toledo, for instance, received $4.9 million in football and basketball media distributions from the NCAA and MAC last year — three times the amount collected by a top FCS program like North Dakota State. The UT athletic department also generated $3.9 million in donations and $1.8 million in ticket sales, figures that would no doubt slump with a drop to a lower level of football.

Further, any move would hinder MAC schools from cashing in on guarantee games at power conference schools, which would be especially damaging for BG. The Falcons, for better or worse, offer themselves for slaughter twice per season, collecting about $2 million. FCS schools get about half the going rate for these games, if they can schedule them at all. (BG athletic director Bob Moosbrugger preferred not to touch the third rail of the FCS debate, but we’re told it is not a consideration.)

■ 2. The FCS is a purer form of football more in line with the academic mission of a university:

This might be the case in the Ivy League, where there are no athletic scholarships. But clear eyes are hardly the rule in the FCS, where there is no guarantee the pursuit of success will be any less blinding.

A little-known fact: Officials at James Madison University in Virginia — where student fees account for $39 million of its $52 million athletic budget — personally mug every student on their first day of school.

How does this compare to, say, Bowling Green?

BG leaned on $14 million in subsidies — including $12.9 million in student fees — to fund its $26 million athletic department last year. James Madison was one of 23 public FCS schools that required greater outside help, and, according to a review of data compiled by the Knight Commission, one of 10 athletic departments to bleed more than $20 million.

Consider, too: In 2018, Idaho became the first FBS school in years to drop to the FCS. Its athletics deficit has since grown.

A MAC school sliding down a level would be trading one money drain for another, only doing so out of sight.

Which bring us to the last point ...

■ 3. You could compete for national titles in the FCS:

Yes, you could (maybe), but would anyone care?

I’ll give you that the prospect of swapping the Dollar General Bowl for a five-round postseason tournament is enticing.

Hear out the above-mentioned MAC professor.

“I worked in I-AA before, and it was exciting. It was fun. You were playing for a championship,” said David Ridpath, a professor of sports management at Ohio University and a leading champion of reform in major college athletics. “The one thing that I tell my president and AD, and of course they don’t buy it, because they think our image as an institution is somehow influenced by being Division I football. ... But I honestly think if [Ohio] was competing in the 1-AA playoffs, we would get as big of crowds that we’re getting now, and we have pretty good attendance for the MAC.

“Why not go and play in a level that you can sustain and be competitive at? It’s not going to affect the university. People come to Ohio University for so many reasons. It’s not because of Division I football.”

We’ll meet him halfway.

While no one comes to Toledo or Bowling Green specifically for sports, I’m not buying that fans — at least the ones I know — would embrace a perceived punt on football. (OK, no one would notice at Akron or Kent State, but that’s another story.)

As much as we poke fun at attendance in the MAC, it’s not nothing, either (MACtion not included). Toledo averaged an announced 20,399 fans per game last year; BG averaged 15,295 fans. The top league in the FCS? The Missouri Valley Conference — which features three-time reigning national champion North Dakota State, South Dakota State, and Youngstown State — pulled in 8,928 fans per game.

More so, a move down would also mean next to no games on national TV and no visits from big-time programs. Count me among those who thinks it’s pretty cool that, since 2006, the Rockets have hosted eight power conference schools — including Miami — along with BYU and three other then-ranked name-brand programs (Fresno State, Boise State, and Cincinnati).

I’ll take Missouri or Colorado in a crowded Glass Bowl over a December playoff game against Illinois State in front of a few thousand fans any day.

“Look at how positive that is for our university and our community,” O’Brien said. “That’s really important as to the stature of being FBS.”

Now, is life in the MAC perfect? Or is the college football landscape ideal? Of course not, and perhaps these fraught times will accelerate foundational change.

There is a better way.

But dropping to the FCS isn’t it.

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