OT - St Francis moving to D3

[pittdan77]

The $17 million was the issue. You can take whatever you want from the press conference, but the school does not have the money to subsidize the the $17 million.

At the end of the day, schools and coaches from all over the D1 spectrum are unhappy with NIL and the portal. College sports are badly broken. The fact that a school with very little skin in that game would choose to abandon this nonsense is unsurprising. I see a lot more schools looking for an off ramp and its probably only a matter of time before a school nobody expects to take this route makes the move. As badly as I feel for the athletes and alumni who are disappointed by the move, this makes a lot of sense for SFU.

 

[pafootballguy]

And that has 0 to do with NIL because they could have made room in the $17 million budget for 300K in payments to football/basketball players.

They didn't move down because of NIL, they moved down because the 17 million was too expensive. They used NIL and paying players as an excuse but it was not the reason.

 

[pittdan77]

And that has 0 to do with NIL because they could have made room in the $17 million budget for 300K in payments to football/basketball players.

Yeah, it was just a couple hundred grand that was keeping them from getting that one or two extra 2-stars that would put them over the top.

 

[pafootballguy]

At the end of the day, schools and coaches from all over the D1 spectrum are unhappy with NIL and the portal. College sports are badly broken. The fact that a school with very little skin in that game would choose to abandon this nonsense is unsurprising. I see a lot more schools looking for an off ramp and its probably only a matter of time before a school nobody expects to take this route makes the move. As badly as I feel for the athletes and alumni who are disappointed by the move, this makes a lot of sense for SFU.

I wouldn't be surprised to see most of the MAC move to FCS in football. If they created an FCS type level for all other sports, I would expect a lot schools from the ASUN, Big Sky, Big South, etc. to drop down.

 

[pittdan77]

I wouldn't be surprised to see most of the MAC move to FCS in football. If they created an FCS type level for all other sports, I would expect a lot schools from the ASUN, Big Sky, Big South, etc. to drop down.

I think it will be more than that. There are a lot of administrators that have to be looking at this mess and asking themselves when this is starts to not be worth it. It's one thing to support athletics structurally with good coaches and facilities but it's a whole other matter to be paying athletes like pros just to grab some TV scraps in unbalanced revenue models. I think any school that isn't a huge state school in the B1G or SEC has to look at where diminished returns start to happen and consider its options. I don't like the sounds of that but it's reality.

 

[OH Pete]

I know guys coaching D3 that are coordinators making 75k. I don't know a HC who doesn't make at least 100k today. I can't speak for every single school but the schools who are winning are getting 100k+ in compensation.

You'd be better off relocating to Texas or South Carolina and becoming a HS coach if you want that kind of money. You'd have just as good a chance of moving up the ranks as you would living in Loretto.

Good D3 coaches are worth more than good D2 coaches. D2 coaches just suck money out of the school. D3 coaches add to the school's bottom line.

D3 coaches are the schools' primary recruiters for students. Go look at Westminster or Thiel. Look at their enrollments and then look at their sports rosters. You'll see that between 30% and 70% of the students at those places (and many, many other D3s) are athletes. It is the coaches' jobs to attract kids to the school, especially good students. That generates revenue for the schools. D2 coaches don't do much of anything that generates revenue for the schools.

Basically D3 schools operate because of student athletes whereas D2s operate at the expense of the non-student athletes. That is not a sustainable model.

 

[pittdan77]

D3 coaches are the schools' primary recruiters for students.

I can confirm that this is usually the case for D3 volleyball. There are some exceptions. Juniata comes to mind because they recruit nationally. But the kids are reminded over and over that grades are a huge part of getting any interest from D3 schools. I know a lot of D2 volleyball coaches are recruiting themselves, too, but football programs tend to have bigger staffs where the HC doesn't get down in the weeds with vetting prospects.

 

[steelcurtain55.]

In D3 football in PA, the only schools that actually "recruit" in terms of being selective from an athletic standpoint are: W&J, Grove City, and Susquehanna. CMU is selective both academically and athletically. The other centennials are very selective when it comes to academics.

The rest of the schools like Waynesburg, Wilkes, St. Vincent, Kings, Misericordia, Thiel, etc. are recruiting an intramural football team with the purposes of keeping butts in seats when it comes to the admission department. There is nothing wrong with that, it's just these schools will basically take anyone who can pass a physical if he can get meet the minimum admission standards.