State of the Group of 5: The challenges facing smaller conferences
While Boise State made this year's playoff, the challenges the Group of 5 faces are bigger than ever.
State of the Group of 5: The challenges facing smaller conferences
- Thread starter SpaceRaider
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Many schools have said they aren't moving to the max football scholarships. Several SEC are staying at 85 and instead investing that money in players.
The big big issue for us as a CUSA member, is what Pernetti said. That the AAC is working on a minimum revenue share requirement. I've seen him say that before and that the new P12 will most likely as well.
That will create a bigger divide between even the G5 schools. The AAC's media deal is over $7m per school. The new P12 will probably wind up around $10m. Even if the new AAC deal at the end of the decade isn't $7m with Cincy etc gone, It'll 100% be more than the barely $1m we make. The SBC is just over $1m with the MAC even lower than us at $800k.
A good chunk of the G5 will be able to have rosters with millions more than us. Lee and Hans have done a great job, but we aren't even to 100 Sapphire Cirlce members yet that give $25k or more. I mean there is a drive for 2500 BRAA members overall. That is bonkers to me as big as our alumni base is. I know Raiders Rising has some good members (McGuire donates a crap ton) but we are still MILLIONS behind even our G5 peers.
Soon half the G5 won't even be our peers anymore unless we make some major changes. Like winning championships in football tomorrow. That's why I really truly wonder if the IPF will ever be built. Fans only have so much money and it will come to a point it is either BuildBlue or pay the players so we can win.
The big big issue for us as a CUSA member, is what Pernetti said. That the AAC is working on a minimum revenue share requirement. I've seen him say that before and that the new P12 will most likely as well.
That will create a bigger divide between even the G5 schools. The AAC's media deal is over $7m per school. The new P12 will probably wind up around $10m. Even if the new AAC deal at the end of the decade isn't $7m with Cincy etc gone, It'll 100% be more than the barely $1m we make. The SBC is just over $1m with the MAC even lower than us at $800k.
A good chunk of the G5 will be able to have rosters with millions more than us. Lee and Hans have done a great job, but we aren't even to 100 Sapphire Cirlce members yet that give $25k or more. I mean there is a drive for 2500 BRAA members overall. That is bonkers to me as big as our alumni base is. I know Raiders Rising has some good members (McGuire donates a crap ton) but we are still MILLIONS behind even our G5 peers.
Soon half the G5 won't even be our peers anymore unless we make some major changes. Like winning championships in football tomorrow. That's why I really truly wonder if the IPF will ever be built. Fans only have so much money and it will come to a point it is either BuildBlue or pay the players so we can win.
I am sure there will be studies written about the failure of our 'leaders' to keep up with what was once our peers.
That’s not how it works. Leadership matters. Good, smart, visionary leadership leads to wins. It’s not the other way around. A lot of people haven’t figured this out yet. In spite of it slapping us all in the face for years.
It’s why North Texas is a “University of…” institution and in the AAC and why we are not. I guarantee you if it was still North Texas State University and they had the “leadership” team we’ve had (for how long now?) they wouldn’t be where they are.
Nor would their AD of six years have been plucked by a P4.
We've beaten the name change to a dead horse, but leadership and vision absolutely matter. Even without a name change, we could brand ourselves better. Charlotte isn't called UNC Charlotte by anyone.
You absolutely need a President who is a great academic, but you also need one who has a vision for athletics to build up those academics. We have been operating essentially as two separate entities for years. Throw in years under TBOR and our new board (which isn't much better), and you see why we are where we are.
And just like Kill said in the article, Mason shouldn't have to go out and fundraise (being out in the community is different than directly fundraising). He does need to for us, but things should be built around him that he doesn't have to spend half the year on it like NIU and can focus on being a coach.
Was talking with other MT alums over the holidays.
What the leadership squandered and directed over the last 20 years is a prime example of incompetence at the highest level. North Texas, FAU, Charlotte (I don’t get Charlotte at all) just passed us by.
What the leadership squandered and directed over the last 20 years is a prime example of incompetence at the highest level. North Texas, FAU, Charlotte (I don’t get Charlotte at all) just passed us by.
That, but I also think the fans will get, if not already, tired of the current state of affairs in college football and choose to not participate.
I know I am tired of the opt outs in bowl games, the transfer portal, and all the other crap that I've witnessed this year.
I halfway get opt-outs. Don't agree with it (kudos to Colorado), but I get why they do it.
What pisses me off is stuff like what Cam Ward did. Hit the passing record because of his team, and with his team in the lead says "I'm done." And his team loses.
It will eventually all get reigned in but it'll take several years for the end result to happen.
I'm not that mad at our leadership. If we're being honest, there's nothing that could have been done over the last 20+ years that could have made a difference today. There's programs with way more success, way more money, way more everything that are going to be left behind just like we are. It's not like if we'd have just hired X coach instead of Y coach and won this many more games and built an IPF sooner, we'd be in the ACC. It wasn't going to happen - we would have needed to build for 100 years.
Look, Vol fans are going through an existential crisis because they can't afford to play portal games like some other programs can. If Vol fans are disgruntled with all they have, we had no shot.
But I actually think there's some opportunity here for us if we can get some leadership with some vision and cojones and not just wanting to keep their paychecks and state retirements coming.
College football is going to separate itself out between the mega-bucks programs and everyone else sooner or later. We need to put the ego's aside and get with some peer programs and see if we can come up with a sustainable framework - essentially build our own lifeboats instead of just standing on the deck of the Titanic while the water rises.
At some point, someone has got to pull their heads out of the sand and see this, right?
Look, Vol fans are going through an existential crisis because they can't afford to play portal games like some other programs can. If Vol fans are disgruntled with all they have, we had no shot.
But I actually think there's some opportunity here for us if we can get some leadership with some vision and cojones and not just wanting to keep their paychecks and state retirements coming.
College football is going to separate itself out between the mega-bucks programs and everyone else sooner or later. We need to put the ego's aside and get with some peer programs and see if we can come up with a sustainable framework - essentially build our own lifeboats instead of just standing on the deck of the Titanic while the water rises.
At some point, someone has got to pull their heads out of the sand and see this, right?
This university doesn't have leadership. It's infected with parasites.
I don’t know about the future and what that’s going to hold though I have some ideas, but you’re dead wrong about where we could’ve been with competent leadership.
I agree. We could be in a much better position right now within the G5
Boise State is doing their best to keep up and I have to give them props. They did all the right things when moving up, such as giving us Thursday Night Football. Must be nice...
Chip asked CM that in the interview. He laughed and said no. The rendering of the new turf looks very good.
Colored fields are trademarked by Boise. They have to approve the use and there is 0% chance they’d ever allow someone else to get a blue field. I personally hate it and was a deciding factor in not getting my masters there lol. Watching games on tv is difficult for me with all the blue.
I just don't see how. I look around at other schools who started about where we were and made a ton of the "right" decisions - and they're all just as F'd as we are.
Memphis? Screwed
FAU? Screwed
North Texas, UTSA, Fresno, San Diego - all the teams that ended up in the Sunbelt - we're all screwed no matter what we did or didn't do.
I always said that if you swapped us and WKU's success in the last 20 years, we'd still be in the same place. At best, maybe we would have gotten plucked back to the Sunbelt. But they're sinking just like we are, so whatever.
Memphis is far from screwed. They may wind up still in whatever the G5 becomes, but they will be at the top. If they don't wind up in the ACC, B12, or even P12. Same for SDSU, Boise, etc. They may be lumped with us still but they are on a different tier with as I said before, millions separating us.
Even at their reduced rate, UNT and FAU who were with us in the SBC are bringing in over $4m more per year in media $ than us.
And look at UCF. They didn't play football at all until 1979.
Do I think we could've become UCF or Cincy? Or Boise? Probably not. But at the same time we never gave ourselves a chance.
We didn't brand properly, market properly, uphold champs only, didn't capitalize on our opportunities, and countless other things. I mean Boise fired their coach mid-season, after a 10-4 season, because his then 5-5 wasn't good enough. THAT is upholding a champ only mentality. We have never ever done that. Ever.
So we "might" have wound up in the AAC instead of still CUSA. Well, those AAC schools are MUCH better off than we are. By a large margin.
Is it all on CM? No. McP? No. Board? No. Stock? No. It is a combination of years of things that forced us to just now be doing BuildBlue that should've been done 15yrs ago.
Regardless of how things split, we shouldn't be at not only the bottom of FBS, but the bottom of G5. But we are.
Let’s revisit in a year or two and see where any of these programs you referenced are. I think you’re going to be surprised.
Where they won't be is in the Big 10 or SEC, and that's the only 2 that are going to matter here pretty soon.
I agree. There's no longer a P5. The Pac-12 certainly isn't one and the ACC doesn't seem to be one either. Arizona State is playing for the Big 12's inclusion tomorrow, but they're a double-digit dog, which doesn't sound like a champion from a power conference.
You totally missed the point. Memphis is never going to be in the Big12. Their dance card is full. The ACC is already low on funds unless FSU and Clemson bails. Best case scenario for them. PAC whatever wanted them but no TV contract and Memphis will lose money on travel alone. 4m per year more than us is nothing because in 2 years, the AAC contract will be worth less than now. If you ain't p4 or p2, it don't matter. I've been saying this forever. The money listens and the other teams won't keep their players longer than 2 years and the NIL money is limited at the g5 level. They go to the P 2-4 teams to get paid. Penis measuring at the g5 level is just re-arranging deck chairs on the Titanic.
This is the proverbial missing the Forrest for all the trees. If it does become only two leagues football isn’t going to cease to exist everywhere else. Millions of people not associated with those two entities will still have vested interest. If it does happen there will actually be more people/alumni/fans outside that construct than in it. I’m also not convinced that is what will happen. Just like the dozens of people here and elsewhere who were convinced there was going to be only four 16 team leagues and everyone else was screwed and I was like not so sure about that. And obviously that’s not what’s transpired.
The point is there has been an epic failure here to position us for whatever the future looked like. But now it’s more likely that we aren’t even in the second tier (assuming your assumption which probably won’t actually happen plays out) and instead back with OVC types or even dropping football altogether than being with any of the aforementioned schools who we quickly made our peers before they all left us in the dust thanks to atrocious leadership, mismanagement, and poor decisions.
It may not cease to exist but let's not pretend that it will bring in the money necessary to compete with the big 2. The interest level is not there to matter on the G5 level. Look at us or any MAC team. No attendance and no cash intake to compete. NIU is looking to join the MWC in football only and the MWC's contract will be negotiated down now that Boise and others have left. Let that sink in. It's only getting worse, not better.
An ineffective AD has been the biggest problem the past 20 years. You can debate how much Massaro’s hands are tied, but a good AD would have found another way to tap into the potential that has now passed us by. I’m sure McFlea has blocked him some. However at the very least if you are a solid AD, you have enough pride in your work to leave and do better things, or you are poached by another program. He is content with BELOW mediocrity and just riding this out for a paycheck.
AD is the main problem. In one of the Mason hiring interviews, I believe he even said he’s not great at fund raising and the social aspect of his job. WTF? That’s like priority #1 for an AD. The good news is that McFlea and Messaro are likely at the end of their careers. The bad news is that our opportunity has likely passed us by. We are literally behind Jax State at this point. The pessimistic part of me says the ship has sailed and MT will never catch up.
AD is the main problem. In one of the Mason hiring interviews, I believe he even said he’s not great at fund raising and the social aspect of his job. WTF? That’s like priority #1 for an AD. The good news is that McFlea and Messaro are likely at the end of their careers. The bad news is that our opportunity has likely passed us by. We are literally behind Jax State at this point. The pessimistic part of me says the ship has sailed and MT will never catch up.
If what Doug suggests happens then we are not likely to be operating under the same set of rules. You all act like you know exactly how things are going to transpire and what it’s going to look like but you don’t. There’s a lot of loser mentality on this board which is exactly same little middle mentality that allowed everything to happen here that has over the past 20 years. I would argue that the biggest barrier isn’t a P2 it’s our own damn self (and by that I mostly mean key/core boosters though not excluding us other boosters). That is to say Inept leadership and a fan base with the same little middle mentality that’s allowed it to stay in power with unchecked accountability.
It has nothing to do with mentality. Or willpower. Or leadership. Or anything like that.
The simple fact is that the power programs and conferences closed up shop rather than continue to split the pie with the newer programs. They're already complaining about sharing the playoffs with Boise and the like. I give it just a couple of years until the auto-bids are gone.
There is no program that started football since the turn of the century is going to survive at the highest level (whatever that looks like) when this shakes out. Not a single one - no matter the level of success, no matter the leadership, no matter the "potential", no matter what any of those programs did or didn't do.
The advantages that the power programs have aren't because of "leadership" or good coaching hire decisions or whatever over the last 20 years. It's advantages that were built over 120 years of athletics and generational support, not 20.
I don't mean to assert that M&M should get a free pass for the mismanagement of 20 years, but it's kind of like getting mad at your kid for not cleaning his room when the house burns down. At some point, you have to realize that it didn't really matter.
What matters is what we do going forward and how we position ourselves in whatever the "new" college football looks like when it all sorts out.
Again you act like you know what’s going to happen. But even if it does football doesn’t cease to exist outside of that so your last paragraph is the only one that matters. And your last paragraph is also what contradicts everything else you said and the part I was addressing about why the past does matter in terms of what is to come next. But the problem is it’s hard to get to be a relevant program (in our genre) when restarting from the back row of the race, which is basically what we’re having to do. And it’s depressing to look back and all the brand equity that was squandered over these last several years which is going to make that task even harder in the new era.
I'm 90% confident that college football will eventually split between the big money programs paying players and their virtually unlimited NIL and funding their sports at the highest level, and the programs that can't.
I'm 100% confident that we don't have the money to compete with the top of the P2 and there was nothing that we could have done in a 20 year timespan to get it.
I disagree that this program is somehow fatally damaged by a 20 year span of mediocrity. Success always comes and goes in sports.
Fortunes can and do turn around, especially if we start making some better decisions. You can argue that we still aren't and are still mismanaged, but that's another debate.
Quoted for emphasis. Very well written and 100% correct
You must not make it to any of our games. The apathy and lack of crowds for football and men's basketball are unspeakably pathetic, and undoubtedly because of the pathetic results in football and men's basketball over the last 5+ years. Attendance fall off has been significantly worse than the general draw down we've seen in attendance across college sports as a whole.
When you look in the stands and see the numbers they have reported over the last 5 years you truly wonder how they can get away with these claims. You'll have 1,000 people in the stands maximum (sometimes 500 or less when weather is really bad) and they're claiming 10k+ in the stadium. We are not fools, we can see that actual, real attendance is 50% at best of what it was 10+ years ago. At best.
And this fall off in support is catastrophic for a program like ours. A school like MTSU desperately needs community engagement (and the $ it brings) for its athletics programs if it plans to survive. Results absolutely matter, regardless of which level you compete at.
Also, I would much prefer to be in the positions many of our former peers are in (Sun Belt, AAC). More $, better programs, better competition, more regionally focused, etc. Better leadership and results would have put us there. The Sun Belt and AAC will continue to be superior to CUSA regardless of what the power 2 do. Just because the Power 2 break off, or whatever happens, doesn't mean the remainder of programs are destined to parity. Absolutely not. There will always be varying amounts of support and money that separate pretenders and contenders, even at the G5, FCS, and beyond.
There's levels to this shit, ya know?
Our leadership is a proven failure and has greatly hamstrung us, and will continue to do so.
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Outside of a small percentage of die-hards, fans are fickle. Support will always ebb and flow with the fortunes on the field.
We're in no worse spot now than we were 5 years ago (might argue a better spot, considering we're not married to a dud coach and we're at least making some infrastructure investments) and the program is still kicking.
Until they turn out the lights and sell the equipment, there's no reason we can't find the same success that our peers have.
You can be as positive as you want but it doesn't change the fact that the results over the last 20 years have put our program in a worse position than it would have been otherwise if properly managed. Facilities would have been built sooner, results would have been better, and we would at the very least be in a favorable position in the SBC or AAC with better peers, more revenue & better TV deals, and likely better local and donor support which follows success. These things are important and have direct implications (Financial and others) with being able to retain players and make yourself an attractive portal target.
All of these things matter, regardless of what the Power whatever is doing.
You can't just all of a sudden decide one day to not be a bottom feeder and expect everyone to take you seriously, which is basically what you are saying and implying. Doesn't work like that.
Sustained success and high level effective program management matter. I could give you countless examples of this across various levels of sports (NAIA, FCS, FBS, even high school)
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You can be as negative as you want. Thousands upon thousands of posts repeating the same thing ad-nauseum for years is not going to make this program go backwards in time and build an IPF in 2010 or hire whomever was the next up and coming coach back in 2012 or whatever.
Sustained success and high level effective program management matter.
Sure it does. But everyone and everything started from somewhere. Every facility that is considered essential infrastructure of successful program was once a hole in the ground. Every elite coach that we wish we had was once a guy hoping to get an interview somewhere.
We don't need to be "taken seriously" overnight. Are we behind? Sure. But lucky us, there's no finish line to this race.
Just need to win a few games next year, go to a bowl. Then add some talent in recruiting/portal, maybe win a conference title. Continue to build facilities and infrastructure. And then see what happens.
Maybe it happens under Mason. Maybe it doesn't. If it doesn't, we can at least fire the staff, and we try again.
You can try to dismiss previous seasons and results all you want but they do matter. They matter immensely.
That is how programs like App State, Coastal Carolina, Western Kentucky, Sam Houston State, and more have passed us by.
Winning breeds support, which carries over to better recruits, facilities, etc. That is how we've been left behind in CUSA, which is an inferior conference to the SBC and AAC. I can't believe I have to explain this. You can argue all you want about everybody being screwed (which I would agree with), but there's still levels to this shit. And we are perennially on the bottom.
You can be relentlessly positive with your "OH WELL WE'LL TRY AGAIN NEXT YEAR" attitude but meanwhile, we've fallen further and further behind over the last 20 years with this entirely incompetent set of administrators. And we will continue to do so because dumb & dumber & the dumbest are in charge.
Past, present, and future results absolutely matter. They make up the body and history and character of a program. Do you think kids who largely have no NIL money on the table want to come play for some unsupported loser program with no fans? It's extremely difficult for MTSU to get support in Murfreesboro and the Mid-state. They sure as shit will not get any support playing like a bunch of bums. Results probably matter even more for a school like MTSU with such a fickle fan base.
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The advantages that those programs have today - none of the things that put those programs ahead of us descended on a beam of light from the heavens onto campus. It was all built over time by every one of them, many of them suffering through losing periods and poor coaches, and low attendance, etc - everything that a G5 program has to fight against.
There's nothing preventing us from building any of the things that our peers have. We just need some luck, some good decisions, and some patience. And it's sports, it may never happen. If you became a fan of a low-resourced G5 program that is essentially a start up and you expect and demand any sort of elite level return on investment, you made a bad decision and all the UT and Bama Wal-Mart alumni you see walking around should have told you that.
Yes, i'm positive. You say that like it's a bad thing.
What do you think your constant repeated negative posts are going to accomplish?
Do you really think the 9 posters we have here have any sort of say on what happens on campus? If they did, we wouldn't have had to endure 17 years of Stock.
None of your ranting, raving, name-calling, holier than thou, if they'd have just listened to meeeeeeeeeeeeeeee tantrums are going to have one iota of effect on anything.
You cannot change what's been done. You cannot go back in time and fix the problems that led us to where we are today. No one is going to ask you to fill out a performance evaluation on the University President or the Athletic Director. None of your fits of rage are going to get our guys to tackle better, they're not going to land one better recruit, you're not likely to attract one bit of better coach when you need to.
So, yes, I'm going to be positive. I hope Mason is the guy, we land some difference makers, our guys play well and we go on a run. And if not, then I hope the next guy is. And the next guy. And the next guy.
You can be blindly optimistic and hope and pray all you want. That isn't gonna change shit either. I have never expected my "negativity" as you like to call it to have any effect on anything. I simply call things like I see them, and I'm usually right.
This university has been led by a bunch of idiots for two decades and they're still in charge. That is a fact. We've fallen behind peer programs because of their poor decisions over those two decades. That is also a fact. These things matter. They have contributed to the decline of our programs, and they've been rewarded for it and remain in power....
I'm not going to be optimistic just for the sake of being optimistic when they continue to call the shots. Not happening. F them.
It astounds me to see how much disdain you had for Stockstill and blamed him for so much yet seem to think all is fine and well because we brought in a new head coach. I personally find it rather comical because Stockstill was like #4 on my list of problems and people who needed to be fired. He was simply the fall guy (and you fell for it) and that's bearing itself out with the disastrous start to the Mason era.
This programs problems are systemic and will not improve until McPhee, Massaro, and Steve Smith are gone. They can hire and fire 100 coaches but the results will be the same because they're all losers.
I simply call things like I see them, and I'm usually right.
1,100 NCAA athletic programs nationwide have no idea what they're missing.
This programs problems are systemic and will not improve until McPhee, Massaro, and Steve Smith are gone. They can hire and fire 100 coaches but the results will be the same because they're all losers.
And your grand plan to help this program move forward is the to call them names and curse at them over and over again on a message board frequented by about a dozen fans. I'm sure they're terrified at the thought.
i agree Rick was not the biggest problem but he was one of the problems. We just need to clean house completely and do a full reset. That will eventually happen and I am hopefully the next group gets it right. We need more people like Wiley and Doug because while you two disagree I think we can all see you both care.
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