Saturday, April 19, 2008

Intersesting fact on sports

Ok, there's an ongoing discussion in the Falcon Nation. The discussion is about whether a University of our size can support I-A football, men's basketball and ice hockey and be competitive in all 3, and whether by trying, we give up the chance to be competitive in any. Add in our putrid performance recently in the MAC all-sport standings, and you can add to the case.

If you think the answer to those questions is yes (and I'm not saying I do), then you start talking about dropping hockey. We should be able to be like the MVC and have hoops be the main sport, but we're simply not dropping football or going to I-AA. And you're not dropping basketball.

Just to illustrate, I found a list of teams that have I-A football and ice hockey.

What do we see? Two service academies, where budgets and the whole concept of athletic competition are completely different. And eight BCS schools, where money is far more plentiful.

And three teams are left. Miami, WMU and BG. Miami has a much richer athletic program and alumni base, so they might be able to pull it off. Really, BG and WMU are the only two non-BCS teams trying to do all three sports at once.

And that should give us pause. Doesn't mean we can't do it. But, it makes it a lot harder, and we should probably keep that in mind when things don't happen as fast as we hope.
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2 comments:

  1. J Dog9:37 AM

    I think we can compete with all three, the problem has been the atheltic department's bad choices. Prior to Dakich's move to WVU and back, BG was on the verge of the tournament, then it fell apart and the university did nothing. They kept Buddy too long and brought the hockey program down and now we are paying for it. Then with football, even though we have not won a MAC title since the mid 90s, we are for the most part in the conversation every year. Can Brandon win us a title? That's debatable, but I think we are moving closer. Orr looks to be improving the basketball side and hockey showed flashes of past glory. Brick by brick my friend, brick by brick.

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  2. J Dog9:42 AM

    Let me add this as well, don't forget womens basketball in there. BG "could" have four sports doing well. If this next season we have two out of the four going to some form or a post season I'd consider it exceptable. If some how hockey or men's basketball take a great leap forward and we have two NIT bids (or one NCAA) and a bowl game. I think BG needs to have some sort of sports parade, because I do not think that has ever happened. If all four made it to a post season, I'd even forgive Dakich, that's how dilirious with joy I'd be.

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