For West Michigan people...

[KleShreen]

I know people get sick of hearing about it...but just wanted to say that if anyone here lives in West Michigan, head out to the GVSU football game on Saturday!!! They're hosting the national semi-finals at 3:30 PM on Saturday against Carson-Newman. It's a chance to watch them earn their trip to the national championship game and watch the students take down a goalpost. If you *can't* make it...the game will also be on ESPN for you east-siders. :)

GV will be facing the veer option offense of Carson-Newman, who took down Terry Bowden's North Alabama squad yesterday.

[DTroppens]

I know people get sick of hearing about it...but just wanted to say that if anyone here lives in West Michigan, head out to the GVSU football game on Saturday!!! They're hosting the national semi-finals at 3:30 PM on Saturday against Carson-Newman. It's a chance to watch them earn their trip to the national championship game and watch the students take down a goalpost. If you *can't* make it...the game will also be on ESPN for you east-siders. :)

GV will be facing the veer option offense of Carson-Newman, who took down Terry Bowden's North Alabama squad yesterday.

How did they do? Will we be watching another D2 title game with GVSU on ESPN or ESPN2 next weekend?

[Dirk Diggler]

How did they do? Will we be watching another D2 title game with GVSU on ESPN or ESPN2 next weekend?

They won saturday......the semi's are this coming weekend, I think that is what he is referring to.

[KleShreen]

How did they do? Will we be watching another D2 title game with GVSU on ESPN or ESPN2 next weekend?
GV traveled to Minnesota-Duluth yesterday, the team that ended GV's season last year in double overtime in Allendale and went on to win the national championship. GV ended up winning 24-10, and if they win this upcoming Saturday, then the national title game will be on ESPN2 next Saturday (December 12) with GV in it. :)

[DTroppens]

They won saturday......the semi's are this coming weekend, I think that is what he is referring to.

I didn't check the date. I think I was assuming it was an old thread from before this weekend. I wasn't thinking.

I always pull for the smaller schools in the state - particularly Albion College and the GLIAC - outside league play. I can't say I have a favorite between SVSU and GVSU (for example), but once they are outside the league, and not playing CMU, I'm always hoping for them to do well. A couple of weeks ago we did a thing - name the best football team in the state. The idea around the question was someone may pick CMU, MSU or U-M. Instead, I picked GVSU. Including any division of football, how many teams have had the success GVSU has had the last 10 or so years? Mount Union, okay, the Purple Raiders are better. After that, (without doing any real research here), GVSU has to be in the mix of the conversation.

GO GRAND VALLEY!

[Ingefanclub]

Move up to Division 1 already!

If Grand Valley becomes the only division 1 team in Grand Rapids they will probably instantly draw 30,000 fans a game possibly more. Put them in the division with CMU, WMU and EMU. The Chips need some real competition.

I remember Jeff Chadwick played for the Lions and thought this guy must have torn it up for the Lakers.

[DTroppens]

Move up to Division 1 already!

If Grand Valley becomes the only division 1 team in Grand Rapids they will probably instantly draw 30,000 fans a game possibly more. Put them in the division with CMU, WMU and EMU. The Chips need some real competition.

I remember Jeff Chadwick played for the Lions and thought this guy must have torn it up for the Lakers.

Why would they want to go D1 and struggle for national acclaim, when they get it at the level they are at?
But you do have a point. The talent on that side of the state is tremendous. And if GVSU went D1, they may get more of a grip on the recruits that want D1 action over the D2 if that level comes knocking. I'm sure they get some of those recruits, but they'd get more, and probably take quite a few away from the MAC schools.
Shhhhhh...... let them stay D2. We don't need the competition.

Is there ever any talk of GVSU going D1, or, more likely, D1AA? Probably not. The budgets are tremendously different as well.

[KleShreen]

Why would they want to go D1 and struggle for national acclaim, when they get it at the level they are at?
But you do have a point. The talent on that side of the state is tremendous. And if GVSU went D1, they may get more of a grip on the recruits that want D1 action over the D2 if that level comes knocking. I'm sure they get some of those recruits, but they'd get more, and probably take quite a few away from the MAC schools.
Shhhhhh...... let them stay D2. We don't need the competition.

Is there ever any talk of GVSU going D1, or, more likely, D1AA? Probably not. The budgets are tremendously different as well.
It won't happen as long as Tim Selgo is the AD, and I applaud that.

A couple reasons...one, it's at a point in Division 1 where it's next to impossible to become a top team in either of the main sports if you haven't been there already. Sure, there's the George Washington's in basketball and the Utah's in football, but teams like South Florida and Marshall, two of the more recent teams to move up, will never be a sustained top team in Division 1. Same goes for when North Dakota and North Dakota State eventually get to 1-A.

There's the top teams, and everyone else. No new colleges in our lifetime will break into that Michigan/Oklahoma/Texas/Florida/Miami/USC-level barrier in football, and none will break into the UNC/Duke barrier in basketball.

With that said...it's entirely pointless for GV to take their 6-million dollar athletic budget, and quintuple it to 30 million dollars a year and still be the lowest funded athletic budget in 1-A football, especially when GV is the least funded public school in the state of Michigan by the government, but possesses the 2nd/3rd highest admission standards for public schools in the state.

People also argue exposure...well...GV gets more exposure by winning the Director's Cup every year and finishing in the top five for almost every single sport, and winning national championships in football than they would get for being in the MAC and fighting for a spot in the Motor City Bowl every year and nothing more. GV has been stealing MAC and even Big 10 level talent the last 6-7 years because kids are starting to see this. With the age of technology, they know that no matter what college you go to, you are going to get your shot at the NFL if you are good. There's a reason more and more upsets happen in college football every single year...kids are picking schools for things besides just pure football tradition, and it's why you are seeing 1-AA schools upset 1-A schools, and low 1-A teams beating high 1-A teams. Kids do the same among levels...there are a *lot* of kids on GV's roster who were offered full rides to Indiana/Illinois/Northwestern but would sit the bench, and instead have come to GV to start and be a star...there's also a lot of kids who have passed up CMU/WMU/EMU/Ball State/NIU full-ride offers to probably be a starter to come to GV and play for national championships.

So...in conclusion...it's pointless for GV to quintuple their athletic budget, still be one of the lowest funded schools in D1 for athletics (not to mention the hundreds of millions that would need to be spent for facilities upgrades), and play for a spot in a meaningless bowl or for a 15-seed in a basketball tournament when they are winning national championships at a budget price.

For more, read this interview with AD Tim Selgo that addresses this exact subject, which is actually on the front page of the athletics site:

GRAND VALLEY STATE OFFICIAL ATHLETIC SITE - Links (http://www.gvsulakers.com/links/qatimselgo.html)

[DTroppens]

Actually, I totally agree with what you posted and mentioned a bit of it in my post.

Why leave a good thing at the D2 level - and in the GLIAC - to increased headaches, no national titles and all that crap. All GVSU could ever become is a strong MAC team. It's nice, but I'd love to see CMU and the MAC go 1AA so it can have a chance at greater national acclaim and a legit shot at a national title.

[Ingefanclub]

CMU won the division II championship in 1973 and by 1979 they were a pretty good division I team.

Grand Valley would almost assuredly be a top MAC team if they wanted to join. They would get what 20 more scholarships? Many players who would attend MSU or UM from the west side of the state would stay in Grand Rapids. Now you put 30,000 fans in the seats. It would be the hottest ticket in town. GVSU averaged 10,799 fans per game in 2004. I can think of a lot of MAC teams that struggle to get that many fans.

Winning is fine for a few years but doesn't it get boring beating teams 50-0 every week? I can understand the college worrying about extra costs but they need to set their sights higher. I am positive they can make it. This is not North Dakota State.. Grand Rapids is the 2nd biggest city in Michigan. They have a fan and player base.

[DTroppens]

CMU won the division II championship in 1973 and by 1979 they were a pretty good division I team.

Grand Valley would almost assuredly be a top MAC team if they wanted to join. They would get what 20 more scholarships? Many players who would attend MSU or UM from the west side of the state would stay in Grand Rapids. Now you put 30,000 fans in the seats. It would be the hottest ticket in town. GVSU averaged 10,799 fans per game in 2004. I can think of a lot of MAC teams that struggle to get that many fans.

Winning is fine for a few years but doesn't it get boring beating teams 50-0 every week? I can understand the college worrying about extra costs but they need to set their sights higher. I am positive they can make it. This is not North Dakota State.. Grand Rapids is the 2nd biggest city in Michigan. They have a fan and player base.

It's a bit more complicated than that. First, they'd have the years in between trying to become a 1A team. Scheduling. They'd want to have a conference affiliate immedately, so they don't end up in independent limbo land. It would take a few transition years even in the most ideal circumstances.

They probably wouldn't get a ton of the U-M/MSU players. I'm guessing most of the legit studs would still go to those schools. But they certainly would swallow up the players that CMU, WMU and EMU compete for. But what would that really get them? A MAC championship? Three titles in a row? It's just not the same as winning national titles. Can winning games 56-10 be boring after awhile. We all know it can. But it eventually results in winning national titles and large crowds at the game. I don't see becoming a 1A team would suddenly increase their attendance to 40,000. Plus, I'm guessing their stadium can't hold that may. So to do it would take renovations. That's money. And being in the MAC, you aren't going to draw those types of numbers no mater how good you are. Going 9-3, with two bad losses to BCS schools and earning a bid to the Motor City Bowl isn't going to draw 40,000 for your four or five games you are lucky enough to have on your home schedule. You certainly aren't going to draw 40,000 against Eastern, Ball State, Bowling Green and Akron.

GVSU could get nice paydays playing the BCS powers, but they aren't going to day in and day out be able to compete with those teams. Look at Central. This is the best CMU team I've ever seen and it can't regularly compete at that level. Look at Ball State last year. For all it's dominance, it lost its last two games. Being a dominant team in the MAC means being a dominant team in the second worst conference in 1A football.

That seems like a lot of headaches for little reward, especially when you are competing for national titles with a reasonable budget every year right now.

Another thing - I wonder if adding football at an even larger budget would force GVSU to lose some of its other men's sports. For Title IX purposes, you'd have to balance what you are spending in football to the women's athletic program, or balance it by dropping some men's sports.

[DTroppens]

It won't happen as long as Tim Selgo is the AD, and I applaud that.
For more, read this interview with AD Tim Selgo that addresses this exact subject, which is actually on the front page of the athletics site:

GRAND VALLEY STATE OFFICIAL ATHLETIC SITE - Links (http://www.gvsulakers.com/links/qatimselgo.html)

Just read the link. I bet even the schools that say they make a profit really don't. I remember doing a story way back in ol' 1992 about athletic budgets. No school was making money off their programs back then. And the ones that said they were, were doing so because they considered money given to them from the University (money that could go elsewhere) as revenue. Now, that's a little strange. If I own a buisness and invest in a wing of it, would I consider the money I put into that wing as revenue? That's what universities were doing.

Here's one expense that people don't think about - those scholarships. Giving scholarships doesn't mean no one has to pay that. That's a huge expense. I think an average full time student is considered to be taking 12-15 hours of classes a semseter. Take that and multiply it by 85, the number of 1A scholarships there is. Now take that number and multiply it by the tuition rate, to be conservative assume all students are Michigan students. You'll see how quickly expenses increase just in tuition from scholarships. And we haven't talked about anything else - facilities, insurance, transportation, equipment, room and board and a ton of other things I'm not thinking about right now.

No school makes money off their athletic program.

[Ingefanclub]

Central Michigan is in a city of 25,000 people. GVSU can draw from 750,000 in Kent and Ottawa Counties. They have a leg up on CMU from the start. I really think they could pull a Marshall. Give them 20 more scholarships and they are a MAC contender.

5 or 6 years in the MAC and maybe they move up like Marshall did.
I don't think CMU can move up to a bigger conference even if they dominate because Mt. Pleasant is too small a town to draw huge crowds.

I just went back and read the GVSU Athletic Diretcor's comments and I can see where he is coming from. That is a conservative area and they don't want to have any budget problems or cut sports. I am glad as I too do not want to see GVSU stealing CMUs players! It would be interesting to see CMU crush Grand Valley in football :) but I know that will not happen since no division 1 team wants to play division 2 teams.

[KleShreen]

Central Michigan is in a city of 25,000 people. GVSU can draw from 750,000 in Kent and Ottawa Counties. They have a leg up on CMU from the start. I really think they could pull a Marshall. Give them 20 more scholarships and they are a MAC contender.

5 or 6 years in the MAC and maybe they move up like Marshall did.
I don't think CMU can move up to a bigger conference even if they dominate because Mt. Pleasant is too small a town to draw huge crowds.

I just went back and read the GVSU Athletic Diretcor's comments and I can see where he is coming from. That is a conservative area and they don't want to have any budget problems or cut sports. I am glad as I too do not want to see GVSU stealing CMUs players! It would be interesting to see CMU crush Grand Valley in football :) but I know that will not happen since no division 1 team wants to play division 2 teams.
There's also a rule that teams can only play up or down one division in football, so 1-A teams can only play against 1-AA teams...1-AA teams can play 1-A or D2 teams, D2 teams can play 1-AA or D3 teams...there are a couple exceptions to the rule for rivalries that have been "grandfathered" in, but that's the general rule.

I'd like to see WMU and GVSU do a scrimmage sometime during spring practices, but alas...still a risk of injury.

You're looking at MAC Championships though...that's the ceiling that a team moving up now can shoot for. A MAC Championship, and if you were dominating enough, maybe a BCS bowl bid once every 15-20 years, if that. That still doesn't compete with being a perennial national title contender in almost every sport. I would actually venture to guess that while GV would get *more* quality athletes (specifically speaking for football) due to the 85 scholarship numbers, that it really wouldn't improve the team because you're still only playing 11 men to a side. GV right now is already getting players that are EMU/WMU/CMU caliber...they would just be getting more of them at a D1 level. Nobody in this state is ever going to break into the UM or MSU level of football, so I guess the point is, why spend all the money trying? GV has already kind of been adopted as "West Michigan's college" over WMU, to the point where in 2006-07, WMU fired some admission staff people, and hired new ones, with the president of the university quoted as saying "We are losing students to Grand Valley State, and it's unacceptable" for the reasoning for it. There's just not enough to gain to make it happen. You either stick with a 6 million dollar athletic budget and lose a little bit of money each year on it while competing for national titles in everything, or you pony up a 50 million dollar athletic budget, lose a lot each year on it, and compete for mid-major conference championships in some sports.

Make no mistake, GV will be Division 1 eventually...just not in the next 15-20 years, at least. Also something to keep in mind is that unless a couple MAC schools move to 1-AA (like their attendance numbers say they should), GV would have to move straight into 1-A for football because the nearest 1-AA football playing schools are in southern Illinois and northeast Ohio, and the travel to those places year after year, with those being your closest trips, would be monumental.

[Ingefanclub]

Make no mistake, GV will be Division 1 eventually...just not in the next 15-20 years, at least. Also something to keep in mind is that unless a couple MAC schools move to 1-AA (like their attendance numbers say they should), GV would have to move straight into 1-A for football because the nearest 1-AA football playing schools are in southern Illinois and northeast Ohio, and the travel to those places year after year, with those being your closest trips, would be monumental.

Good point. I quoted an article in the last month that showed 7 of the MAC teams were in danger of losing their division 1 status. This may be the more likely scenario that several of these teams go to division 1-AA and Grand Valley moves up to play them. Then being in division 1-A, Grand Valley could play division 1 schools. CMU will have a home game with Indiana in 2010 and Michigan State in a few years. Grand Valley hosting Michigan State in the future would be great to see

Attendance: What schools could lose DI-A status? : Fanblogs College Football Blog (http://www.fanblogs.com/ncaa/006689.php)

EMU, Bowling Green, Ball State, Miami, Temple, Akron, Ohio