St. Cloud State football

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metrolax

metrolax

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The issue of St. Cloud's future in football was once again brought up in the Strib
today. It seems that D-II is a tough go for some of these programs.

They need to really look into taking the jump to Division I FCS. One big pay day
a year against a BCS team and they're in the black. That's just my opinion,
but schools like MSU-Mankato and SCSU need to at least re-think this. I'm
not seeing a lot of regret from their former peers from the Dakotas.
 

On one hand, they would have to pay for increased scholarships and travel costs, but on the other, they would be able to get paychecks for football and basketball against major teams. SCSU also has a lot of overhead in their athletics department, it's just overkill for a D-II school. They could cut some of the assistant athletic directors. I think if Mankato wants to bill themselves as Minnesota State, they should move to D-I. They are in the same conference as Moorhead, which uses the name Minnesota State - Moorhead. The only reason the other state universities don't use Minnesota State is because they didn't want to give up their traditional names.
 

I'm a Gopher but my daughter is a Freshman at SCSU. She will be voting for the credit increase to keep the Football team although she feels that the overall sentiment on campus is against the increase. We went to a SCSU game earlier this fall and had a great time. Nice stadium and a solid D2 team. Unfortunate.
 

unfortunately, when a division 2 football team is not profitable contracting them becomes the obvious thing to do. The athletic department can't do anything other than put up a referendum due to the Title IX requirements. (Stupid federal laws....this is for another discussion though)
 

With the NSIC voting that football is a required sport, SCSU has a few options:
1) Leave the NSIC and become an independent
2) Join another D-II conference
3) Move to D-III
4) Move to the NAIA
5) Move up to D-I
6) Find the money for football.

It's a pretty rough road as an independent. Finding another D-II conference would be tough, and add a lot more travel costs. Dropping to D-III or NAIA would kill D-I hockey.

Basically, their only viable options are independent status or find money for football. The football losses are small, and could be easily made up, it's other parts of the athletics department that are losing big. They have to seriously look at cutting administrative costs.
 


raragophers said:
unfortunately, when a division 2 football team is not profitable contracting them becomes the obvious thing to do. The athletic department can't do anything other than put up a referendum due to the Title IX requirements. (Stupid federal laws....this is for another discussion though)
Click to expand...

There are other things to do. Fire unneeded assistant athletics directors, for example. Much of the losses in the athletics department are from women's hockey. Title IX does not require that if a school has men's hockey that it must have women's hockey, that's a WCHA requirement. Title IX compliance could be accompished by adding any women's sport.
 

RodentRampage said:
With the NSIC voting that football is a required sport, SCSU has a few options:
1) Leave the NSIC and become an independent
2) Join another D-II conference
3) Move to D-III
4) Move to the NAIA
5) Move up to D-I
6) Find the money for football.

It's a pretty rough road as an independent. Finding another D-II conference would be tough, and add a lot more travel costs. Dropping to D-III or NAIA would kill D-I hockey.

Basically, their only viable options are independent status or find money for football. The football losses are small, and could be easily made up, it's other parts of the athletics department that are losing big. They have to seriously look at cutting administrative costs.
Click to expand...

rodent, well said. You just hit the nail on the head in regards to cutting administrative costs.
 

RodentRampage said:
There are other things to do. Fire unneeded assistant athletics directors, for example.
Click to expand...

speaking from personal experience as someone who participated in sports at SCSU this is one of the last things they would do.
 

raragophers said:
speaking from personal experience as someone who participated in sports at SCSU this is one of the last things they would do.
Click to expand...

That is understandable, no athletics department is going to suggest cuts to the athletics department. It would be like the Edsel division of Ford suggesting eliminating the Edsel. It's the right thing to do, but just like the Edsel division, the AD has a vested interest in not cutting administration.

I know it's beyond the power of any one school, but what if women's hockey was restructured to have smaller, more regional conferences? How much money could be saved by not flying to Denver, Colorado College or Anchorage?
 



RodentRampage said:
With the NSIC voting that football is a required sport, SCSU has a few options:
1) Leave the NSIC and become an independent
2) Join another D-II conference
3) Move to D-III
4) Move to the NAIA
5) Move up to D-I
6) Find the money for football.

It's a pretty rough road as an independent. Finding another D-II conference would be tough, and add a lot more travel costs. Dropping to D-III or NAIA would kill D-I hockey.

Basically, their only viable options are independent status or find money for football. The football losses are small, and could be easily made up, it's other parts of the athletics department that are losing big. They have to seriously look at cutting administrative costs.
Click to expand...

Colorado College is a DIII school and just dropped football this past year. SCSU Hockey is going to be fine. Denver doesn't have football either.
 

RodentRampage said:
That is understandable, no athletics department is going to suggest cuts to the athletics department. It would be like the Edsel division of Ford suggesting eliminating the Edsel. It's the right thing to do, but just like the Edsel division, the AD has a vested interest in not cutting administration.

I know it's beyond the power of any one school, but what if women's hockey was restructured to have smaller, more regional conferences? How much money could be saved by not flying to Denver, Colorado College or Anchorage?
Click to expand...

No of those schools have womens teams in the WCHA. Nice Try. The longest in conference trips are Wisconsin and Ohio State. Every other school is practically (UND) in state.
 

Nothing is going to be fine if they don't have a conference. The NCAA is no longer allowing D-III schools to play D-I hockey, the schools who currently do this are grandfathered in. It's a tricky question if they would allow a team to move down to D-III and still play D-I hockey. And even if hockey is going to be fine, there's more to sports than hockey. Other D-II schools manage their budgets, despite having hockey, the difference is waste and inefficiency. If the athletics department won't cut the waste, then people need to go over their head to get the cuts made.
 

bottom line: this is a combination of overspending on administrative costs, the football program not being profitable, and Title IX regulations. Title IX cuts into the amount of scholarships given out to higher revenue generating sports.
 



RodentRampage said:
Nothing is going to be fine if they don't have a conference. The NCAA is no longer allowing D-III schools to play D-I hockey, the schools who currently do this are grandfathered in. It's a tricky question if they would allow a team to move down to D-III and still play D-I hockey. And even if hockey is going to be fine, there's more to sports than hockey. Other D-II schools manage their budgets, despite having hockey, the difference is waste and inefficiency. If the athletics department won't cut the waste, then people need to go over their head to get the cuts made.
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I agree. I think in the unfortunate event that a school were to drop to D-III they would be allowed to keep their D-1 Hockey. I believe the rule is more related to a school only having 1 d-1 sport on campus. I think the real reason and emphasis behind this is Men's Basketball and specialty conferences for Men's Basketball. College basketball would be find without them, college hockey would be dead.
 

SCSU is ranked in the top 25 in the nation with their only loss coming to #1 ranked UMD. now, i don't know how difficult the rest of their schedule is and i didn't pay any attention to the SCSU/UMD game so i don't know how close it was.

the problem with SCSU football is no one cares. i could find you a dozen SCSU hockey fans in an hour, but no one who cares about SCSU football. the stadium is decent, but doesn't seat much more than a decent high school football stadium and doesn't fill up.

the only thing to do is go D1 and get some buzz going. maybe get some rivalries with the FCS teams from the dakotas to get people excited. what about the conference that USD is in, isn't that like a six team conference? maybe they could find a place there.
 

Its not so much football.

Having a little insight into this the problems at SCSU are not just about football. Its about a sports department that has wasted money and has gotten to big for what it is. The school itself doesnt want to cut football but it may be down to cutting football or 8 other sports. SCSU has made a big mess out of their situation and now is having to pay the price. We will see what the students decide. That being said the best way out for SCSU if they have to cut football is to make the jump to D-I. They are D-I in hockey and the jump in hoops would probably get them the funds it needs to keep the sports department going. Not having football would be strange but its the reality they are in.
 

WolfontheProwl said:
Having a little insight into this the problems at SCSU are not just about football. Its about a sports department that has wasted money and has gotten to big for what it is. The school itself doesnt want to cut football but it may be down to cutting football or 8 other sports. SCSU has made a big mess out of their situation and now is having to pay the price. We will see what the students decide. That being said the best way out for SCSU if they have to cut football is to make the jump to D-I. They are D-I in hockey and the jump in hoops would probably get them the funds it needs to keep the sports department going. Not having football would be strange but its the reality they are in.
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I think they are bluffing on football. The losses on football are small and could easily be made up for. But threatening to drop football gives a visibility that threatening to drop nordic skiing does not. The conference situation alone means that SCSU will not drop football. They may cut some sports, they may cut some cost, they may find a way to raise more money, but football will not be one of the sports cut.
 

The problem with SCSU football is that there is no tradition. The team used to play at probably the worst college football stadium in the state at Selke Field. It was worse than most high school stadiums. The stadium was a few blocks from campus, not walking distance necessarily, and had no atmosphere. You couldn't hear the loud speaker over the conversation next to you. You could stand up and yell clear across the stands and everyone would have been able to hear you. It was awful. No alums from the past 20 years care about SCSU football or are going to donate money for it.

If they want to build a program, they need to get students there who will go to games now, but will also be ambassadors for the future. However, Division II is just an expensive version of Division III. It's not on TV and the alumni aren't checking to see who won the game between SCSU and UNO-Omaha. It's sobering for those in the area or at the school, but nobody cares. In fact, St. John's University has a better tradition and is 15 miles up the road. If SCSU moves to Division III, they might as well just fade away like the college football version of Flint, Mich.

The best thing SCSU could do would be to move up to Division I for football and load the schedule with natural rivals like S. Dakota St., NDSU, UND and USD. Some of those teams have rivalries with SCSU from the WCHA.

The only sports that St. Cloud really has going for itself are obviously men's hockey and men's basketball. Once the Big Ten hockey conference materializes, SCSU will really lose out. They need to make the jump to Division I in all sports and cut out those sports that don't make sense. SCSU should move to Division I and cut baseball, wrestling, tennis, in addition to a few women's sports, too.

St. Cloud State could build a strong following with small school division one sports, as many of the teams they played against when I went there have done. Otherwise, they might as well just cut them all down to the club level because it's just going to be a money pit.
 

Contrary to popular belief, St. Cloud State DOES provide bathrooms for its students and staff.
 

I personally would love to see SCSU go DI. St. Cloud State is the 2nd largest school in the state and could easily become the 2nd DI school. They could be just as competitive as any of the dakota schools. Also being able to play the gophers in other sports besides hockey would really energize the entire program. Like others have said being able to play larger universities has got to help with being able to make ends meet. There was a recent article saying they might be target for recent Summit League expansion.

http://news.collegesportsinfo.com/2010/11/summit-league-expansion-tom-douple.html
 

the huskie gopher said:
I personally would love to see SCSU go DI. St. Cloud State is the 2nd largest school in the state and could easily become the 2nd DI school. They could be just as competitive as any of the dakota schools. Also being able to play the gophers in other sports besides hockey would really energize the entire program. Like others have said being able to play larger universities has got to help with being able to make ends meet. There was a recent article saying they might be target for recent Summit League expansion.

http://news.collegesportsinfo.com/2010/11/summit-league-expansion-tom-douple.html
Click to expand...

Won't happen. 1st of all the referendum at SCSU passed so the football program has been saved. Also the NCAA placed a moratorium on any new schools joining DI. The only reason schools like UND and USD got to make the jump is because they had announced the move before the moratorium was announced. Also the MnSCU board has to approve any moves like this and they would never approve this.
 

That moratorium was for jumps from FCS to FBS, and it expires in 2011.

Long-term feasibility for a school like SCSU is in D-I. D-II is not working,
and will not work into the future. I can cite several examples of FCS schools that
are much smaller that SCSU (or Mankato, for that matter), that have smaller
stadiums and even less history, and are in areas that produce even less
football talent.
 

One one hand, there's travel costs and added scholarships, on the other hand there is added revenue. For basketball, they would likely go on the road for a lot of guarantee games. They would also be getting paychecks to play FBS teams in football, unless they decided to go non-scholarship for football.
 

Expecting the SCSU administration to do something intelligent like make the jump to Division I and shutter other sports at the varsity level that can be offered at club level (wrestling/baseball -- seriously, U of Wisconsin doesn't even offer baseball/etc.) is an exercise in futility.
 

People keep talking about Wisconsin not having baseball, but Wisconsin has men's soccer. They simply have chosen one sport instead of another.
 

SCSU and MSU-Mankato: Two ugly step-sisters left at the ball

I recently spoke with the faculty rep to the NCAA at Nebraska-Omaha. He said they are definitely going to move to D-I within a couple years. There's basically going to be no large schools left in the Upper Midwest that are D-II except St. Cloud and Mankato. Both schools completely lack vision when it comes to athletics. And both schools seem completely unaware of how being a D-II school looks when you have student populations of 17,000 and 15,000. The average D-II school student population is about 6,000. SCSU and MSU-M are a joke for holding on to the D-II label for so long. Shame on us for allowing North and South Dakota to have more vision than we do. Minnesota will continue to be the only state around that has one D-I school. Iowa has 4; Nebraska has 2 (will have 3 with UNO); Wisconsin has 4; and both Dakotas have 2 each. Ridiculous!
 

The Summit League would be a great fit for SCSU, it matches geographically very well, and fits most of their sports. The hockey team would have it's home in the WCHA as always, of course. Saint Cloud has Nordic skiing, which the Summit League doesn't have, but neither did the NSIC. For wrestling, there is the Western Wrestling Conference, which NSDU and SDSU belong to.

Football might be a problem. If they could get into the Missouri Valley Football Conference, then there is no problem. Otherwise, they could play non-scholarship football. The Pioneer Football League is non-scholarship, but might not take them as SCSU would be the largest school and would be the only public school.
 

ProfessorBum said:
I recently spoke with the faculty rep to the NCAA at Nebraska-Omaha. He said they are definitely going to move to D-I within a couple years. There's basically going to be no large schools left in the Upper Midwest that are D-II except St. Cloud and Mankato. Both schools completely lack vision when it comes to athletics. And both schools seem completely unaware of how being a D-II school looks when you have student populations of 17,000 and 15,000. The average D-II school student population is about 6,000. SCSU and MSU-M are a joke for holding on to the D-II label for so long. Shame on us for allowing North and South Dakota to have more vision than we do. Minnesota will continue to be the only state around that has one D-I school. Iowa has 4; Nebraska has 2 (will have 3 with UNO); Wisconsin has 4; and both Dakotas have 2 each. Ridiculous!
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+1

It's ridiculous that SCSU and the screaming eagles from mankato are still dwindling in DII. Both have succeeded in most sports. SCSU Men's Basketball Final Four last year, Wrestling team is very strong, Football team in the post season. Minnesota State recently won DII national championship in womens basketball, Football team has also had recent success.
 

Some great posting going on above. Too bad none of it will come to pass. Sigh.
 

bigtenchamps1899 said:
the problem with SCSU football is no one cares. i could find you a dozen SCSU hockey fans in an hour, but no one who cares about SCSU football. the stadium is decent, but doesn't seat much more than a decent high school football stadium and doesn't fill up.
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I went to SCSU in the late 80's and agree that few cared at all about football. It was all about hockey then and now I assume. I actually went home to Mpls to go to Gopher football games every home game. I never once saw the Huskies play a football game. It didn't help that most of the football players I knew were complete jerks:clap:
 

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