Lately, colleges are adding football programs faster than bowl games.
No, not everyone can be the SEC. But how many college presidents think they’re at least as smart as their SEC counterparts?
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“We remember the Sugar Bowl, I think it my junior year of high school, we let Alabama beat us twice,” Brinson said of a team that also lost to the Crimson Tide in the SEC Championship game. “We’re not letting Alabama beat us twice. In the Sugar Bowl in 2018, they… thought they should have been in the playoffs and lost to Texas.” -- AB-H, 12/27/23
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Get The Picture · Bloviation for the Dawgnation
Get The Picture 
So…the small schools don’t need games against Power 5 schools like UGA all that much, do they?
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Where do you think that money for the small schools comes from? We’re pay nearly $2M per cupcake. That will help out the budget quite nicely for those little guys.
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Mercer is going to both Auburn and Alabama this season, so yeah, they do.
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This is why I call schools like Mercer and Georgia State “crash dummy” football programs. They only exist to serve as crash dummies for P5 football programs.
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Tell that to their alumni and fellow Maconites. Mercer football has been a pretty big deal down here.
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6-5 in the Southern Conference is a pretty big deal, huh? Must be former Tech football fans.
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I think he means the excitement of having a team to root for is a lot better than having nothing on Saturdays.
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They have a team in Athens they need to get behind. Mercer is nothing but “13th grade football”.
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Interesting comment for a college football fan of any team. Why would you ever pay attention to Georgia when the far more talented Falcons are just down the road playing big boy football?
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I don’t think the products are in competition with one another. Personally, I only watch the NFL when it is bad weather day on a Sunday, or when CFB is over. Give me a college matchup over the pro-game any time.
I know others feel differently but I could care less about the NFL until January.
I still don’t know why the FCS teams, and some mid-majors, don’t play in the Spring when they could be the only game in town/TV. They will never get the attention when playing at the same time Power 5 teams are on the air. Sports networks are looking for inventory of live action once the basketball season is over, and many of us don’t watch basketball. I am ready for some more football about mid-February and they can sell advertising for those games. It might bring in more money than taking cupcake money during the fall season.
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The NFL is boring. My comment was in response to PharmDawg’s asinine trolling.
And to your other comment: because football is played in the fall. Most of the existing or new FCS schools have no delusions that they’re going to join the SEC or any other P5 conference. Nor do they think they will compete with P5 schools for airtime or care if they do. And they sure as hell don’t exist to suckle at the teat of ESPN like all P5 do at this point, as far as the decision makers go. You want to see what happens when a delusional school tries to start a football program as some sort of money maker, go look at the dumpster fire that is Georgia State.
Most of the programs generally exist as a service to the students and alumni (you know, they way we complain it should still be but isn’t in the SEC?), and (especially for the new programs) a tool for recruiting students. It gives the alumni a reason to come back to campus, and a huge chunk of students won’t even consider a school where they can’t tailgate 5-7 Saturdays a year. But most of those kids don’t give two shits about whether their college of choice is competing for championships when they’re making a decision out of high school.
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Why drive all the way to Athens to see mediocre football when you can see it in your own hometown?
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Don’t need it but if the P5 schools are going to be giving millions away to pad their schedules instead of just playing each other, we’ll take it.
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“But how many college presidents think they’re at least as smart as their SEC counterparts?” Probably all of them.
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At least 40 of ’em, anyway.
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But how many college presidents think they know as much about running a football factory as their SEC counterparts?
None of them?
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They’re doing it because it increases enrollment and alumni donations. No other reasons.
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It’s working like a damn golden goose for Mercer.
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It’s paying off, too! 6-5 in the SoCon. Wow.
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4-4 in conference play in year 4 of the program isn’t that bad.
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I guess…if you like mediocre football…
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You’ve completely missed the point.
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No I haven’t. Mercer, like any school that is not a P5, is wasting valuable resources for nothing. The money spent on football would be better spent on academics since there is no chance that Mercer will ever rise to the level of a P5 like Georgia and make enough money to sustain itself.
College football to me is a zero-sum game. Every dollar in Georgia that is spent on crash dummies like KSU, GSU, Southern, VSU, West Georgia, and Mercer, is a dollar that is NOT spent on UGA. I would like nothing more than to see all the crash dummy programs shuttered, and the sooner the better.
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Has it ever occurred to you, PharmDawg, that the University of Georgia is FU’s “crash dummy?” B-M makes more money playing FU in JAX than it would make in a home and away situation (although not really THAT much more) so it continues each year to play that game in JAX at what amounts to FU’s second home field and get drilled year after year. How is that any different is from Mercer going to Auburn and Tuscaloosa and getting drilled for money? What’s that saying about glass houses? It certainly applies here.
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It isn’t like this is an established program. They didn’t play a game ’11 and only the 3rd year in the SoCo. Compared to other new programs Mercer is trending up. 4 of the 5 losses were to ranked FCS teams or BCS P5 programs with 2 of those losses being a single score games. I would take that considering they are graduating their 1st Senior football class since FDR was in the White House.
Kennesaw St went 3-2 in a typically lesser conference and people are thrilled.
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YAWN…College football is the P5. Every other program is a crash dummy opponent that exists to provide cannon fodder for P5 programs.
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If someone answers your riddle do we get to go across the bridge?
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So no reason for high school football either in your scenario. Sports started out as programs for students to enjoy and compete. It is not supposed to be NFL lite.
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While we’re at it, let’s eliminate Pop Warner football and Pee Wee football, too. Not Power 5.
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Your fatal flaw is assuming that the folks running SEC football factories are experts. If nothing else – the McGarity experience has taught me full well that these guys are Jed Clampetts, but believe they created the oil.
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Do you presume their SEC counterparts’ intelligence has anything to do with their success?
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“If you build it, they will come.” App State beating Michigan was the worst thing to happen to college football. It gave every crash dummy football program the false hope that it could compete with the big boys. Georgia State is a prime example of a crash dummy. The president is hell bent and determined to have big time football even if no one else cares. He’s getting it funded on the backs of the poor students who are having a significant portion of their Pell Grants and student loans hijacked to subsidize a football program that draws an average home-game crowd in the mid-four figures. The Board of Regents should have told Georgia State “NO”.
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They appeared to average around 15K per home game in 16.. ..and I look for that to increase in the coming years..we shall see.
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The Story of a Crash Dummy Football Program at Georgia State:
http://www.chronicle.com/interactives/ncaa-subsidies-main#id=table_2014
http://news.wabe.org/post/gsu-students-paid-nearly-90m-student-athletic-fees-2010
http://www.ajc.com/news/local-education/georgia-state-used-million-student-fees-help-pay-for-sports/5h4XKn9x2g4SEZkvN80AMO/
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PharmDawg–are you Paul Bryant, Jr.? Just askin.’
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I think if Georgia State could use it to establish a traditional undergrad student base, rather than just the typical commuters they’ve historically served, they’d be happy.
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http://knocking.wiche.edu/nation-region-profile/
All of these schools are riding a wave of ever-increasing numbers of college-ready students. Yes, all the inputs (SATs and GPAs, etc) are “the most qualified class in the history of the University of _______”, but aren’t the result of leaderships’ smarts. It’s simple supply/demand. And the demand is for more of the traditional, collegiate ideal which includes a ball game on fall Saturdays. When you check out that chart, you can clearly see when all of this is going to break down: when enrollments start to decrease and inputs start to wane… maybe then the price will come back down. (At least I hope so by at least 2027). One thing is for sure, there won’t be as much money from states and at some point families will react to price and the competition will be more keen. UGA will be fine. KSU and GaSt… who knows?
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As long as Georgia State’s football program can steal $90 million of its’ students’ money to subsidize a mediocre football program, they’ll continue to play games in front of thousands of fans…
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While we’re at it–how about Georgia Tech? That place hasn’t won jackshit for titles in years. The only time in memory they did win their division they had to forfeit all the wins and the title. How much does Tech’s AA steal from the students each year? And about half of the Tech student body is foreign and doesn’t care one whit about football.
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And Tech plays its home games in from of HUNDREDS of fans. 🙂
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UGA uses student fees to subsidize 2.8% of its overall athletic budget.
GT uses students fees to subsidize 7.2% of its overall athletic budget.
Georgia State uses student fees to subsidize 84% of its overall athletic budget.
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