Last year in MVFC

[ST_Lawson]

Enjoy this year and make the most of it.  Playing in the toughest conference means you can sneak into the playoff with even a so-so record.  Starting next year, you probably need to be top two in the conference to get in.

 

Now, obviously you have to play the games...who knows what will happen on the field, but if you look at the Massey ratings currently for OVC teams and for us, here's where we currently fit into the picture:
#24 - Southeast Missouri State
#32 - TN-Martin
#63 - Western Illinois
#75 - Tennessee Tech
#81 - Tennessee State
#86 - Eastern Illinois
#88 - Lindenwood

I don't have any idea if we'll end up being in the whole Big South partnership thing, or if the OVC will do away with that after this next football season, but for reference, here's the teams that will be in the Big South in 2024:
#55 - Gardner-Webb
#74 - Charleston Southern
#87 - Bryant
#117 - Robert Morris

By that rating system, we're the 63rd best FCS team currently, which puts us last in the MVFC, but 3rd in the OVC, and if you include the Big South teams, 4th out of 11. Now, 4th out of the OVC/Big South will not get you a playoff spot like it probably would in the MVFC, but if we're able to start winning some games, that will hopefully translate to a bit more excitement about football and continuing improvement.

Using the Sagarin Ratings (all DI teams), here's where we fit in:
140 - SEMO
165 - Gardner-Webb
167 - UT-Martin
199 - Bryant
209 - Charleston Southern
202 - TN Tech
204 - TN State
210 - WIU
216 - Lindenwood
225 - EIU
255 - Robert Morris

A little less "bullish" on us, but Massey has always highly favored MVFC teams (rightly or wrongly), which we are still classified as for the next football season.

Overall, harder to make the playoffs, but it really didn't look like we were going to be making the playoffs any time soon in the MVFC. You'd pretty much have to be good, a bit lucky, and have either SDSU or NDSU off your schedule for that season (ideally both). In the OVC, there aren't really any teams that are that ridiculously ahead of us as the XDSU's are in the MVFC.
 
 

[ST_Lawson]

I may be in a small group, but I wish we could of stayed in the MVFC, the best conference in the FCS. but I do understand we will be able to compete fully 


 

Ideally, yes, I wish we could have stayed. Ideally I would like to see the conference go back to when it was the Gateway, and Youngstown was probably the farthest travel-wise. But, they are not going to dump the Dakota schools - and even if we were athletically competitive with them, the travel costs are too high. Too many D1 schools in IL fighting for a piece of the pie when the Dakotas have many fewer D1 schools competing for $$$$. This is where my old butt says I miss the good old days...........
 

Interview with Paul Bubb says that we're going to be saving as much as $250k on travel costs in the OVC vs MVFC/Summit League. That's a decent chunk of money that can allocated elsewhere in athletics. Improve a few coaching salaries...or work a bit on facilities...whatever.

[screamingeaglepride]

I think the 7 OVC schools and the 4 Big South schools should merge and form a football only conference called The Big Valley Football League

[bignecks]

I may be in a small group, but I wish we could of stayed in the MVFC, the best conference in the FCS. but I do understand we will be able to compete fully 



 

Ideally, yes, I wish we could have stayed. Ideally I would like to see the conference go back to when it was the Gateway, and Youngstown was probably the farthest travel-wise. But, they are not going to dump the Dakota schools - and even if we were athletically competitive with them, the travel costs are too high. Too many D1 schools in IL fighting for a piece of the pie when the Dakotas have many fewer D1 schools competing for $$$$. This is where my old butt says I miss the good old days...........

 

Interview with Paul Bubb says that we're going to be saving as much as $250k on travel costs in the OVC vs MVFC/Summit League. That's a decent chunk of money that can allocated elsewhere in athletics. Improve a few coaching salaries...or work a bit on facilities...whatever.

 

This is insane. I would've never assumed it would be this much a year. I guess I fully support the change now. Even if MVC blows up and media companies start throwing money at it, it won't outweigh these savings. 

[ST_Lawson]

This is insane. I would've never assumed it would be this much a year. I guess I fully support the change now. Even if MVC blows up and media companies start throwing money at it, it won't outweigh these savings. 



 

I'd bet that is what made the decision for them. We wanted to take non-football sports to the OVC, but keep football in the MVFC. OVC needed football teams and said it's "all or nothing". After enough time running the numbers, they saw that it was just too much of a savings to pass up. Plus we'll be competing with schools that are much closer to where we are in terms of athletic spending. I used the US Dept of Education Equity in Athletics Data Analysis page (https://ope.ed.gov/athletics) to compare total expenses for 2021 for a few different categories for ourselves, the OVC schools, and the MVFC/Summit schools. Now, some of the schools that have recently moved up from lower divisions (Lindenwood, Southern Indiana, St. Thomas) the data might be off a bit, since they're probably in the process of ramping up their spending.

In terms of football, we were last in the MVFC ($3.1 mil), at about $720k less than the next lowest, UNI. We were about $3 million behind NDSU in terms of annual spending (again, this is just football)...essentially half what they spend.
In the OVC, we would be 5th out of 7 currently, ahead of EIU and Lindenwood. TN State is up in the NDSU range, but they play about half of their home games at Nissan Stadium (TN Titans home stadium), which I'm sure ramps up the spending for them. It also doesn't automatically mean higher attendance or better on-field results. Last year, TN Tech went 4-7 overall (2-3) in the conference, and while they drew over 22k fans for Homecoming against fellow HBCU Bethune-Cookman, they brought in 6.2k, 6.3k, and 2.6k against EIU, SEMO, and UT-Martin respectively. UT-Martin, TN Tech, and SEMO are all ahead of us, but are all below what UNI spends (again...all other MVFC teams spend more than us and UNI), so they're all within the same "ballpark" in terms of what's being spent.
Quick version: MVFC average is $4.507 mil, OVC average is $3.79 mil (but that does include TN State's Nissan Stadium rent), we currently spend $3.1 mil.

Looking at "olympic sports"...specifically Men's Basketball, we spend $1.42 mil. In the Summit, that puts us second to last, ahead of only Omaha. In the OVC, what we spend currently is 4th out of 11. Ahead of us would be UA-Little Rock (who doesn't have football), TN Tech, and TN State.
Women's basketball, we spend $971k, which is last in the Summit (next lowest is Omaha at $1.166 mil). In the OVC, we'd be 7th out of 11, ahead of Morehead State, EIU, Southern Indiana, and Lindenwood.

You can view full document here.

In the spreadsheet, I do also include the numbers for all other men's sports, all other women's sports, and total spending, but there's a few outliers in there. The top ones by total spending are Denver (BIG TIME Hockey), USD (idk what they're spending their money on, but it's under the "other sports" category), St. Thomas (again...mostly hockey), and NDSU, who just spends a lot on everything generally. Little Rock is up there as well (they have Pac-12 wrestling), along with Omaha (Hockey) and Lindenwood (private school that has a ton of sports outside of the OVC ones...Hockey, Lacrosse, Swimming & Diving, Men's Tennis, Men's Volleyball, men's wrestling being started up, women's field hockey, women's gymnastics, women's ice hokey, women's lacrosse, women's swimming & diving, and women's wrestling).
I sorted the Olympic Sports tab by total basketball spending, but put a "heatmap" type formatting on each column...darker green = more spending...more red = less spending.

Overall, going from being essentially the lowest spending team in nearly every category to being generally right in the middle or upper half. Plus, if we're saving $250k/year on travel, we can roll that into the various sports and bump up our spending a bit.
 
 

[sealhall74]

Do you think all OVC conference game travel will now be by bus?  MVFC and Summit, we always had quite a few plane rides (youngstown, denver, tulsa, fargo, ...)

Maybe with the savings, we can actually buy a bus although it probably takes a couple or three for big time programs.
 

[leatherneckcountry]

Do you think all OVC conference game travel will now be by bus?  MVFC and Summit, we always had quite a few plane rides (youngstown, denver, tulsa, fargo, ...)

Maybe with the savings, we can actually buy a bus although it probably takes a couple or three for big time programs.
 

 

Tennessee tech I would guess is a plane and if they they with the big south I’m guessing some of those will be plane rides. 

[JackJD]

I may be in a small group, but I wish we could of stayed in the MVFC, the best conference in the FCS. but I do understand we will be able to compete fully 



 

Ideally, yes, I wish we could have stayed. Ideally I would like to see the conference go back to when it was the Gateway, and Youngstown was probably the farthest travel-wise. But, they are not going to dump the Dakota schools - and even if we were athletically competitive with them, the travel costs are too high. Too many D1 schools in IL fighting for a piece of the pie when the Dakotas have many fewer D1 schools competing for $$$$. This is where my old butt says I miss the good old days...........


 

Going to miss you guys...I think the first time SDSU played WIU in football was 1976 when the Jackrabbits were lucky to lose by just one TD:  21-28.  As a student as SDSU, I was an assistant to the Sports Information Director and gathered information about the Leathernecks in preparation for press releases and pre-game promotion of the game.  

Commenting on rocki's "piece of the pie" point. I respectfully submit the following numbers:  the 2023 estimated population of ND is 793,657 and the estimated population of SD is 913,797 (source: populationU website).  The same source states the 2023 estimated population of Illinois is 12.48 million.  ND and SD each have two D-I athletic programs. I believe there are 13 NCAA D-I programs in Illinois. Perhaps my view is a little simplistic but when I divide population in one state by the number of D-I schools in that state, I don't see an advantage to SD or ND. 

However, I think rocki's point has some validity when one takes into account a MVFC school competing against a BIG 10 program for the same recruit in the same state. NDSU, UND, SDSU and USD all have to compete against the Minnesota Gophers, Iowa and Iowa State, Nebraska and to a lesser extent, Wisconsin...but I recognize state boundaries can impact that competition.  (Not entirely kidding:  when you look at the great football rosters NDSU has had over recent years, it may be more accurate to feel sorry for the Gophers having to compete with the Bison for top Minnesota recruits).  

I think NDSU has been the leader for years in securing and increasing support from its fan base (not just alums). In recent times, SDSU has figured out how to also grow the fan base and increase fan support dollars.  I think we're matching NDSU stride for stride and it shows.

Sometimes we have to admit there's not always a lot to do during the winter in the Dakotas so we follow sports.

Best wishes to all the Leathernecks in your new challenges.


 
 

[rocki]

I may be in a small group, but I wish we could of stayed in the MVFC, the best conference in the FCS. but I do understand we will be able to compete fully 




 

Ideally, yes, I wish we could have stayed. Ideally I would like to see the conference go back to when it was the Gateway, and Youngstown was probably the farthest travel-wise. But, they are not going to dump the Dakota schools - and even if we were athletically competitive with them, the travel costs are too high. Too many D1 schools in IL fighting for a piece of the pie when the Dakotas have many fewer D1 schools competing for $$$$. This is where my old butt says I miss the good old days...........



 

Going to miss you guys...I think the first time SDSU played WIU in football was 1976 when the Jackrabbits were lucky to lose by just one TD:  21-28.  As a student as SDSU, I was an assistant to the Sports Information Director and gathered information about the Leathernecks in preparation for press releases and pre-game promotion of the game.  

Commenting on rocki's "piece of the pie" point. I respectfully submit the following numbers:  the 2023 estimated population of ND is 793,657 and the estimated population of SD is 913,797 (source: populationU website).  The same source states the 2023 estimated population of Illinois is 12.48 million.  ND and SD each have two D-I athletic programs. I believe there are 13 NCAA D-I programs in Illinois. Perhaps my view is a little simplistic but when I divide population in one state by the number of D-I schools in that state, I don't see an advantage to SD or ND. 

However, I think rocki's point has some validity when one takes into account a MVFC school competing against a BIG 10 program for the same recruit in the same state. NDSU, UND, SDSU and USD all have to compete against the Minnesota Gophers, Iowa and Iowa State, Nebraska and to a lesser extent, Wisconsin...but I recognize state boundaries can impact that competition.  (Not entirely kidding:  when you look at the great football rosters NDSU has had over recent years, it may be more accurate to feel sorry for the Gophers having to compete with the Bison for top Minnesota recruits).  

I think NDSU has been the leader for years in securing and increasing support from its fan base (not just alums). In recent times, SDSU has figured out how to also grow the fan base and increase fan support dollars.  I think we're matching NDSU stride for stride and it shows.

Sometimes we have to admit there's not always a lot to do during the winter in the Dakotas so we follow sports.

Best wishes to all the Leathernecks in your new challenges.


 
 

 

With all due respect, you have to remember that  A LOT of that population is in Chicago (which, to me, makes the point moot  ). 
 
 
 

[meganeck]

Do you think all OVC conference game travel will now be by bus?  MVFC and Summit, we always had quite a few plane rides (youngstown, denver, tulsa, fargo, ...)

Maybe with the savings, we can actually buy a bus although it probably takes a couple or three for big time programs.
 


 

Tennessee tech I would guess is a plane and if they they with the big south I’m guessing some of those will be plane rides. 

 

I read an article on the move and it said all the trips will be bus rides