2025 Week 8 - vs Charleston Southern (Homecoming)

[Western_101]

Hurts a lot Losing 1000 international students due to current political climate.

Let me know when " things" are great again. Still waiting.

[sealhall74]

Hurts a lot Losing 1000 international students due to current political climate.

Let me know when " things" are great again. Still waiting.



 

Max Pell Grant may be going down from $7,395 to $5,710 next year.  That can't be good for business either. On the plus side, the actual legislation is still pending so who knows how it will turn out.

Update:  The July reconcilation bill did not go forward with those cuts proposed by House.  There were some changes related to eligibility so that still could be a factor.
 
 

[Western_101]

Yeah I'm talking student Visas. 

[Western_101]

I know this thread is soon to be buried, However I just wanted to point out for those that bemoan how awful our facilities are..... we were still picked 5th and ahead of Eastern and Charleston Southern. Charleston Southern has the worst FCS set up I have seen, absolutely awful facilities..... so we can make excuses.

[NewNeck]

Recruiting has to be a nightmare job for us and lot of other similar programs right now.  Portal aside, my gut is telling me that some kids simply want to compete against the best (e.g. MVFC) even though they are not good enough to actually play for the better teams there.  Bigger stages, more publicity, etc. fueling a "Rudy-like" fire in their belly to prove they belong.  Probably applies to coaches as well.  On the stat sheet, we do seem to be much improved from a couple of years back.  Some of that is no doubt because of playing against lower level competition.  So are we truly more talented, this Neck fan looking at things from the 36K foot level view is not convinced.  Need to be in the locker room day in and day out to know for sure.


 

Yeah...it's like, barring us pulling something crazy that will never happen like hiring James Franklin (Penn State's recently-fired coach) or pulling Saban out of retirement...do we think that any coach is going to be able to do better given our current situation? We don't have much (if any) money for NIL/paying players. Our coaches have to go on social media to fundraise to be able to afford things that other schools are able to just cover with their budgets. We can't afford the badly-needed remodel/rebuild of the west side stands. We definitely can't afford to build a football-specific office/training building or indoor practice facility like you see at places like Illinois State.

We were at least competitive in games against EIU, UT Martin, and Charleston Southern, but our defense has trouble defending passing plays...especially longer ones. A friend of mine who does alumni band with me described it as giving our opponents an "automatic 30-40 yard pass Easy Button". They need a big play...just put a couple of receivers out there and toss it to the WIDE open guy who's 30 yards downfield. Idk if we just don't have the right players in the positions...don't have the right coaching...or a bit of both, but what we have isn't cutting it.

In the past, I'd give coaches a bit more leeway to build the team up, recruit their players, train them, give them a couple of years to get some experience, but in today's college football world, it's hard to be patient knowing that any good players are likely to transfer up at the end of the year and schools can hire a coach who can bring in a whole slew of good players and turn a perennial bottom-feeder into a powerhouse practically overnight (sideways glances at Cignetti over at Indiana).

This year so far, we're averaging giving up 40 points per game against FCS opponents. Last year...39.8 points per game...so essentially the exact same situation for scoring allowed.
2025 (all opponents) - gave up 202.6 ypg rushing w/ 2.75 rushing TDs per game; 248.6 ypg passing with 2.38 passing TDs per game.
2024 (all opponents) - gave up 229.3 ypg rushing w/ 3.08 rushing TDs per game, 263.4 ypg passing with 2.58 passing TDs per game.
So, statistically, we're technically a tiny bit better in terms of overall defense, but it's not enough yet to translate into fewer points allowed. Our offense is decent, but not quite to the level that it was last year.

Looking at our schedule so far, we've already played the #1 and #2 teams in our conference (TN Tech and TN Martin, respectively) along with #6 (EIU) and #7 (Charleston Southern)...massey average FCS ranking of 49th. Our remaining games are against the #3, (Gardner-Webb), #4 (Lindenwood), #5 (SEMO), and #8 (TN State) teams in the conference (we're last at #9)...massey average FCS ranking of 61st. So, our schedule does get mostly easier from here on out, but realistically, if we want any more wins, they're going to have to come in the next two games against Tennessee State or Lindenwood (both have a massey prediction of 40%-45% chance of victory for us).

Personally, I feel like the financial/facilities issues are causing the biggest drain on recruiting, and that almost no coach is going to be able to do well until we can at least address some of them. I also don't see that happening until we are able to get our enrollment back up (which helps with both the overall financial stability of the university, and direct funds to athletics via student fees). If every student takes an average of 15 hours of classes per semester, that's $543 per student per year directly to the athletics department via fees. From last fall to this fall, we dropped 995 students...that's essentially $540k that isn't going to athletics. To put it another ways...every 1,842 students we add to our enrollment adds $1 million to the athletics program.

Anyway, sorry for the rambling post, but maybe some of the information is useful.


 

Had no idea enrollment was this low.  Obviously anyone who considered this job post Hendrickson knew what they were up against.  No FCS dept. can sustain losing $500k annually in Univ. funding.

I still believe that the recent recruiting success (on paper anyways) and consistency in high level QB play during Davis' 1st 2 seasons are good markers for program turnaround.  Will it be enough? Who knows.
 
 

[ST_Lawson]

Had no idea enrollment was this low.  Obviously anyone who considered this job post Hendrickson knew what they were up against.  No FCS dept. can sustain losing $500k annually in Univ. funding.
 

Yeah, and now imagine if we were back up to the enrollment levels of around 2004. That was 8,441 above where we are at currently, which would equate to something resembling ~$4.5 million to the athletics department annually (for comparison, our entire annual football budget is ~$3.9 million).
 

[Western_101]

Hey, stupid question boss, how did we mess up our football superiority of '97-'02?  Lesthernecks then scared people. We had the NFL mystic but for Fiing Crips sake with solid enrollment  we do nothing.. 

It's as if the University could give a flying finger flip that his was their moment in the sun son.

Football drives the Got Gang bus!!!! 

Wow when I try not to use profane language it all breaks.

[ST_Lawson]

Hey, stupid question boss, how did we mess up our football superiority of '97-'02?  Lesthernecks then scared people. We had the NFL mystic but for Fiing Crips sake with solid enrollment  we do nothing.. 

It's as if the University could give a flying finger flip that his was their moment in the sun son.

Football drives the Got Gang bus!!!! 

Wow when I try not to use profane language it all breaks.

 

There are several factors that likely contributed to the downturn of the football program.

• We didn't invest as much into facilities as we should have. We should have capitalized on high enrollment, high funding, and high performance by building new west side stands and a new football office/training building.
• Forcing out Don Patterson the way they did cost the university a big chunk of money, and an even larger chunk of goodwill with many successful football alumni (some successful in business, some playing in the NFL) for quite a while.
• Lower funding from the state and lower enrollment both caused a significant decrease in funding for athletics. Lower enrollment means less student fees going towards athletics.
• Lower enrollment, decreasing success, and a proliferation of other options for football fans has led to significantly decreased home attendance.
• I think the current situation with NIL/player payments and the transfer portal has made it more difficult to get better. We were already at/near the bottom and those changes just attached an anchor to our boat.

Yes, it sucks to see where we once were and compare it to where we are now, but there's not a ton we can do about it. Personally, I think if you want to see athletics get better eventually, the best thing to do is to urge state lawmakers to support the equitable funding plan for public universities (State Senate Bill 13) when it comes up for a vote. If passed and put into effect, WIU would see a significant increase in overall funding over the following 10-15 years, which should lead to increased enrollment and more student fee money going into athletics.

[sealhall74]

Hey, stupid question boss, how did we mess up our football superiority of '97-'02?  Lesthernecks then scared people. We had the NFL mystic but for Fiing Crips sake with solid enrollment  we do nothing.. 

It's as if the University could give a flying finger flip that his was their moment in the sun son.

Football drives the Got Gang bus!!!! 

Wow when I try not to use profane language it all breaks.


 

There are several factors that likely contributed to the downturn of the football program.

• We didn't invest as much into facilities as we should have. We should have capitalized on high enrollment, high funding, and high performance by building new west side stands and a new football office/training building.
• Forcing out Don Patterson the way they did cost the university a big chunk of money, and an even larger chunk of goodwill with many successful football alumni (some successful in business, some playing in the NFL) for quite a while.
• Lower funding from the state and lower enrollment both caused a significant decrease in funding for athletics. Lower enrollment means less student fees going towards athletics.
• Lower enrollment, decreasing success, and a proliferation of other options for football fans has led to significantly decreased home attendance.
• I think the current situation with NIL/player payments and the transfer portal has made it more difficult to get better. We were already at/near the bottom and those changes just attached an anchor to our boat.

Yes, it sucks to see where we once were and compare it to where we are now, but there's not a ton we can do about it. Personally, I think if you want to see athletics get better eventually, the best thing to do is to urge state lawmakers to support the equitable funding plan for public universities (State Senate Bill 13) when it comes up for a vote. If passed and put into effect, WIU would see a significant increase in overall funding over the following 10-15 years, which should lead to increased enrollment and more student fee money going into athletics.

 

The "System" opposes that equitable funding plan bill.  The System will probably get its way when all is said and done.  What is needed is a state-wide voter referendum to enact a single "System" for all public universites and community colleges.
 

[ST_Lawson]

The "System" opposes that equitable funding plan bill.  The System will probably get its way when all is said and done.  What is needed is a state-wide voter referendum to enact a single "System" for all public universites and community colleges.
 

Unfortunately you're probably right. The U of I system doesn't want it, and they have the majority of the money and power. It's annoying because the way it's planned, they don't get a decrease in funding, they just get a smaller percentage of future increases until the other universities are much closer to being "fully funded".

If the second thing happens...all one "system" for all public universities...I don't see us remaining DI. In fact, probably most of the directional schools plus Chicago State get dropped down a level in that scenario. WIU, EIU, CSU, and possibly SIU down to D2, NIU possibly down to DI FCS.