Leatherneck Nation

Necks2003 wrote: Thu Feb 16, 2017 9:21 pmNobody (few people) cares about DII athletics.

Western drew big crowds to football games in the 50's, 60's, and 70's when they played at a lower level than NCAA Divison 1.

Western also drew big crowds to basketball games in their NAIA and Division 2 days.

Necks2003 wrote: Thu Feb 16, 2017 9:21 pm Nobody (few people) cares about DII athletics. Its been brought up before, but anybody that truly believes rooting for a DII playoff birth is as exciting as rooting for a March Madness bid or a DI regional tournament is off their meds.

Not sure rooting to be the 64th seed or play-in team in a D1 64-68 team bracket is any more exciting that being a top 10 seed in the 64-team D2 bracket. Sure, if you're an elite D1 it's exciting, but so is winning a great game, regardless of whether you're D1 or D2.

But honestly, sure we could would have closer travel at the D2 level, but the only real savings come at D3 where there are no athletic-only scholarships and travel is generally day of game of Fri for a Sat contest, not 2+ days prior.

Necks2003- Where did you play college football or basketball? I've said before- you think D2 is "beneath you"? Get an appointment to speak to the coaches and players at NW Missouri or Grand Valley and tell them to their face noone cares about D2 championships. See what happens. I would guess they might rip you a new one in a hurry. Oh, and you don't think some of the big power school fans don't consider FCS and mid level D1 or lower to be "inferior"?

I have never even heard of NW Missouri or Grand Valley, are their games on ESPN3? I am not trying say anything negative about DII athletics, but why would anyone want to move down a level. We would never get players like CC3 or Trent Norvell as a DII school.

I know WIU obviously isnt playing in a power 5 conference, but fielding solid teams in various sports once every few years makes things exciting.

Necks2003 wrote: Fri Feb 17, 2017 9:30 pmWe would never get players like CC3 or Trent Norvell as a DII school.

Mike Wagner played on 4 Super Bowl winning teams with the Pittsburgh Steelers. He played at Western when it was not NCAA Division 1.

Necks2003 wrote: Fri Feb 17, 2017 9:30 pm I know WIU obviously isnt playing in a power 5 conference, but fielding solid teams in various sports once every few years makes things exciting.

"Once every few years" is hardly exciting and something to look forward to.

Although the successful teams are few and far between in D1, I still would argue that is better than just being d2 or3 and fielding a winning program. Yea you could have nice records, maybe, MAYBE contend for championships but then what? Jump to division one? Also since when is it ok to say "oh we aren't winning at this level let's drop down so we can win something". To me that's kind of like giving out participation awards (STUPID). What would the athletes that played for WIU at the NAIA level think if you told them yea your success allowed the school to compete at higher levels but they weren't good so just gave up so they could win a couple more games a year? If you're not good at something get better. Don't take the easy road. Just my two cents on the whole dropping down to D2 argument. Then if by some miracle, wiu starts rattling off national championships at lower competition, what's the next move? Jump back to D1? We are there already. Improve. Strive for the best. Compete. Don't cry about losing and decide to go beat up the middle schoolers.

Yes, that makes sense if the school has the money and facilities to COMPETE at a high D1 level. Western has neither the money or facilities for that. So, yes, you continue to languish in the lower levels. But, heh, you can tell everyone you are D1. I feel D2 would be best, however, that has passed no where for Western to go. Western needs to worry about enrollment and retention expenditures, not worry about trying to keep up with folks who have more resources, and spending money on extensive travel. Wow, people get excited about making the men's tourney- not my idea of excitement.

leatherface wrote: Sun Feb 19, 2017 9:32 am Yes, that makes sense if the school has the money and facilities to COMPETE at a high D1 level. Western has neither the money or facilities for that.

Like most everything else in this world, it comes down to money and resources as to what we can afford.

For example: I might really like to have a Lexus. But what I can afford is a used Ford Focus.

Western's enrollment has been trending downward. And that has been compounded by the continuing budget stalemate which is sending Illinois high school students out-of-state for college.

Smaller enrollments mean less money coming in via Student Fees to support Athletics. Raising fees would be counter productive and only encourage potential students to look elsewhere.

Looking at D2, D3, or NAIA options would be much better than what Northeastern Illinois University did. They went from D1 down to Club Sports.

Their currently are 1108 NCAA schools broken out as follows:

Division 1: 351 schools
Division 2: 306
Division 3: 451

I agree that Western is in most respects playing out of its league at the Division 1 level right now. Also true that there APPEARS to be no place to go in Division 2. The NCAA right now is top-heavy and very unstable. On the field, that translates into more "uncompetitive" games than would be ideal. We can argue all day long about what the ideal arrangement should be but I will propose that the Golden Ratio (aka Divine Proportion) should fit into the conversation somewhere. I.E. there should be 1.6 times as many schools at the D3 level than at the D2 level and the same ratio going from D2 to D1. After crunching numbers, the proper number of Division 1, 2, and 3 schools is approximately this:

Division 1: 215
Division 2: 215*1.6 = 343
Division 3: 215*1.6*1.6 = 550 (rounded up)

Of course, I am a math major throwing this out at you so feel free to take it all with a grain of salt.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_ratio