UNA moving to FCS in Football/D1 in other Sports

[RedStar]

I'm kind of surprised by the backlash this has brought on. Apparently the students HATED the idea of moving up. I don't get it. The only thing missing from my UNA experience was more athletic pride. No one wanted to see UNA vs. the Bolweevils or UNA vs. the Wonderboys. At least now we'll play decent in state teams and create better rivalries.

 

[RTR91]

There goes Florence hosting the D-2 National Championship every December.

I'm not sure this is a good move. That brings the D-1 total to how many in the state? UA, AU, UAB, Troy, USA, UNA, Jax State, ASU, Alabama A&M and Samford. Forgetting any or adding too many? If not, that's 10 in the state of Alabama. Seems like a lot.

 

[Giant Squid]

Speaking as an alumnus (for my masters') and as a Florence native:

ARE YOU KIDDING ME!?!

It's hard to express how angry I am right now, but this decision is monumentally stupid and irresponsible. Why on Earth would they choose to make this move when the students, the faculty, and the community all oppose it? Why would anyone think that this is the right time to raise tuition by 10%? Why would we sign on for something that will require tremendously expensive upgrades to the stadium? Why are we determined to lose the DII Championship Game, which is one of the few events that gets our area national recognition? Why are we risking the financial health of the school in order to make things more convenient for the one, single sport in which we're nationally competitive? Why would the state take us seriously when we ask for the increased funding we need to improve academic programs when we're blowing cash on this boondoggle?

UGHHHH.

 

[RedStar]

The DII Championship was looking for reasons to leave. We've been on the cutting block the last few years anyway.

And D1 isn't fair verbage.

We have 5 D1 football teams in the state.
UA, AU, UAB, USA & Troy.

We'll be FCS in football just like Jax State, Alabama A&M, Samford, Alabama State. I see no reason we can't be better than all of those. Our facilities are better, and we have better coaching & a last name (Bowden) that gives a lot more exposure than the other FCS teams in state.

If Butler can play in 2 straight National Championship games in basketball, I see no reason we can't at least be competitive.

I mean let's be honest. Who was getting excited about watching UNA vs. the Muleriders? How about UNA vs. the Wonderboys? If I could have changed one thing about my college experience it would have been this. I enjoyed going to games, but the atmosphere was awful. At least now UNA vs. Jax State will pique some interest. Or how about UNA vs. Samford? UNA vs. Alabama State? All of those sound infinitely better than UNA vs. Ouchita Baptist.

DII became a joke over the last 2-3 years, no one cared and it was dying. 5 Arkansas teams left the GSC and the league was imploding. It was either move up to FCS or move down to NAIA. If we did the latter we may as well not even have sports.

 

[BigHSVTider]

I like the move myself. Who wants to be second tier champs or runner up forever. Eventually you have to give it a shot imo. They have the players to compete. And if they are successful it will bring much more money to Florence than ever before.

 

[RedStar]

Speaking as an alumnus (for my masters') and as a Florence native:

ARE YOU KIDDING ME!?!

It's hard to express how angry I am right now, but this decision is monumentally stupid and irresponsible. Why on Earth would they choose to make this move when the students, the faculty, and the community all oppose it? Why would anyone think that this is the right time to raise tuition by 10%? Why would we sign on for something that will require tremendously expensive upgrades to the stadium? Why are we determined to lose the DII Championship Game, which is one of the few events that gets our area national recognition? Why are we risking the financial health of the school in order to make things more convenient for the one, single sport in which we're nationally competitive? Why would the state take us seriously when we ask for the increased funding we need to improve academic programs when we're blowing cash on this boondoggle?

UGHHHH.

The tuition was getting raised anyway. 19% for proration & it had nothing to do with athletics. Supposedly when it does go up it's $150 per semester. That's peanuts compared to the overall cost of tuition & it's a price I would have gladly paid for a better experience.

Tell me the alternative? NAIA? Would you really want that?

How/Why would we have to upgrade the stadium? UCA moved up 3 years ago and they still seat 8,000. The only thing they did was install awful turf. We seat 14,000 and hosted DII Championship games. I see no reason we'd have to make any upgrades.

The students voice was heard, but in the end it didn't matter. You can't let the inmates run the assylum. What if the students voted on a new grading scale? Now everything above 80 is an A! You can't do that. Just because the students want something doesn't mean it's in the school's best interest.

Take a step back and look at UNA's history. Tuition has gone up every year. It's just what happens. I had to pay for a new Science building I never got to use. These students now are paying for a move to D1/FCS they'll never see. We all had to do it. It's part of progress.

I think there's a lot of misinformation floating around out there and it has people in a panic.

 

[RTR91]

As my brother-in-law (former student and has friends on the coaching staff) reminded me - there goes the D1 transfers now. Guys like Janoris Jenkins won't be going to UNA anymore because they would have to sit a year.

 

[RedStar]

As my brother-in-law (former student and has friends on the coaching staff) reminded me - there goes the D1 transfers now. Guys like Janoris Jenkins won't be going to UNA anymore because they would have to sit a year.

And there's just more proof of the misinformation. What you heard isn't true. We aren't D1 in Football. We can still get D1 transfers because we are FCS, not D1. It's really incredible to me how much bad info there is floating around out there about this.

 

[rolltide_21]

Football players coming from FBS schools would not have to sit out. They could transfer and play immediately because they are going to FCS and not FBS. Take Jax St. for instance. Alot of players go transfer there because they dont have to sit out.

 

[JamieSPC]

I guess I have kind of an interesting perspective on this:

--My wife and I are both Florence natives.
--She's a UNA undergrad alum.
--I'm a JSU undergrad alum. I was there when we moved to what was then 1-AA.
--And my masters is from Bama.

I am not seeing this at ALL for UNA, the same way I didn't see it (and still don't) for JSU. The conference we play in for FCS football is weak and irrelevant. We have dominated the conference and yet can't get past the first couple of rounds of playoffs; that should tell you something. We don't have the transfer pipeline like Troy did, and have just in the last few years become a destination for SEC castoffs (not sure that's a good thing). I DID enjoy the Gulf South rivalries as an undergrad, and completely lost interest in football when we moved up. It was an alternative to Bama football and didn't get in the way of it; two totally different things. I liked that.

Having grown up in Florence, there is nothing bigger in that town than DII football late in the year. Sure, there are Bama and Auburn fans there, but the atmosphere at that game was always great, especially if UNA or JSU made it.

Couple that with the fact that the student body and the town itself is overwhelmingly against this. My parents live a couple of blocks from the UNA campus and the citizenry is incredulous over this move of which practically no one approves.

Also, I'm perplexed as to how UNA will get "up to code" with regard to stadium capacity without taxpayer burden. UNA doesn't have its own stadium. The stadium is owned by the city, and it sits in a residential neighborhood on the campus of the former Coffee High School, which is now 9th grade only, while the Florence High School Falcons use the stadium on Friday nights even though their campus is miles away at the former Bradshaw High. So the facilities question is a big one.

Perplexing move all the way around...

 

[uafan4life]

Mistake. Huge mistake.

 

[RedStar]

Mistake. Huge mistake.

So you'd rather have gone to NAIA?

 

[uafan4life]

So you'd rather have gone to NAIA?

I'm sorry, I must have missed the memo where the NCAA was disbanding Division II football next year.


This is going to be a very bad ROI decision for the University.

 

[RedStar]

I'm sorry, I must have missed the memo where the NCAA was disbanding Division II football next year.


This is going to be a very bad ROI decision for the University.

Those were our options. Move up or move down.

It wasn't football everyone was worried about, it was the other sports. There just aren't enough DII teams in close proximity anymore to keep the other sports like Volleyball, Golf, Softball, etc.. afloat. Especially if Delta & Valdosta move up (which is also in the works.)

 

[uafan4life]

Ok, so the options were stay DII and add a decent amount of transportation costs to all sports and try to raise revenue to cover it or move to DI/FCS and add huge costs to every sport with no guarantee of even breaking even in ten years?

Yep, the second option is clearly the better one.

 

[Giant Squid]

I think there's a lot of misinformation floating around out there and it has people in a panic.

Let me explain in more detail why I think this move is really, really dumb.

First, there will be new fees on top of today's 10% tuition increase during the biggest economic downturn of the past 80 years. It's going to cost $1.5 million just to apply to move to FCS, and so far exactly none of the money has been raised. Your assertion that UNA has comparable budget and facilities to compete at this level is unfounded. In fact, according to a study the university paid for, UNA would have to increase the annual athletic budget by $3.5 million dollars, roughly 87%, to be "in the middle of the pack" of the OVW in terms of athletic spending. We also know that UNA will have to take on additional sports in order to meet NCAA requirements, but we have no idea how much that's going to cost on top of everything else. The bottom line is that as of yesterday, UNA's president had no idea where the additional money to pay for sustaining FCS level athletics is going to come from:

“Assuming we cap the university's expenditures on athletics at the current levels, where are we going to find $3.5 million annually?” he asked. “That, in and of itself, is going to be a challenge, and if we're unable to do it, our athletic program will suffer.”

The article I linked has a very good story of exactly what happened when Birmingham-Southern, a school in a similar position to UNA made the jump to DIAA. Their enrollment remained the same, and giving didn't increase substantially. Guess what two things the supporters of this move are counting on to help pay for it? UNA did visit one school that made the transition successfully, but they made a point of not fielding a football team due to the substantial costs.

The students voice was heard, but in the end it didn't matter. You can't let the inmates run the assylum. What if the students voted on a new grading scale? Now everything above 80 is an A! You can't do that. Just because the students want something doesn't mean it's in the school's best interest.

If we're arguing that the students don't know what's in the school's best interest, then who would know?

The faculty? They've voted against it. The staff? They've voted against it. The shared governance committee, which was created to deal with matters like these? Never given a chance to vote. Since the students, the faculty, the staff and the university president are all against the move, why go forward with a plan that needs the support of all these groups in order to be successful?

Take a step back and look at UNA's history. Tuition has gone up every year. It's just what happens. I had to pay for a new Science building I never got to use. These students now are paying for a move to D1/FCS they'll never see. We all had to do it. It's part of progress.

So since tuition goes up over time anyway, we shouldn't question the wisdom of nearly doubling the athletic budget to make a move that we have no idea how to finance, apart from raising fees on students against their vote during a historic recession?

Another $150 out of your wallet might have been "pocket change" to you when you were in school, but it certainly wasn't to me. I'm glad your biggest criticism of your time at UNA involved who we played on Saturdays, but personally, some of mine involved the need to improve the academic programs so that I'd get more value out of my degree. If UNA has to spend more money right now, it should be spent on improving the academic aspect of the university and not on paying more money to be less competitive at sports.

 

[RedStar]

Ok, so the options were stay DII and add a decent amount of transportation costs to all sports and try to raise revenue to cover it or move to DI/FCS and add huge costs to every sport with no guarantee of even breaking even in ten years?

Yep, the second option is clearly the better one.

It's so much more expensive to bus a whole team to Searcy, Arkansas or Valdosta Georgia than it is to bus a whole team to Birmingham, Jacksonville, Huntsville, or Martin, TN.

What huge costs are being added to all sports by moving up a division?

These arguments I keep hearing just aren't valid.

 

[RedStar]

Let me explain in more detail why I think this move is really, really dumb.

First, there will be new fees on top of today's 10% tuition increase during the biggest economic downturn of the past 80 years. It's going to cost $1.5 million just to apply to move to FCS, and so far exactly none of the money has been raised. Your assertion that UNA has comparable budget and facilities to compete at this level is unfounded. In fact, according to a study the university paid for, UNA would have to increase the annual athletic budget by $3.5 million dollars, roughly 87%, to be "in the middle of the pack" of the OVW in terms of athletic spending. We also know that UNA will have to take on additional sports in order to meet NCAA requirements, but we have no idea how much that's going to cost on top of everything else. The bottom line is that as of yesterday, UNA's president had no idea where the additional money to pay for sustaining FCS level athletics is going to come from:

The article I linked has a very good story of exactly what happened when Birmingham-Southern, a school in a similar position to UNA made the jump to DIAA. Their enrollment remained the same, and giving didn't increase substantially. Guess what two things the supporters of this move are counting on to help pay for it? UNA did visit one school that made the transition successfully, but they made a point of not fielding a football team due to the substantial costs.


If we're arguing that the students don't know what's in the school's best interest, then who would know?

The faculty? They've voted against it. The staff? They've voted against it. The shared governance committee, which was created to deal with matters like these? Never given a chance to vote. Since the students, the faculty, the staff and the university president are all against the move, why go forward with a plan that needs the support of all these groups in order to be successful?


So since tuition goes up over time anyway, we shouldn't question the wisdom of nearly doubling the athletic budget to make a move that we have no idea how to finance, apart from raising fees on students against their vote during a historic recession?

Another $150 out of your wallet might have been "pocket change" to you when you were in school, but it certainly wasn't to me. I'm glad your biggest criticism of your time at UNA involved who we played on Saturdays, but personally, some of mine involved the need to improve the academic programs so that I'd get more value out of my degree. If UNA has to spend more money right now, it should be spent on improving the academic aspect of the university and not on paying more money to be less competitive at sports.

Lots to reply to here, so I'll just have to refrain for now. I'll post more tonight.

 

[derek4tide]

I think it is a big mistake and will cost UNA in more ways than the just the bottom line.

 

[Giant Squid]

Lots to reply to here, so I'll just have to refrain for now. I'll post more tonight.

Please read the link I embedded in my post before you do. In my opinion, it's a great summary of the issues surrounding this move.

I hope you can change my mind about this, because I'm honestly pretty pessimistic about the future of UNA right now.