Interim President is going to announce today whether they should move to D2 or D3 for athletics. It'll be interesting to see what happens to that school once it happens. I think they severely underestimate the importance of college athletics to a university. I mean Gonzaga was looking at the same situation, but they made a miracle run in 1999 and change the whole trajectory of the university. But if you're broke and can't raise any money and have an administration that doesn't really care about athletics there is no other option.
EWU
- Thread starter Brent H.
- Start date
EWU ain't all that broke compared to WSU, if you want to be completely honest about things.
EWU has a very vocal faculty who has been opposed to athletics for quite a while. Their recently departed President didn't do any favors by going full on vagina-squad and displacing quite a few long time administrators, etc. She since was asked to leave by the trustees and died a few weeks ago.
EWU will return to irrelevance without the red turf being on TV multiple times per year and the occasional March Madness appearance. They've developed a pretty good following among their Spokane alums and it's a good game day experience. Hopefully the adults in the room understand athletics has a place in the scheme of things instead of a knee jerk to the wokies.
That said, there has to be an overhaul of the system where everybody tries to keep up with the Jones' - both at the FCS and FBS level. Nobody ever borrowed their way out of debt.
EWU has a very vocal faculty who has been opposed to athletics for quite a while. Their recently departed President didn't do any favors by going full on vagina-squad and displacing quite a few long time administrators, etc. She since was asked to leave by the trustees and died a few weeks ago.
EWU will return to irrelevance without the red turf being on TV multiple times per year and the occasional March Madness appearance. They've developed a pretty good following among their Spokane alums and it's a good game day experience. Hopefully the adults in the room understand athletics has a place in the scheme of things instead of a knee jerk to the wokies.
That said, there has to be an overhaul of the system where everybody tries to keep up with the Jones' - both at the FCS and FBS level. Nobody ever borrowed their way out of debt.
So they're expected to go to one of D2 or D3 (with the question being which one), or the president is going to announce whether any such move, to D2, D3, or otherwise, will take place?
I'm convinced we will see a ton of school closures in the next decade or two. More than a few schools will drop athletics spending as well. But it's bad to lead the charge on this stuff.
UAB dropped football altogether not long ago. The school really suffered, boosters got pissed, and they relaunched the program recently.
Idaho dropped to FCS, it's killed interest in the program, and turned them from a bad Sun Belt team into a middle of the road Big Sky program. The school has also suffered.
Jacksonville just dropped football. Savannah St dropped to D2. Not a good look for either school.
Love it or hate it, universities need sports to differentiate themselves. A lot of student life revolves around sports and the activities around them. Without the draw of D1 football/basketball, why EWU? Certainly not for academics. Online students? Well, WSU has satellite campuses all across the state and they are going to gobble up a lot of non traditional students throughout the state.
Anyway, I'll be interesting to see if they'll let a substitute president kill the school off.
UAB dropped football altogether not long ago. The school really suffered, boosters got pissed, and they relaunched the program recently.
Idaho dropped to FCS, it's killed interest in the program, and turned them from a bad Sun Belt team into a middle of the road Big Sky program. The school has also suffered.
Jacksonville just dropped football. Savannah St dropped to D2. Not a good look for either school.
Love it or hate it, universities need sports to differentiate themselves. A lot of student life revolves around sports and the activities around them. Without the draw of D1 football/basketball, why EWU? Certainly not for academics. Online students? Well, WSU has satellite campuses all across the state and they are going to gobble up a lot of non traditional students throughout the state.
Anyway, I'll be interesting to see if they'll let a substitute president kill the school off.
They might stay D1 as well.
Possible they used this to shake down athletics donors.
Looks like he’ll make a decision on either one of them. https://www.krem.com/article/sports...iday/293-9c3c261f-151f-4014-a14d-9f0bf261c5d1
I think they’d probably drop to D2. They can join Central’s league and still have football.
They clobber d2 football. They will demolish d3 football. If they drop down they move to the front of the line for facilities in both those divisions with their stadium. Being a state school in d3 ball has a huge advantage over private schools.
Their roster turns over fast though. The kids there didn’t sign up to play d2/3 ball. You also have to factor in the scholarship $ or no scholarship $.
Their roster turns over fast though. The kids there didn’t sign up to play d2/3 ball. You also have to factor in the scholarship $ or no scholarship $.
The mention of Central is appropriate. That will be a pretty direct comparison if they drop to D2. I'm not sure that is all bad, from a state of WA perspective. It will certainly alter the dynamics at EWU, particularly for those who live on campus. Might reinforce the night school and education cores of EWU as being the only real things of interest. And as another poster noted, when the red field goes away, the notice outside of E WA will go with it. From a WSU perspective, I'm not sure that is all bad. From an EWU perspective, I guess we'll just have to see. Should temporarily help with some budget issues. It appears that the administration does not recognize any of the potential downsides. It will be an interesting situation to follow remotely.
There will be a mass exodus with football. They will lose the majority of their roster imo. Some will make the jump to P5 and FBS schools and others will make the lateral move to another FCS school. Then you have coaching, how many coaches signed up to be D2 coaches? Their entire football program will get revamped. They have great facilities in place for D2, so I think they'd bounce back pretty quickly, but not one person in that program now signed on to be a D2 school IMO.
Every kid enters the portal to see what their market value is.
Every coach hits the street looking for a job.
Everyone that can leave, does leave.
A good d3 recruiter has 100 frosh the following season.
A good d2 recruiter makes CWU work enormously harder and crushes CA jucos.
You were seeing d3 football grow before all this. For a lot of small private schools the football team is nothing more than a business decision. They need to up their male enrollment. They use football and its coaching staff as an extension of the admissions counselors recruiting students.
Exactly. CWU is fine because it's 2-3 hours from everywhere in the state. They draw students because it's a state school close by. Eastern would become Western without the population base to draw from.
Yes. It will be a local point of pride. That’s it.
Does anyone care about EWU football now as a FCS school?
I was going to ask that too, but I figured one question at a time.
But, since nobody cares about their FCS success either, aside from the roster and staff turnover, would it really matter if they went D2? I think most of the alumni would get over it, especially if they were a dominant D2 team. D3 would be a hard pill to swallow.
However...as a D3 team they might be able to get more local kids onto the roster, and theoretically create a little more local interest. Not really sure how viable that is, I pay zero attention to D3 ball.
Enough for Jack Gillingham to donate $5 million to it. Far greater than any single donor has ever shelled out to WSU
There’s plenty of pretty recognizable EWU alums in the Spokane area (actually more EWU total alums in Spokane County than WSU alums). They have a nice little following in the region and have made a living off GSL and Big 9 (or whatever its called now) kids.
D3 removes the athletic scholarship $. Their in state tuition would prob be cheaper than the other d3 schools in WA. Out of state tuition could be cheaper than the Oregon d3 schools. They would likely clean up with d3 kids.
D2 they have to split up the scholarship $. At one point the max scholarships allowed for d2 was 36 and coaches would just break them up.
As long as theyre winning they prob have a following. The look of the team will be a total 360 though.
I think you could see the number of college programs contract. How that does or doesnt spread the talent will be interesting to see.
Maybe, maybe not.
At D3, bring back Paul Wulff to coach football and men's basketball (only after he passes an INTENSIVE on-line Bennett Ball course)
Jody Sears as bus driver
Tracy Claeys in charge of the training table
Rachael Dolezal as women's basketball coach
Josh Heytvelt - director of sport medicine.
John Blanchette as EWU SID
I don’t know about Washington but the folks in Western Montana sure care about them. Was with a couple of Griz alum last night and they were talking about their hate of EWU. My take is they see the Eagles as a threat to the football powerhouse the Griz want to become again. I chimed in about the place being a dumpster fire right now. At the end of the day, I think Griz fans would be really disappointed if EWU fell apart as its now a big rivalry game for them. Of course, that has no bearing about EWU doing whatever they deem as most financially prudent.
What happened to NAIA? I believe that’s a hybrid between D2 and D3 with some aid for athletic scholarships allowed.
NAIA has a few schools left on the West Coast. I coached at a NAIA school in the midwest. Academics are not impressive. I will leave it at that.
They’d be in the frontier conference, playing 5 Montana schools, 2 oregon schools, and 1 Idaho school. Titans like Eastern Oregon and Montana tech. It’s too big a step down.
I believe Carroll College has done very well in the past. But it would be a colossal step down.
Their best move is to stay where they’re at and just get better at what they need to get better at.
They've done very well. They've been to 8 national championships since 2000, winning 6 of them. 14 conference titles in the same time. But they're not even the most popular program in their half of the state. Outside Helena, nobody really cares.
LCSC is NAIA. They have great programs in education and nursing. Top notch.
Carroll is a pre-med, pre-dental school factory. They churn out future doctors like a well oiled machine. Have for years. Hell, I had a fraternity bro who flunked out of WSU (truly), transferred to Carroll and has a fine career as a medical professional. Not sure how the hell they did it but they got him into professional school somehow.
They are very strong academically as well. And perhaps outside of Montana nobody cares. But outside of Helena?🤔
Boatload of GSL kids end up at Carroll. G Prep has a veritable pipeline there. Kids not quite D-1 caliber in football but smart as hell.
Their women's basketball team has 7 girls from Spokane County.
Carroll is quite well known in the Inland Northwest. outside of Helena.
It would be laughable to consider NAIA. My wife went to a tiny college in a small town in Kansas that competes in the NAIA. Total enrollment.....800.
