Furmanoid wrote: ↑Sat Mar 19, 2022 11:02 am
Sad Din wrote: ↑Sat Mar 19, 2022 10:15 am
IHMO, Dins should not aspire that low.
Dins should aspire to be Gonzaga and Villanova. It can be done with right resources and priorities.
Gville is booming and with right strategy Dins could capitalize on that.
Its all abou recruiting and CBR and staff have done an excellent job with that! Its clear what CBR uses as competitive advantage is development and cultture. Thats how they turned Mounce, Gurley, Slaw, Both, Lyons and many others into stars. Dins need to find those hidden 2 and 3 star gems with the right fit.
For that, they need a big budget to find players all over the country and even EU. Thats what McKillop does. Secondly, they need the right staff to do research, evaluations, contacts, etc.
Its all about recruiting and that has to be a first rate operation
Add a few more upgrades and many some cirruculum adjustments for players that dont want to be lawyers and doctors.
But heck, what does SD know....
Your last point is perhaps the most important. If Clemson can find a way to get players through school, why can’t we? Clemson is at least as selective, if not more selective, for non athletes as FU is, but they can take players who are nowhere close to their regular entrance requirements and get them through. We could do the same, and instantly improve in all sports. I wonder if we also have TOEFL requirements that eliminate the foreign guys. If that’s it then we could at least try to mine Australia.
With all due respect to every single Clemson student-athlete, Clemson is so much larger than Furman and has such a large number of selectively-acquired student-non-athletes that they can perhaps manage to use "loopholes" and justifications and exceptions that allow them to "take players who are nowhere close to their regular entrance requirements." Additionally, Clemson is so much richer than Furman is so perhaps Clemson is able to afford much more robust and extensive student-athlete academic support for any or all student-athletes - thus making so-called lower levels of selectivity much less of an issue.
... Regarding aspiring to be Gonzaga and Villanova.
That would be good, but like I said, we should be aspire to be like Richmond and Davidson and St. Peter's (and even Chattanooga - they have 12 SoCon Championships since our last SoCon Championship) first.
Villanova is Big East, of course. Big East. Big advantage there. VU has 6791 undergrads and 3108 grad students. 1.12 billion endowment.
Gonzaga has 4852 undergrads and 2443 grad students. 308.2 million endowment. No football.
Furman has 2662 undergrads and 115 grad students. 670 million endowment.
Richmond. 3202 U, 712 G. (much closer in size to Furman than VU or GU) 3.3 billion endowment.
Davidson. 1983 U, 0 (zero) G. (smaller in size than Furman). 1.3 billion endowment.
St. Peter's. Almost equal to Furman in undergrad size: 2672 (ten more undergrad students than Furman). 881 grad students. 37 million endowment. St. Peter's is 150 years old THIS YEAR. (Furman will be 200 years old 4 years from now. Can we please have something big to celebrate by March Madness 2026 for our 200th like St. Peter's is celebrating right now for their 150th? Richmond will be 200 years old 8 years from now. They are already into their celebrating "8 years early"!) No football at St. Peter's.
The other "little" one is Chattanooga, which is not really little: 10,239 undergrads and 1399 grad students. 147.1 million endowment. The only way they are "little" is they are SoCon, but more importantly than that, just the fact that they were seeded far below Big Ten Illinois.
