gman wrote: ↑Fri Jul 05, 2019 11:00 am
It's never a good thing to lose a powerhouse in the FCS. It dilutes the competition, making a FCS championship mean very little. We are quickly getting to that point. I hope no other teams move up. I like quality competition. I want us to be the best of the best.
I guess it dilutes the level of interest in FCS as well. And it gives players that we may be recruiting an increased opportunity to go to FBS, making recruiting very good players increasingly difficult for all FCS programs, including Furman.
I believe there are currently approximately 126 FCS schools. I believe 30 of those abstain from the playoffs (SWAC, MEAC, Ivy League). So that leaves approximately 96.
FCS could fairly easily move to a 64-team playoff, which would include no byes and would run for 6 weeks, with the 6th week being the championship game. If FCS doesn't want to do this, FCS should expand the playoffs to 32 teams instead of the current 24 (24?) teams. Thereby, the series would continue at its present 5 weeks. Either of these scenarios, 64 (6 weeks) or 32 (5 weeks) could increase interest in FCS. I do realize that regular season FCS games would be made slightly less important due to better chances for every team to get into the expanded playoffs; but I believe the regular season games would be only slightly less important, and 2 or 3 or 4 losses in the regular season would not knock a team out of contention, therefore it would be possible to maintain interest through the whole season until the team loses (or not) in the playoffs.
By the way, I note that, of the 96 participating (non-abstaining) schools, Furman is one of the smallest enrollment, actually smaller than all but 6 other FCS schools.
Furman has 2,777 students (2,662 undergraduates + 115 graduate students).
The only schools in FCS smaller than Furman are the following:
Northeast Conference
Saint Francis University, 2,309
Patriot League
Lafayette College, 2,610
Pioneer League
Davidson College, 1,950
Presbyterian College, 1,172
Southern Conference
VMI, 1,653
Wofford College, 1,692
So, of the 126 schools presently in FCS, Furman is smaller than all of 119 of them in terms of student enrollment. Furman's enrollment is 120 out of 126. The 4 schools transitioning to FCS (University of North Alabama, Merrimack College, Long Island University, and Dixie State University) are each also larger than Furman.
The enrollment of James Madison University is 22,667.