The State of FCS?

[alabamagrizzly]

Nick Saban says "See Ya FCS" and advises all Power 5 schools to only play Power 5 schools.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/early-lead/wp/2017/07/27/nick-sabans-far-out-scheduling-plan-would-be-great-for-alabama-less-so-for-everyone-else/?utm_term=.7d958d27272d

Seriously, why would they want to play an FCS School? There is no upside. If they beat them, they were supposed to. If they lose....

We are more-and-more an event based society. Big time games against big time programs in big time arenas....If I am Alabama, I NEVER play an FCS opponent. Ever.

But let's not overlook the following excerpt from the article:

... here are some teams Alabama has played under Saban: Chattanooga (three times!), Western Carolina (three times!), Charleston Southern and Georgia Southern [addendum: when Ga-So was still FCS]. This year’s dead meat — penciled in for the SEC’s annual late-November FCS siesta weekend — is Mercer, which returned to competitive college football just four years ago. If he truly felt like it, Saban could snap his fingers and take those games off the Tide’s schedule, but doesn’t.

So Saban can talk big all he wants, but "actions speak louder than words." The coach (and AD) isn't about to give up an almost guaranteed win, so his opposition to the "six-win rule" rings pretty hollow. And there's no reason (except possibly history) for them to pick on the FCS Southern Conference. There are any number of nearby Sun Belt and Conf-USA teams that would jump at the chance for a big money game at Alabama, and most of them wouldn't give a s**t about a reciprocal home game.

That FCS Ga So team also scored more points against Alabama then any other team on their sched that year, including Bama's 21-0 drubbing of LSU in the natty.

 

[IdaGriz01]

...
That FCS Ga So team also scored more points against Alabama then any other team on their sched that year, including Bama's 21-0 drubbing of LSU in the natty.

That's right! I'd forgotten about that.

More fun:
Nov 19: Bama vs Ga Southern, 45-21
Nov 26: Bama @ #24 ranked Auburn, 42-14

That is, Ga-So played Alabama closer, at Bama, than Auburn could on their home field.

So what are the chances that The Tide plays Ga Southern any time soon?
:lol: :lol: :lol:

 

[HerdFan12]

As a fan of one of those schools who moved up in the mid 90s, I think there is a bigger issue here than W-L of new programs over lost programs of IAA. The bigger issue to me is size of the fan bases. Most of the lost schools had much bigger fan bases to those that ended up replacing or move ups.

For example when Marshall moved up to IA after the 96 season their replacement was Wofford in the SoCon. At the time Marshall had an enrollment of 12.5K and an avg attendance of 22K and for the past pervious 5 years Marshall Stadium, now Joan C Edwards Stadium had an avg of over 30K for the national title game. Wofford enrollment in 1997 was a whopping 989 and had an avg of around 2500. Also at the time of the Marshall move up, Marshall Staium held 28,000. As of right now Wofford's Gibb Stadium only holds 13,000 (Although no longer in the SoCon)