Seawolf97. I agree with assessments, but no FBS conference will ever invite an FCS team who doesn't have a history of a winning season.. There are dozens and dozens of other teams in the FCS who are more qualified to make the move up, not SB.
I read something online last week about this exact subject. Since 1978, when the FCS was formed under 20 teams have made the move up to FBS and about half are successful today.. In order for SB to ever be considered for a move up to FBS they would need to start winning conferences and start selling out stadiums. SB is nowhere near any of the above. Now, that could all change in an instint. But the change has to come from the top. SH. Heilbron needs to give coach P the boot and bring in somebody who has the experience of moving a team up from FCS to FBS or someone who has a winning caliber in either conference. Like you said. SB has the $$$ to support the move up to FBS, but with money being the driving force with TV deals, SB is only on the outside looking in. I would love nothing more but to watch a game at LaValles stadium where we are playing Clemson, BC, Cincinnati, Temple ..... at home!!
Respectfully Hammertime, you couldn't be more wrong on this one.
I think in general, you guys are way overestimating what it takes to be an FBS program. The bar is much, much lower than you make it out to be. Many current FBS programs didn't even have a football program a decade ago. South Alabama, Georgia State, UNC Charlotte, Old Dominion, and UTSA all fall into that category. They didn't even have a team ten years ago and are now FBS. Texas State was an average at best program in the Southland a decade ago, now they're in the Sun Belt.
I'd like to field a competitive FCS program before we move, but that's not required. Our academic reputation will carry us far further along the path to FBS than winning ever could. We're a top 100 research university located just outside of NYC, and we're arguably the top public school in the whole state. Of the four research centers, we're the closest to the city and thus the main population center of the state. All these TV execs want to talk about large markets? Look no further.
We also are a member of the
AAU. That's a big friggin deal. If you look at the schools who are in the AAU who field football programs, the majority of them are in power 5 conferences. Of all the public schools in the AAU who have football, the only ones who have it in the FCS are
UC Davis, and us. Every one else if they field a football program is either FBS, in the Ivy League or don't care about athletics and put their programs into D3 like John's Hopkins, Washington U of St. Louis, University of Chicago, etc. That's very good company to keep.
If schools like ULM, and Eastern Michigan can be FBS, we can be FBS too. 15k average attendance is the minimum cutoff, but those numbers are often fudged by the universities through buying up their own tickets. We've done the same thing. There's no chance in hell 12k people attended Homecoming last year, but that was the reported attendance. Never mind that the NCAA doesn't even enforce the 15k rule. With the cold weather and all the mid-week games, I guarantee you most of the MAC isn't hitting 15K.
The two newest additions to FBS; Coastal Carolina and Liberty are both teams we used to frequently lay the beatdown on when we were in the Big South. Coastal's stadium was smaller than ours when they got the invite from the Sun Belt. When smaller schools in tiny markets with worse academics than ours are getting called up to FBS, I don't for a second believe that we'd be overlooked for an invitation. Get the stadium up to 20k (or promise to), and the invite will come. Winning is just icing on the cake for us.
For a lot of schools, they have great athletic programs, but have bad academics or are in a poor location. We don't have those problems. It's much easier to improve the athletics than it is to improve the school. Remember when the Big 12 was looking to expand last year? The academically strong private schools (Rice, Tulane) made it further in the process than the football powers Boise State and ECU. Boise will never be in the Pac-12. Academics matter folks.