Seawolves Fans

I believe the more than half of Stony Brook's enrollment dorms on campus, a number I was very surprised by a couple years ago. The big issue, imo, is the local kids going home for the weekend. My hope is that as the academic reputation rises, Stony Brook can attract more out of state and international students, students who will be on campus on the weekends. I think there's a positive feedback loop where if there's more students staying on campus for the weekend, it will encourage the local kids to stay on campus too. More kids on campus on Saturday, the more kids we will see at Saturday football games. Hopefully.

Have the demographics of the university changed that much in six years that the students there now don't care to come to football games? I do not believe that at all.

no, but what has happened in the last six years:

-bad press for contact sports, CTE, suicides, etc
-more and more and more distractions via handheld devices
-increased streaming allows for remote viewing

I believe the more than half of Stony Brook's enrollment dorms on campus, a number I was very surprised by a couple years ago. The big issue, imo, is the local kids going home for the weekend. My hope is that as the academic reputation rises, Stony Brook can attract more out of state and international students, students who will be on campus on the weekends. I think there's a positive feedback loop where if there's more students staying on campus for the weekend, it will encourage the local kids to stay on campus too. More kids on campus on Saturday, the more kids we will see at Saturday football games. Hopefully.

Some of the brightest kids (with the highest SATs/ACTs)  in the nation are NYC/LI kids. That is why, for example,  so many are at the Ivies. It is also why SBU's rising reputation is attracting so many other  academically-oriented NYC/LI who might otherwise attend elsewhere. Certainly the word is out that SBU is the academic choice for the SUNY-bound and the price makes it a no-brainer even for many of  those NYC/LI kids also considering selective private colleges. A Queens kid from Bronx Science is quite likely to consider SBU - virtually unheard of 15 years ago.
At the same time, out-of-staters (who can qualify academically) are not likely to cough up the high tuition notwithstanding our enhanced academic reputation.   
The downside [in a way] of our rising academic reputation, of course, is that means more and more of our kids are likely to be from NYC/LI...and less and  less may be interested in viewing football.

Just read this interesting article on ESPN fb homepage

https://www.espn.com/college-football/story/_/id/29424305/imagining-world-where-college-football-relegation-promotion

Being also fan of European, English soccer... promotion and relegation would be a great idea. At least for football...king of money making sports. Keep all other sports programs where they are, conference wise, and only move football teams up and down. Schools like Kansas, Vandy, Illinois, Oregon State bring nothing to the football side of Big 12, SEC, B10, Pac12 etc. would love to see UCFs of the G5 having a crack at the top competition. Trickle down effect would be JMU having an opportunity to compete against CUSA, MAC or AAC. And teams like SBU with potentials...seeing real chance to prove themselves will invest... knowing starting football 100 years late wouldn’t be an obstacle.

This has been brought up before, but college athletics along with football has too many logistical issues to have something like this. Even if it was only for football it would be a nightmare. Imagine getting relegated for a year? Your recruiting falls apart. Scheduling is also a nightmare under such a system. We'll sooner get a 16 team playoff in the FBS than something with promotion and relegation. I don't like the idea.

regarding all the recent conference realignment talk in the football threads- this is a piece, albeit a small piece: https://www.insidelacrosse.com/article/breaking-asun-applies-for-2022-ncaa-tournament-aq-targets-utah-csu-romo-as-affiliates/57221

Breaking: ASUN Applies for 2022 NCAA Tournament AQ, Targets Utah, CSU, RoMo as Affiliates

That’s not what they want. They want to be FBS. Which... with those teams? C’mon.

Quote from: Green Opaque on February 05, 2021, 02:47:36 pm

That’s not what they want. They want to be FBS. Which... with those teams? C’mon.

It does seem a bit far fetched at first, however if it does have legs and is something they're really working on, SBU would be stupid not to at the very least inquire about it and see what's going on. I'm also now hearing rumors (that could be and likely is total BS) that Old Dominion and Charlotte from CUSA are considering taking their football independent and putting everything else into the A10. ODU didn't play football at all last fall even though the rest of CUSA did. If that ever did happen it kinda kills our A10 dream, but suddenly gives us A LOT of FBS independent schools in the eastern US right in the CAA footprint.

I just don't see SBU making moves anytime soon. Moves cost money. NYS is currently broke and King Cuomo will NOT invest a dime of taxpayer's money into Athletics, in any SUNY School. If the Biden administration decides to float another Trillion Dollars into bailing out sanctuary states that were broke before the pandemic, then maybe, just maybe Cuomo will allow movement in sports throughout NYS. But Cuomo's past history is not conclusive with anything sport related. Stupid, yes but he just doesn't care.

Any conference realignment that will make a university bigger and more competitive in sports is a smart move. If SBU has the opportunity to participate in such a move, then they need to find funds to make it happen. Conference realignment doesn't come around very often, and when it does you must act. FBS for football and a move up in all other sports would expose SBU to the nation. You just cant ignore that.