Any thoughts on UMass football moving up to FBS?

Colleges and Universities A-Z University of Massachusetts - Amherst
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<p>Thesis: Like people, institutions must evolve to stay relevant. How this evolution occurs is debatable and frankly, unknowable. Money and reputation help.</p>

<p>UMass has a relatively poor reputation among HS seniors here in the affluent metro Boston area suburbs partially because so many of the students from their school end up going there! Most kids want to get away and experience something new when they “go off to college”. This kind of desire for novelty drives these students into picking schools that are different for the sake of being different. This hurts UMass to a certain extent because the caliber of student that ends up selecting UMass is weakened. </p>

<p>Having a strong football program seems counterintuitive to achieving the kind of reputation boost necessary to change this (it’s not related to academics!) but I think it might actually work. Didn’t this same thing happen to UConn? I’m not sure how it’s supposed to work since I don’t follow the short term history of colleges upon entering the NCAA FBS league but I imagine something like this happens.</p>

<p>[ul]
[<em>]UMass name cache improves. UMass is uttered in the same way as UDub, Michigan, UConn, Pitt etc… in their respective states.
[</em>]Allure of UMass increases among locals. This is especially important when locals are part of the massive alumni network and current high school students or parents of current high school students.
[<em>]Money! Alumni are more likely to donate because their school is in the news more!
[</em>]High school students who are reputation obsessed increasingly see UMass as the good school that it actually is.
[li]Money![/li][/ul]</p>

<p>I'm a recent alum (less than a decade ago) and the only time I ever visited McGuirk stadium was for graduation. I had no interest in football back then. However, I watch the Patriots almost obsessively now and if UMass football were more accessible (TV, Foxboro), I’m sure I would watch a UMass game or two or three.</p>

<p>Sports has a place in colleges. It should not be overfunded and there are plenty of ways that it can go wrong, but there is nothing wrong with using a high profile team to help improve your brand.</p>

<p>Any thoughts?</p>

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<p>I just wonder if playing the games in Boston 90 miles away will temper the on-campus excitement on game day. When we visited Syracuse a couple of weeks ago, I was surprised that the Carrier Dome is so close to the main academic quad. I can’t imagine what the buzz is like on campus during game days. Meanwhile , UMass games will be almost two hours from campus. I’m really surprised that there are no plans to expand McGuirk (sp) Stadium.</p>

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<p>Since moving to the FBS is supposedly a big deal, I am hoping that the culture of the school will change to reflect that. I bet the distance won’t be too much of a factor for on campus buzz. I say this because I’ve seen certain sports events playing throughout campus on TVs even back in the early 2000s that capture the attention of students. The infrastructure is there!</p>

<p>I thought the problem with McGuirk is that they just don’t have the money to upgrade it yet. Busing students over will be an interesting task…</p>

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<p>Ugh. I can see why they’re doing it, but no one I’ve talked to on campus agrees with it. I have a ton of friends in marching band who are upset that now they’re going to be gone practically every weekend for the whole fall semester (since they already travel to away games and competitions on the weekends we don’t have home days).</p>

<p>I also guess no one will be tailgating, since many students here don’t have cars / don’t have the time to drive across the state.</p>

<p>At least we’ll still have hockey games to go to? I feel like more people go to those anyways (I’ve been to numerous hockey games but never to a football game)</p>