@Ohiodad51 I agree with most of what you are saying. The only issue I would disagree on is the effect of the Patriot going scholarship. Something like that takes time to see results. So 2014 slight change…2015 closer and 2016 opposite of years past by a large margin. IF…IF it continues then yes you can see what the effect has become. Too early to tell now for sure but something to keep an eye on. Ivy schools and coaches won’t take kindly to becoming perennial “losers” to Patriot schools for long…something will change. How the Ivy wouldn’t look at a Stanford or Duke and not consider that a more idealistic goal for the academics and football is beyond me however. What top student athlete wouldn’t choose Stanford over Harvard if offered a full ride vs FA? Not to mention national tv exposure and crowds of upward of 60,000 to say 13,000 or so.
What top student athlete wouldn’t choose Stanford over Harvard if offered a full ride vs FA?
None, and that is why Stanford and Harvard don’t compete for the same type of athletes, well at least not in football and basketball.
With regard to FA vs athletic scholarships- FA is available for 4 years. Athletic scholarships go away if you get cut from the team or quit the team. Not sure what happens if you get injured. Do for some, FA is the safer bet.
If you look closely at Ivy football schedules, you’ll see a trend towards more out-of-conference games with the Pioneer Football League (PFL), a widely-dispersed Division I football-only conference which - – like the Ivies – is non-scholarship.
For the 2017 season, for example, five of the Ivies have scheduled PFL teams. The 2017 matchups include Brown-Stetson, Princeton-U. San Diego (not to be confused with UCSD or SDSU), Columbia-Marist, Dartmouth-Stetson, and Penn-Jacksonville U. (not to be confused with Jacksonville State U).
The PFL is one of the absolute worst football conferences in NCAA Division I. The OP calls Georgetown “the doormat of the Patriot League”. But according to the Sagarin ratings, Georgetown was better than most of the teams in the PFL last year.
It’s hard to see why anyone in the Ivy community would get excited about playing the PFL, apart from the likelihood of an easy victory. The Ivies obviously have no natural geographic or academic rivalries with schools like Stetson or USD or JU. But the bottom line is that out-of-conference games don’t really matter to the Ivies. They don’t participate in the DI FCS playoffs; the only thing that they are playing for is the Ivy League title. So they can treat out-of-conference games as meaningless exhibition games, and in that case it doesn’t really matter how bad the opponent is, or how low the attendance is.
It’s too bad, because Ivy-Patriot matchups can be fun. In 2016, there were more fans in Princeton Stadium for the Lafayette game than for any Ivy opponent. In 2015, the Lehigh game was Princeton’s top draw. I question whether they will get the same turnout this fall for the University of San Diego.
Similarly, in 2015, Cornell’s top games for home attendance were with Bucknell and Colgate.
This isn’t true for the Power 5 conferences anymore for the head count sports, which is where the big bucks are. Yes, if [u[you quit, you lose your scholarship. Isn’t that fair? If you get hurt on the field/practice, most coaches will not pull your scholarship and often will fight for you to get a red shirt year, thus giving you. If the coach reduces or revokes your scholarship at any NCAA school, there is an appeals process. You’d have to show you were able and willing to play.
If you lose your scholarship at an Ivy, you’d then pick up any need based aid you would otherwise qualify for. Don’t see where the athlete would be hurt but leaving the team. Athletes on the low income side probably get a lot more in FA from an Ivy than they’d get in scholarship money, unless the sport was a head count sport. For non-headcount sports, a wealthy athlete might get aid (or more aid), but low income students do better getting full need based aid than they would getting a 1/4 lacrosse scholarship or a 1/2 soccer grant as those would be restricted by the NCAA. Hockey players, women’s crew, women’s tennis might all be a better deal under NCAA, but for all those other sports, the Ivy athletes are probably better off getting need based aid.
@CU123 “None, and that is why Stanford and Harvard don’t compete for the same type of athletes, well at least not in football and basketball”
And why would that be acceptable for Harvard and/or the coach? Stanford is the gold standard for what they should strive to be. Others like Duke, Northwestern, USC, UCLA and ND are close behind.
@wisteria No longer the case. As others have stated they are no guaranteed 4 years at all the top schools.
@wisteria100
I’m with you on this. One reason I am glad my son is an Ivy athlete and gets FA through that system. His options would be much more limited if he was on an athletic scholarship. There is less long term pressure.
@tonymom With what? How would his options be limited in any way? The scholarships at top schools are now guaranteed all 4 years.
^^^^ More flexibility to drop sport if he wanted to or if he was injured or needed to focus solely on academics. No pressure that he could no longer afford his education.
You actually wouldn’t lose your scholarship if you quit the team IF you have signed a NLI. The NLI is binding even if you quit the team. It is why coaches found a way around the 4 year scholarship plan by putting 0s in 3 of the years which in essence keeps it a year to year scholarship. Medical retirement is of course, a different animal.
That’s not right @crimsonmom2019. I don’t know how the Power 5 are doing the multi year scholarships, but the rules that were posted were that they were granted for 4 years but if the athlete quit during years 1-2, it’s over. If they finish sophomore year, then their tuition is guaranteed through graduation but just tuition, not all the other fees, stipend, room and board.
Not all power 5s are treating the scholarships this way. Pac-12 and B1G are for all sports, I think, but the last description I read was that SEC and ACC were only doing it for headcount sports. But either way, quitting before junior year.
Not quite the golden ticket we expected. I don’t know how many students who are on 4 year scholarships quit and yet still get the scholarships. I know the NCAA and the schools were hoping that it would help those who played for 3-4 years and didn’t graduate go back to school and get a degree, or help those who were no longer able to play. The quarterback from OSU (Jones) who so famously said football players don’t go to school to study but to play football just graduated last week after going pro a year or so ago. I think Christian McCaffrey will continue to work on his degree from Stanford. He’d be able to pay for it himself, but why pay when it’s free?
Could the Ivy League schedule games against NESCAC and University Athletic Association schools?
I realize they are D3 but is it possible? These are schools that are academically stout and, like the Ivies, don’t give out scholarships…
We could have a bunch of Little Ivies and Ivy equivalents going up against the Ivy League.
And MIT and UChicago.
Hey, while we’re at it, how about MIT moving to NESCAC and UChicago moving to UAA?
There is a reason they have divisions, so no, the Ivies can’t just schedule a bunch of games against D3 schools. Some sports have interdivision contests regularly; this weekend is the Dad Vail and schools from all Divisions will row head to head. Hockey sometimes has D1 v D3. Occasionally, a D3 lacrosse team will play a D2 but then there are rules about the statistics and how to count them, so it doesn’t happen often. D1 football? Don’t think so.
Schools don’t just get to say they want to join a conference and that’s it. There are applications, committee meetings, comparison of programs, travel review, facility review, size considerations. If the conference gets too big, then they just play each other and maybe one or two out-of-conference games per year. Great if all teams play at the same level, but not so great if you are a good team and the rest of the conference is not so good.
And of course money. Conferences share revenue.
Of course joining a conference is a process. I’m a Big Ten fan – we’ve been changing over the last 25ish years. I just meant it might make sense, in terms of aligning schools with like academic commitment and pedigree (and athletic levels and location…) for MIT to join NESCAC and for Chicago to join UAA.
And while the Ivies are D1, they’re FCS – not the top level. They’d lose by 40, or worse, against a good D1 team most of the time. Would Ivies beat the D3 teams worse than that?
(that actually might not be a bad question… has FCS ever played D3?
Div 3 can and does play vs FCS but not often. Actually many FCS schools play and beat FBS schools each year. The Ivy is much closer in playing ability to FBS than Div 3. Which brings back the original post…Why not strive to be a Stanford, Duke, Northwestern, ND etc…instead of MIT, Hopkins, CMU etc…?
NESCAC currently has 10 football-playing members and an 8-game football schedule. So there is no room for any out-of-conference games, with the Ivies or anyone else. In fact, there is not even enough room to play every in-conference opponent.
As noted above, NESCAC already has too many schools for an 8-game football season. If there is to be D3 conference realignment, it would make more sense for Tufts to leave NESCAC and join MIT in NEWMAC. Tufts, as an urban university, is an outlier in NESCAC, which otherwise consists of liberal arts colleges. NEWMAC has other Boston-area schools like MIT, Babson, Clark, Emerson, WPI, and Wellesley. If Tufts joined, Boston could have a climactic end-of-season Tufts-MIT football game every year, just as Los Angeles gets UCLA-USC.
Chicago is already in the UAA. They were a founding member in 1986, and are still there.
The Ivy League already plays in NCAA Division I, just like Stanford, Duke, Northwestern, or ND. The only difference is in football, where the Ivies play in the Football Championship Subdivision (FCS) of Division I, instead of the Football Bowl Subdivision I (FBS) of Division I. In all other sports, there is no difference: for example, the Ivies play in the same Division I basketball, hockey, soccer, and lacrosse tournaments as the Big Ten.
The Ivies were national football powerhouses in the late 19th and early 20th Centuries; for example, Harvard, Columbia, Brown, and Penn all played in the early years of the Rose Bowl. However, the Ivies eventually decided that the academic and financial sacrifices needed to stay nationally relevant in football were too great. So they now choose to play at the I-FCS level instead of the I-FBS level.
Some other highly-ranked universities made similar decisions, including Chicago (multiple Big Ten football championships), Georgetown (1941 Orange Bowl), and Carnegie Mellon (1939 Sugar Bowl). All of these schools, like the Ivies, continue to play football, but without athletic scholarships. Chicago and CMU are now D3. Georgetown is D1-FBS like the Ivies, but does not offer athletic scholarships in football (although they do offer athletic scholarships in basketball).
^^^Georgetown is FCS. Since the Ivies play in Div 1 except in football(FCS) why not take the net step.