Competitive Disadvantage

Back-to-back PL champs 2016 and 2017.... but need to get back to relevance in the national FCS scene.
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Competitive Disadvantage

Post by News » Thu Sep 16, 2021 6:51 pm

https://lehighfootballnation.blogspot.c ... ntage.html
2015 was a great year for Patriot League football.

It was a season where two Patriot League schools would qualify for the FCS Playoffs, and Dan Hunt's Colgate team would have a one of the Patriot League's most epic runs through the bracket on the road - beating New Hampshire 27-20, then becoming James Madison's Kryptonite in an epic 44-38 win over the perennial FCS powerhouse.

A third straight road game ended their run at Sam Houston State with a 48-21 defeat, but the Raiders had nothing to hang their heads about.

At the time, there was no way of knowing that the 2015 season would be the high water mark for the league for the next six years - or that the drop would be so precipitous.
What happened?

(also, a related work:

https://www.college-sports-journal.com/ ... -football/
Nov. 13th, 2019: We are two weeks away from the end of the Patriot League regular season, and there is a very distinct possibility that the winner of the League is going to have a losing record.


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Re: Competitive Disadvantage

Post by Sundayamqb » Fri Sep 17, 2021 2:14 am

Great piece. Could be last chance to stay in FCS, keep an automatic playoff berth.

What's been going on the past few years is not sustainable.
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Re: Competitive Disadvantage

Post by Richb-3 » Fri Sep 17, 2021 4:30 pm

I see no problem with increasing scholarships to 63 and rosters to 110 (maybe 99 + redshirts). The 4 golden years of Higgins Lembo we usually had rosters over 110. If the 97(band) can have a 112, why not the team?

Maybe not unlimited redshirting, but certainly some. Why waste a Frosh QB year when there are 2 experienced seniors and 2 experienced Juniors on the team. Same with kickers.

Changing academics, last resort, but are not various IVY sports allowed to bring in 1-3 guys each year who although qualified would not be admitted without being a true sports star in HS?\
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Re: Competitive Disadvantage

Post by Lehigh4Life » Mon Oct 04, 2021 6:33 pm

In order to compete, the PL HAS to up the roster limits, AND make the non-scholarship players able to get financial aid.. asking kids to pay 75k PLUS play football is not fair, especially if they need help.
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Re: Competitive Disadvantage

Post by Sundayamqb » Mon Oct 04, 2021 10:12 pm

Lehigh4Life wrote: Mon Oct 04, 2021 6:33 pm In order to compete, the PL HAS to up the roster limits, AND make the non-scholarship players able to get financial aid.. asking kids to pay 75k PLUS play football is not fair, especially if they need help.
At the least ... without this, it can't remain remotely competitive.
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Re: Competitive Disadvantage

Post by Richb-3 » Tue Oct 19, 2021 7:44 pm

So I was watching the local sports new about Lebanon Valley College, and their female kicker. (they actually had another almost 20 years ago) The big surprise, to me was that the Flying Dutchmen has a 120 player roster. And they are only 3-3 in a non-super Div 3 conference.

And Patriot League can only have 90???

So LVC is not really normally considered an academic peer of any Patriot League football program. I decided to look at some other relatively nearby D3 schools with whom that we do compare. F+ M, Ursinus, and Muhlenberg. I did not do an exact count but in all 3 cases there were a bunch of guys with duplicate numbers at the low end (Duplicate 1's, 2's, 3's) It looks like they all have 110 or more. I would bet all 3, and most of the Centennial league have some upper class starters or Fr/So #2s who would have gladly paid the same amount to walk onto a Patriot League team, and have a chance to play, to be 3rd/4th string, in D1(FCS).
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Re: Competitive Disadvantage

Post by Sundayamqb » Tue Oct 19, 2021 8:15 pm

Richb-3 wrote: Tue Oct 19, 2021 7:44 pm So I was watching the local sports new about Lebanon Valley College, and their female kicker. (they actually had another almost 20 years ago) The big surprise, to me was that the Flying Dutchmen has a 120 player roster. And they are only 3-3 in a non-super Div 3 conference.

And Patriot League can only have 90???

So LVC is not really normally considered an academic peer of any Patriot League football program. I decided to look at some other relatively nearby D3 schools with whom that we do compare. F+ M, Ursinus, and Muhlenberg. I did not do an exact count but in all 3 cases there were a bunch of guys with duplicate numbers at the low end (Duplicate 1's, 2's, 3's) It looks like they all have 110 or more. I would bet all 3, and most of the Centennial league have some upper class starters or Fr/So #2s who would have gladly paid the same amount to walk onto a Patriot League team, and have a chance to play, to be 3rd/4th string, in D1(FCS).
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Re: Competitive Disadvantage

Post by lfnadmin » Thu Oct 21, 2021 12:50 pm

Richb-3 wrote: Tue Oct 19, 2021 7:44 pm So I was watching the local sports new about Lebanon Valley College, and their female kicker. (they actually had another almost 20 years ago) The big surprise, to me was that the Flying Dutchmen has a 120 player roster. And they are only 3-3 in a non-super Div 3 conference.

And Patriot League can only have 90???

So LVC is not really normally considered an academic peer of any Patriot League football program. I decided to look at some other relatively nearby D3 schools with whom that we do compare. F+ M, Ursinus, and Muhlenberg. I did not do an exact count but in all 3 cases there were a bunch of guys with duplicate numbers at the low end (Duplicate 1's, 2's, 3's) It looks like they all have 110 or more. I would bet all 3, and most of the Centennial league have some upper class starters or Fr/So #2s who would have gladly paid the same amount to walk onto a Patriot League team, and have a chance to play, to be 3rd/4th string, in D1(FCS).
Precisely. Now Villanova does not have that size roster, for reference, but they make up the gap by redshirting (20+20+20+20+20), but the CAA doesn't prohibit a school from having 110+ rosters with massive WO if they want. What the PL is doing is the worst of both worlds.
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Re: Competitive Disadvantage

Post by HFO » Sat Oct 23, 2021 12:53 pm

It is stupidest rule in NCAA that financial aid is considered toward athletic scholarship. If that be the case, then set a team limit in $$$ and let coaches distribute among as many players as they want and how much the school wants to fund. Then let that money only be allowed to be used for tuition, room & board and books/tech fee and other university fees. If a college wants to field a 200 person football team, all the better, you are educated more men. If Title IX has to be upheld, then another 200 women are educated.

Patriot League and Presidents MUST do better.
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Re: Competitive Disadvantage

Post by ngineer » Thu Nov 04, 2021 11:16 pm

Fred Dunlap predicted this would happen ten years ago when the issue of scholarships was chugging down the runway with Fordham's threat to leave the PL if they weren't instituted. Yes, we can recruit a small handful of athletes that we otherwise would not be able to, but it was going to inhibit our ability to have good sized rosters--especially with the rule the PL follows of not allowing need-based aid to be used with scholarships. With only 85-90 on a roster, and the inevitable dozen or so at any time who are injured, it is not sustainable. The PL needs to wake up about football. Maybe there should be consideration of dropping football as a PL sport and let each school determine their own path: "move up" by joining the Colonial, NEC, Big South, etc., OR "move down" to Pioneer, MEAC, OR go D-II or D-III. Of course, Lehigh and Laughyette are joined at the hip for "The Rivalry" (#157 and counting), but that doesn't mean they have to be in the same league for football. When the PL began with the schollies, the Ivies responded with the bigger guns than we have: endowment and now have rosters well in excess of 100 and give virtual free-rides to based upon their 'need' formulas. We cannot compete very often with that in football. The other problem is that the PL Presidents don't have athletics as their priority, as we, the few fans" do. Due to the media, we subconsciously measure what we do with similar standards. Some think we can just buy-out some coach's contract and "lure" some "name" to coach here. People are using the same metrics to compare inapposite athletic programs. Regardless, the PL Presidents need to have a "retreat" and figure out what they want to do about football, because it is swirling around the porcelain bowl.
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