A Modest Proposal?

[Bob Green]

Why? Please explain.

Dropping down to FCS would be quitting. Duke should not quit but rather continue to strive for excellence.

[Natty_B]

Me too. Also just adding that this idea has been brought up almost every single season that Duke football has come off a losing season.

So in 24 of the last 30 seasons?

[budwom]

For better or worse, the football TV money helps to fund the Olympic sports (and some others) which Duke is pretty good at. I'd hate to see that change...

Having said that, I very much want us to avoid the SEC's race to the bottom...I'll be happy if the ACC can stay viable.

[chrishoke]

Just to put my vote in, I'm clearly with Bob and Sage on this.

[cspan37421]

I wonder what the CTE rate is for FCS players vs Power 5(4) BCS players? I.e., if there is a significant difference in the rate at which players go pro and continue playing, does that affect the risk of ultimately getting CTE? Too early to tell?

Also, with the waning power of the NCAA and the re-definition of conferences, it seems possible that the the old rule that "Duke must field a football team to stay in the ACC" doesn't necessarily have to continue to apply to wherever we end up. Seems like going forward you could have different conferences for different sports ... if the schools wanted to.

[Bob Green]

Also, with the waning power of the NCAA and the re-definition of conferences, it seems possible that the the old rule that "Duke must field a football team to stay in the ACC" doesn't necessarily have to continue to apply to wherever we end up. Seems like going forward you could have different conferences for different sports ... if the schools wanted to.

A sports world that doesn’t include Duke Football competing in the ACC is unfathomable to me. I attended my first game in Duke Stadium in 1966 watching Duke beat Virginia in an ACC contest. I hope to continue watching Duke compete in ACC contests in Wallace Wade Stadium for many more years.

[Section 15]

BTW The stadium was completed in 1929, the first facility for the use of the entire university. The cost was paid in full despite the difficulties of the unfolding Great Depression. The first coach lasted only a couple of seasons before Wallace Wade came from Alabama. History indicates that football was a fairly high priority.

Yes, your dates and sequence of events are correct. There is a story that when Doris Duke sat in the stands for the first game in the new stadium and watched Duke get beaten badly, she was supposed to have remarked: "Now that we have bought the school a new stadium, I guess we'll have to buy the school a better team."

I remember the decline under Harp and it was sad. Aside from the fact that he coached at powerhouse Cornell before Duke, what he was known for most was a game in which he had his Cornell players stand on each other's shoulders to block a field goal attempt. Should surprise no one that the block attempt was unsuccessful.

Section 15

[arnie]

Dropping down to FCS would be quitting. Duke should not quit but rather continue to strive for excellence.

Agree with “striving for excellence”; but that’s not what we did by hiring Alleva and making no effort to find or pay top coaches. If the new AD makes changes when necessary and the commitments to be ACC competitive, I favor staying the course. But if we’re just fielding a team to collect ESPN $$, I’d rather see us in a Big East model for b-ball and other sports.

This football year may tell us how she and trustees really feel about football.

[dukelifer]

Agree with “striving for excellence”; but that’s not what we did by hiring Alleva and making no effort to find or pay top coaches. If the new AD makes changes when necessary and the commitments to be ACC competitive, I favor staying the course. But if we’re just fielding a team to collect ESPN $$, I’d rather see us in a Big East model for b-ball and other sports.

This football year may tell us how she and trustees really feel about football.

It is all about the financial model. Duke makes most of its money for Athletics from football shared revenue from the TV contract, donations - mostly to basketball and the NCAA tourney shared revenue- everything else runs at a loss. Without football- other sports would not have what they need to field teams. Duke fields a mediocre football program (significantly more interesting to watch than before Cut) that is occasionally good and gets a bunch of other sports in return. For this, big Duke only needs to subsidize a portion- 15-20M. If the other models are more financially attractive and could yield an excellent basketball and football program and status quo quality on the other sports- they should consider. I have my doubts that this is possible.

[wncgrad]

BTW The stadium was completed in 1929, the first facility for the use of the entire university. The cost was paid in full despite the difficulties of the unfolding Great Depression. The first coach lasted only a couple of seasons before Wallace Wade came from Alabama. History indicates that football was a fairly high priority.

Football and sports were an interest when West Campus was occupied but far from a priority. The priorities were clearly academic: getting students and faculty to occupy many new dorms (women went from Southgate to 8 dorms in the Woman's College on East with a similar increase for men), expanding the law school, school of religion, and graduate school (to include the Ph.D. degree), and starting a brand new emphasis in medicine and nursing among others.

The football stadium being the first facility used was in effect an accident. It was the easiest facility to design and build essentially expanding a revine and pouring concrete. Gothic West was of course much more difficult. Hiring Wade was also an accident. The chair of the athletics committee wrote him as one of the most successful coaches in the country asking for a recommendation for a new coach at Duke and much to everyone's surprise Wade replied he was interested if Duke would wait a year, a year he led Alabama to the Rose Bowl for the second time I believe. He wanted more freedom over his program and he thought he might get that at a private school. The initial gym on West was Card Gym. Cameron was not built for ten years and then with Rose Bowl money in part. Football clearly was the major sport of the time witness the southern rivalries with Dodd at Georgia Tech and Neyland at Tennessee. Surprisingly Wade's one fear in hosting the Rose Bowl was that he was afraid it might not fill up the stadium. Look at pictures in the Chanticleer in the successful 1930's and you will see very small crowds unless with GT or TN and sometimes UNC but those crowds came later.

The story about Doris Duke at the first football game is just that, a story. She would have been seventeen and hardly interested in anything about Duke University. In her few appearances, there is no record of her ever attending a sporting event on campus.

[budwom]

Agree with “striving for excellence”; but that’s not what we did by hiring Alleva and making no effort to find or pay top coaches. If the new AD makes changes when necessary and the commitments to be ACC competitive, I favor staying the course. But if we’re just fielding a team to collect ESPN $$, I’d rather see us in a Big East model for b-ball and other sports.

This football year may tell us how she and trustees really feel about football.

Well, without opening a can of figurative worms, I'm sure you know how we ended up with Alleva, arnie. Looking forward, I think we're in better hands now, but none of us seems to know Nina King's view on the current state of Duke football.

[LeadingEdge]

I am a Wahoo. I wish U.Va. would do what the original poster suggests.

I would drop college football entirely due to the unconscionable brain injuries in pervasive bodily injuries. But if you’re going to keep playing, compete at a level that comports with your institutional values.

You can have big-time basketball and be FCS in football. Villanova did it. Duke and U. Va. should also.

[chrishoke]

I am a Wahoo. I wish U.Va. would do what the original poster suggests.

I would drop college football entirely due to the unconscionable brain injuries in pervasive bodily injuries. But if you’re going to keep playing, compete at a level that comports with your institutional values.

You can have big-time basketball and be FCS in football. Villanova did it. Duke and U. Va. should also.

Do any of the other Villanova sports teams compete at that level and vie for national championships, or is basketball the only on\e?

[MChambers]

I wonder what the CTE rate is for FCS players vs Power 5(4) BCS players? I.e., if there is a significant difference in the rate at which players go pro and continue playing, does that affect the risk of ultimately getting CTE? Too early to tell?

Also, with the waning power of the NCAA and the re-definition of conferences, it seems possible that the the old rule that "Duke must field a football team to stay in the ACC" doesn't necessarily have to continue to apply to wherever we end up. Seems like going forward you could have different conferences for different sports ... if the schools wanted to.

Assuming that players get CTE even if they aren’t playing top level college football, which I think is probable, I’d vote for no Duke football at all.

[CrazyNotCrazie]

It is all about the financial model. Duke makes most of its money for Athletics from football shared revenue from the TV contract, donations - mostly to basketball and the NCAA tourney shared revenue- everything else runs at a loss. Without football- other sports would not have what they need to field teams. Duke fields a mediocre football program (significantly more interesting to watch than before Cut) that is occasionally good and gets a bunch of other sports in return. For this, big Duke only needs to subsidize a portion- 15-20M. If the other models are more financially attractive and could yield an excellent basketball and football program and status quo quality on the other sports- they should consider. I have my doubts that this is possible.

I have mixed feelings on this whole issue. My question is about the alternative to the current situation being the Georgetown or Villanova model where football goes down a notch but basketball and other sports generally stay at the top. Others argue we need football TV money to support non-rev sports (rather than football just supporting football).

So how do these other schools that have the full list of non-rev sports do it without major football? I believe they have relatively similar scholarship levels so costs are directionally the same (probably slightly lower but not dramatically). Anyone know how their model works?

[-jk]

I find myself in an ethical quandary: I like watching football at the same time I don’t want to support it from an injury standpoint.

-jk

[Dedgummit]

I feel like it’s the late 60’s. Many at Duke thought de emphasizing football was a good idea. As a student I thought it was an idea 50 years too late. Yes in the perfect world colleges wouldn’t play big time sports. But Duke chose to do so when it hired Wallace Wade, built a state of the art stadium for the time and then did the same thing with the Indoor Stadium.

I for one am not willing to give up. Even though I have never lived closer than 500 miles to to Durham, I try to attend a game or two each year. While many on this Board complain about the game day experience, I like it! Unlike a game at a football factory, parking is pretty easy. Small crowds mean it’s easy to navigate around the stadium. And until last year we got enough wins to make it interesting. (I will not say that sitting on the east side in the sun on a 90 degree day is fun, but I do it.)

I don’t buy the we are sullying our reputation, my words not yours, by lowering admission standards. With our small size we could probably admit kids with only perfect SATs, but is that the student body we really want? So should we admit artistic kids who maybe score lower on some parts of the SAT? Should we admit kids who are bright but haven’t had access to the best private schools? As long as Cutliffe signs good quality kids, which he has, I am okay with the fact some will never get their PhD at MIT.

I also keep reading about how we should partner with Vandy, who is not leaving the SEC, or Northwestern, who is not leaving the BIG.

I also question how much we would lose in alumni support and national status if we de emphasized football, which would lead to de emphasizing our whole athletic department.

I am hoping last year was an anomaly. I can’t imagine Coach Cut plans to end his career with Duke becoming a joke again.

I respect your opinion and your arguments, I just respectfully disagree.

People ALSO keep saying what you've said above-- and my response is: Vandy and Northwestern (and Wake and BC and maybe even Stanford), like Duke, may not be given a choice in this matter, before too long. All of these schools are hardly "indispensable" members of their respective conferences (if anyone can be said to be-- really, only Texas in the Big 12 actually fits that description, as the existential crisis in that league with Texas leaving shows)-- and certainly not in football-- which is really the only game that matters. Duke fans think that basketball matters, but at most schools, basketball is a minor distraction between the fall football schedule and spring practice-- and at all but two or three schools (e.g.- Duke, Louisville, Kentucky), basketball does not make enough money to matter (to them).

Now, I'd be the first person to say that FOOTBALL ALSO does not make enough money to matter, at any decent, reputable research university (as I showed, with example of the University of Florida, in a post on another thread)-- but we ARE talking about athletics here-- and many (if not nearly all) of these schools seem to have their priorities out of whack-- or maybe they are just in a permanent state of delusion and/or irrationality about the importance of athletics in big time, high quality, major research universities.

[Mtn.Devil.91.92.01.10.15]

Now, I'd be the first person to say that FOOTBALL ALSO does not make enough money to matter, at any decent, reputable research university (as I showed, with example of the University of Florida, in a post on another thread)-- but we ARE talking about athletics here-- and many (if not nearly all) of these schools seem to have their priorities out of whack-- or maybe they are just in a permanent state of delusional and/or irrationality about the importance of athletics in big time, high quality, major research universities.

Other folks are deluded about how different colleges and universities chase dollars.

[sagegrouse]

I have mixed feelings on this whole issue. My question is about the alternative to the current situation being the Georgetown or Villanova model where football goes down a notch but basketball and other sports generally stay at the top. Others argue we need football TV money to support non-rev sports (rather than football just supporting football).

So how do these other schools that have the full list of non-rev sports do it without major football? I believe they have relatively similar scholarship levels so costs are directionally the same (probably slightly lower but not dramatically). Anyone know how their model works?

Some data for you:

In the IMG Learfield Directors' Cup weights all sports equally and gives no particular emphasis to football or men's hoops. Here are the standings (in part):

1. Texas 1,252 points
2. Stanford 1,196

21. Duke 831

63. Georgetown 339

84. Villanova 205

G'town is only 40 percent and Villanova only 25 percent of Duke's total. Duke, OTOH, is 66 percent of the Texas/Stanford level. I expect there is a correspondingly large difference in scholarship levels and expenses between Duke and Georgetown/Villanova.

[Section 15]

The story about Doris Duke at the first football game is just that, a story. She would have been seventeen and hardly interested in anything about Duke University. In her few appearances, there is no record of her ever attending a sporting event on campus.

Stadium opening 1929.jpg

The score of the first game was Pitt 52; Duke 7 (so if Doris Duke didn't actually make the comment attributed to her, SHE SHOULD HAVE )

The Chanticleer of 1930 estimated the crowd at 25,000 and described the game as "packed with thrills" coming partly from "Sam Buie's great passing."

Anyway, you can see how full (or empty) the stadium was from the photograph. FYI: the photo credit is by Curtiss-Wright Flying Service. I geek out on imagining a WWI era biplane flying over the campus with a photographer hanging over the side holding a big graflex.

Section 15