Yeah, but the thing is, Cortland's got a great reputation for its PE teacher degree program. It was never being put at the bottom of a pile.

That's the problem Ithaca had. Cortland was delivering the type of quality they were, at a fraction of the cost, and everyone wound up in the same place.

Music, film, TV/Radio production, and PT/ATC is where Ithaca really stands out relative to peers, but those just...aren't appealing majors to football players

Echoing what was said above, every gym teacher at Ithaca High School when I was a student 1998-2001 was either an IC or a Cortland grad.

There's nothing wrong with being a high school gym teacher and sports coach. But why on earth would you spend 3x-4x as much on the education that's going to eventually land you -- literally -- the exact same job? It doesn't put you on a different track or open different doors for higher level things.

My IC gym teachers were great. So were my Cortland ones. They were also good coaches. But some of them graduated with a lot less debt than others. As the disparity between the schools' costs grew, it just became impossible.

And you don't know where success is going to come from.

I joke with our PR guy all the time that he delivered the 2023 Stagg Bowl to Cortland back in 1994 when he was part of the hiring committee that didn't hire Boyes.

But imagine going back to 2016 and telling people the guy who just led SUNY Morrisville to a 1-9 season was going to deliver the East a Stagg Bowl by knocking off North Central. It's easy to go around pulling resumes from guys who look good, but life has a way of working out

Quote from: Jonny Utah on December 16, 2025, 11:35:36 AMBut the days of finding someone who is going to be your coach for 40 years with 3 national championships are gone I think

I bolded this because I think this word is the schism.

For almost everyone, you get a choice. If you want a coach who sticks with you for 30 years, they're probably not going to be putting you in National Title contention for three decades.

The odds of a Butterfield-type lifer who basically has you as a national power just up to retirement is slim to none. Mike Welch was a lifer, but while IC scratched and clawed its was to the 2013/2014 E8 titles, it didn't end especially well*. After 40 years with no losing seasons, Ithaca had two in Welch's last six years, with a .500 season to boot, and an 0-6 record in Cortaca.

*At the risk of sounding like Frank, I mean strictly in the W/L column. Everyone loved Welch at IC. There's a reason he got carried off the field after his last home game

Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe Brad Spencer is going to stick around Naperville for the next 25-30 years. Maybe Dan Wodicka sees himself as a Hopkins lifer.

But when the bigger names come calling actively, I imagine you can only resist for so long. Especially with the money involved -- though obviously no coach ever says that publicly.

Look at Curt Fitzpatrick. He'd spent nearly two decades as a D3 guy. His success at Cortland basically assured he had a job for life, with a NY State pension waiting for him after retiring. But winning it all probably put him on a lot of radars, and he didn't stick around.

Re: Faggiano

Utica's always going to have an uphill battle in the E8. Their cost of attendance is about double that of Cortland and Brockport, and their most recent four-year graduation rate is 44%. They don't have a ton of football history to lean on either.

I could be wrong, but I suspect that like Boyes at Buff State, Faggiano is getting absolutely the most that could be reasonably expected out of them, and most other coaches would be much worse.

Frank knows that he doesn't have some secret knowledge of the innermost thoughts of the members of the Ithaca College athletic department.

There may be some naive people online who believe he's connected enough to Know About Things at IC*, however, and that's who he's playing to with his schtick.

*Presumably, Frank does Know About Things at a certain number of Division 3 colleges. But Ithaca's not one of them

It's not Frank being a gatekeeper, because there's nothing to gatekeep.

Quote from: Pat Coleman on December 15, 2025, 01:47:14 PMI don't remember where this falls in the Wingfield timeline, but the Toerper beef with Frank Rossi was in place by the time the Ithaca-North Central game took place in the 2022 quarterfinals.

I was not aware it was still persisting, but haven't talked to Frank much in the past 12 months.

That was pre-Wingfield's injury.

I recall Ithaca not being too happy with Frank's handling of Joe Germinerio coming to Ithaca, though the details are hazy.

Frank's got a lot of beefs though, so who can really keep track?

Quote from: UfanBill on December 15, 2025, 01:45:19 PM...Could Utica H/C Blaise Faggiano be interested in returning to his alma mater?

He strikes me as pretty content to be Utica's answer to Jerry Boyes -- though Boyes did apply for the job Mike Welch got.

I would also be very, very surprised if Ithaca did not look to bring in an offensive minded coach. No specific insight, except how the tea leaves seem to be reading on the last two years.

I'm not going to get into the whole Ithaca/Union beef because there's no resolving we said/they said nonsense.

I can merely say this: No one in the Ithaca athletic department cares the least bit about what Frank Rossi thinks about Toerper's departure from South Hill.

I also know that the list of people, schools, conferences and Division 3 football websites who've had more than enough of Frank grows every year.

Frank's refusal to answer the very basic question of why this is supposedly the best-case scenario for Ithaca is proof he's just saying it to get a response and rile people up.

He certainly doesn't have his finger on the pulse of how Ithaca feels about Toerper, that much you can be sure of.

His personality wasn't for everyone, but Toerper was an excellent coach, whose down years produced regular seasons on par with anything produced by Welch or Swanstrom this past decade and whose 2022 and 2023 seasons gave Ithaca playoff wins in back to back years for the first time since 1985 and 1986 -- yes you read that correctly. He was enthusiastic about Ithaca, and speaking from experience, a willing campus partner.

Quote from: NEd3ALUM on December 14, 2025, 06:29:20 PMA great run. Aside from Hopkins OC, who else might IC consider? Coach Green at Hobart?

I'm not really sure how this Hopkins OC thing has started, other than it being a thing that might make intuitive sense. I doubt the college has "considered" him in this rather brief opening (I know they've probably known for a few weeks, but still.)

This does feel a little different than the past two searches. The post-Welch search had a strong internal candidate in Mark McDonough, and the post-Swanstrom search had a kinda sorta internal guy in the very recently departed Toerper (who could not be recruited Swanstrom, as Dan was not a Head Coach and worked on the other side of the ball)

This one feels like it's got no "obvious" people who will apply. No longtime former coaches are out there for the taking, otherwise we'd have seen them pop up in the last two searches.

I wonder if someone like McGonagle at Endicott sees the ceiling there vs. a place like Ithaca. I'm sure Ithaca would love to start recruiting New England again.

(The total heel move would be calling up Blumenhauer and offering to top his Cortland salary by 20%, BTW)

It is official

https://athletics.ithaca.edu/news/2025/12/14/head-football-coach-michael-toerper-to-depart-ithaca-college.aspx

Closing the book on the Toerper Head Coach era at IC:

35-10 overall
23-2 in the Liberty League
3-2 in the NCAA playoffs
2-2 in Cortaca

Of his 10 losses, 7 of them came to teams that finished the season ranked 9th or higher in the final D3football.com poll.

And before the "he did his best work with Swanstrom's recruits" comments start, it's worth noting that he was the team's defensive coordinator through the 2019 season, and that the 2020 season giving everyone extra eligibility means that quite a large number of the defensive players who were part of the 2022/2023 playoff teams were indeed still "his" guys

Quote from: ICGrad on December 11, 2025, 01:23:26 PM

Quote from: IC798891 on December 10, 2025, 09:25:06 AMCoaches are adults -- and not just in the 18-year old legal sense, as in the fully developed brain sense-- they make more money than (most) of us to do what they do, and I think this makes them fair game for reasonable criticisms of performance.

I doubt this is true at the D3 level, but agree with everything else you said. Spot on.

Well, I know Toerper makes more than me, Fitzpatrick too, that's for sure. You fellas may be backing up the old Brinks trucks to the house, but I'm sure not, haha

I mean, Flanagan was really good, but not the caliber of player these other QBs were.

He had ~3,000 yards, 29 TD and 10 INT

Barry had ~ 3,000 yards, 46 TD, 6 INT
Ehrlich had ~ 3,400 yards, 39 TD, 2 INT
Harvey has about ~ 3,400 yards, 39 TD, 4 INT

Yeah, different number of games, and I don't know when they did the voting, but these aren't especially close