FB: USA South Athletic Conference

[jknezek]

Huntingdon has a roster posted with 170 players. 19 seniors, 19 juniors, 48 sophs, and 84 first years.
Comparing to the previous several years, still smaller junior and senior classes so we will still be a young team. The sophomore class is a bit larger than it has been so it seems we had better retention this time. That may have something to do with how many of them got playing time last year? I see seven sophomores who weren't on the roster last year and most seem to be transfers from FCS and D2 so hopefully are guys who can help right away.

Go Hawks!

There are a lot of schools that do this, so I'm not just picking on Huntingdon, but my stomach twists every time I see it. There should never be 84 first years. Someone is selling these kids a load of horsesh!t, and it has nothing to do with getting an education, good or otherwise. It has to do with filling beds, cafeteria plans, and large intro courses.

These colleges know a huge percentage of these kids aren't going to sniff the field, and when they don't, a large percentage are either going to transfer or drop out. The schools bring them in, milk them for the highest profitable year, and send them off to another school or just in debt with barely a partial degree. It is so much of what is wrong with private higher education, d3 sports, and starting young people off with debt that will follow and cripple them for years if not decades.

If your college needs to play these games to survive, it's such a disservice to these young people I really can't mourn much when they fold up shop. Frankly, I think it would be better if loads of them did and stopped taking advantage of kids who should be doing things other than college, but get sucked into debt with the promise of continuing to play the game they love.

Sorry, rant over.

[Ron Boerger]

St. John's (MN) has 99 first years, 198 total.  That means the football team makes up somewhere around 15% of total enrollment by itself (SJU is a male-only school like Wabash; unlike Wabash they have an associated women's college, St. Benedict), likely the big reason they do this.  I don't get it either but there are a number of D3 schools with pretty decent teams that make this model work.  Some of these schools have JV teams which I guess gives some of the guys who will never play a down of varsity ball a chance to get on the field while getting their education (SJU's JV team will play four games this season).

Like jknezek, I prefer a model where the school recruits primarily guys who will have at least a chance to contribute to the (varsity) team's success at some point in their college career. 

[AndrewB]

Huntingdon has a roster posted with 170 players. 19 seniors, 19 juniors, 48 sophs, and 84 first years.
Comparing to the previous several years, still smaller junior and senior classes so we will still be a young team. The sophomore class is a bit larger than it has been so it seems we had better retention this time. That may have something to do with how many of them got playing time last year? I see seven sophomores who weren't on the roster last year and most seem to be transfers from FCS and D2 so hopefully are guys who can help right away.

Go Hawks!

There are a lot of schools that do this, so I'm not just picking on Huntingdon, but my stomach twists every time I see it. There should never be 84 first years. Someone is selling these kids a load of horsesh!t, and it has nothing to do with getting an education, good or otherwise. It has to do with filling beds, cafeteria plans, and large intro courses.

These colleges know a huge percentage of these kids aren't going to sniff the field, and when they don't, a large percentage are either going to transfer or drop out. The schools bring them in, milk them for the highest profitable year, and send them off to another school or just in debt with barely a partial degree. It is so much of what is wrong with private higher education, d3 sports, and starting young people off with debt that will follow and cripple them for years if not decades.

If your college needs to play these games to survive, it's such a disservice to these young people I really can't mourn much when they fold up shop. Frankly, I think it would be better if loads of them did and stopped taking advantage of kids who should be doing things other than college, but get sucked into debt with the promise of continuing to play the game they love.

Sorry, rant over.

I blame the movie Rudy. 

But Coach Turk just did a Round Table discussion with Carlo (Dingo Talk) and this came up.  (How the subject came up was quite funny.)
But Coach talk of how they don't cut players, and that in Alabama only 1 D3 school has football.  The students just want to give it a try.  It's more so the D3 stigma where anyone who plays high school football can compete with D3 athletes. 
I would be more worried about the major's these incoming students pursue.  If students drop out after 1 semester, they should be OK.

[jknezek]

Huntingdon has a roster posted with 170 players. 19 seniors, 19 juniors, 48 sophs, and 84 first years.
Comparing to the previous several years, still smaller junior and senior classes so we will still be a young team. The sophomore class is a bit larger than it has been so it seems we had better retention this time. That may have something to do with how many of them got playing time last year? I see seven sophomores who weren't on the roster last year and most seem to be transfers from FCS and D2 so hopefully are guys who can help right away.

Go Hawks!

There are a lot of schools that do this, so I'm not just picking on Huntingdon, but my stomach twists every time I see it. There should never be 84 first years. Someone is selling these kids a load of horsesh!t, and it has nothing to do with getting an education, good or otherwise. It has to do with filling beds, cafeteria plans, and large intro courses.

These colleges know a huge percentage of these kids aren't going to sniff the field, and when they don't, a large percentage are either going to transfer or drop out. The schools bring them in, milk them for the highest profitable year, and send them off to another school or just in debt with barely a partial degree. It is so much of what is wrong with private higher education, d3 sports, and starting young people off with debt that will follow and cripple them for years if not decades.

If your college needs to play these games to survive, it's such a disservice to these young people I really can't mourn much when they fold up shop. Frankly, I think it would be better if loads of them did and stopped taking advantage of kids who should be doing things other than college, but get sucked into debt with the promise of continuing to play the game they love.

Sorry, rant over.

I blame the movie Rudy. 

But Coach Turk just did a Round Table discussion with Carlo (Dingo Talk) and this came up.  (How the subject came up was quite funny.)
But Coach talk of how they don't cut players, and that in Alabama only 1 D3 school has football.  The students just want to give it a try.  It's more so the D3 stigma where anyone who plays high school football can compete with D3 athletes. 
I would be more worried about the major's these incoming students pursue.  If students drop out after 1 semester, they should be OK.

Of course they don't cut them. If they cut them, they would leave faster, and so would the money. 80% of them cut themselves. See first year to senior numbers. You can put any lipstick on this pig you want, it's still a money-grabbing pig to keep the school alive.

[MCScots2013]

Multiple things can be true at the same time.

It's a money grab, but it's still up to the student and the family to make the decision to enroll.  No one is forced into it. Huntington does it, Maryville did it under Rader (a Turk understudy), UMHB does it, St John's too. Point is: the schools that do it run the spectrum of talent of team and the size of institution (>1000 to nearly 4000).

The term "Necessary evil" comes to mind, though not to insinuate it is actually an evil practice.

[jknezek]

It's only necessary if your school can't survive on its academic reputation alone.

I think the evil on "necessary evil" is spot on for everyone of those kids who don't graduate and carry the debt.

[MCScots2013]

I don't disagree with your first point, but, again, there are different realities. For every W&L there are 25 other not-so-academic schools. W&L has blessings others don't.

We can have a lengthy discussion on the evils of college financing.

[jknezek]

Yes. But that doesn't mean it's a good idea to have 25 others. The whole industry would be able to focus a lot more on education, and a lot less on survival, if there were 10 others. How many jobs require a college education that shouldn't, but only do because they can to weed down the applicant pool because there are so many college degrees being granted? I know my company posts for admin assistants all the time and want college degrees...

We sold the country on college as the path to a better life. It's not necessarily wrong, but it's getting less right all the time. And things like having 100 first years on a football team to balance the university books is part of the reason why.

[MCScots2013]

I agree regarding diploma culture. It's outrageous.

[y_jack_lok]

Yes. But that doesn't mean it's a good idea to have 25 others. The whole industry would be able to focus a lot more on education, and a lot less on survival, if there were 10 others. How many jobs require a college education that shouldn't, but only do because they can to weed down the applicant pool because there are so many college degrees being granted? I know my company posts for admin assistants all the time and want college degrees...

We sold the country on college as the path to a better life. It's not necessarily wrong, but it's getting less right all the time. And things like having 100 first years on a football team to balance the university books is part of the reason why.

This is not new. I remember discussing this with my brother-in-law 50 years ago when his first born was still in kindergarten. At that time neither of us was convinced that sending a kid to college versus some kind of more tailored trade or "professional" training would be the best thing to do in the future. Of course his kid did go to college (but stopped one semester short of graduating). My son graduated from college as well (plus two grad degrees -- definitely right for him) as did all of his other cousins. Still, your point is valid, especially today when the survival of so many colleges/universities is in doubt, which wasn't the case 50 years ago.

[scottiedoug]

Worse than recruiting young men (this really is a football problem) who will not be able to play is recruiting students who cannot do the school part. Students who cannot play but can do school are not being exploited like the ones who cannot do school either.