Lurking Dog

Where is Creighton going? Not to the new conference. Not yet, anyway.

Evansville response to reporter... http://www.courierpressblogs.com/sports/ue/?p=2099

Club football is great if it satisfies demand among current students. On the other hand, nonscholarship NCAA football (e.g. Pioneer Football League) would be the better choice if you want to increase male enrollment and tuition revenue. The NCAA brand is the way to attract 100+ male students who would otherwise take their money elsewhere. A few years ago the PFL, Ivy League, and the Northeast Conference (Duquesne et al.) were nonscholarship D-I leagues. With the NEC now allowing scholarships, only the PFL and Ivy remain nonscholarship (Patriot League athletic departments actually buy out student loans for football players). How do you develop Ivy League-type tradition? It starts with getting a team. So, in the Midwest, the PFL is the only affordable show in town. Typical team budget is under a million bucks. Tuition revenue is typically 2.5 mil, making a subsidy worthwhile. A proper facility for at least 5,000 spectators would be a private funding challenge for SLU. PFL member Butler has renovated its football stadium; no apparent harm to the basketball program, either. Mercer and Stetson are starting teams that will be on the field in 2013. St. Louis can do this. http://pflfan.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=general

I wonder if Butler will drop its football program, so their basketball team can compete with the likes of Xavier. And while Butler football doesn't produce what is typically thought of as revenue...I wonder what their bottom line looks like. Athletic scholarships= 0. Tuition revenue from 100 players= ???

No Sun Belt w/o 85 football scholarships... Speaking of football, did you notice that Cleveland State is having a student referendum on whether to start a football team? They would be in the same nonscholarship league as Butler, Valparaiso, Drake, and Dayton. If Cleveland St. jumps in, Detroit Mercy won't be far behind.

I take at shot at it... The Big Ten will take one school: Missouri. Arkansas will forego some short-term revenue and will reunite with the Texas schools in the Big 12. Memphis will replace Arkansas in the SEC. Troy will replace Memphis in Conference USA.

Maybe that comment has nothing to do with the general student body. But Missouri is certainly not an academic outlier in the Big 12. Whatever you think of the US News rankings, putting Mizzou 102nd among national universities (tied with Oklahoma) seems about right. That puts them behind Texas, Texas A&M, Colorado, KU, Iowa State, and Baylor. In other words, their academics rate somewhere in the bottom half of the conference. http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews....rankings/page+5

It looks like Drake copied the idea for a mascot statue 10 years later....Link How many nicknames at schools without football originated with a football team? Billikens Titans (Detroit) Ramblers (Loyola) etc.

I propose the Martin & Lewis conference, named after the late Ohio native Dean Martin and Missouri River explorer Meriweather Lewis. Both basketball fans. Great comedy team, too. Xavier Dayton St. Louis Butler Drake Bradley Creighton Evansville

$5 million would be a good start on a stadium construction fund. I could see X building something like Barker-Lane Stadium at Campbell. http://www.campbell.edu/advancement/constr...ll-stadium.html The AD at Loyola once told me that operating costs for a nonscholarship program were reasonable, but that facility construction and Title IX required significant investment.

Football (athletic) scholarships? Or by "scholarship program" do you mean they want to be in Dayton's nonscholarship league? A full compliment of scholarships for Xavier football would run over $2 Million per year, just for the tuition segment. The last reported football expenditures for Holy Cross (another Jesuit school for comparison) was $4.2 million. These alums are solid indeed if they can endow a program with that kind of appetite (assuming they aren't planning to raise $4M every year ). With the A10 no longer sponsoring football, I'm not sure what conference a scholarship Xavier program would join. Dayton's stadium rental costs may be the only reason they're over 1M/year in expenses. I imagine their tuition revenue makes football's subsidy worthwhile. All other teams in Dayton's league play in their own facilities. They spend considerably less, and I would expect Xavier's costs to be reasonable if they joined. Hopefully, the fundraising is going toward a small stadium (I wonder how they use the land where Corcoran Stadium sat).

The Royal has a contract with the city through 2045, but I'm sure all bets are off if Kemper is sold. Sitting empty 200 days a year, Kemper is losing the city too much money. They're paying debt service on $16M for the last round of improvements.

Me too. I've seen everything from dog shows to roller derby to Kings basketball at Municipal. The place has a great history, including nine NCAA championship games. And its Art Deco style is unusual for a sports arena. UMKC is making plans to build a 5,000 seat arena near campus (on Troost). Student turnout for games downtown is next-to-nothing. When UMKC moves out, Municipal will basically be an annex to the convention center. The NAIA and MIAA tournaments may be the only regular events. Even underutilized, Municipal (and the adjoining Music Hall) is here to stay. I don't know if the same can be said for Kemper Arena--the city's white elephant--still not paid off, even as taxpayers ponied up for the Sprint Center. The only hope is unloading Kemper on the American Royal.

This one is starting up at Wright State. http://tinyurl.com/db3y45

Looks like there are a few Catholics in the upper Midwest. But maybe they're all moving to Jersey.

Similar to Stl fan's idea...I posted this a while back on the Dayton football board: Taking the U.S. News ratings/rankings one step further, I've listed members of my ideal athletic conference below. Selection criteria are (1) private school in the 12-state area defined by the Census Bureau as the "Midwest." (2) Division I (3) U.S. News 1st tier school (4) not currently a member of a BCS conference--just keepin it real. the lineup: St. Louis Dayton Loyola Creighton Xavier Valparaiso Butler Drake Bradley Evansville Detroit Mercy ...20 conference games per year in basketball...RPI would be .5388 today--slightly better than the A10's. Conference HQ and basketball tournament would be in Chicago...grab some associate members from the PFL to fill out the football conference.

No shot.

Are you sure the push is for a scholarship program? Given the cost of scholarships at XU--and the fact that Dayton has a nonscholarship program--I would think the immediate goal would be to join the Pioneer Football League. With scholarships, they might have to compete as an independent. 'Rough way to go. Pushing for an NCAA varsity team? That's for sure. Unofficial PFL Page

The University of New Orleans now has a club team. They played their first game last weekend...only two games scheduled this first season. As some of you already know, there is a Midwest Club Football Conference featuring the likes of Xavier, Marquette, and SIU-Edwardsville. No Title IX worries with a club team. Unofficial UNO Football Website

Hands off our recruits! http://www.geocities.com/lurkingd/

Among (RM's) comments was wanting to see St. Louis U. compete in the MVC rather than in the Atlantic 10 conference. That thought was amplified the following week when SLU Coach Rick Majerus, during an interview with KFNS' Kevin Slaten, said: "You can't find a fan to name all 14 teams in the A10." Asked by Slaten if the MVC was "a realistic consideration," Majerus said he and Father Biondi, SLU President, will have to "sit down and discuss that." Previously (Feb. 18), during an interview with Billiken broadcaster Bob Ramsey, Majerus referred to the geographics of the A-10 and said: "Every recruit we've lost has been because of the league we are in." Majerus also told Slaten, "It's going to be a tough year again next year." http://suburbanjournals.stltoday.com/artic...olumn00.ii1.txt

The video on this page is about Drake, but the Billiken gets some belly time on camera. http://www.usatoday.com/sports/columnist/l...-18-drake_N.htm

Many of the current Bulldogs and recent signees--those from Michigan in particular--were recruited by assistant coach Chris Davis. Chris is not related to Keno, former head coach Tom Davis, or fellow assistant Rodell Davis. I'm confident that if Keno leaves, Drake will hire someone named Davis as his replacement. After all, there are a lot of them to choose from.

Any problems Turgeon has can be attributed to his wife's cooking. http://www.hillsborofreepress.com/content/view/16305546/45/ Disgusting.

That's my only Creighton joke. I'll be here all week. Try the veal!