Minnesota Still Has Two Schools in the Nat'l Football Championship Chase

Livingat45north

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Minnesota State (Mankato) advanced to the quarter finals of the Div II playoffs, and St. Thomas is now in the quarter finals of the Div III playoffs.
 

Minnesota State (Mankato) advanced to the quarter finals of the Div II playoffs, and St. Thomas is now in the quarter finals of the Div III playoffs.

St. Thomas has a tough one on the road next week against defending National Champion Mary-Hardin Baylor.
 

DII and DIII have a lot of schools. I think several hundred each. And with an incredible range of competitiveness among the programs.

A lot of the teams that make it to the the playoffs are simply way outclassed. At the top end of each division are some really good programs, relatively speaking.


In Minnesota, both the DII and DIII programs get a ton of benefit from a lot of pretty good players and not very many DI programs recruiting up here other than the Big Ten and the Dakotas/N Iowa in FCS. Similarly for the DIII programs in Wisconsin.


Good luck to both!
 

MSU Mankato and St. Thomas are both programs that I'd love see move to FCS division 1 someday. Football would require some infrastructure investment in both (e.g. stadium size) but the transition might not be that that difficult in other areas.
 



MSU Mankato and St. Thomas are both programs that I'd love see move to FCS division 1 someday. Football would require some infrastructure investment in both (e.g. stadium size) but the transition might not be that that difficult in other areas.

Just for the heck of it, here are the numbers on what each of the following schools' athletic depts spent for the year and what they specifically accounted as spending on football, for the 2015-16 school/financial year (the latest year for which data is available):

U of Minn - $99.5M / $25.5M
ND St - $25.3M / $4.6M
Mankato St - $11.3 / $1.3M
St Thomas - $4.5M / $1.1M

These numbers come from the US Dept of Education, which tracks all this stuff for Title IX purposes. And they may not all be exactly accounted for the same, but just to give a general idea.


So you can see how much of an uphill battle it would be for schools like Mankato and St Thomas. Especially because, in both cases, they have hockey. Now Mankato's hockey program is already fully funded, as far as I know, and wouldn't be at risk. That's the major revenue sport in their athletic dept .... the same as Duluth. But it is a significant expense, when you then add in the costs of trying to go DI in the other sports, let alone football.

St Thomas on the other hand doesn't give any athletic scholarships. They'd have to upgrade every sport, including hockey, to the DI minimums of athletic scholarships, spending, etc. They might have to drop hockey to do it.

And in both cases, I wouldn't be surprised if they dropped football or at best brought football up as non-scholarship (there are no minimum scholarship requirements in FCS football)
 

MSU Mankato and St. Thomas are both programs that I'd love see move to FCS division 1 someday. Football would require some infrastructure investment in both (e.g. stadium size) but the transition might not be that that difficult in other areas.

The DII programs if considering a DI move have to decide if they are Hockey or Football schools. Omaha had to cull football and wrestling to start hockey. ND went DI and had to cull 5 sports and is struggling to fund FB because Of hockey. For SC, Mankato, or Duluth, funding DI would be extremely hard. They’d all need to drop from 20+ to 14 sports, and weigh hockey vs FB.
 

Just for the heck of it, here are the numbers on what each of the following schools' athletic depts spent for the year and what they specifically accounted as spending on football, for the 2015-16 school/financial year (the latest year for which data is available):

U of Minn - $99.5M / $25.5M
ND St - $25.3M / $4.6M
Mankato St - $11.3 / $1.3M
St Thomas - $4.5M / $1.1M

These numbers come from the US Dept of Education, which tracks all this stuff for Title IX purposes. And they may not all be exactly accounted for the same, but just to give a general idea.


So you can see how much of an uphill battle it would be for schools like Mankato and St Thomas. Especially because, in both cases, they have hockey. Now Mankato's hockey program is already fully funded, as far as I know, and wouldn't be at risk. That's the major revenue sport in their athletic dept .... the same as Duluth. But it is a significant expense, when you then add in the costs of trying to go DI in the other sports, let alone football.

St Thomas on the other hand doesn't give any athletic scholarships. They'd have to upgrade every sport, including hockey, to the DI minimums of athletic scholarships, spending, etc. They might have to drop hockey to do it.

And in both cases, I wouldn't be surprised if they dropped football or at best brought football up as non-scholarship (there are no minimum scholarship requirements in FCS football)

Thanks for the comparative figures. That would explain why many schools going D1 drop football (e.g. additional notoriety from football probably helps schools like NDSU but not all schools). On St. Thomas scholarships, they already provide substantial aid in the form generous academic scholarships and financial need aid (going through the pricing process right now with my daughter), so I'm not sure that step would be a massive one. What I do know is that both schools pretty much dominate athletics in their respective conferences due to their built-in size and revenue advantages combined with good coaching. Congrats to both of them. I'll be rooting for both to win the Natty!
 

It just depends on what perspective you look at it. In the NCAA, to be in Division I you generally have to offer at least half of the maximum scholarships in each of at least 14 sports (with at least 7 being women's sports).

So that would be quite a jump for the St Thomas athletics department, going from zero athletics scholarships to probably well into the triple digits, not even counting football or hockey. But if you look at the perspective of the whole school itself, I'm sure the school could afford to essentially "pay" the athletic dept the money it would need in order to give out those athletic scholarships (probably between 1-2 million dollars a year).


The interesting point you bring up, that most receive academic scholarships there (and probably true at most MIAC schools) ... I assume it's allowed for a student athlete to get both an academic and an athletic scholarships in the same year. I just don't think they're allowed to receive more than 100% of the costs for school.
 



MSU Mankato and St. Thomas are both programs that I'd love see move to FCS division 1 someday. Football would require some infrastructure investment in both (e.g. stadium size) but the transition might not be that that difficult in other areas.

Either school moving to division 1 would require dropping football to make finances work.
 

I like 'em both where they're at. I think it's great for Minnesota to have contenders in both Div III and Div II. Here's to them continuing to make it happen.

Note that Minnesota has it going even better in woman's volleyball (yep, another forum but thought it'd be good FYI in this thread) -- In Div III Northwestern (St.Paul), Gustavus, St. Thomas and Bethel are all ranked; and in Div II Concordia is pretty much a dynasty with Minnesota Southwest, Minnesota Duluth and Winona all being ranked; and in Div I the Gophers are a legit nat'l contender.
 

Either school moving to division 1 would require dropping football to make finances work.

Yea, there's no way St. Thomas could afford it. And I don't think they'd want to anyways. They have so many built-in advantages in the MIAC that I think they are content there. They care more about sports than any other MIAC school, and spend accordingly. The UST football program spends twice as much as anyone else in the MIAC. It is a solid school, but it really isn't that hard to be admitted. And they are in the middle of a major metro area. They also have much larger enrollment numbers than the other MIAC schools. It will be interesting to see if something changes with the way they have been beating up on MIAC schools (especially in football) in recent years. But the MIAC community is very closely knit, and I don't see the conference kicking them out anytime soon.

Mankato wouldn't be able to handle both football and hockey at the D1 level from a financial perspective.
 

Yea, there's no way St. Thomas could afford it. And I don't think they'd want to anyways. They have so many built-in advantages in the MIAC that I think they are content there. They care more about sports than any other MIAC school, and spend accordingly. The UST football program spends twice as much as anyone else in the MIAC. It is a solid school, but it really isn't that hard to be admitted. And they are in the middle of a major metro area. They also have much larger enrollment numbers than the other MIAC schools. It will be interesting to see if something changes with the way they have been beating up on MIAC schools (especially in football) in recent years. But the MIAC community is very closely knit, and I don't see the conference kicking them out anytime soon.

Mankato wouldn't be able to handle both football and hockey at the D1 level from a financial perspective.

Very interesting points on St. Thomas's MIAC future. There has been a lot of grumbling lately about he competitiveness of the football league. It is one thing to have one team consistently at the top of the standings, but if they are beating teams 90 something to nothing it is a different situation. I have heard some comparisons about St. John's dominance in the past, but it was due to factors that are not the exact same as St. Thomas's dominance. I think a lot of the schools see that St. Thomas enrollment is at least twice as big as anyone else's and that isn't going to change anytime soon. The facilities are probably even more disproportionate than that. And again, I don't think that anyone has too much of an issue with a team being dominant, rather if the games are not competitive.
 



Very interesting points on St. Thomas's MIAC future. There has been a lot of grumbling lately about he competitiveness of the football league. It is one thing to have one team consistently at the top of the standings, but if they are beating teams 90 something to nothing it is a different situation. I have heard some comparisons about St. John's dominance in the past, but it was due to factors that are not the exact same as St. Thomas's dominance. I think a lot of the schools see that St. Thomas enrollment is at least twice as big as anyone else's and that isn't going to change anytime soon. The facilities are probably even more disproportionate than that. And again, I don't think that anyone has too much of an issue with a team being dominant, rather if the games are not competitive.

It will be interesting to see if anything happens if they continue to blow everyone out the way they have been. I wonder if schools like Carleton and St. Olaf will do something like Macalester and leave the conference in football only. To me the issue that could be raised is not as much that the Tommies are beating pretty much everyone to a pulp in football (and many other sports as well), but just the general mission of the MIAC schools. St. Thomas has been the outlier in terms of spending/focus on athletics. Other MIAC schools either don't have the same financial resources, or choose to use their resources in other ways. I wonder if at some point the other ADs will openly question whether or not St. Thomas really belongs with the rest of the MIAC schools.

Full disclosure, I am a former MIAC athlete. I have no problem with UST being in the conference. They have their advantages, but that just makes it more fun to beat them. I do think it is possible that sometime in the next decade or two UST might at least look into becoming a D2 school as I don't think they are far off from it competition-wise, and the jump from D3 to D2 is not as financially daunting as from D2 to D1.
 

Every year in the D-III playoffs there are complaints about the size of schools like St. Thomas and the UW schools.
 

Either school moving to division 1 would require dropping football to make finances work.

Here's a good article on a school considering the D2 to D1 move right now (UCSD): http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com...division-I-vote-analysis-2016may19-story.html
The purpose of moving to D1 for most schools is improving university branding/exposure to grow the total school, not just athletic competition. Per MnplsGopher's post above, UST would need to spend about $20M more to equal NDSU's budget (some of that $20M might be just an allocation between the athletic dept. and the university, so that figure is probably high). Assuming most UST students actually pay about $20K-$25K per year net (per the UST's net price calculator) a VERY rough estimate would mean UST would need to grow by about 900 students to fund the annual increase through tuition/room/board or grow revenue through other sources. MSUM has less ground to cover expense-wise but lower tuition. These are just huge dumbed-down guesstimates...I would love to see an internal analysis of this as I'm sure the schools have already done it.
 

Every year in the D-III playoffs there are complaints about the size of schools like St. Thomas and the UW schools.

The UW schools and St. Thomas are very different. There is no question enrollment/admissions are factors, but financial resources are a major issue for the UW schools. The Tommies have most of the resources they need to move to D2 where the WIAC schools don't have the money to do it.
 

The UW schools and St. Thomas are very different. There is no question enrollment/admissions are factors, but financial resources are a major issue for the UW schools. The Tommies have most of the resources they need to move to D2 where the WIAC schools don't have the money to do it.
You saying the tommies have the money to be a good D2 program doesn’t make it true

If tommies go D2 they become another Concordia St. Paul.
 

You saying the tommies have the money to be a good D2 program doesn’t make it true

If tommies go D2 they become another Concordia St. Paul.

Does you saying your last statement make it true?
 

You saying the tommies have the money to be a good D2 program doesn’t make it true

If tommies go D2 they become another Concordia St. Paul.

Their football expenses are already closer to D2 level than D3 level. Mankato State spent $1,264,776 on football last year. St. Thomas spent $1,138,817. The next highest MIAC football school (Gustavus) had $506,131 in football expenses.

MSU is 13-0 this year and was 8-3 last year. Seems to me they have a pretty successful program.
 

You saying the tommies have the money to be a good D2 program doesn’t make it true

If tommies go D2 they become another Concordia St. Paul.

A better comparison would be Sioux Falls which was a very good small NAIA school (much smaller than UST) and moved up to compete successfully at D2.
 

You saying the tommies have the money to be a good D2 program doesn’t make it true

If tommies go D2 they become another Concordia St. Paul.

I think they would be a good D2 program. Much better than CSP. But D2 is no-mans land for athletics, at least regionally since the demise of the old NCC. Think about how much media coverage the NSIC gets compared to the MIAC. It's a fraction, despite the NSIC schools all being larger, and mostly state institutions. It would likely actually hurt UST's brand to move from the MIAC to the NSIC.
 

I think they would be a good D2 program. Much better than CSP. But D2 is no-mans land for athletics, at least regionally since the demise of the old NCC. Think about how much media coverage the NSIC gets compared to the MIAC. It's a fraction, despite the NSIC schools all being larger, and mostly state institutions. It would likely actually hurt UST's brand to move from the MIAC to the NSIC.

Yes, the MIAC gets more attention in this market. But's let's face it, that's because this market has powerhouse St. Thomas (especially with the WCCO broadcast, etc.) and St. John's to a lesser extent because of the rivalry. How much do you hear about Bethel, Hamline, or Augsburg? Not much. If St. Thomas played the NSIC schools, I'm guessing we would hear about the NSIC all the time.
 

Yes, the MIAC gets more attention in this market. But's let's face it, that's because this market has powerhouse St. Thomas (especially with the WCCO broadcast, etc.) and St. John's to a lesser extent because of the rivalry. How much do you hear about Bethel, Hamline, or Augsburg? Not much. If St. Thomas played the NSIC schools, I'm guessing we would hear about the NSIC all the time.

Mmm, I think it's largely always been that way. I do think part of it is because the MIAC has so many schools in the metro area (UST, Hamline, Bethel, Mac, Augsburg), while other than CSP, all the Minnesota NSIC schools are outstate, but still, even back when I was younger, it seemed like the MIAC got a lot more attention, and that was before UST became a powerhouse.
 

If you look at the resources on the books for any team looking to move up a class, it would likely look impossible before the decision is made.

In other words, there are possible revenue streams not currently on the books. Nobody at that level has that kind of money sitting around. But, teams do it.
 

St Thomas would do just fine in the NSIC, in my opinion. I think they'd be right there with Duluth and Mankato in football. Would be fun to see, actually.

But there would be no point. There is zero increase in essentially "does anyone care" factor. No one cares about DIII. No one cares about DII. Really very few care about FCS, to be honest.
 

St Thomas would do just fine in the NSIC, in my opinion. I think they'd be right there with Duluth and Mankato in football. Would be fun to see, actually.

But there would be no point. There is zero increase in essentially "does anyone care" factor. No one cares about DIII. No one cares about DII. Really very few care about FCS, to be honest.

Agreed that FCS gets less play than FBS, but it's still dramatically higher than D2 or D3 football especially in the non-conference when they go up against Power 5 opponents on occasion. Basketball, in my opinion, is where the huge marketing gain can happen. Think of all the small conference automatic qualifiers that get exposure during March Madness not to mention small powers like Gonzaga, Wichita, Xavier, Seton Hall, Butler, George Mason and even NDSU. E.g. I had never heard of Gonzaga before their cinderella run in the Monson era.
 

Well yes, of course. In basketball, and all the other sports, there is no FCS as an option. You're either DII or DI. It's a massive step up for a school to be recognized a DI school, and all that comes with it, even for low-majors.


Would it be worth it for St Cloud, Duluth, Mankato, St Thomas ... to drop football in order to go DI (with DI hockey)? That is a fun question for message boards, but I really doubt it happens.
 

Well yes, of course. In basketball, and all the other sports, there is no FCS as an option. You're either DII or DI. It's a massive step up for a school to be recognized a DI school, and all that comes with it, even for low-majors.


Would it be worth it for St Cloud, Duluth, Mankato, St Thomas ... to drop football in order to go DI (with DI hockey)? That is a fun question for message boards, but I really doubt it happens.

Agreed.

If the NCAA allowed you to opt up in one sport and let you pick basketball...no doubt in my mind IST would strongly consider. But they don’t. St. Thomas will never be anything but division 3.
 

Yes, the MIAC gets more attention in this market. But's let's face it, that's because this market has powerhouse St. Thomas (especially with the WCCO broadcast, etc.) and St. John's to a lesser extent because of the rivalry. How much do you hear about Bethel, Hamline, or Augsburg? Not much. If St. Thomas played the NSIC schools, I'm guessing we would hear about the NSIC all the time.

The MIAC has always had a comparative large amount of attention in this market. That was true long before St. Thomas became a football powerhouse.

It wasn't long ago (90's and 00's), Gustavus was regularly winning the all-sport MIAC award (where they assign points to each sport and used a multiple of where team's placed in the MIAC standings to rank each school overall). Now? In most sports it is St. Thomas in first place and the rest of the conference competing for second place. Men's and Women's. The enrollment at St. Thomas has made it into an easy target for a children's game of "which one doesn't belong." Despite all that, their student body interest in spectating all those championships is remarkably low. That has been true for decades.
 




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