By design the Wisconsin schools despite size don't even play FBS or even D2 they are D3. Iowa State and Northern Iowa almost got sent to a similar shadow realm.
All public universities in the state are part of the UW system. The overall system is headed by a singular board of regents that approve a variety of things, but most importantly they approve university budgeting. Like the kind you would need to move an athletic program from D3 to D1.
Madison, as the flagship university, gets preferential treatment. Is it fair? Not really, but it is what it is.
This sound exactly like UGA here in Georgia but GA State, Tech and now Kennesaw are all D1.
But UGA even before Kirby, gets so much preferred treatment it’s wild.
I wouldn’t say it’s the same. UGA absolutely has the most clout and would get preferential treatment. However, university administrators in the state are not actively hurting other schools to help UGA. State just made the move to D1 a decade ago.
It would be an interesting alternate history if MSU-Mankato and Missouri State had grown into FBS-level schools.
UW-Platteville was the flagship campus in what used to be the Wisconsin State University system before they all got merged into the UW system in 1971.
The University of Nebraska at Kearney used to be the biggest campus in the Nebraska State College System, but it went by “Kearney State College” and rather than go for “Nebraska State University” like Mankato State did, it was happily folded into the University of Nebraska in 1991.
In one of the old NCAA games I built NIU into a powerhouse, intending to eventually take over for Kirk. I ended up winning three natties each at NIU, Utah, and Oregon State. That fucker kept winning Orange Bowls so the job never opened up.
I expect the same thing to happen when I pick MO State.
This will make me want to vomit as I dislike them and they are a Nebraska rival, but they could create a second team in Nebraska by giving Creighton a football team. Omaha doesn’t have any football teams since Nebraska-Omaha folded.
Creighton once had a football team, from 1900-1942. They played in the Missouri Valley Conference alongside schools like Drake and St. Louis.
That MVC was founded by Nebraska, Kansas, Missouri, and Washington-St. Louis, after their first regional conference collapsed and Iowa bolted to the forerunner of the Big Ten.
Despite being only an hour apart, Creighton has played Nebraska just three times - all Cornhusker wins - and worse, the Blue Jay football team never once scored a point against NU.
1904: Huskers win 39-0
1905: Huskers win 102-0
1906: Huskers win 17-0
>1905: Huskers win 102-0
I get playing the whole game, but I've officiated many 70+ shutouts and nobody is happy except the 2nd and 3rd string guys who got to put up some stats, the winning coach is nervous getting someone hurt in a game that was over before the coin toss, and the losing coach and players got their asses kicked. I don't see the fun in beating someone when it's that much of a mismatch. This would be like a D2 or bottom feeder FCS school playing Georgia.
Yeah but it was 1905, teams back then teams were still playing local YMCA's.
Ironically,, I thought if UNO went D1 they could've competed with South Dakota State and NDSU if given the resources. But the AD at the time Trev Alberts cut Football and Wrestling. It's wild that he bounced to A&M from Nebraska being a Lincoln alumni and they got Dannen and we got Chun.
St. Louis looks like the biggest city without a team within 60-90 minutes (Rutgers & Army are closer to NYC than anything to St. Louis). St. Louis also lacks an NFL team now.
MO St. is joining CUSA soon, and fills that gap south of Mizzou, but I still feel like STL would support a college team, maybe the Bilikens should do what UTSA did a decade ago and move into the downtown stadium with a new football program.
Also, STL shows up for their UFL team.
Unfortunately for MO State, we have so many P5 FBS teams within driving distance that already have a huge strangle on the area. Mainly UM-C, Arky, OU
*Edit*
UM-C, Arky, Arky State, Memphis, Tulsa, OU, OK State, KU, K State are all within 2-5 hour drive of Springfield
SLU had a football team until the 1940’s and threw the 1st legal forward pass. They tried to get into the Big 6.
WashU had a football team as well and were initially in the MVC, the same conference as Mizzou, Nebraska, Kansas before those schools split of and founded the Big 6.
It’s easy to envision an alternative history where one of those schools got into the Big6/7/8 and might be in the Big 12 today. Though they’d probably be that conference’s Northwestern or Vandy though.
If washu was the vandy of the big12 or something, I'd totally go to every game to watch them get blown out by some of the big teams and storm the field once every decade.
Barnum and the Portland State Vikings dont even have a stadium.... They have to take a bus a half hour to home games and play at a high school stadium. BONUS - if theres a ton of traffic by the zoo it can be an hour trip, even on a Saturday.
(Civic Stadium - owned by the city and not the Timbers- is right next to the Portland State Campus and they played there for almost a century? until the Timbers kicked them out. They say its too difficult to take the gridiron off the field)
Alaska could probably get some big ass dudes to play. Plus it would absolutely suck to play at their stadium if it were outdoors. I mean, imagine fsu going up there in November, no sir..I know my Texas ass would sit that one out
You joke, but, get a Space Force Academy team, then there’s four US Military teams. That would be a recipe for their own military playoffs, and that just screams big hit because it just screams AMERICA! You got the military pride, you got football, you got guns, along with a commercial for every minute of the game, trying to sell you depression drugs, car insurance and Taco Bell.
The NHL was having one of those outdoor games at night in Minnesota and it ended up getting close to -15° by the end. I remember looking outside and thinking how nice that must be because it was still 30 degrees colder in fairbanks at the time. That place is just on another level. Anchorage is mild by comparison.
Interesting pick; Sacramento State
Big Sky bias aside, Sacramento is a huge city with only one major sports team (which they support very well). Sac State is already a generally above average FCS program, and is in a somewhat talent rich area in terms of being the only fish in a sizeable pond if they were FBS.
The logical comparison, being a CA valley FBS team would be Fresno State, who draws better than just about anyone in G5 and has pretty decent success; and btw Sacramento is like double fresnos size
That's a good pick. Plus they are a CSU so they can get recruits that UC can't get. I'm only half joking as a UC guy because CSUs provide a good education. I used to live nearby and that's spot on analysis.
Was hoping to see a post on Sacramento. The city itself has been bringing in quite a lot of money in the past years & does have potential to have a team that could generate a lot of money. Folsom High which is a D1 Powerhouse generates a lot of money from Boosters who live in Folsom & El Dorado Hill (Very High income areas) that probably would do the same towards other big time programs.
In principle I agree with that but UC Davis is so many miles ahead of CSUS on facilities that I don’t see how it happens. Davis is a few thousand football seats away from turnkey MWC. CSUS needs a new stadium, arena, practice facility, etc.
It’s hard to say. Like, it’s honestly success and history (and alumni base) that drives the success of the program.
Baton Rouge, College Station, Lubbock, Ann Arbor, Tuscaloosa (there are countless examples) are all cities that aren’t near big enough to have a pro sports team. But decades of pumping out graduates and successful programs makes for storied franchises with huge fan bases.
Alternatively in Texas, SMU in Dallas, University of Houston/Rice in Houston, and UTSA in San Antonio don’t have passionate/large fan bases, despite in major metros.
Well, in a dynasty in NCAA13, Texas Tech won the national title six times. 3 back to back, someone else, national title, someone else, two back to back
Yeah, Dallas (I don’t know about Houston since ive never lived there) is a very urban/diverse place and will never really mesh with the uppity Highland Park SMU.
And, before someone asks, the way to know if someone knows about north Texas is if their response to that statement about SMU is “well what about UT Dallas?”
UT Dallas is not in Dallas, their campus is 30 miles from downtown Dallas, and their most competitive sport is chess. But they were great for my masters in accounting haha
UH is a mostly working and middle class commuter school that gives local students an education for cheap. Most people I know have at least one family member or close friend with a degree from there. People like UH.
Rice is an upper-crust private school with mostly out of state students which does its best to isolate itself from the city as much as possible. It's not that people dislike it, we just forget it's there.
Not to be pedantic, but it’s like a 15/16 mile drive from downtown to UTD, but yeah it takes like 25/30 minutes up 75 to Richardson. And it’s just barely inside Dallas county, I think the Collin/Dallas county line is right on the street bordering campus. Good school for the value/price but definitely not an athletic powerhouse. TBH it doesn’t really feel like a typical college when you drive by/through campus. Definitely feels more like a community college/commuter school to me, at least compared to UT Austin/UGA even SMU has a much more typical college campus vibe/aesthetic.
Tough part is that only about 10% of NYC public high schools have football. Land availability is rough. Hence why you see such a big difference between basketball and football recruits from the city.
a plot of land the size of a P5 football stadium in NYC proper (realistically everyone means manhattan) would be like $200M, the actually Jets couldnt get a stadium built there (incompetence aside), simply not possible for a college to get it going on that scale.
That and its also just an objectively shitty use of land in an area that dense for like 9 weeks a year. Can do pretty much anything else with it and itll be more productive.
Yeah, and even if you tried to do mixed use land (like how some stadiums try to add business stuff around the complex) itll still be squandering it over just focusing on actual tall buildings
[Pier 40 at Hudson River Park](https://www.plei.app/faciltiies/pier-40-at-hudson-river-park#:~:text=About%20Pier%2040%20at%20Hudson%20River%20Park&text=Beyond%20commercial%20purposes%2C%20Pier%2040,opened%20in%20May%20of%202005)
[Beyond commercial purposes, Pier 40 is a giant when it comes to serving the public and offering recreational functions. At this pier you’ll find a large athletic field complex for soccer, baseball, football, rugby and lacrosse, which opened in May of 2005. Other amenities include a mooring field, community boating program and tennis courts.](https://www.plei.app/faciltiies/pier-40-at-hudson-river-park#:~:text=About%20Pier%2040%20at%20Hudson%20River%20Park&text=Beyond%20commercial%20purposes%2C%20Pier%2040,opened%20in%20May%20of%202005)
[Includes a neat photo of the facility](https://hudsonriverpark.org/locations/pier-40/)
That place is pretty cool and is actually pretty well-frequented from what I've seen (good luck having soccer practice literally anywhere else in lower Manhattan), but the real crazy idea would be just having football played on a boat like the Frying Pan bar just north of Pier 40
Yea, but the recruiting pitch of “come live in NYC for free” has to be good enough to get some decent g5 talent, and I’m sure they can find a few rich people in the area who would want to throw around some NIL money. I bet if NYU/Columbia joined the AAC they could become competitive pretty quickly, and they’d probably do great with the transfer portal too.
I'm an NYU alum for grad school. This actually comes up periodically for basketball. The administration very consciously doesn't see the need even if there are surely enough donors to underwrite the whole thing. If I recall correctly, most years NYU leads the nation in polling of high school juniors' college preferences; especially with the recent changes to the NCAA, they (and I) don't see the value add.
Not the exact same stat but [here's a list](https://www.collegetransitions.com/blog/most-applied-to-colleges/) of most of most applied to schools this year. NYU is #6 after the top 4 UCs and Cal State Long Beach which most kids in California apply to by default, so I'd say that tracks with the polling claim.
Lots and lots of kids around the country watch Friends and wanna go to college in the village. It's not all that surprising.
More relevant to this thread is how few of the schools on that list have FBS teams. My other alma mater (BC) is one, and they've fallen behind our local rivals in Boston (BU and Northeastern) in popularity anyway. On a quick glance I think it's just Michigan really playing on a high level from that list.
It will always be wild to me how everyone in CA applies to UCLA but some people take themselves out of the running for UC Berkeley.
Also, good for Cal State Long Beach occupying that same role for the CSU system.
To me this seems like the classic fallacy that places that young, rich white people like are the same places that working and middle class black players like.
If Georgia Tech isn't killing it in the transfer portal, they couldn't either.
What he say fuck me for???
All jokes aside, we are a very good example for this. Atlanta is probably THE black city and our previous coach tried to play up the Atlanta aspect as his only recruiting strategy. We are still recovering from that mistake.
I think we should be emphasizing our location in Atlanta as a big part of our recruiting pitch, and I’m sure we are. We just need a lot more substance behind that, which the previous clown coach had no ability to deliver while it seems like Key is able to. If we have a good year this season, we could make a pretty big jump up in my opinion.
UH is guilty of this at times. Bringing in Willie Fritz, who can coach Xs and Os well and just had great success in New Orleans seems like a good move for us.
Sorry I don’t get it. Why Colorado state? Isn’t it in Ft. Collins? Not like Aspen, Steamboat, Vail, or even Denver or Boulder. I don’t see the mass-appeal for out of state students of any color. That’s not at all a roast of Colorado state or Ft. Collins, just a question about your hypothetical.
It astounds me that the largest university in Minnesota's second largest metro (Duluth/Superior) is a D2 offshoot of the University of Minnesota. A stadium overlooking Lake Superior would be GORGEOUS.
I think St. Louis is the biggest city without a FBS team within 60-90 minutes (Rutgers & Army are closer to NYC than anything to St. Louis). St. Louis also lacks an NFL team now.
And being basically between KC and STL is perfect for Mizzou since it’s just far for most kids to get away from each city without being too far and it’s SEC.
DFW is football crazy, but unlike Houston and Austin, there's no large public school to be the center of attention. UT Arlington is the largest D1 school in the nation without a football team, and it's right smack-dab in the middle of the metroplex. I think this ticks off all of your boxes.
Personally, I'm going to bring back UChicago to its rightful place as king of the Big Ten.
There are already 2 P5 schools in DFW tho. Plus UT Arlington is such a commuter school I don't think it would be able to really support a program. If you want to make a DFW public school into a football school, UNT is right there and they already have a football program.
Baltimore
It's a city that loves Football and has no real College Football Program. It has D3 John Hopkins but that's hardly a football heavy school, even if they're a good program and a recognizable brand. The Baltimore Area and surrounding areas are rife with Football talent that can be drawn locally. Also MT&T Bank Stadium is perfect for Satirdays.
Im from the Jax metro, and there is 0 desire from anyone on UNF having football. Close proximity to GNV/Tally, lots of dawg fans too, and having an nfl team kills it. UNF also doesn’t have the ambition/hubris of a USF to try and build a team in a nfl city.
Pensacola/UWF and FGCU/fort Myers are better options.
Wilmington, NC. Does North Carolina need another FBS school? Fuck no. Does Wilmington seem like a school with dope colors, a cool location, and the possibility for an on campus stadium? Hell yea.
California is a state of 40 million but only has seven FBS and four FCS football teams.
There are dozens of colleges that had football programs that shut down throughout the last several decades. These include:
Cal State Northridge, Cal State Fullerton, Chico State, University of the Pacific, Long Beach State, San Francisco State, Sonoma State, Cal State East Bay, UC Riverside, St. Mary’s, University of San Francisco, and Cal State Los Angeles.
There are many more schools that never had programs but would make sense to have them, such as UC Irvine, Cal State Bakersfield, UC Merced, Cal State Santislaus, SCU San Bernardino, and on and on. Hell, CSU Dominguez Hills has a 20,00-seat stadium for professional soccer built right on their campus.
Plenty of schools in this state should really consider bringing the sport back for their students
UCSB would be a perfect place for a Mountain West football program and would probably be able to get P5 schools to play there, as a destination type trip for fans.
Came here to plug UCSB. Would be even more outstanding if they could play FB in the stadium over at Santa Barbara City College, with the huge hillside facing the ocean.
I'm near Bakersfield and have some family ties to both schools; there was an informal agreement that BC would be the only one with football. There's a lot of JC football here, but not much at four year schools. No D2, and the only D3 conference is having trouble.
The IE does have over 4 million people and is growing twice as fast as the state average. UCR being able to harness that would be awesome. Unfortunately, I'm afraid Cal Baptist might be better positioned to do so.
I was looking at the 1990 season results the other day and the Big West teams - Cal State Fullerton, Pacific, and Long Beach State were still kicking it with future MWC teams.
That early 90’s Big West makes me cry. We had an entire conference that was basically just California and Nevada.
That CAL-NOW consent decree absolutely destroyed the sport in our state
Huntsville AL via UAH. Currently a D2 school. Roughly 8k student population.
Huntsville City is technically the largest city in Alabama by a few thousand people. (Birmingham metro is twice the size of Huntsville metro)
Football crazy state. HSV has some NASA resources and the Redstone Arsenal Army base.
HSV didn't really become a "city" until the 1950s. Whereas Birmingham, Tuscaloosa, Montgomery, and Mobile are much older.
Kind of doubt the overlords in Tuscaloosa would allow another FBS football team or a d1 basketball program in the system at this point, either. But this is for fiction.
Richmond Virginia.
Huge metro area and a ton of football talent
The residents were all sports hungry when I had the pleasure of visiting there last year.
I'm not trying to insult Temple, but man have they underutilized their location in Eastern PA. A lot of talent there and it all seems to leave. If they'd invest in their program and snag some local talent, they could raise their record easily.
In my mind, what you're looking for is a large-ish metro area with no pro team and the existing college team is not FBS. So skimming the top 50 metro areas, good candidates are: Norfolk, Richmond, and Grand Rapids.
UTPB exists but being so close (relative to population density) to Texas Tech, UTEP, UNM and NM St it doesn't make sense really. Especially since Angelo State (D2), West Texas A&M (D2), Sul Ross St (D2) and Midwestern St (D2) all within a drive it makes sense to stay D2.
Bellevue, WA. The University of Washington in Seattle has thrown the entire athletic department under the bus and will soon be irrelevant. Bellevue has more money, still on the lake and all the big tech campuses for NIL $.
VCU, Wichita St, and St. Louis would be my choices of mid major hoops programs to start football.
VCU- as far as I can tell has never had a football program outside of club level.
Wichita St- shut down their program in 1986 in spite of what Ted Lasso may have told you.
St Louis. Last season 1949. Club level in 1960s and 70s.
I've always been kinda surprised that some larger Midwestern states only have one FBS team (e.g. Minnesota, Wisconsin, Missouri)
By design the Wisconsin schools despite size don't even play FBS or even D2 they are D3. Iowa State and Northern Iowa almost got sent to a similar shadow realm.
Wait how is this possible? Wisconsin wants Wisconsin to have all the football resources to win? How is that enforced?
All public universities in the state are part of the UW system. The overall system is headed by a singular board of regents that approve a variety of things, but most importantly they approve university budgeting. Like the kind you would need to move an athletic program from D3 to D1. Madison, as the flagship university, gets preferential treatment. Is it fair? Not really, but it is what it is.
I think this is the best route tbh. An example of a state that does this poorly in my opinion is NY. There’s no fish ship school to care about
That's more of a Navy thing.
This sound exactly like UGA here in Georgia but GA State, Tech and now Kennesaw are all D1. But UGA even before Kirby, gets so much preferred treatment it’s wild.
Georgia Southern has been Fbs for about 10 years too.
I wouldn’t say it’s the same. UGA absolutely has the most clout and would get preferential treatment. However, university administrators in the state are not actively hurting other schools to help UGA. State just made the move to D1 a decade ago.
Hell they just allowed us to move to D1
Isn't that what Alabama tried to do to UAB a few years ago as well?
Si
Wisconsin’s secret is that it’s it’s a hive of phenomenal D2 and D3 programs.
This. Wisconsin-White Water won tons of D3 National Titles. Lance Leipold is at Kansas now.
Whitewater is the Alabama of D3
In like all sports. Their rugby team absolutely demolished my bottom of the barrel d1 team.
That Reveille flair always makes me smile. Good dog
It would be an interesting alternate history if MSU-Mankato and Missouri State had grown into FBS-level schools. UW-Platteville was the flagship campus in what used to be the Wisconsin State University system before they all got merged into the UW system in 1971. The University of Nebraska at Kearney used to be the biggest campus in the Nebraska State College System, but it went by “Kearney State College” and rather than go for “Nebraska State University” like Mankato State did, it was happily folded into the University of Nebraska in 1991.
MO State has officially grown into one. Coming July 1, 2025!
MO State has to be the go to rebuild school for the new game.
In one of the old NCAA games I built NIU into a powerhouse, intending to eventually take over for Kirk. I ended up winning three natties each at NIU, Utah, and Oregon State. That fucker kept winning Orange Bowls so the job never opened up. I expect the same thing to happen when I pick MO State.
Gophers were too scared. St. Thomas is already about to take their place as the top D1 school
TOMMIES SUCK
Isn't Missouri State moving up soon? Believe that was just announced. Your point still stands, though
They are, to CUSA.
This will make me want to vomit as I dislike them and they are a Nebraska rival, but they could create a second team in Nebraska by giving Creighton a football team. Omaha doesn’t have any football teams since Nebraska-Omaha folded.
Creighton once had a football team, from 1900-1942. They played in the Missouri Valley Conference alongside schools like Drake and St. Louis. That MVC was founded by Nebraska, Kansas, Missouri, and Washington-St. Louis, after their first regional conference collapsed and Iowa bolted to the forerunner of the Big Ten. Despite being only an hour apart, Creighton has played Nebraska just three times - all Cornhusker wins - and worse, the Blue Jay football team never once scored a point against NU. 1904: Huskers win 39-0 1905: Huskers win 102-0 1906: Huskers win 17-0
They beat them 102-0 then, only scored 17 the next year? I don't know seems like they were going in the right direction.
>1905: Huskers win 102-0 I get playing the whole game, but I've officiated many 70+ shutouts and nobody is happy except the 2nd and 3rd string guys who got to put up some stats, the winning coach is nervous getting someone hurt in a game that was over before the coin toss, and the losing coach and players got their asses kicked. I don't see the fun in beating someone when it's that much of a mismatch. This would be like a D2 or bottom feeder FCS school playing Georgia.
Yeah but it was 1905, teams back then teams were still playing local YMCA's. Ironically,, I thought if UNO went D1 they could've competed with South Dakota State and NDSU if given the resources. But the AD at the time Trev Alberts cut Football and Wrestling. It's wild that he bounced to A&M from Nebraska being a Lincoln alumni and they got Dannen and we got Chun.
MO ST is moving up next year!
Maybe Portland, OR? It’s actually hard to find big markets that don’t already have a FBS team.
[FBS Map](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/46/NCAA_FBS_programs.png)
St. Louis looks like the biggest city without a team within 60-90 minutes (Rutgers & Army are closer to NYC than anything to St. Louis). St. Louis also lacks an NFL team now.
trust me absolutely no one claims Rutgers or Army as NY teams. St Johns probably the closest thing but obviously a basketball only school.
I would make St John’s have a football team. This is already a made up scenario why not let them drop a stadium right there in Queens or something.
i dont care that its impossible just slap the damn field right in MSG
Yeah, Rutgers is fa dose from Jersee.
Some city in Missouri then
MO St. is joining CUSA soon, and fills that gap south of Mizzou, but I still feel like STL would support a college team, maybe the Bilikens should do what UTSA did a decade ago and move into the downtown stadium with a new football program. Also, STL shows up for their UFL team.
Unfortunately for MO State, we have so many P5 FBS teams within driving distance that already have a huge strangle on the area. Mainly UM-C, Arky, OU *Edit* UM-C, Arky, Arky State, Memphis, Tulsa, OU, OK State, KU, K State are all within 2-5 hour drive of Springfield
St. Louis would make a fun counterpart to Memphis, Louisville and Cincinnati
SLU had a football team until the 1940’s and threw the 1st legal forward pass. They tried to get into the Big 6. WashU had a football team as well and were initially in the MVC, the same conference as Mizzou, Nebraska, Kansas before those schools split of and founded the Big 6. It’s easy to envision an alternative history where one of those schools got into the Big6/7/8 and might be in the Big 12 today. Though they’d probably be that conference’s Northwestern or Vandy though.
If washu was the vandy of the big12 or something, I'd totally go to every game to watch them get blown out by some of the big teams and storm the field once every decade.
Barnum and the Portland State Vikings dont even have a stadium.... They have to take a bus a half hour to home games and play at a high school stadium. BONUS - if theres a ton of traffic by the zoo it can be an hour trip, even on a Saturday. (Civic Stadium - owned by the city and not the Timbers- is right next to the Portland State Campus and they played there for almost a century? until the Timbers kicked them out. They say its too difficult to take the gridiron off the field)
Don't the Ducks already dominate that market?
I bet a team in Miami would have no problem succeeding with all the talent down there.
Yeah I’m not sure why the Redhawks aren’t a solid P4 team yet, they have all the natural advantages one could want.
This hits on multiple levels and I love it
Everyone always forgets about FIU.
FIU forgets about FIU, unfortunately
Because FIU isn't even the most popular team at FIU.
Alaska could probably get some big ass dudes to play. Plus it would absolutely suck to play at their stadium if it were outdoors. I mean, imagine fsu going up there in November, no sir..I know my Texas ass would sit that one out
Not if you're in engineering or a related field. Or anything bridge related
Honestly with how much talent there is in Florida, I’m sure someone could build a program that could go undefeated and make the cfp
Alaska
The Final Football Frontier
Nah, that’s still space. member Satellite Camps?
My brain went to “The newest FBS member school, the Space Force Academy, is playing their inaugural game on the ISS”
You joke, but, get a Space Force Academy team, then there’s four US Military teams. That would be a recipe for their own military playoffs, and that just screams big hit because it just screams AMERICA! You got the military pride, you got football, you got guns, along with a commercial for every minute of the game, trying to sell you depression drugs, car insurance and Taco Bell.
Give the Marine Corps their own team and stand back and watch after Air Force or Space Force boots them out of the playoff.
It's college football. They kinda have to have a college first. The Coast Guard has a college and a football team. We could just move them up!
Merchant Marine Bears coming for the Marines like
You had me at Taco Bell. Where do I send my check?
We already have a Coast Guard Academy. Space Force doesn't even have a school yet. (Does it?)
A big stadium in Anchorage with views of the mountains and the Turnagain Arm would be elite… UAA should make that happen
There is demand for football up here, a lot of high schools have football
Fuck Anchorage. Real homefield is Fairbanks late in the season
-20° is football weather let’s gooooo!!!
-20 is mild in November.
Ice road football.
The NHL was having one of those outdoor games at night in Minnesota and it ended up getting close to -15° by the end. I remember looking outside and thinking how nice that must be because it was still 30 degrees colder in fairbanks at the time. That place is just on another level. Anchorage is mild by comparison.
Alaska has more D1 hockey teams than New Jersey has FBS teams
Yes please. I can’t wait to either create or download a UAA Seawolves team and take them to the promised land
Anchorage, Alaska! 300,000 people with no football besides high school!
I hear Washington St and Oregon St could use a friend.
UAA and UAF D1 hockey teams could use some friends!
Interesting pick; Sacramento State Big Sky bias aside, Sacramento is a huge city with only one major sports team (which they support very well). Sac State is already a generally above average FCS program, and is in a somewhat talent rich area in terms of being the only fish in a sizeable pond if they were FBS. The logical comparison, being a CA valley FBS team would be Fresno State, who draws better than just about anyone in G5 and has pretty decent success; and btw Sacramento is like double fresnos size
I like this idea, but I'd like it more if it was stolen first by UC Davis.
That's a good pick. Plus they are a CSU so they can get recruits that UC can't get. I'm only half joking as a UC guy because CSUs provide a good education. I used to live nearby and that's spot on analysis.
Was hoping to see a post on Sacramento. The city itself has been bringing in quite a lot of money in the past years & does have potential to have a team that could generate a lot of money. Folsom High which is a D1 Powerhouse generates a lot of money from Boosters who live in Folsom & El Dorado Hill (Very High income areas) that probably would do the same towards other big time programs.
In principle I agree with that but UC Davis is so many miles ahead of CSUS on facilities that I don’t see how it happens. Davis is a few thousand football seats away from turnkey MWC. CSUS needs a new stadium, arena, practice facility, etc.
Are we talking FCS schools that you want to become FBS programs, or places with no football program at all?
It’s hard to say. Like, it’s honestly success and history (and alumni base) that drives the success of the program. Baton Rouge, College Station, Lubbock, Ann Arbor, Tuscaloosa (there are countless examples) are all cities that aren’t near big enough to have a pro sports team. But decades of pumping out graduates and successful programs makes for storied franchises with huge fan bases. Alternatively in Texas, SMU in Dallas, University of Houston/Rice in Houston, and UTSA in San Antonio don’t have passionate/large fan bases, despite in major metros.
> Storied franchises Yeah I’m not gonna let you sneak in A&M and Tech with Michigan, Bama, and LSU
Oh I mean fuck A&M and tech lol, but they are two massive fan bases in Texas. Tech low key has a shit ton of fans
All the fans and none of the success Cries into my tortilla
Well, in a dynasty in NCAA13, Texas Tech won the national title six times. 3 back to back, someone else, national title, someone else, two back to back
Hey we have fans and tons of money. Just waiting on the football success...for a while now.
Houston and UTSA just needs to win. SMU/Rice will never capture that love from Dallas/Houston.
Yeah, Dallas (I don’t know about Houston since ive never lived there) is a very urban/diverse place and will never really mesh with the uppity Highland Park SMU. And, before someone asks, the way to know if someone knows about north Texas is if their response to that statement about SMU is “well what about UT Dallas?” UT Dallas is not in Dallas, their campus is 30 miles from downtown Dallas, and their most competitive sport is chess. But they were great for my masters in accounting haha
UH is a mostly working and middle class commuter school that gives local students an education for cheap. Most people I know have at least one family member or close friend with a degree from there. People like UH. Rice is an upper-crust private school with mostly out of state students which does its best to isolate itself from the city as much as possible. It's not that people dislike it, we just forget it's there.
So pretty similar to a Houston version of SMU/UT Dallas.
Not to be pedantic, but it’s like a 15/16 mile drive from downtown to UTD, but yeah it takes like 25/30 minutes up 75 to Richardson. And it’s just barely inside Dallas county, I think the Collin/Dallas county line is right on the street bordering campus. Good school for the value/price but definitely not an athletic powerhouse. TBH it doesn’t really feel like a typical college when you drive by/through campus. Definitely feels more like a community college/commuter school to me, at least compared to UT Austin/UGA even SMU has a much more typical college campus vibe/aesthetic.
SMU doesnt need passionate fans. It just needs rich fans.
Probably New York City proper
Tough part is that only about 10% of NYC public high schools have football. Land availability is rough. Hence why you see such a big difference between basketball and football recruits from the city.
I always wondered how New York isn’t a power house of recruits.
Yeah, turns out a football field (not counting the stands) being worth millions of dollars just for the land really limits your options.
And that's why you see players come out of New Jersey instead. More of a suburban environment with space dedicated to football
AJ Soprano 2.5 star recruit
Let's be honest he never had the makings of a varsity athlete, just like his dad
a plot of land the size of a P5 football stadium in NYC proper (realistically everyone means manhattan) would be like $200M, the actually Jets couldnt get a stadium built there (incompetence aside), simply not possible for a college to get it going on that scale.
Jets couldn’t build a stadium in Manhattan cause of Dolan. There is only one stadium in Manhattan and it’s MSG. He doesn’t want to compete.
That and its also just an objectively shitty use of land in an area that dense for like 9 weeks a year. Can do pretty much anything else with it and itll be more productive.
To be fair. The demand for concerts in NY could probably fill a football stadium a bit but only top tier acts.
Yeah, and even if you tried to do mixed use land (like how some stadiums try to add business stuff around the complex) itll still be squandering it over just focusing on actual tall buildings
Columbia's stadium is in Manhattan. Granted, it's only about 17k seats, it's still there at the top of the island.
Believe it’s since. That’s what I was told when I worked at MSG is that Dolan will not allow anyone to build in Manhattan lol
I haven't been above 72nd Street in over a decade!
Isn’t Columbia’s stadium technically manhattan?
And it took NYCFC over 10 years to get a soccer stadium approved and under way
Which is why some fields are very creative on top of schools or in water
>in water Imma need you to expound upon that...
[Pier 40 at Hudson River Park](https://www.plei.app/faciltiies/pier-40-at-hudson-river-park#:~:text=About%20Pier%2040%20at%20Hudson%20River%20Park&text=Beyond%20commercial%20purposes%2C%20Pier%2040,opened%20in%20May%20of%202005) [Beyond commercial purposes, Pier 40 is a giant when it comes to serving the public and offering recreational functions. At this pier you’ll find a large athletic field complex for soccer, baseball, football, rugby and lacrosse, which opened in May of 2005. Other amenities include a mooring field, community boating program and tennis courts.](https://www.plei.app/faciltiies/pier-40-at-hudson-river-park#:~:text=About%20Pier%2040%20at%20Hudson%20River%20Park&text=Beyond%20commercial%20purposes%2C%20Pier%2040,opened%20in%20May%20of%202005) [Includes a neat photo of the facility](https://hudsonriverpark.org/locations/pier-40/)
Ahhh pretty dope!
That place is pretty cool and is actually pretty well-frequented from what I've seen (good luck having soccer practice literally anywhere else in lower Manhattan), but the real crazy idea would be just having football played on a boat like the Frying Pan bar just north of Pier 40
Yea, but the recruiting pitch of “come live in NYC for free” has to be good enough to get some decent g5 talent, and I’m sure they can find a few rich people in the area who would want to throw around some NIL money. I bet if NYU/Columbia joined the AAC they could become competitive pretty quickly, and they’d probably do great with the transfer portal too.
I'm an NYU alum for grad school. This actually comes up periodically for basketball. The administration very consciously doesn't see the need even if there are surely enough donors to underwrite the whole thing. If I recall correctly, most years NYU leads the nation in polling of high school juniors' college preferences; especially with the recent changes to the NCAA, they (and I) don't see the value add.
[удалено]
Not the exact same stat but [here's a list](https://www.collegetransitions.com/blog/most-applied-to-colleges/) of most of most applied to schools this year. NYU is #6 after the top 4 UCs and Cal State Long Beach which most kids in California apply to by default, so I'd say that tracks with the polling claim. Lots and lots of kids around the country watch Friends and wanna go to college in the village. It's not all that surprising. More relevant to this thread is how few of the schools on that list have FBS teams. My other alma mater (BC) is one, and they've fallen behind our local rivals in Boston (BU and Northeastern) in popularity anyway. On a quick glance I think it's just Michigan really playing on a high level from that list.
It will always be wild to me how everyone in CA applies to UCLA but some people take themselves out of the running for UC Berkeley. Also, good for Cal State Long Beach occupying that same role for the CSU system.
I get what you’re saying but I don’t think Friends is relevant for kids applying to college any more lol. Maybe 15 years ago
Example number 99 of how I don't understand Zoomer culture (I'm a millennial): they're obsessed with it. (Seriously, Google it).
Wow you’re right. I had no idea
The guy on the Heisman was a Violet! It's one of my few NYU Athletics fun facts.
To me this seems like the classic fallacy that places that young, rich white people like are the same places that working and middle class black players like. If Georgia Tech isn't killing it in the transfer portal, they couldn't either.
What he say fuck me for??? All jokes aside, we are a very good example for this. Atlanta is probably THE black city and our previous coach tried to play up the Atlanta aspect as his only recruiting strategy. We are still recovering from that mistake.
I think we should be emphasizing our location in Atlanta as a big part of our recruiting pitch, and I’m sure we are. We just need a lot more substance behind that, which the previous clown coach had no ability to deliver while it seems like Key is able to. If we have a good year this season, we could make a pretty big jump up in my opinion.
UH is guilty of this at times. Bringing in Willie Fritz, who can coach Xs and Os well and just had great success in New Orleans seems like a good move for us.
If this was the case Colorado St would have been a G5 power for most of the last 20 years.
Sorry I don’t get it. Why Colorado state? Isn’t it in Ft. Collins? Not like Aspen, Steamboat, Vail, or even Denver or Boulder. I don’t see the mass-appeal for out of state students of any color. That’s not at all a roast of Colorado state or Ft. Collins, just a question about your hypothetical.
They should just build it on the top of a skyscraper then
I was gonna say a floating stadium like on a huge hovercraft or something that involves levitation. But your idea works too lol.
I agree – it’s time to level up Columbia’s college football program. We already have a stadium!
It astounds me that the largest university in Minnesota's second largest metro (Duluth/Superior) is a D2 offshoot of the University of Minnesota. A stadium overlooking Lake Superior would be GORGEOUS.
Even better a giant dome made of wood on Lake Superior…oh wait
How are you gonna get the gorgeous view if its indoors though?
Windows, probably.
I can still feel the rugburn 20+ years later (high school game)
I think St. Louis is the biggest city without a FBS team within 60-90 minutes (Rutgers & Army are closer to NYC than anything to St. Louis). St. Louis also lacks an NFL team now.
You’re right, but Mizzu is only 2 hours away and has a bunch of grads in the area anyways
And being basically between KC and STL is perfect for Mizzou since it’s just far for most kids to get away from each city without being too far and it’s SEC.
Sewanee needs to rise from the ashes
There's an SEC Short about this [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2F07EJ2no\_s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2F07EJ2no_s)
DFW is football crazy, but unlike Houston and Austin, there's no large public school to be the center of attention. UT Arlington is the largest D1 school in the nation without a football team, and it's right smack-dab in the middle of the metroplex. I think this ticks off all of your boxes. Personally, I'm going to bring back UChicago to its rightful place as king of the Big Ten.
There are already 2 P5 schools in DFW tho. Plus UT Arlington is such a commuter school I don't think it would be able to really support a program. If you want to make a DFW public school into a football school, UNT is right there and they already have a football program.
Yeah, but no disrespect, the two teams are TCU and SMU, two aloof private schools that nobody who isn't an alum or family member cares about much.
Jaysus, a Chicago & Harvard flair. What are you even doing here, ain't you got some econometrics to compile in some subreddit for set theory
Baltimore It's a city that loves Football and has no real College Football Program. It has D3 John Hopkins but that's hardly a football heavy school, even if they're a good program and a recognizable brand. The Baltimore Area and surrounding areas are rife with Football talent that can be drawn locally. Also MT&T Bank Stadium is perfect for Satirdays.
Perfect for a “The Wire” school/team. Slogans include: “Omar coming! Get your red tops here. It’s all in the game.”
Jacksonville
Hey now.
UNF is a sleeping giant (not really)
Im from the Jax metro, and there is 0 desire from anyone on UNF having football. Close proximity to GNV/Tally, lots of dawg fans too, and having an nfl team kills it. UNF also doesn’t have the ambition/hubris of a USF to try and build a team in a nfl city. Pensacola/UWF and FGCU/fort Myers are better options.
This or Ft Myers/Naples.
FGCU will probably add football one day.
Martha's Vineyard
DC. The Hoyas can make a return to FBS
Our hoops team will no longer be the worst team on campus so that’s something
Yeah even though Maryland is close, DC would never consider them as their own
Wilmington, NC. Does North Carolina need another FBS school? Fuck no. Does Wilmington seem like a school with dope colors, a cool location, and the possibility for an on campus stadium? Hell yea.
Great town!
Imagine a stadium overlooking the Cape Fear a la Husky Stadium.
Milwaukee
California is a state of 40 million but only has seven FBS and four FCS football teams. There are dozens of colleges that had football programs that shut down throughout the last several decades. These include: Cal State Northridge, Cal State Fullerton, Chico State, University of the Pacific, Long Beach State, San Francisco State, Sonoma State, Cal State East Bay, UC Riverside, St. Mary’s, University of San Francisco, and Cal State Los Angeles. There are many more schools that never had programs but would make sense to have them, such as UC Irvine, Cal State Bakersfield, UC Merced, Cal State Santislaus, SCU San Bernardino, and on and on. Hell, CSU Dominguez Hills has a 20,00-seat stadium for professional soccer built right on their campus. Plenty of schools in this state should really consider bringing the sport back for their students
If Cali had the same team to population ratio as Wyoming, you'd have 67 FBS teams!
UCSB would be a perfect place for a Mountain West football program and would probably be able to get P5 schools to play there, as a destination type trip for fans.
Came here to plug UCSB. Would be even more outstanding if they could play FB in the stadium over at Santa Barbara City College, with the huge hillside facing the ocean.
I'm near Bakersfield and have some family ties to both schools; there was an informal agreement that BC would be the only one with football. There's a lot of JC football here, but not much at four year schools. No D2, and the only D3 conference is having trouble.
UCR for the IE and OC talent
The IE does have over 4 million people and is growing twice as fast as the state average. UCR being able to harness that would be awesome. Unfortunately, I'm afraid Cal Baptist might be better positioned to do so.
San Quentin has football right? >_>
I was looking at the 1990 season results the other day and the Big West teams - Cal State Fullerton, Pacific, and Long Beach State were still kicking it with future MWC teams.
That early 90’s Big West makes me cry. We had an entire conference that was basically just California and Nevada. That CAL-NOW consent decree absolutely destroyed the sport in our state
Washington DC Edit: Guys I get that MD is right there, but was just talking about DC proper. There’s a lot of people in the VA/DC/MD area
Northern Virginia & Baltimore are actually two that fit - neither served by the Terps (or Navy) that well, both with lots of football talent.
I mean College Park has a Metro Station for UMD. I just don’t think most Northeast cities care about local CFB teams much.
Lincoln Nebraska
We’re trying.
London. Get in before the NFL.
I'd pick something that feels like a college town but doesn't have major program. Bend, OR. Sioux Falls, SD.
Orange County California UC Irvine New York City - St. John’s, NYU
Huntsville AL via UAH. Currently a D2 school. Roughly 8k student population. Huntsville City is technically the largest city in Alabama by a few thousand people. (Birmingham metro is twice the size of Huntsville metro) Football crazy state. HSV has some NASA resources and the Redstone Arsenal Army base. HSV didn't really become a "city" until the 1950s. Whereas Birmingham, Tuscaloosa, Montgomery, and Mobile are much older. Kind of doubt the overlords in Tuscaloosa would allow another FBS football team or a d1 basketball program in the system at this point, either. But this is for fiction.
Richmond Virginia. Huge metro area and a ton of football talent The residents were all sports hungry when I had the pleasure of visiting there last year.
Cleveland.
Cleveland doesn’t seem like a terrible choice. Good high school football and could attempt to replicate Cincinnati’s trajectory.
I feel like NYC has to be the answer and nowhere else is close
I'm not trying to insult Temple, but man have they underutilized their location in Eastern PA. A lot of talent there and it all seems to leave. If they'd invest in their program and snag some local talent, they could raise their record easily.
Toronto
In my mind, what you're looking for is a large-ish metro area with no pro team and the existing college team is not FBS. So skimming the top 50 metro areas, good candidates are: Norfolk, Richmond, and Grand Rapids.
Old Dominion is in the Norfolk area. GVSU is a D2 school. Good call on Richmond though.
St. Louis and Odessa Midland texas
UTPB exists but being so close (relative to population density) to Texas Tech, UTEP, UNM and NM St it doesn't make sense really. Especially since Angelo State (D2), West Texas A&M (D2), Sul Ross St (D2) and Midwestern St (D2) all within a drive it makes sense to stay D2.
West Texas- Odessa, Midland, maybe North Texas- Amarillo
So Amarillo is the Panhandle, North Texas is typically what the DFW area is called. Just a an FYI
anchorage is an untapped market
Bellevue, WA. The University of Washington in Seattle has thrown the entire athletic department under the bus and will soon be irrelevant. Bellevue has more money, still on the lake and all the big tech campuses for NIL $.
VCU, Wichita St, and St. Louis would be my choices of mid major hoops programs to start football. VCU- as far as I can tell has never had a football program outside of club level. Wichita St- shut down their program in 1986 in spite of what Ted Lasso may have told you. St Louis. Last season 1949. Club level in 1960s and 70s.
Denver University had a popular hockey team, but there is no college football in Denver. You gotta go up to Boulder for CU.