University in transition: Teams to plan future for UL

[RaginFan2]

Staff or Wire should have written this article. Those dudes can bring it.

Z

Z, you crack me up!

[Zeebart21]

Z, you crack me up!

Jockamo I P A !!!!!

[shof]

_ Is there a link somewhere to the actual report including the 36 recommendations? I would prefer to read it myself rather than read what was written about it by someone else. _

This was archived on RaginPagin (30 Oct 2007). Hopefully its what you wanted. It didn't seem to pick up the hyperlinks; so you may have to go to the original post.
Shof

Entire UL Institutional Review




Intercollegiate Athletics portion

The University of Louisiana at Lafayette competes in the Sun Belt, a Division I conference, in eight men’s and eight women’s sports. Both its teams and its athletes have achieved conspicuous success over the years, especially in baseball, softball and football. Several dozen National Football League players have claimed UL as their alma mater.

At the same time, Louisiana Là athletes increasingly have performed well in their respective academic programs and their graduation rate exceeds that of the entire student body by about 27 twenty percent (according to the NCAA). In 2006, Louisiana Là student athletes had a 61 percent graduation rate. Further, in a recent year, Louisiana Là’s athletes earned the highest grade point average among Louisiana’s state universities. Praise is due those in charge of intercollegiate athletics and President Authement who have made this a priority. We encourage the next President to continue this leadership role and, indeed, determine how to transfer some of that success to the non-athlete portion of the student body.

While there are several challenges associated with UL’s intercollegiate athletic programs, the primary challenge is financial. ULL competes in the NCAA’s highest division, the Bowl Division (until recently, I-A), but spends far less money on intercollegiate athletics, and even on football, than the great majority of I-A members and less than many of the institutions in the lower Championship Division, which until recently was known as I-AA. Further, Louisiana Là and most institutions in the Sun Belt Conference contribute a significant proportion of their intercollegiate athletic revenues via direct and indirect institutional support.

We understand that the Board of Regents has made it possible for Louisiana’s public universities to increase the proportion of their budgets that can be spent on intercollegiate athletics. Many regard this as a questionable decision: “Spending more money isn’t going to change the situation at these schools very much unless they really spend lots more money, but it will take more money away from academic programs,” lamented a university president who would prefer a different approach.

Further, “the Sun Belt football teams often act as punching bags for SEC teams in order to take home a large financial guarantee.” More than one athletic director noted to us that Division I-AA teams often can obtain similar financial guarantees and that Division I-A status is not a prerequisite to such scheduling.

At a typical Division I-A (Bowl Division) institution, football ticket sales are a significant source of revenue. ULL’s total football revenue in 2004, from all sources, including gifts, was $1.286 million. However, in 2006, Louisiana Là averaged only 14,516 attendees per game, 116th among 119 Division I-A football teams. Fully 13 I-AA teams registered higher average 28 attendance. Troy State led Sun Belt Conference institutions with a 20,810 average attendance,
ranking it 87th.

The upshot is that it is quite difficult for UL and similarly situated institutions to support football programs at the Division I-A level. (It is apparent that UL and similar institutions can compete very capably in other sports.) A senior administrator expressed the dilemma this way: “The amount of money available for athletics probably needs to double or even triple for it to be a successful program.” We believe this proviso applies in particular to football.

An example may be instructive. Let’s compare UL to the University of Montana and McNeese State University, two successful I-AA level programs.


ULL U Montana McNeese

Football Revenue 2004 $1.286 m. $5.95 m. $1.687 m.
Football Expenditures 2004 $2.748 m. $4.18 m. $1.598 m.
Football Attendance 2006 14516 22600.000 10882
Total Athletic Revenue 2004 $7.62 m. $15.34 m. $4.987 m.
Total Athletic Expenditures 2004 $8.157 m. $12.69 m. $4.775 m.
Gain or Loss -.537 m. +2.65 m. +.212 m
Institutional Support 2004 $3.23 m. (42%) $3.79 m. (25%) $2.35 m. (47%)


Source: NCAA
We do not propose that UL eliminate intercollegiate athletics because we believe they have had a beneficial, unifying influence on the campus over the years and in addition have been a great source of institutional and regional pride. ULL needs intercollegiate athletics and demonstrably it can be very competitive in many sports. Therefore, (19) we recommend that the next President reexamine UL’s intercollegiate athletics programs and ask pointed 29 questions about their long-term revenue sources and expenditures, Louisiana Là’s conference affiliation, and especially the institution’s NCAA competitive level in football.



Quote:

Among the questions UL’s next president should consider is whether or not the university can continue to support a Division 1-A football program, according to an institutional review of the university.

The report released Monday also says the university should seek to change its culture of micromanagement, increase its tuition to the regional average and find money for nearly $130 million in deferred maintenance.

But the university’s situation is far from bleak, according to the review led by James Fisher, the consultant hired by the system to come up with recommendations for UL’s next president.

“The University of Louisiana () provides a sterling example of how one can achieve much with comparatively little,” Fisher writes in the opening line of the review.



The rest of the story

[HoustonCajun]

That appears to be a pretty fair assessment of UL athletics. And, the comparison to Montana and McNeese State is revealing. Once Dr. S takes over, it is do or die for UL football. Either we are 1A and committ to funding the program like a 1A and not a mid-level 1AA program or drop down to 1AA. Of course, if UL ever does that, it will likely lose support from most of its alumni, including me. However, we can't continue to operate with the low funding and losing programs year after year, and I'm not just talking football. This just may be the worse year of UL athletics in history, at least from a won-loss standpoint in all sports. Football is the driving force in all sports. A successful football program will provide the revenue, the exposure and fan appeal that carries over to other sports. It appears we are on the cusp of greater things happening. Dr. S can't take over soon enough so we can see how he will address all of this. I think the hold off on making major announcements is because these need to come under his leadership with a fresh and vibrant kick off for UL athletics and for the university as a whole.

[CajunAmos]

I can't see them ever dropping down to 1AA in football. Football is not my favorite college sport (basketball & baseball take those honors), but it does drive the bus. Without it, conference affiliations would change for the worse. We couldn't expect any possibility of movement to a Conference USA or Southwest (not existent) type of level, and would probably have to look at moving even from the Sunbelt, as they are also trying get all football playing members. Remember, Western Kentucky and South Alabama will be adding Div1A football programs within the next couple of years. If you ask the head coaches of all the other sports, I'm pretty sure they'd tell you we need a Div 1A football team.

[rhineaux]

_ I can't see them ever dropping down to 1AA in football. Football is not my favorite college sport (basketball & baseball take those honors), but it does drive the bus. Without it, conference affiliations would change for the worse. We couldn't expect any possibility of movement to a Conference USA or Southwest (not existent) type of level, and would probably have to look at moving even from the Sunbelt, as they are also trying get all football playing members. Remember, Western Kentucky and South Alabama will be adding Div1A football programs within the next couple of years. If you ask the head coaches of all the other sports, I'm pretty sure they'd tell you we need a Div 1A football team. _

I disagree with the comittee, or the official that it quoted, that said that FCS teams pick up just as much of a payday as FBS schools. FCS schools may be getting more of a guarantee recently, but the price has also gone up for FBS schools. In recent years, we've gotten multiple paydays of around 750k or more, if I'm not mistaken.

Agreed. It shouldn't even be a topic of conversation, and those that think it is a good idea, obviously aren't speaking with UL's best in mind. You think it's hard to grow the fan base now? Hard to reach out to alumni now? Just think if they made this move...most who are on the fringes, or even off the fringes, would see this as a definite move of giving up, and would certainly never return, and it would carry over into all sports. Because of those things, I don't see how a demotion would result in making it easier to run the football program. Savoie just needs to nut up and right this ship. He needs to take advantage of new state funds, he needs to open this thing up to a massive fundrasing campaign through the RCAF, and he needs to demand that the state allow for using student fees.

[DestinCajun]

_ This was archived on RaginPagin (30 Oct 2007). Hopefully its what you wanted. It didn't seem to pick up the hyperlinks; so you may have to go to the original post.
Shof

Entire UL Institutional Review




Intercollegiate Athletics portion

The University of Louisiana at Lafayette competes in the Sun Belt, a Division I conference, in eight men’s and eight women’s sports. Both its teams and its athletes have achieved conspicuous success over the years, especially in baseball, softball and football. Several dozen National Football League players have claimed UL as their alma mater.

At the same time, Louisiana Là athletes increasingly have performed well in their respective academic programs and their graduation rate exceeds that of the entire student body by about 27 twenty percent (according to the NCAA). In 2006, Louisiana Là student athletes had a 61 percent graduation rate. Further, in a recent year, Louisiana Là’s athletes earned the highest grade point average among Louisiana’s state universities. Praise is due those in charge of intercollegiate athletics and President Authement who have made this a priority. We encourage the next President to continue this leadership role and, indeed, determine how to transfer some of that success to the non-athlete portion of the student body.

While there are several challenges associated with UL’s intercollegiate athletic programs, the primary challenge is financial. ULL competes in the NCAA’s highest division, the Bowl Division (until recently, I-A), but spends far less money on intercollegiate athletics, and even on football, than the great majority of I-A members and less than many of the institutions in the lower Championship Division, which until recently was known as I-AA. Further, Louisiana Là and most institutions in the Sun Belt Conference contribute a significant proportion of their intercollegiate athletic revenues via direct and indirect institutional support.

We understand that the Board of Regents has made it possible for Louisiana’s public universities to increase the proportion of their budgets that can be spent on intercollegiate athletics. Many regard this as a questionable decision: “Spending more money isn’t going to change the situation at these schools very much unless they really spend lots more money, but it will take more money away from academic programs,” lamented a university president who would prefer a different approach.

Further, “the Sun Belt football teams often act as punching bags for SEC teams in order to take home a large financial guarantee.” More than one athletic director noted to us that Division I-AA teams often can obtain similar financial guarantees and that Division I-A status is not a prerequisite to such scheduling.

At a typical Division I-A (Bowl Division) institution, football ticket sales are a significant source of revenue. ULL’s total football revenue in 2004, from all sources, including gifts, was $1.286 million. However, in 2006, Louisiana Là averaged only 14,516 attendees per game, 116th among 119 Division I-A football teams. Fully 13 I-AA teams registered higher average 28 attendance. Troy State led Sun Belt Conference institutions with a 20,810 average attendance,
ranking it 87th.

The upshot is that it is quite difficult for UL and similarly situated institutions to support football programs at the Division I-A level. (It is apparent that UL and similar institutions can compete very capably in other sports.) A senior administrator expressed the dilemma this way: “The amount of money available for athletics probably needs to double or even triple for it to be a successful program.” We believe this proviso applies in particular to football.

An example may be instructive. Let’s compare UL to the University of Montana and McNeese State University, two successful I-AA level programs.


ULL U Montana McNeese

Football Revenue 2004 $1.286 m. $5.95 m. $1.687 m.
Football Expenditures 2004 $2.748 m. $4.18 m. $1.598 m.
Football Attendance 2006 14516 22600.000 10882
Total Athletic Revenue 2004 $7.62 m. $15.34 m. $4.987 m.
Total Athletic Expenditures 2004 $8.157 m. $12.69 m. $4.775 m.
Gain or Loss -.537 m. +2.65 m. +.212 m
Institutional Support 2004 $3.23 m. (42%) $3.79 m. (25%) $2.35 m. (47%)


Source: NCAA
We do not propose that UL eliminate intercollegiate athletics because we believe they have had a beneficial, unifying influence on the campus over the years and in addition have been a great source of institutional and regional pride. ULL needs intercollegiate athletics and demonstrably it can be very competitive in many sports. Therefore, (19) we recommend that the next President reexamine UL’s intercollegiate athletics programs and ask pointed 29 questions about their long-term revenue sources and expenditures, Louisiana Là’s conference affiliation, and especially the institution’s NCAA competitive level in football.



Quote:

Among the questions UL’s next president should consider is whether or not the university can continue to support a Division 1-A football program, according to an institutional review of the university.

The report released Monday also says the university should seek to change its culture of micromanagement, increase its tuition to the regional average and find money for nearly $130 million in deferred maintenance.

But the university’s situation is far from bleak, according to the review led by James Fisher, the consultant hired by the system to come up with recommendations for UL’s next president.

“The University of Louisiana () provides a sterling example of how one can achieve much with comparatively little,” Fisher writes in the opening line of the review.

The rest of the story _

Thanks, I did see it when it first came out.

It only "asks the question" so to speak in terms of D1a football at UL. Basically, the same thing their consultants gave LaTex, ULM and Tulane.

In essence the fans will decide with our pocket books. I hope we decide "yes".

[shof]

_ Thanks, I did see it when it first came out.
In essence the fans will decide with our pocket books. I hope we decide "yes".

_

I concur!