As the summer winds down and fall approaches, the sports world starts to turns its attention to the national spectacle that is college football. I have no doubt that we will see the typical scenes around college football, including the scheduling of cupcake games, the BCS system argument that surrounds the NCAA every year, and the constant changes that make up the AP Top 25 poll.
Well I have one more topic to add to the discussion. Every year, there are a select few teams who experience remarkable and mostly unchallenged success in their football seasons. These teams can be found in all three divisions of football, and while some scream for the respect they deserve (Boise State), some are more comfortable avoiding the spotlight(Grand Valley State University and Mount Union University). The success and records these teams achieve year in and year out begs the question, why aren't these teams playing teams that are more on their level?
Boise State university has garnered alot of attention recently by racking up a 93-17 record since 1999 with nine conference titles and six bowl wins in nine trips. Fans and players for the team have recently been making alot of noise by challenging bigger and more well known teams for the chance to compete on the same stage.
Grand Valley State University is located in Western Michigan, and has been a perennial powerhouse since its football introduction in the 70's. The team has racked up a .729 win percentage in the 40 years since then, including 4 national titles. The Laker's are seemingly untouchable in any regular season game and have rarely lost outside of the conference or national championship games.Some serious debate has questioned possibly putting the team up against teams from the Big Ten conference, which has also become a tougher football conference in the past decade.
Mount Union university, located in Alliance, Ohio, has risen to become a football superpower over the past few years. In fact, they are the only team that has a higher winning percentage than Grand Valley State, as they post a .965 win percentage and a record 10 Division III national championships since 1993. They hold the record for consecutive wins from all three divisions with 55 straight victories, and have posted 14 undefeated seasons from 1994- 2005.
These three teams may be the most well known examples of dominance outside of the spotlight, but they are not the only ones. These teams have been able to filled their teams with ultra talented players year after year, and they continuously outclass all of their opponents. Some sports fans, however, think these three teams could all benefit from playing teams that are in higher talented divisions, and I am in agreement 100% of the way. As the saying goes, pick on someone your own size.
Playing devils advocate in this situation: 1. Not everything is about football, I think people tend to think about it that way and yes it is the most lucrative of all college sports no doubt, but. Think of it this way. Have you ever heard of boise state in any other sport? no. if they moved divisions their other teams may have a hard time adjusting to the higher level of play. I know Utah just made the switch but they are more competitive in other sports. I think its a matter of the schools overall objective and what they want to spend money on and what they dont. 2. Grand Valley I agree really should be playing better opponents, not only in football but in all sports. They have won the all sports award for what? 5 years now? its just ridiculous. But there is an article i read on Grand Valley's website about their reasons for not joining division I. Pretty much it says as a university it isnt a priority, they went into more detail as to the financial benifits of staying in DII but i'll try and find you the article so you can see it yourself. 3. Honestly, I have no idea about Mt. Union but they seem ridiculously good but again, its a institutional thing. Theres my 2 cents.
ReplyDeleteYeah I agree, Boise State is obviously a football school, but GVSU probably could and realistically should be playing other, better teams. I could care less about the monetary reasons why they don't switch, I'm only interested in why they seem so resistant to the idea of playing up to their competition. I believe they enjoy rolling through their opponents and only cite monetary logic to explain why they won't move up when they should/
ReplyDelete