IUP Football 2021

[IUPalum]

I just made my donation for Foosball.

Come on people...pony up and lets help IUP take back the Pee Sack and be IUP again.

I support basketball

[IUPNation]

So far only $3100 raised for IUP Athletics....

[IUPNation]

Fourth crossover solves all the problems -- on the surface anyway. We almost never get 'big time' non-conference games. It's always our powers playing meatballs from other conferences. The IUP vs. Ashland series was one of few exceptions.

One advantage of having 500 schools in our league is you don't need OOC games. Nice? Sometimes. Rarely, actually.

Goodness I remember when IUP talked St. Augustine's in to coming up here. That was a classic over-report on attendance that day. I think they counted every human within 3 blocks of Miller.

Ashland at Miller on a Thursday night? Fantastic. Big-time crowd and atmosphere. Imagine if IUP played more night games? I'm not going down that path again ... please the early bird special crowd. I get it by now.

Frank was famous for playing those big non-con games. That era is gone at this level. Money this. Money that. Is what it is. Seems the simple solution is an extra crossover.

As it is they can play 10 or 11. Tort wants 10 so be it. The haters can kick sand. Some years (like this one upcoming) they don't need SOS help. Other years it has and will backfire. That decision isn't made by us message board hacks.

It does solve the problem. It would also help avoid you getting all of the East's bottom feeders in one season that usually kills IUP's SOS. Then each school can get two home and two away cross over games.

Do you think anyone in The Home Office in Lock Haven will figure this out?

[IUPNation]

Remember tomorrow is the Day of Giving.

Tort needs some transfers. Get those checkbooks out.

I just made my donation for Foosball.

Come on people...pony up and lets help IUP take back the Pee Sack and be IUP again.

[IUPbigINDIANS]

Why is not playing an 11th game only an issue when it's IUP?

I mean Shepherd played a 10 game schedule year after year...rolled through their cupcake WVIAC/MEC schedule and was always vying for the top seed...and nobody even noticed.

The Home Office In Lock Haven could literally make it a non issue by having a fourth cross over and just be done with it. Why bother dealing with the other conferences in the region?

That's not going to happen though.

I'd like to see IUP develop a rivalry with an OOC school and just make that an annual tradition. IUP-New Haven was always a good game. The games with Ashland worked well too.

Why bring schools into The Cig that the fans don't care about? Could you imagine if they brought in St. Elsewhere from the NE10? It's like why bother.

Fourth crossover solves all the problems -- on the surface anyway. We almost never get 'big time' non-conference games. It's always our powers playing meatballs from other conferences. The IUP vs. Ashland series was one of few exceptions.

One advantage of having 500 schools in our league is you don't need OOC games. Nice? Sometimes. Rarely, actually.

Goodness I remember when IUP talked St. Augustine's in to coming up here. That was a classic over-report on attendance that day. I think they counted every human within 3 blocks of Miller.

Ashland at Miller on a Thursday night? Fantastic. Big-time crowd and atmosphere. Imagine if IUP played more night games? I'm not going down that path again ... please the early bird special crowd. I get it by now.

Frank was famous for playing those big non-con games. That era is gone at this level. Money this. Money that. Is what it is. Seems the simple solution is an extra crossover.

As it is they can play 10 or 11. Tort wants 10 so be it. The haters can kick sand. Some years (like this one upcoming) they don't need SOS help. Other years it has and will backfire. That decision isn't made by us message board hacks.

[IUPNation]

Why is not playing an 11th game only an issue when it's IUP?

I mean Shepherd played a 10 game schedule year after year...rolled through their cupcake WVIAC/MEC schedule and was always vying for the top seed...and nobody even noticed.

The Home Office In Lock Haven could literally make it a non issue by having a fourth cross over and just be done with it. Why bother dealing with the other conferences in the region?

That's not going to happen though.

I'd like to see IUP develop a rivalry with an OOC school and just make that an annual tradition. IUP-New Haven was always a good game. The games with Ashland worked well too.

Why bring schools into The Cig that the fans don't care about? Could you imagine if they brought in St. Elsewhere from the NE10? It's like why bother.

[IUPbigINDIANS]

Remember tomorrow is the Day of Giving.

Tort needs some transfers. Get those checkbooks out.

[Matt Burglund]

There are associated costs with playing an 11th game, even if it is at home. The biggest one would be having to back up the start of training camp, which means the football program has to pay the university to house and feed 80-100 players for another week. That's costly. I would imagine most, if not all, PSAC programs have to do this.

If you add an 11th game but don't start your camp a week earlier than you would have before, you're playing with fire. For most teams, more than half the roster will be freshmen who have never played a college game, and so training camp this year takes on an even greater importance.

I would think for most teams, since zero revenue was brought in from ticket sales in 2020, adding expenses isn't something they want to do, which means an 11th game on the road seems like a questionable idea.

Having said that, in 2017 and 2018, IUP played (and beat) a very good Ashland team. In 2017, it helped IUP get the No. 1 playoff seed because they were 11-0 and Shepherd was 10-0. So playing a good team was irrelevant. Just getting the win was the difference. In 2018, because IUP lost to SRU and Cal in the middle of the season, they were not even in the regional rankings at the end of the season, when they mailed it in against Shippensburg. So their win over Ashland that year meant nothing.

TL;DR ... You can't predict the value of an 11th game. And if I'm a coach, this year there are more negatives than positives to playing one.

[Fightingscot82]

After most programs are already facing a numbers crunch one would think that all schools regardless of post season aspirations would jump at the chance to add an home game to the schedule to generate some money. If this ends up being a 8-2 or 7-3 season with no post season invite that 11th game may be revisited going forward.

I've been around long enough to remember when that's happened. It's addressed. then 5-7 years later here we are again.

[shipfbfan1]

I certainly used it as an opportunity to tease IUP a bit, but its somewhat universal. There's always an excuse from any coach when they don't get an 11th game scheduled. I imagine some are valid but in my opinion you're shortchanging your players and fans. For some reason we talk about this with IUP a lot more often than others.

After most programs are already facing a numbers crunch one would think that all schools regardless of post season aspirations would jump at the chance to add an home game to the schedule to generate some money. If this ends up being a 8-2 or 7-3 season with no post season invite that 11th game may be revisited going forward.

[iupgroundhog]

I certainly used it as an opportunity to tease IUP a bit, but its somewhat universal. There's always an excuse from any coach when they don't get an 11th game scheduled. I imagine some are valid but in my opinion you're shortchanging your players and fans. For some reason we talk about this with IUP a lot more often than others.

IUP is a program that places a high value on the post=season. So, scheduling an eleventh game has a lot of significance due to SOS. Note that when their crossover games were with low echelon programs from the East they always went out and scheduled a tough non-conference game.

[Fightingscot82]

We'll have a better perspective on all this come mid-November.

I certainly used it as an opportunity to tease IUP a bit, but its somewhat universal. There's always an excuse from any coach when they don't get an 11th game scheduled. I imagine some are valid but in my opinion you're shortchanging your players and fans. For some reason we talk about this with IUP a lot more often than others.

[iupgroundhog]

Can't play a tough team because that loss might hurt the playoff hopes, so they need to find a cupcake.

Cupcakes are offered but they're SOS anchors and might hurt the playoff hopes, so they'll just sit around and play with themselves that weekend.

Imagine Lombardi settling for only a PSAC schedule. Wouldn't happen. The excuses are funny. Might lose. SOS anchor. Nothing to gain. Can't risk injuries. The only one I'll ever believe is trying to save money.

We'll have a better perspective on all this come mid-November.

[Fightingscot82]

Can't play a tough team because that loss might hurt the playoff hopes, so they need to find a cupcake.

Cupcakes are offered but they're SOS anchors and might hurt the playoff hopes, so they'll just sit around and play with themselves that weekend.

Imagine Lombardi settling for only a PSAC schedule. Wouldn't happen. The excuses are funny. Might lose. SOS anchor. Nothing to gain. Can't risk injuries. The only one I'll ever believe is trying to save money.

[Ram040506]

That's funny!!!

I mean you guys are all on record here saying that Tort won't play a challenging game in week 1 because of how front loaded the schedule is. Perhaps they are ducking them.