THE IUP Football Thread

[IUPbigINDIANS]

Anybody know when the official opening of practice is for IUP?

Before that, the other big event is the unveiling of the Fall roster -- which usually has more drama than all of training camp.

Tort had one big (needed) player out in the Spring due to academics. Hopefully that is resolved. There's also always a few additions and departures they somehow kept quiet all summer (which is very hard to do these days).

We've also seen some very interesting additions in late July and early August over the years. Although, I think Max Redfield is the last 'big name' such player (2017),

It's certainly not as exciting as the Frank roster reveals. You never knew who he'd find on the waiver wire. Obviously those types of players just sign with other D1 schools now.

This is a big year for Tort (and staff). I certainly don't think his job is on the line, but he and his staff surely didn't make people feel real warm and fuzzy last year.

[Fightingscot82]

I’m personally surprised at the number of teams that are available if your kid wants to play basketball all year round. It’s insane that parents are willing to pay all that money.

You can play almost any mainstream sport year round now as young as middle school. Its absurd. So many people I know are probably putting 10-15% of their income into ONE kid travelling all over the region playing meaningless games instead of playing in back yards, riding bikes, chasing boys/girls, etc. Nobody is going to fondly reminisce about driving to Akron, Gettysburg, Dayton, Charleston, etc. every other weekend while scrolling Tik Tok each way.

[Ram040506]

Great question and from the posts I think even though you have greater population you have percentage wise much less participation. I think available room for football and baseball facilities in some of your major metro population areas hurts that area as well.

I live in the metro KC area. The suburb I live in has two 6A (biggest in MO) high schools. Both schools field freshman jv and varsity teams with some overlapping but not much. When the games start I'll post a pic of the program. The high school is roughly 2k kids per school. So figure 1k boys. My guess is 150 total play football. One of the schools also has an amazing band with probably 60 or so guys in that. Plus another 50-60 for soccer.

I think another difference and IUP Nation alluded to this is in the public schools here you don't see lacrosse or as many non traditional sports. Some of the private schools have rugby. In the smaller Midwestern towns some still don't offer soccer it's football band or beer.

At the local high school that I live near, they offer Football, Flag football, Soccer, Tennis, golf, basketball, wrestling, cross country, indoor track, Bocce ball (co-ed), swimming and diving, baseball and lacrosse. That is just the one's offered to the boys, so 14 total sports. One which is directly competing with football in Flag football lol. Your last sentence, really nails it on the head as that is probably one of the biggest differences in general local society as recruiting grounds for which these schools operate.

[Tdobson]

I’m personally surprised at the number of teams that are available if your kid wants to play basketball all year round. It’s insane that parents are willing to pay all that money.

[Fightingscot82]

Anybody know when the official opening of practice is for IUP?

I believe it's 4 weeks from the first game.

[iupgroundhog]

Anybody know when the official opening of practice is for IUP?

[Ship69]

Great question and from the posts I think even though you have greater population you have percentage wise much less participation. I think available room for football and baseball facilities in some of your major metro population areas hurts that area as well.

I live in the metro KC area. The suburb I live in has two 6A (biggest in MO) high schools. Both schools field freshman jv and varsity teams with some overlapping but not much. When the games start I'll post a pic of the program. The high school is roughly 2k kids per school. So figure 1k boys. My guess is 150 total play football. One of the schools also has an amazing band with probably 60 or so guys in that. Plus another 50-60 for soccer.

I think another difference and IUP Nation alluded to this is in the public schools here you don't see lacrosse or as many non traditional sports. Some of the private schools have rugby. In the smaller Midwestern towns some still don't offer soccer it's football band or beer.

Your last paragraph does raise a good point. At the college level we see some schools and conferences tend to place emphasis on certain sports over others. The SEC, which of course is always hitting us over the head with its prowess in football, doesn't even sponsor wrestling in most cases. The traditional B1G powers would obviously blow their doors off in that sport. In fact, we probably have 2-3 wrestling schools in the PSAC who'd mop them up. The Big 10 is also a premier volleyball conference, and adding four West Coast schools probably won't hurt there. Shippensburg, my alma mater, actually sponsors more sports than Auburn. I'm sure we could free more money for football and basketball by cutting our successful field hockey and track and field programs, but I don't think we'll be doing that.

[Wallst]

Yea, was part of my point in the question. Out in this area of the country, we beg kids to play. Participation is a real issue in Maryland, some varsity's are barely able to field 30 kids on the team. Was genuinely curious if they have that kind of participation issues in his area of the country.

Great question and from the posts I think even though you have greater population you have percentage wise much less participation. I think available room for football and baseball facilities in some of your major metro population areas hurts that area as well.

I live in the metro KC area. The suburb I live in has two 6A (biggest in MO) high schools. Both schools field freshman jv and varsity teams with some overlapping but not much. When the games start I'll post a pic of the program. The high school is roughly 2k kids per school. So figure 1k boys. My guess is 150 total play football. One of the schools also has an amazing band with probably 60 or so guys in that. Plus another 50-60 for soccer.

I think another difference and IUP Nation alluded to this is in the public schools here you don't see lacrosse or as many non traditional sports. Some of the private schools have rugby. In the smaller Midwestern towns some still don't offer soccer it's football band or beer.

[ironmaniup]

I'm personally not a fan of kids playing one sport year-round. Opinions vary.

Next to none of them are getting recruited to college let alone the pro ranks.

I get it. But, same time, I don't.

Personally, I'm a very good volleyball player. I played the then-normal sports in high school (football, basketball, track). I didn't realized until it was too late volleyball was by far my best sport.


Your comment about the special teams made me laugh. It makes me think of Tort's kickoff team getting personal fouls constantly. Those kids finally get on the field and they lose their minds. In college those are typically the more LIT AF dudes on the team, too.

I like the idea of kids participating to get exercise and be on a team and playing multiple sports because its fun, but they don't. The change seems to be in the competitive intensity from back in the 70s and 80s. There are way to many parents thinking that their kid would be a star, if only they trained more, had a better coach, had better team mates. There's lots of competition for the Coaches attention, and focus on winning to get attention of college coaches. When my kids were going through Indiana HS a few years back, the level of expectations from coaches were crazy compared to what I was used to 50 years ago.

[EastStroud13]

You mean by backing up my position with stats and information? No wonder you can't get out of own way and compete. It's all excuses and blame, not one shred of evidence. If your pond is too full go fishing elsewhere. Go to Kentucky go to parts of TN to recruit. It's not that hard, not that much more expensive and social media makes it much easier

FYI per the college football network on Twitter/X across all levels MA has 27 football playing schools, Kansas has 25. PA has 57 according to Google the college fb network hasn't done their PA breakdown yet. per Google NY has 36.

So and I understand that this is only KS and PA I'm comparing, but if you take the total population of those 2 states KS 2.97m and PA 12.97m and divide them by the TOTAL number of football playing colleges across all divisions so all opportunities KS = 117,600 and PA almost double at 227,543.

This comparison only works if the percentage of boys in each state playing football is the same. It is not.

According to the most recent High School Athletics Participation Survey, from 2022-23, Pennsylvania had 24,975 boys playing football. Kansas had 13,277 boys playing football, plus 1,862 additional playing 8-man football (which I will ignore for the purposes of this, assuming most college players come from 11-man). So, PA has 438 boys per college, while KS has 531 boys per college. On top of this, consider that Kansas only has two schools in FBS and no schools in FCS, while Pennsylvania has three schools in FBS and eight in FCS (not including Mercyhurst since they were still D2 at the time the data was collected).

The demographics simply do not favor Pennsylvania in this comparison. Should Pennsylvania be doing a better job at getting high school boys playing football? Not sure, the safety data against football is scaring families away, and sports like lacrosse are growing in popularity. There's only so much that PSAC schools can control here. I won't sit here and say that the PSAC is doing everything it can to compete at the highest possible level, but it is simply factual that there is not an even playing field here.

[IUPbigINDIANS]

Kids today are not going to spend time and energy, and get a beating in practice, just to sit on the bench, and play on the kick off team when the game is a blow out (one way or another). They're self selecting the players who have a chance of playing, and its probably good thing. Probably good to choose 1 main sport too. Better to focus, and I remember a lot of guys that ruined their baseball season by playing football and getting injured

I'm personally not a fan of kids playing one sport year-round. Opinions vary.

Next to none of them are getting recruited to college let alone the pro ranks.

I get it. But, same time, I don't.

Personally, I'm a very good volleyball player. I played the then-normal sports in high school (football, basketball, track). I didn't realized until it was too late volleyball was by far my best sport.


Your comment about the special teams made me laugh. It makes me think of Tort's kickoff team getting personal fouls constantly. Those kids finally get on the field and they lose their minds. In college those are typically the more LIT AF dudes on the team, too.

[ironmaniup]

Lot of factors, I suppose.

30 years ago:

- Kids played a different sport per season. Too many baseball players play only baseball now. Same with basketball.
- The 'gadgets' didn't exist. I got my first cell phone at age 22.
- Parents are more hesitant than ever to allow kids to play football - concussions, etc.
- More options.
- High school hockey was just starting to take off in Western PA in the mid- to late-90s.
- Soccer is dramatically more popular today and a ton more schools have teams now than back then. Soccer has taken a lot of good athletes away from football.
- Kids are more lazy today than ever
- Football's popularity (TV and attendance) is sky-high at Major D1 and the NFL, but far fewer actually want to play.
- Many schools field smaller teams just because their enrollments have been decimated. But, as in my case, my alma mater is the same size and now has half the team.

Kids today are not going to spend time and energy, and get a beating in practice, just to sit on the bench, and play on the kick off team when the game is a blow out (one way or another). They're self selecting the players who have a chance of playing, and its probably good thing. Probably good to choose 1 main sport too. Better to focus, and I remember a lot of guys that ruined their baseball season by playing football and getting injured

[Ship69]

Are there actually high schools left that still hold tryouts? It seems about 95% of the Western PA high schools are all but begging kids to play.

My senior year of high school (90s) we dressed 83 on opening night and had 7-8 not dressed due to injury/grades (WPIAL Quad AAAA school). This past year the same school dressed 41 on opening night. Enrollment is basically the same. Keep in mind, back then, the WPIAL didn't have 1A through 6A. It capped at 4A.

One example, of course, but I'd guess that's a common trend nationwide.

Participation in almost all activities is down. Kids either get jobs after school or just are more interested in electronic devices, etc., than physical activity. Most high school bands are a fraction of the size they used to be. Kids who actually do play sports are in excellent shape due to modern training methods and specialization in their sport, but many high school kids are in terrible physical condition with all the fast food and a sedentary lifestyle. One of our military leaders reported long ago that the vast majority of kids today could not meet the mental and physical requirements necessary for service if we had to hold a draft today. It's not good, and the physical condition of these kids is going to result in billions of dollars in health care costs down the road.

[IUPbigINDIANS]

Yea, was part of my point in the question. Out in this area of the country, we beg kids to play. Participation is a real issue in Maryland, some varsity's are barely able to field 30 kids on the team. Was genuinely curious if they have that kind of participation issues in his area of the country.

Lot of factors, I suppose.

30 years ago:

- Kids played a different sport per season. Too many baseball players play only baseball now. Same with basketball.
- The 'gadgets' didn't exist. I got my first cell phone at age 22.
- Parents are more hesitant than ever to allow kids to play football - concussions, etc.
- More options.
- High school hockey was just starting to take off in Western PA in the mid- to late-90s.
- Soccer is dramatically more popular today and a ton more schools have teams now than back then. Soccer has taken a lot of good athletes away from football.
- Kids are more lazy today than ever
- Football's popularity (TV and attendance) is sky-high at Major D1 and the NFL, but far fewer actually want to play.
- Many schools field smaller teams just because their enrollments have been decimated. But, as in my case, my alma mater is the same size and now has half the team.

[Ram040506]

Are there actually high schools left that still hold tryouts? It seems about 95% of the Western PA high schools are all but begging kids to play.

My senior year of high school (90s) we dressed 83 on opening night and had 7-8 not dressed due to injury/grades (WPIAL Quad AAAA school). This past year the same school dressed 41 on opening night. Enrollment is basically the same. Keep in mind, back then, the WPIAL didn't have 1A through 6A. It capped at 4A.

One example, of course, but I'd guess that's a common trend nationwide.

Yea, was part of my point in the question. Out in this area of the country, we beg kids to play. Participation is a real issue in Maryland, some varsity's are barely able to field 30 kids on the team. Was genuinely curious if they have that kind of participation issues in his area of the country.