THE SUPPLY ELASTICITY OF CUPCAKES. The University of North Carolina at Charlotte, home to a basketball mid-major that famously worried Marquette's Al McGuire, contemplates becoming a football power. George Leef demurs.

We’re told by the feasibility study that football increases school spirit and pride and “captures the competitive spirit of America.” Perhaps so, but are such intangibles worth the increase in mandatory fees? An added cost of $300 to attend UNCC is not pocket change for many families.

The study also defends the proposal by claiming, “football would help increase the public perception that UNC Charlotte is a great institution.” But certainly participating in top-level football is neither necessary for sufficient for that public perception. The University of Chicago hasn’t had intercollegiate football in 60 years,^(*) but is no doubt regarded as a great institution. Conversely, there are football powers like Florida State whose reputations probably suffer precisely because of their persistent gridiron success.

To which we might add Wisconsin, simultaneously celebrating bowl appearances, March Madness seedings, and hockey titles, while attempting to retain successful professors and keep the brightest graduates in state.

The article correctly points to Buffalo's forlorn attempt to become a football power.

The allure of big-time football has been too much for some schools to resist. Throughout its history, the State University of New York at Buffalo (now just called the University of Buffalo, or UB) played in the low-key NCAA Division III. No prestige, but little cost. Then in 1990, the administration, egged on by the athletic department, decided to move up.

UB spent eight seasons in Division I-AA, a notch below the big-time and then reached the pinnacle, Division I-A, by obtaining membership in the Mid-American Conference in 1999. University president William Greiner said that the reason for going into big-time sports was that they make “a major contribution to the total quality of student life and the visibility of your institution.”

Buffalo’s athletic director, Bob Arkeilpane, added, “Not having big-time college athletics at Buffalo meant there was a quality of life element that was missing here.”

Those sentiments sound a lot like the rhetoric in favor of starting football at UNCC.

The Mid-American isn't exactly the "pinnacle" as its teams have to sell wins to the power conferences to meet the football cartel's attendance criteria. It's rare that Northern Illinois or Toledo isn't in the win-selling business, as Maryland and Alabama and Iowa State once learned, and it's more rare that Northern Illinois is in the win-buying business, as bitter experience with Southern Illinois and Western Illinois has taught, although there's probably room for Charlotte to become a non-conference cupcake to the Mid-American, at least in the early years of its program. That's what Buffalo was before it formally affiliated. (Temple, too, probably to Bill Cosby's dismay).

After six losing seasons, in 2005 the university commissioned a report from nationally recognized sports consultant Gene Corrigan on what it needed to do to become successful. Endorsing Corrigan’s report, the school’s new president John Simpson said, “Building a high-quality, highly competitive athletics program is integral to our success and progress as a leading university community.”

One of the recommendations was to hire a new director of athletics and UB promptly undertook such a search. Corrigan also said that the school needed to put more financial resources into its athletics program. With state financial support tightening, that meant scraping up more private donations for sports and raising student fees.

Buffalo has had a little more success in the Mid-American Conference over the last couple of seasons, but it’s hard to see that student life is any better than at non-football schools. It’s also hard to see how being an also-ran in a low-luster conference does much for the school’s visibility and reputation.

On the other hand, some pretty good economists are at Buffalo. New York's stinginess might have prevented them from getting more. Northern Illinois has received some favorable publicity and perhaps a few enrollments because of football success, although the True North capital campaign reflects the reality that there were plenty of positive things happening elsewhere long before anybody noticed those wins. (The radio call-ins the night of the shootings tended to mention these other things.)

^(*)Pedant's note: the Maroons take the field in Division III, although "Run the ball around Chicago" is unlikely to be written back into On! Wisconsin!

PROFITING BY SELLING WINS. Over the years I've had some fun with the [State] University of [New York at] Buffalo's efforts to achieve prominence in Division I football. Tonight, however, I recognize their success. David Letterman's favorite BCS team, Ball State, was on the way to a score that might have put the Mid-American title game away in the third quarter. Two long fumble returns for touchdowns later, Buffalo were in control, with head coach Turner Gill, a veteran of the Packer front office, being being the object of speculation by the broadcasters as a possible head coach in a more visible conference. Buffalo will play a January game in the International Bowl.

The bowl bid is the second in Buffalo’s 94 years of collegiate football, but will mark the first invitation that is accepted. The 1958 Bulls were initially invited to play in the Tangerine Bowl against Florida State, but later turned down the bowl bid when it was learned that two of Buffalo’s African-American players would not be allowed to compete against white players at the game site.

Buffalo's cheering section had a difficult ride to Detroit, but when they got there, they made themselves heard, using some of the same routines we use at Northern Illinois.

In one of those posts about Buffalo's football aspirations, I noted,

On the other hand, some pretty good economists are at Buffalo. New York's stinginess might have prevented them from getting more. Northern Illinois has received some favorable publicity and perhaps a few enrollments because of football success, although the True North capital campaign reflects the reality that there were plenty of positive things happening elsewhere long before anybody noticed those wins.

We are still capitalizing on the recognition our 2003 run at the Bowl Championship Series games brought us. Buffalo's football success will generate some buzz. Their administration's proposal to play to their academic strengths becomes accordingly more interesting: can a state university offer a persuasive alternative to the increasingly threadbare traditional havens for the valedictocracy?

BUYING BOWL ELIGIBILITY. Phil Miller at The Sports Economist discovers that the hottest college football program at schedule completion time is ... Buffalo.

Buffalo became such a hot commodity in the off-season that it broke contracts with West Virginia and Rutgers because Auburn and Wisconsin were offering at least double the money. Troy State of Alabama will receive $750,000 from Nebraska to play in Lincoln this season. Louisiana-Lafayette will get the same amount from Tennessee next year.

With the weakest teams in Division I-A becoming more expensive, top programs are stooping lower for competition. Iowa, a Big Ten favorite this year, wooed Montana, a Division I-AA program, for $650,000.

“It’s all about the money — any administrator will tell you that,” said Rich Rodriguez, the head coach at West Virginia. Buffalo dropped West Virginia from its schedule, without even a courtesy phone call, to earn an extra $300,000 to play at Wisconsin. Mr. Rodriguez added: “It’s not for the excitement of college football. Let’s not kid ourselves.”

The joys of life in the Mid-American. Poor Troy University, last seen in these pages giving Northern Illinois an opportunity to come from behind at the Silicon Valley Bowl, is still Troy State as far as the New York Times is concerned. (Sorry, Richard.) Northern Illinois has climbed out of the "bought win" category, going for the two point conversion and a shot at a win in Evanston and getting robbed on their last trip to Madison, thereby extracting a visit from Iowa to Soldier Field, but the opener at Ohio State and the Iowa game, as well as a division winner's schedule in the Mid-American, expose the guys to a risk.

When the N.C.A.A. proposed allowing 12 games, most coaches objected. Some saw the proposal as exploiting players to fill athletic department coffers. When the extra opponent is a bigger, faster and stronger team, not only does the risk of embarrassment rise, but the potential for injury also increases.

N.C.A.A. officials agree that the change was about money. Football home games are typically the primary source of revenue for an entire athletic department. Other than football, the only college sport that makes consistent money is men’s basketball. The other men’s and women’s sports, except in rare cases, cost more to run than they generate.

David Berst, the N.C.A.A.’s vice president for Division I, said the organization’s board authorized the 12th game because universities could increase revenue. He said data showed no significant injury risk in playing one more game. Coaches are resigned to the change.

Catch that "no significant injury risk." Small sample!

That is because the 12th game means another Saturday to fill hotel rooms, pack restaurants and bring in millions of dollars more in ticket and concession sales. Wisconsin and Auburn, for example, have stadiums that hold more than 80,000 fans and can usually sell out any game, regardless of the
opponent.

Adding a weak team like Buffalo can be beneficial for two reasons. First, it practically guarantees a victory. Second, weak teams will visit for a lower price than better teams, meaning a higher profit on each home game. And many of the weaker teams do not insist on a home-and-home series that would require the better team to visit the next year. That means the better team has an open home date for the next season, which it can use to play another weak team.

But Buffalo, which was once a solid State University of New York operation with no athletic aspirations, is unlikely to attract the kind of beer-and-circus student buzz its decision to join the Mid-American and obtain visibility in athletic programs. (Read Murray Sperber's Beer and Circus for the elaboration of this argument.) The newest member of the Mid-American is Temple, where the attendance and revenue pressures will also be growing.

One suspects, however, that the Times reporter has never been to Madison.

Fans at Wisconsin may complain about sitting through home games against Western Illinois, San Diego State and Buffalo. But the coaches love it, even if they oppose the idea of a 12th game. Wisconsin will be favored in all three games and, by winning, would be halfway to qualifying for a bowl game.

Answer me this, New York Times: how many Badger fans are actually watching those games? Western Illinois, incidentally, is not an opponent to be taken lightly. But the bought wins are not prostituting selling themselves cheaply.

[Wisconsin associate athletic director John] Chadima, who has arranged Wisconsin’s schedule for 17 years, said he had seen a sharp increase in the cost for nonconference foes over the past five seasons.

For the weaker teams, a bigger appearance check means a chance to upgrade. Buffalo Coach Turner Gill said the Bulls were able to buy new furniture for their football complex and improve their weight room with the $1.5 million from their three nonconference road games. Buffalo plays in the Mid-American Conference.

But there appear to be some troubles.

Not everyone is so rosy about the frenzy involved in finding a 12th opponent. West Virginia and Rutgers learned via the Internet during the off-season that Buffalo had broken their contracts for 2006. When Buffalo did not return phone calls about whether the deal was off, West Virginia’s president wrote to Buffalo’s president demanding an explanation.

“The manner in which it appears that this situation is being handled has detracted from the considerable respect we have gained over the years for your school and conference,” David C. Hardesty, West Virginia’s president, wrote on Feb. 26.

When Buffalo responded two weeks later, it said that the Mid-American Conference was in charge of its scheduling. Buffalo’s athletic director, Warde Manuel, said he regretted the way the situation was handled and that he, and not the conference, would handle Buffalo’s future scheduling.

“It literally had nothing to do with money,” Mr. Manuel said. “This wasn’t a money grab for me at all.”

Rick Chryst, commissioner of the Mid-American Conference, said he took over Buffalo’s scheduling because of Mr. Manuel’s being new to the job and the poor financial situation for the university’s athletic department.

Question: is Buffalo effectively in receivership with the conference facing being de-rated out of the major bowl circuit? (And $1.5 million for the weight room is well short of the new locker room, weight room, and study hall a-building in DeKalb.)

NO DUMB IDEA EVER GOES AWAY. University Diaries has been following the corrosive effect of big time football on the academy for some time. Most recently, she's turned up what we refer to as an opportunity cost, here at [Southwest] Missouri State and at Colorado. Start at [Southwest] Missouri State, where one observer sees the folly of dropping some non-revenue sports in preference to football.

One of the main reasons given for not cutting the football program by university officials has been that in doing so, the university would lose face recognition amongst the community and prospective students. Somehow, students make their decision to attend Missouri State based on the fact that MSU has a mediocre football program in place.

Doubtful. A recommendation to new readers: pick up Murray Sperber's Beer and Circus (my regular readers are about to get a review session) and read about the potential reverse effect. Quoth Publishers Weekly,

Sperber argues that an ever-growing number of state universities lure undergraduates to their schools with halcyon images of booze-filled parties and prominent sports programs while abandoning their commitment to the students' education. Administrators use the students' sorely needed tuition dollars to fund sports, build research facilities and hire world-class faculty members, who give the school prestige but scarcely give their legions of undergraduate charges the time of day. With an eye fastened on the dangerous phenomenon of binge drinking, Sperber (College Sports Inc.) backs his assertions with responses to a questionnaire he circulated to students across the country, interviews with professors and administrators and frequent citations from sociological studies. Sperber methodically attempts to persuade readers that at the largest universities, where the majority of young Americans attain their undergraduate degrees, "the party scene connected to big-time sports events replaces meaningful undergraduate education." Though he admits his work deals mainly with anecdotal rather than scientific proof, the wealth of evidence Sperber amasses to support his convictions makes for a striking, sobering read.

Professor Sperber offered a case study of the attempt of the powers of the [State] University of [New York at] Buffalo to reposition their respectable, if sports-invisible university as a joke member of the Mid-American, to the detriment of all concerned. I don't know of any noteworthy academic programs at [Southwest] Missouri State (Golden Bear fans, enlighten me), but I do know they have a solid womens' basketball team, their coach's trailer-park hairdo notwithstanding.

Then head over to Colorado, where embattled party director football coach Gary Barnett has stepped down. Read a Denver columnist's version of Imagine.

"I want it to be clear that I'm going to bring a great football coach to this university," University of Colorado-Boulder athletic director Mike Bohn said last week.

It won't be Don Morton.

Tulsa football coach Steve Kragthorpe does not want to replace Gary Barnett as coach at Colorado.

Sorry, I'm being mean.

But read the entire Denver Post column.

"Ironically, at a time when higher education has never been more important to our nation ... confidence in the university has been badly damaged by the corruption of big-time college sports," [former University of Michigan president James] Duderstadt said. Until universities confront this pig in the parlor, "they will be unable to earn the public trust."

Forget the myth that football pumps millions into university budgets every year. Even if it were true, it wouldn't matter. As the tattered reputation of CU demonstrates, football - and our obsession with it - has cost us dearly.

And it deludes others.

During their time at Marquette, every student inevitably discusses our lack of a football team.

Most students want a football team because it would be fun or cool. While it would be fun, a football team could propel Marquette into the upper echelon of universities.

After Marquette’s Final Four appearance in 2003, the group of student applicants for the following year was the largest ever. This result of larger applicant pools has changed Marquette’s reputation and has allowed the school to be more selective.

Many gifted students disregard Marquette because we lack a football team. While this may be shortsighted on their part, it does refl ect the general sentiment surrounding our school.

I bet Marquette’s strong alumni base feels the same way. Ask any alumnus what they missed out on during their Marquette experience and a majority will say football. In a time when many Marquette alumni feel isolated from the school after last year’s nickname controversy, the best way for Marquette to reach out to students and alumni would be to reinstitute a once-proud program: Marquette Football.

With a football team, Marquette would attract better students. A proud tradition would be restored and alumni interest would grow. Alumni donations would increase providing additional funding for student projects. In turn, this would attract even stronger students and professors. This cycle would propel Marquette into the highest tier of universities.

Right. (Not to generalize from my own experience, but the high price and skimpy academic reputation of Marquette more than offset whatever drawing power Al McGuire had. Milwaukee, which was off the sports radar screen completely, and Madison, where there was a strong hockey team exactly one member of my graduating class knew about, drew for the academics. The social set weighed the relative merits of Oshkosh and Whitewater. Revenge of the nerds, forsooth!) As far as football, anybody remember George Andrie? (He'll sell you logo-wear if you're interested.)

Again, not to generalize from my own experience, but the recent successes of Northern Illinois football have not been without consequences: classes disrupted on Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday evenings, longer police blotters on home-game weekends, and resources openly reallocated away from the academic departments. Is that really where Marquette and [Southwest] Missouri State want to go?

WHY AREN'T WE TWENTY POINTS AHEAD?

Two weeks ago, Touchdown Jesus blessed Victor E. Huskie's latest dog bone.

Over the weekend, Northern Illinois hosted Buffalo at Huskie Stadium.  At halftime, the home team enjoyed a 14-3 lead.  It's a sixty minute game, and what happened next gave Red State's Brad Slager another moment of mayhem.  "Two weeks ago, Northern Illinois shocked the nation by beating Notre Dame on the road, sealing the win with a blocked field goal. This week, they hosted underdog Buffalo which tied the game on a desperation toss and then locked the win in overtime – by blocking a field goal attempt."  Oh, and somehow the Rose Bowl mooshed up into September with Michigan beating USC.  Thus did Northern Illinois go from ranked twenty-third in the Associated Press poll to receiving no votes, whilst the football coaches weren't that impressed with the win two weeks ago, sparing them the ignominy of "others receiving votes" there.

SELLING YOUR INTEGRITY CHEAPLY. One of Northern Illinois University's Saturday afternoon football games has been rescheduled ... for a Sunday evening.

Northern Illinois will make its ninth television appearance of the 2006 football season when the Huskies face Miami (Ohio) on Sunday, Oct. 8 at 7 p.m. (Central) in Oxford, Ohio on ESPN, NIU Athletics Director Jim Phillips announced Wednesday. The game was originally scheduled for Saturday, Oct. 7 at 2 p.m. at Yager Stadium.

"This is a tremendous opportunity for our football program and for our entire university to be showcased on national television as the only college football game that evening," Phillips said. "You can't put a price tag on the exposure and attention this will bring to the university. It's invaluable."

The things we'll do for TV.

The national Sunday night airing marks the ninth of NIU's 12 regular season games in 2006 to be announced for telecast. In addition to the ESPN Sunday night game versus Miami, the Huskies' Nov. 7 Tuesday night home contest versus West Division rival Toledo will air on ESPN2, while the 2006 season opener at Ohio State will be televised by ABC with kickoff at 2:30 p.m. (Central). ESPNU will carry Northern Illinois' home finale versus Central Michigan beginning at 7 p.m. on Friday, Nov. 17.

Five NIU games will be televised live on Comcast Sports Net, including home contests with Ohio (Sept. 9), Buffalo (Sept. 16), Indiana State (Sept. 23) and Temple (Oct. 21) and the 2006 regular season finale at Eastern Michigan (Nov. 24).

Put another way, four of Northern Illinois's twelve games have been scheduled at non-traditional times for the benefit of TV. (I'm cutting the university a bit of slack here, including the Saturday evening games as "traditional." In these parts, it can stay hot late into the day well into fall.) Specifically, the September schedule provides the scheduling God and Harry Stuldreher intended: Saturdays at Ohio State, Ohio here, Buffalo here in the evening, Indiana State here, and at Ball State in the evening. October has been defiled: at Miami of Ohio on a Sunday, at Western Michigan the following Saturday, Temple (choosing the Buffalo route to Beer and Circuses?) here, and at Iowa, both on Saturdays. November ... got your polar suit? Toledo here on a Tuesday, Central Michigan here Friday of the following week, then a trip to Eastern Michigan the day after Thanksgiving. Invaluable exposure?? When, as former Northern Star sports columnist Nick Gerts, now with the DeKalb Chronicle, notes, the time slot was available because ESPN no longer had the Sunday evening professional game?

ESPN flexed its almighty muscle once again this week, dangling anything and everything to get back in the national spotlight on Sunday nights. The victims are not only two Mid-American Conference programs, but also every student-athlete competing in the NCAA Division I-A for football.

Northern Illinois and Miami hold the dubious honor of opening the Bristol, Conn.-based company's Sunday Night Football on Oct. 8. Unfortunately, the RedHawks sacrificed the traditional Saturday Homecoming celebrations to have the game televised on a network self-proclaimed as the “Worldwide Leader of Sports.”

But it's amateur sport. Not.

One person inside the Northern Illinois Athletic Department, who did not want to be quoted or identified, was disturbed by the move to Sunday.

Sure the exposure is tremendous. There isn't a university out there that wouldn't bite at the chance to play in front of millions of people for the sake of promotion. But there has to be a time where someone says enough is enough.College athletes have been prostituted around on television for numerous years, and ESPN solidifies that by moving college football to Sunday.

The Mid-American Coference is equally to blame for not stepping in and saying no as well. Given the chance, the conference would most likely agree to having a televised football game on at any
time of day, whether its at noon the day before Thanksgiving or when the clock strikes midnight on New Year's Day.

However, exposure - and money - comes at a cost.

The MAC's decision to go along with ESPN could alienate its already small fanbase. The abensce of a Saturday Homecoming game against the Huskies now gives Miami just two Saturday home games. The university already has problems trying to fill Yager Stadium, which was the 100th best in the country in attendance last year with an average of 15,241 a game.

And as Mr Gerts notes, the scheduling is unlikely to help the Mid-American or Northern Illinois deal with the academic probation they've found themselves in, resources to help build the new locker room notwithstanding.

THE HARD WAY.

The end of November is time for the Mid-American Conference football championship game, in Detroit's Ford Field.  Once again, Northern Illinois represent the West Division.

The opponent was Buffalo, and the smart money had Buffalo as a prohibitive favorite.

For fifty-eight minutes and thirty seconds, the smart money looked right.

The game lasts sixty minutes.

The Bulls (10-3) squandered a 19-point lead in the final 15 minutes, 17 seconds, as the Huskies cut the deficit to five early in the fourth quarter, on a 28-yard touchdown reception by D.J. Brown with 17 seconds left in the third quarter and a 32-yard TD reception by Spencer Tears, 2:09 into the fourth. Then, Brown’s 35-yard catch lifted the Huskies to a one-point lead with 1:09 left, and the Bulls had to scramble to create anything that resembled a comeback drive.

The Huskies had possession for only 11:23 of the second half, but kept the ball out of UB’s hands at the most opportune time – the final drive of the game.

Northern Illinois defensive end Josh Corcoran had to sit out the first half account a targeting penalty in the final regular season game. His return in the second half undoubtedly made blocking assignments more difficult for Buffalo.  Buffalo's defense, which entered the game highly regarded, "collapsed" as viewed from New York, but it was just another day at the office for Northern Illinois.  "NIU’s offensive onslaught in the second half was a surprise to everyone but the Huskies. An offense that entered the game averaging only 19.9 points per game torched the Bulls' defense for 137 passing yards after halftime by quarterback Marcus Childers (21-for-33 passing, 300 yards, four touchdowns)."

Medium's Justin Coffin asserts, "Northern Illinois is Impossible."

The MAC is a chaotic place for most programs. That chaos is fueled by the coaching turnover that is painful for the schools that endure departure and cute to the folks who call this place “The Cradle of Coaches.” The biggest indicator of upcoming disappointment in this league is, largely, any success at all. The big, rich schools will come and steal dream coaches using their lucrative TV deal money at the first sign of progress, and that’s just the way things are.

NIU thrives in the chaos. The Huskies win consistently when the environment is better designed for them to fail, so of course they won another MAC title on Friday night when all signs deep into the game pointed to an imminent Buffalo victory. Of course they stepped up on defense. Of course Childers, a quarterback averaging barely over five yards per attempt on the season, completed 21 of 33 passes for 300 yards and four touchdowns against the MAC’s third best scoring defense. Of course they came back from 19 down to win. Of course they did it “the hard way.”

In the last decade the Huskies have lost two coaches to bigger jobs and had to regroup after losing a Jordan Lynch, a finalist for the Heisman Trophy, to graduation. Where so many others failed, the Huskies continued winning. Central Michigan, Kent State and Bowling Green have all played for or won a MAC championship in the last 10 years. All three of those programs are in the midst of their worst stretches of football in school history. NIU hasn’t stopped winning.

Let's just enjoy it while it lasts.

Next up: the Boca Raton Bowl, December 18, facing the University of Alabama at Birmingham Blazers.

Rod Carey enters bowl season with an 0-5 record in bowl games as head coach – the Jan. 1, 2013, Orange Bowl game, was as an interim head coach. A win would mean NIU’s ninth of the season, which would mark NIU’s highest win total since 2014.

“In the past, we have not been successful in bowl games. And that’s the fact of it,” coach Rod Carey said. “You can’t change that. But that’s not about me. It’s not about past records. It’s about this group of guys having the opportunity which we feel great about to play a 14th game and compete together.”

Yes, the opponent is that University of Alabama at Birmingham.  "UAB (10-3) returns to its second consecutive bowl after having its program reinstated six months after its December 2014 disbanding and just completed a conference title-winning season as it defeated Middle Tennessee, 27-25, in the Conference USA Championship Game."

Buffalo will play Troy State, or is it simply Troy these days?  I'm not sure what it says about the state of college football that what used to be the Go Daddy Bowl in Mobile, Alabama has since become the GMAC Bowl (would you buy a used car?) and is currently the Dollar General Bowl, and it's just before Christmas, rather than part of Mobile's Mardi Gras opening ceremonies.

I still wonder, though, if the football program is good value for money?

KEEPING UP IN KNUTE ROCKNE'S BACKYARD.

College football might have been invented by the Ivies, but it was perfected in the Great Lakes, with Notre Dame developing enough of a following to be able to call the National Collegiate Athletic Association a conspiracy in restraint of trade, and going its own way with television contracts; and with Sid Luckman and Amos Alonzo Stagg making the University of Chicago so dominant that beating them inspired one Big Ten fight song (the oh-so-trite "Hail to the Victors") and provided an objective in another ("Run the ball around Chicago", which later became "Run the ball 'round Minnesota", and subsequently morphed into the Wisconsin game plan, "Run the ball on down the field"); that is until Robert Maynard Hutchins decided that building bombs below the grandstands was a better use of resources than throwing bombs in view of the grandstand.

The quintessence of college football is the Big Ten, with each program holding a rich tradition.

Then there's the Big Ten's hardscrabble neighbor, the Mid-American Conference. The big Midwestern industrial states once had the resources, population base, and committment to provide lots of capacity for higher education, and a number of directional teachers colleges became directional universities, with several such universities in Ohio and Michigan particularly becoming the Mid-American.

Unlike the Big Ten, the Mid-American is a major money suck for member institutions.

[I]n the Big 10 only 0.16% of university budgets go to subsidize athletics. Yet, in the poorer Mid American Conference (MAC), subsidies make up over 5% of the schools' overall budgets (see this [College Affordability] study for more on the regressive athletics tax). At some schools this percentage is even larger. For example 10.5% of total core expenditures at SUNY Buffalo go to subsidize athletics. At another MAC school, Eastern Michigan, the figure is 7.9%.

Among the Mid-American universities, students pick up some of the tab, in exchange for prepaid admission to games, a benefit few avail themselves of.

However, even many FBS schools charge high student fees to subsidize sports. Here are a few examples:
Ohio University $765
University of Virginia $657
Bowling Green State University $650
SUNY Buffalo $474
University of Northern Illinois [c.q.] $453
Over the course of their 4+ years in college, students at many schools will have paid thousands of dollars to prop-up unprofitable athletics programs, regardless of their personal interest in sports.

Virginia is not a Mid-American program; Ohio will play Northern Illinois in the Mid-American title game, which will be played December 3 in Detroit. (First prize, a weekend in Detroit. Second prize, a week in Detroit).

And Akron recently borrowed for a new stadium that doesn't do much to draw audiences for a rebuilding football team.

UA Athletic Director Tom Wistrcill said he is disappointed InfoCision Stadium hasn't drawn as expected. But it's easy for fans to become dispirited when the team loses soundly and often.
''You only have 12 [game] days,'' he said. ''You work 365 days a year for 12 days. That's six home games. It's a cruel sport that way.''

Let's see if I understand this: the football coach draws a larger salary for working five hours on 12 days, and the professors, who draw a smaller salary for teaching four classes, are taking the stick.

And, as much as I'm enjoying the current Northern Illinois football season, and, having experienced a BCS run and a campus shooting, I much prefer the BCS run, apparently the football visibility is not the enrollment bonanza some observers would expect. I've learned more about the rationale for the branding initiative: apparently we're losing students to other institutions that don't offer Division I football.

THAT FRONT PORCH IS SHOP-WORN.

Athletics directors and unthinking college presidents will refer to the sports programs as the "front porch" of the university.  Competing to have the spiffiest front porch is participating in a positional arms race and Eastern Michigan has been to the athletics arms race as the old Soviet Union was to the nuclear arms race for a long time.  But disarmament is difficult.  "In an effort to stem some of their budget woes, Eastern Michigan University has announced its decision to cut four sports from their athletics program at the end of the 2018 spring athletic season." That's $2.4 million not spent, but students are likely going to be on the hook for athletic fees (for games they opt not to attend) all the same.

The old Soviet Union sort of went out of business, with Vladimir Putin doing what he can to become the next iteration of Alexander III or Josef Stalin.  It's apparently harder for Eastern Michigan.

In order to maintain Division I status with the NCAA, they had to keep 16 spots. In order to remain full membership in the MAC, they had to keep football, men’s and women’s basketball and women’s volleyball. So I can understand why those sports were not cut.

Some people have suggested that Eastern Michigan drop football. I can say with some degree of certainty, that is not going to happen. While football is probably the biggest cost, it is also the biggest generator of revenue for the athletics department. They might be able to trim the budget though but I’m not sure that would save the above programs.

That, dear reader, is why sports pundits ought to understand economics. If your "biggest generator of revenue" doesn't cover that "biggest cost" you're better off shy of the costs and the revenues, particularly, as the essay notes, with an athletics operating deficit of some $27 million per year. And Wisconsin-Green Bay could use some competition in women's basketball.

The article notes Buffalo (the old State University of New York at Buffalo) also confronting its athletics costs.  "In April 2017, Buffalo announced it would cut four varsity sports affecting 120 athletes, including its incredibly successful men’s soccer and women’s rowing programs, in an effort to save $2 million." Buffalo is only recent to Division I football, in the Mid-American, and they're notorious for generating revenue helping other teams become bowl-eligible.

At Eastern Michigan, the sports restructuring will accompany an academic reduction.  "The cut in athletics is linked to a university-wide initiative which is expected to attempt to make up a projected $4.5-to-5.5 million gap in the budget. That initiative is expected to eliminate 42 faculty jobs and lay off 17 others."  That's going to affect more than 133 students.

NO BUYOUTS. The University of Buffalo football team has attracted notice from the alleged newspaper of record for its change of schedule so as to obtain larger guarantees from Capital One Bowl winner Wisconsin and Capital One Bowl loser Auburn. There is no such opportunity for conference games. Buffalo is the most recent addition to the Mid-American Conference, and their schedule included a visit to DeKalb for a Saturday evening game.

It was a pleasantly warm afternoon suitable for tailgating and photography. Happy hour ban or no, a local tavern set up a beer garden on the east end of the tailgating area. There is a rather intense game of beanbag in progress.

Everywhere I went, I saw people playing beanbag.


Although these cars are parked in the "tailgating" area, this was not the only "cartopping" I saw in progress. The proportion of tailgating students to older adults is higher at Northern Illinois than it was at Wisconsin. Perhaps some of the people in this picture will be back to meet up with their second-generation-at-Northern kids in another 25 years. (Or will they meet up with their kids in Madison? I hope they give their eight-year-olds enough free time to organize their own beanbag games at that age.)


The marching band finishes its pregame concert.


The new locker room is taking shape north of the north end zone.


No Godzillatron here, just our scoreboard, and our artillery piece. Had Buffalo played at West Virginia, they would have encountered the Mountaineer, somebody in a Dan'l Boone outfit wielding a flintlock from the French and Indian War that the University of Wisconsin didn't want him to bring into Camp Randall. Here, we have a more substantial field piece, and we do fire a salute after each touchdown. In the background are some trees with a view into the stadium that some fans climbed during the 2003 BCS run to see what was going on inside.


From the west stands, there is a view of the east side of DeKalb. The headlights of westbound trains shine at the stadium as they pass under the old coal dock (gray structure above the M-N sign.) (Sunday update: this is a digital zoom shot with a headlight. The train is about to cross 7^th Street.)


The band reminds the student section where they are. (They also spelled it out for us. Many bands play to the press-box side only.)


On a warm evening, the body painted torsos aren't at risk of frostbite. I understand some of these fans were out when the Gales of November came early.


Yes, there was a game. On the second Northern Illinois play from scrimmage, Garrett Wolfe went 49 yards for a touchdown.


After a Buffalo three-and-out, a Northern touchdown on a reverse was reversed by a penalty, but a few plays later Northern was in the end zone again. We have Siberian Huskies on the field after each score.


The announcers for the student radio station had a nice view from the flying bridge. I hope they have quarters indoors once the Gales of November come.


At halftime, Northern 17, Buffalo 0; Buffalo unable to get a field goal attempt off as time expires thanks to mismanagement of their times out. Halftime of evening games is for fireworks.


The attendance is now a matter of public record. Most seats were occupied.

Northern fielded a punt with just over 4 minutes to play and broke another touchdown run. Buffalo answered with a touchdown near the end of the game, but Northern's special teams blocked the kick. Huskies 31, Bulls 13, the Black Bavarian tastes good.

In other games of interest, Wisconsin 14, San Diego State 0.

TITLETOWN, ILLINOIS.

The print edition of the Northern Star attempted to claim the Titletown, U.S.A. moniker for DeKalb, in the wake of a far-too-intense Northern Illinois win in the Mid-American title game.

NIU looked in prime position in the third quarter to run away with the game, as it came out and tacked on another 10 points to Kent State’s three. Kent State’s kicker Freddy Cortez opened the scoring with a field goal early, but the Huskies scored 10 unanswered points behind a 1-yard touchdown run by Lynch on a drive that included a 44-yard breakaway run by Lynch. Sims added a 29-yard field goal with 2:38 left, to make the score 27-13, NIU.

The fourth quarter is when Kent State showed its will to fight and why it made it to this point of the season.

The Golden Flashes started their first drive of the quarter at their own 4-yard line with more than seven minutes left and put together a 96-yard drive to score, mostly behind a 60-yard pass play from quarterback Spencer Keith to Archer. Keith finished the drive with back-to-back 5-yard rushes, the second going across the goal-line for the score.

Kent State struck again a mere 15 seconds later after, forcing a fumble from Lynch on the Huskies’ first play after Keith scored. The fumble was caused and recovered by freshman linebacker Zack Hitchens, who proceeded to run untouched to the end zone to even the score at 27 with 4:38 remaining in the game.

Each team scored one more touchdown in regulation, and it took a Northern Illinois interception in the end zone in the second overtime (echoes of the Maryland game in DeKalb, years ago?) to secure the win.

WE LOST LESS MONEY THAN NORTHERN ILLINOIS. Thus does Ball State explain away the bottom line from their recent GMAC Bowl loss.

Ball State's bowl expenses fell in the middle for Mid-American Conference schools.

Central Michigan University spent less than Ball State - with a net loss of $67,227 for the Motor City Bowl in Detroit. Northern Illinois University spent more than Ball State - with a net loss of $158,792 for the Independence Bowl in Shreveport, La.

The University at Buffalo and Western Michigan University did not provide financial records from their bowl games.

The article suggests that Mid-American teams do better with bowl games close to home.

Central Michigan University led the MAC with 12,000 tickets sold for the Motor City Bowl [in Detroit] while the University at Buffalo sold 10,300 for the International Bowl [in Toronto].

Northern Illinois University sold 2,000 for the Independence Bowl and Western Michigan sold 2,000 for the Texas Bowl.

When Ball State played in the International Bowl for the 2007-08 season, it sold a little more than 2,000 tickets.

Perhaps that should not surprise, as the Mid-American universities are regional comprehensives, often serving nearby students with little disposable income.

The article also suggests the arms-race properties of football success.

The extra funds from the bowl payout helped prevent Ball State from losing even more money this year than last year. Without the payout, Ball State would have lost more than $492,000 this year.

The article doesn't spell out what the team would have lost had it not gone to the bowl. The coaches, however, prefer to get a bowl bid, as it means two additional months of (official) practice. Ball State officialdom, perhaps with visions of a mineshaft gap, see spillover benefits from the visibility.

While Ball State spent more than $100,000 to play in the GMAC Bowl, university officials said the cost was well worth the investment."I think the benefits from the visibility well exceed the investment of the dollar figure that you see there," said Tony Proudfoot, associate vice president for marketing and communications.

The bowl game was the eighth nationally televised game of the season for the Cardinals, which greatly increased the university's visibility, Proudfoot said. The added visibility made more prospective students aware of Ball State and renewed alumni involvement, he said.

On campus, the bowl game not only improved the experience for football players, but it also improved the college experience for the student body as a whole and increased institutional pride, Proudfoot said.

The evidence suggests something else.

"I think I can say with confidence that interest in attending Ball State and the quality of students that we are getting that are interested in Ball State and the number of students that are interested in Ball State has grown every year over the past several years," Proudfoot said. "Does our participation in bowl games play a role in that? Yes. Can I quantify exactly how much? No, and I'm not sure that any university could."

From 2002 to 2006, Ball State's applications for admission remained within a consistent range of 9,683 at its low to 10,826 at its peak. Since 2006, though, the university has seen its applications for admission increase almost 20 percent.

However, other universities across the state have seen similar increases regardless of their athletics programs.

From 2006 to 2008, Indiana State University saw its applications for admission increase almost 45 percent - from 5,230 to 7,572. During that span, Indiana State racked up 26 consecutive losses on the football field.

Indiana University, Purdue University, IPFW and IUPUI also have seen a 10 to 25 percent increase in applications since 2006.

"I don't think anybody chooses the college to go to just because they have a football team, although there may be a few, I don't know," [Ball State assistant treasurer Randy] Howard said. "But I do think that maybe a student that hadn't really heard a lot about Ball State and then hears about them, generates some buzz about them and then they started looking and say, 'Wow, they've got a great architecture program,' or whatever.'"

While Ball State's applications for admittance have increased in recent years, the number of students enrolling has decreased.Ball State's enrollment numbers have decreased every year since 2003, according to the Ball State's Fact Book. During the 2003-04 academic year, Ball State had 17,447 full-time students. In 2007-08, Ball State's enrollment decreased to 16,493.

A regression analysis of changes in enrollment would have trouble capturing the effect of the football program in the presence of the recession beginning with the 2008 application season, which induces a substitution toward cheaper institutions, and in the presence of lower birth rates from 1990 onward, which is turning up in college-age cohorts.

Thanks to University Diaries for catching the story.

IT'S BEEN CRUMBLING FOR A LONG TIME.

So much for the Experts suggesting the Green Bay Packers would contend for the conference championship this year.

Observers can’t help but wonder: What is wrong with the Packers?

It’s been nearly a year since Ted Thompson stepped down as general manager. But to understand what is happening in 2018, you must look back a few years. Many interviewed for this story say the Packers’ struggles can be traced back to Thompson’s final years as GM; others who won’t say it still suggest it with their actions.

Thompson, of course, had a wildly successful overall run in Green Bay. He began his career as a front-office executive in Green Bay in 1992. After leaving for a five-year stint in Seattle, he returned to the Packers as general manager in 2005. The first selection of his first draft was Aaron Rodgers, and the team went to the postseason nine times in 13 seasons of Thompson’s GM tenure, including a Super Bowl XLV title. He will deservedly be inducted into the Packers Hall of Fame in May.

Perhaps so, although if you're going to follow the draft-and-develop model, you've got to have draft choices developing in two or three years. The 2015 draft class was a failure.

WE'RE STUCK WITH WEEKNIGHT FOOTBALL.

Grantland's Holly Anderson interviews Mid-American commissioner John Steinbrecher.

The difference was, our midweek games concentrated on one month primarily, the month of November. If you schedule it right, you end up playing out your conference race on national TV. And now because of the BCS, there are generally national implications with these games.

That calls for a bit of good luck, Eastern Michigan playing Western Michigan would feature two teams working through rough patches; Buffalo playing Akron might be entertaining or not. There's a lot of play value in Northern Illinois at Toledo, but one such game, in which lots of points were scored, featured lots of empty seats at the Glass Bowl.  Never mind that students and faculty might have other plans.

I in no way want to suggest anytime you miss class that it's not important, but of all the sports we have, and in our conference we offer championships in 23 sports, football players miss the least amount of class. We actually have a league policy, implemented by the athletic directors, that the home-team athletes have to attend class the day of the game. It's part and parcel of what goes along with college athletics, the travel involved, but there really is minimal missed class time. Some of the bigger questions are whether hosting a midweek game causes disruption to the rest of the campus, and can you manage that.

I've noticed that one parking lot which used to be posted as "Football Parking After 4.30" (with leaflets placed on cars advising students and staff to plan to park elsewhere on game night) is now posted "No Football Parking". The next evening home game will be on the Tuesday before Thanksgiving. The University used to end classes at noon on Wednesday. About ten years ago they ended classes at 10 pm on that Tuesday. We'll see how many fans stick around for the game.  Now other conferences are rolling out evening games (Thursday and Friday, mostly), and Mr Steinbrecher thinks it's worth it.

It's why I think we've had programs starting to take it and grow with it now and building national brands. I would contend that programs like Northern Illinois and Toledo are national brands now. It's facilitated some national recruiting in ways we did not have open to us before, and the results are showing themselves on the field.

A Daily Chronicle analysis suggests the results show up off the field as well.

Each game on ESPN provides commercial slots for both participating institutions on the broadcast. According to Brad Adgate, research director at Horizon Media, these spots usually cost $3,500.

Beyond the pure monetary value of TV ads, Adgate says there are many other positive attributes that benefit the university beyond its football team.

"It helps in recruiting, it helps with the alumni, it helps with the overall sports program," Adgate said. "You're going to apply to a school you've heard of, rather than one you haven't heard of. There's a recognition factor that helps in elevating the prestige of the school and putting it on the radar of a high school student. There's a lot of different positives that can result from being on ESPN."

Provided the high school student is an individual who can benefit from college. Recognition as a good place for mid-week parties is not the same thing as recognition for creative faculty, perhaps in numbers commensurate with the enrollments.

I'm tempted to give the last word on weeknight football in November to our meteorologist, who, in advance of the Ball State game, advised spectators to dress as if they were attending a January game in Green Bay or Chicago.

ANOTHER REASON TO DISLIKE WEEKNIGHT FOOTBALL.

Yeah, I've been beating this deflated pigskin for a long time, and it's still with us, unsustainable or not.  But help is on the way.  The latest Mid-American schedules, complete with lots of opportunities to shiver in a vast, nearly empty stadium in November, are out, and they're too much for Huskie Wire sports pundit Jesse Severson.  "MAC schedule shows top priority is money, not athletes."  Yes, as G. B. Shaw would have it, your salary as a college sports pundit depends on not understanding some things.  But Mr Severson is having none of the new schedule, despite the fact that playing on Saturday and then on Thursday isn't as onerous as playing on Sunday and then on Thursday, as is the case in paid football that is explicit about being paid football.

The Huskies will travel to Bowling Green on Oct. 21 in the final Saturday game of the regular season. The following Thursday, they will host Eastern Michigan.

Since NIU started playing midweek games in 2004, the Huskies traditionally have been given a nice buffer between the last Saturday game and the first weeknight contest. In 2009, they played Akron (27-10 win) on a Saturday and Eastern Michigan (50-6 win) on the following Thursday, but both games were in the friendly confines of Huskie Stadium.

This coming season, the Huskies will travel to Bowling Green on that last Saturday before packing up and traveling home on either a bus or a plane, and then turn around with minimum rest for an important contest against suddenly competent Eastern Michigan – the first MAC West game of the year for NIU.

Before thinking NIU has it bad, Ball State has to run the brutal two-games-in-five-days gauntlet twice this season – Oct. 21 against Central Michigan and Oct. 26 against Toledo, along with Nov. 16 against Buffalo and Nov. 21 against Miami (Ohio). The only saving grace for those poor Cardinals players is that all four games are at home.

Other conferences have done that Saturday-to-Thursday turnaround – the Mountain West, for example – and you see it in the NFL with its truly hard-to-watch Thursday Night Football games, but at least those guys are getting a payday for their backbreaking work.

All of it, at the end of the day, is about money.

The networks want live football to put on the air during weeknights. The conferences are more than happy to get in bed with the networks because it brings them giant bags with dollar signs printed on them and brand it with words such as "exposure" and hashtags such as "#MACtion."

Sure, there is something to be said about the exposure that being on ESPN's networks brings. However, we've seen what it's done to stadium attendance. All that is worrisome, but it's much less sinister than putting in harm's way the athletes that earn those TV contracts.

There is more and more information coming out about the dangers of concussions, so that we can no longer simply stick our head in the sand. Playing two games in five days is dangerous.

Precisely.  Go, read the rest.

Let's restore football to a State of Good Repair.

Friday night is for high schools.

Saturday is for colleges and universities.

Sunday is for the professionals, preferably in a stadium in the shadow of a steel works or a paper mill.

College bowls finished on New Year's Day unless that's a Sunday.

YOU'RE AN INTERIM COACH WHETHER THE JOB TITLE SAYS "INTERIM" OR NOT.

Fourteen years ago, North Carolina State recruited Northern Illinois head football coach Dave Doeren right in the middle of Northern Illinois earning an invitation to play in the Orange Bowl.  "North Carolina State created the vacancy late last week, under circumstances that prompted Jane Shaw at Phi Beta Cons [the link is long dead — Ed.] to make invidious comparisons between the sacking of coaches and the sacking, or not, of professors."

North Carolina State University just fired its football coach. Tom O’Brien had a winning record over six seasons (but not in the school’s conference, the ACC). He had taken the team to four bowl games, and his team had beaten its chief rival, UNC–Chapel Hill, five times. But the athletic director, Debbie Yow, wants more “aggressive” recruiting. As one fan said, O’Brien was “pretty good,” just not good enough.

Nothing changes in Raleigh.  "NC State's McMurray Family Director of Athletics Boo Corrigan has announced that Wolfpack head football coach Dave Doeren has been relieved of his duties effective immediately."

TOO LATE TO THE POSITIONAL ARMS RACE?

The new indoor practice facility at Northern Illinois University is necessary because ... everybody else has one.

"Many of the schools in the [Mid-American Conference] have an indoor facility," [athletics director Jeff] Compher said. "Eastern Michigan, Central Michigan and Toledo have one, and Buffalo is in talks to have one put in. We understand the need to have it for our conference and ourselves for recruiting and to do the things we need to do to prepare ourselves for a championship."

Compher added the facility will be constructed behind the Jeffery and Kimberly Yordon Center, which will allow NIU to take advantage of all the facilities that are already in place.

A columnist at the Northern Star questions the preferences revealed by the plan.

If you're going to spend an ample amount of bucks on a new training facility, you should also probably have the crop of talent to be using those facilities. 

The NIU football team had a terrific season last year, but losing as many starters on defense as it did, and the offensive power it will lose soon, where are the heirs to lay claim to the starting positions? 

A nice training facility can definitely improve a team, but a team is only going to be as talented as the players. 

You can't buy a win against teams like Wisconsin. You need to steadily and consistently recruit talent. 

NIU had its share of quality players make it into pro-sports, most notably Michael Turner in the NFL. 

However, NIU is not at the top of the list for prospective student-athletes. There are a plethora of options that would be higher on a wish-list. 

NIU President John Peters also recently announced his plan to increase enrollment to 30,000 by 2020. 

Along with this proclamation, he also highlighted attaining more high caliber academic students. 

Many of the players who spend their careers in NIU are not destined for greatness at a professional level. Many of them will complete a degree, earn a nice job, and live life as a "normal" person. 

I'm all for bettering the campus in any way possible, but when the graduation rate itself has been under 60 percent since 2004 and trending down the last few years (according to Collegemeasures.org), perhaps there should be a greater focal point on improving academic life on campus rather than improving the success of athletics. 

For as much work as [donor Kenneth] Chessick has done for academia at NIU in the past as well as his scholarships, there still seems to be a disconnect in terms of the success of students. 

Maybe there is a way to get the great minds at our university together and concentrate on what makes a college great and prepares those of us not gifted with athletic talent for the rest of our lives; success in academics and programs that prepare us for our futures.

At the university, that push for additional enrollment includes a push for online and commuter students, perhaps not the clientele most likely to be impressed by big time football.  On the other hand, that same strategic plan envisions new posh student housing and improved climbing walls, perhaps to attract more football fans.

MORE LIKE A COACHING SQUARE DANCE THAN A COACHING CARROUSSEL.

Thus did a Milwaukee news analyst describe the annual ritual of unsuccessful head coaches cleaning out one office only to fill another.  The Babylon Bee is not wrong in its satire.  "Losing Football Team Excitedly Introduces New Coach Just Fired From Other Losing Football Team"  The stock photo accompanying the article is of Mike McCarthy, who went from winning a Super Bowl with America's Team to coaching a Dallas Cowboys team that was excused, a couple of years ago, from the playoffs, by America's Team.  Subsequently, Cowboys owner Jerry Jones asked Mr McCarthy to clean out his desk.  But his name might still be on this off-season's dance card.

A losing football team excitedly announced today it had hired a new head coach, who was just fired from a different losing football team.

Though the team's previous coach was also hired from yet another losing team, the general manager felt confident the new loser coach would stop the losing.

"This will change everything," announced general manager John Ryans. "With seven wins and twenty-nine losses over the past three years, our new coach knows what it takes to win. He also knows what it takes to not win. He's got that knowledge, and bringing that knowledge is huge. With our group of players who generally lose, plus a new coach who's been losing, we've never been in a better position to not lose."

According to league sources, all of the losing football teams are once again participating in the annual mandatory coach swap. "This time will be different, I know it," said local fan Marcus Denison. "He really was the best coach available, because the coaches that win didn't get fired. He may be a loser, but he's lost in very different ways than our old coach. I think it's going to be a great fit."

At publishing time, one unlucky coach was left at the end of the annual coach swap, thus becoming the head coach of the Cleveland Browns.

It's a ritual common in organized sports.  How many baseball teams did Dave Bristol or Leo Durocher or Gene Mauch or Harry Walker manage in their careers?  Sparky Anderson, who had two very good runs with the Reds and Tigers cracked wise about enjoying a sort of tenure.  And Ned Yost couldn't secure the main prize in Milwaukee but subsequently did so with Kansas City.

THE COFFEE FUND IS DEPLETED.

A DeKalb sports pundit suggests the little tin box has been unlocked a few too many times.

The problem: five years of underachieving football, where achieving means winning bowl games.

After a terrible fake punt call and another postseason blowout, this time a 36-14 loss to Duke on Tuesday in the Quick Lane Bowl, new leadership would help. If this were the Bears, I’d urge George McCaskey to immediately fire the head coach – the way Hub Arkush has been doing.

But the Huskies play for a public university that already has spent its buyout budget this year. Even if NIU has the cash to make a coaching change, it lacks the political capital.

Earlier this year, the board of trustees had to vote – twice – to pay former Mismanager-in-Chief Doug Baker a severance worth $600,000. They took heat for that golden parachute from politicians, the public and the news media.

Baker’s $450,000 salary was nowhere near the $623,000 Carey will earn in 2017. It would cost the school about $950,000 to buy out Carey’s contract, according to USA Today.

If NIU spends more than $1.5 million on buyouts in a year, it’ll be clobbered with that fact any time financial issues arise – and rightly so.

Maybe NIU officials should just do what they’re doing with the president’s job – say they’re not going to hire or sign anyone until 2019, when Carey’s contract will expire.

Then, if Carey leads the Huskies through the gauntlet of nonconference foes scheduled for 2018 – at Iowa, Florida State and BYU, plus a home date with Utah – and comes out with even two wins, maybe he stays.

That's right, Northern Illinois continue to schedule highly regarded teams, and they have enough of a history winning such games, including at least one at Iowa in the past few years, and they earn bowl games with opponents you might have heard of, when it comes to the bowl games themselves, it's not so pretty.

LIFE IMITATES THE BABYLON BEE.

As professional football's regular season ended and the ritual sackings of coaches commenced, we noted them recognizing that coaches enjoy a form of tenure.

The Babylon Bee is not wrong in its satire.  "Losing Football Team Excitedly Introduces New Coach Just Fired From Other Losing Football Team"  The stock photo accompanying the article is of Mike McCarthy, who went from winning a Super Bowl with America's Team to coaching a Dallas Cowboys team that was excused, a couple of years ago, from the playoffs, by America's Team.  Subsequently, Cowboys owner Jerry Jones asked Mr McCarthy to clean out his desk.  But his name might still be on this off-season's dance card.

And lo, it has come to pass that Mike McCarthy might be on the dance card of the team America's Team beat in that Super Bowl.

When Mike Tomlin left the Pittsburgh Steelers, it seemed to increase the odds Aaron Rodgers would leave, either to retire or pursue a new team.

But the latest head coach rumors coming out of Pittsburgh, involving Mike McCarthy, could change things back in the other direction.

McCarthy was Rodgers' head coach with the Green Bay Packers when they won a Super Bowl.

And it sounds like McCarthy is one of the favorites to end up with the Pittsburgh gig.

What transpired in Green Bay in the years after that Super Bowl win was not pretty.  I wonder how much of that history Doug Whaley, former general manager with Buffalo and current general manager of the springtime United Football League, knows.

Former NFL GM Doug Whaley spoke on 93.7 FM in Pittsburgh to break some of this down.

He was asked whether Rodgers and McCarthy would make sense as a pairing.

"Absolutely, no doubt," Whaley answered, then continued. "Then they can seriously put a plan together and say, let's get a quarterback."

The suggestion from Whaley, it appears, is for Rodgers to spend one year with McCarthy as his starting QB so they can figure out where they are going next at the most important position in sports.

Yes, Mike McCarthy has experience as quarterback coach, and yet a transitional quarterback working with what might be a transitional coach to quickly develop a new quarterback might get ... interesting.