Colleges and universities that don't have college football... (NCAA10 question)
 

But should...

I have this thing for adding universities or colleges that used to have college football or don't, but should, to my NCAA10 dynasties. My new idea revolves around creating a conference of them, but save for some Big East basketball schools, I can't really think of any others that make a lot of sense from a storyline perspective. Or you know, a good jersey/mascot perspective. I don't care. I know lots of schools, but after awhile they all mash together. I thought folks here might have stories that would make some schools more interesting than others to differentiate.

Anyone?

University of Cal State Fullerton and University of Cal State Long Beach.

Fullerton had just built a nice new stadium for the Titans when the hammer came down on the state budget. They were in the Big West and never really that great. In fact the last three years of play were very bad. There have been a number of attempts to bring the sport back to Fullerton but the money just isn't there.
Cal State Fullerton Titans football - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Long Beach State 49ers football - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Over .500 record in I-A playing in what became the Big West.


Wikipedia has some more for you if you want to read team stories.
Category:Defunct college football teams - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Hmm - I'm not sure exactly what you're asking, but the first schools that come to mind are NYU, which is a huge school and had a strong football program until the 60s, and the 1-AA teams that recently gave up football - (Hofstra, Northeastern)

But check out these two wiki links:

Div. I schools that have never sponsored football:

List of Division I schools that have never sponsored football - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

List of Defunct college football teams:

List of defunct college football teams - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Pepperdine
Gonzaga

UT-Arlington

to expound: located in a hotbed of high school talent, but has to compete with TCU, SMU and North Texas on a local level, then the gorillas of the Big 12 (Texas, OU, Tech and A&M) on a statewide level.

Thanks.

Yeah, I saw the wiki link. I wanted anecdotes. Like, someone to tell me the misty eyed story of their hometown team or some alma mater dead team or you know "this town is so large. Surely college football would work here." Sorta stuff. Like a pro sports expansion thread, except...it's college football not pro sports (oh wait...)

I've tinkered with the University of Chicago deciding to get back into the Big Ten. University of the Pacific is an interesting case, maybe. Perhaps replacing the Sun Belt (or the SEC, heh.) with an all Northern football power conference of dead football schools.

But after a while they all look the same.

Ooh, I'd seen the defunct one. But I'd never seen the "never sponsored football" one. That's a cool one. Thanks for that. Never would've thought to google it.

Well considering the size of Southern California the loss of Fullerton and Long Beach were pretty big, sure we still have USC and UCLA but Fullerton was the only Orange County, Div 1-A team, we have a number of Div 3 schools and JCs.

Never would've known that Fullerton story. Good logo, too. Always important. Heh.

Of course, you can't actually "add" schools to FBS in NCAA10, you just replace other ones and conference sizes remain exactly the same. So I'd probably replace an entire conference. Like, ditching all but Troy in the Sun Belt. At least two of the WAC schools (New Mexico State and SJSU) and I'm always torn about which MAC schools to jettison. I always kick UAB to the curb too, since their stadium is large and would fit a make-believe team better.

So it's not actually adding, just replacing the yawntastic ones.

The stuff about Mike Pringle and Damon Allen is neat, all time leading rusher and passer in the CFL.

This makes me wish NCAA 10 had FCS schools like they did 10 years ago.

Anyways, I'd love to see a DePaul squad. Based out of Chicago, they can play at Soldier Field.

Well, you could create an FCS squad via Teambuilder. It has all of their logos on there. No real rosters for those teams, but meh.

U Chicago is the obvious one that comes to mind. The Carlisle Indians were another that revolutionized the game. And Iowa Pre-Flight nearly won a national title.

University of the Pacific

Allow me to be a homer for a bit and say Wichita State springs to mind as a great choice for this.

A team that existed the past but was absolutely devastated by a horrible plane crash that killed I think 30+ people.

There is a big push around here ever few years to get the team restarted but the cost is too high, and I can't see it happening.

That's a good comeback story though for a dynasty.

I think Eastern Michigan Univ should get a football team.


EDIT: Maybe you could call it the Hurons.

Didn't Boston University drop their football program in the last ten years or so?

Whoops, they're on this list. I guess it was a little more than ten.

Seems like you could have a real nice go at Atlantic 10 teams -- a "legitimate" conference in hoops, and many of whom have defunct football programs.

There is one in Utah that has grown in stature and size to be close to Utah State University in the WAC, Utah Valley University.

They have made a blanket statement they will not create a football team because they are about 8 miles away from BYU and wouldn't want to compete on a Saturday with trying to get attendance into a game if BYU was playing...however, it hasn't stopped them from running their Basketball program that is slowly growing in strength.

Does promotion count? I always thought Portland State would be a good Div 1A Bowl Division school. It's where the run and shoot offense started, has a large school (24k) and a large urban area all its own stomping ground. Only issue is that two schools in state are rivals, so you'd have to join a non-BCS conference and get built up over time, but I think you could do it.

Agree on Gonzaga. They are raking in the cash right now with that basketball program and the area around the school has been rejuvenated. I've predicted amongst friends that they will have football in the next 10 years. Plus, Spokane is a pretty solid football town considering the AFL II team actually sells out every year.

I do have them downloaded, I just never know what to do with them because as you've said, no real rivals, so I never know where to put them in the context of a changed WAC. But you are right that Portland is it's own area and with no NFL competition and Eugene and Corvallis far enough away to not matter as much, it could be interesting.

This is interesting though.

That's probably where I'll head first. I debate with whether to create an entire league of schools or whether to spread it out, because there's usually not a whole league of schools interesting enough for me to want to play out, I sorta like spreading them out around the country and seeing lots of different names on the Top 25 over time, rather than sticking them all in one league and having them cannibalize each other.

Seems like I just need to create several different scenarios rather than trying to put them all in one.


I never knew this story until you mentioned it. Plus, the name "Shockers" is a unique nickname. Always fun. I've added them in the past, but I never thought to keep them around because it's not great recruiting territory, but I didn't realize Bill Parcells played there and they were the first 1A school to hire a black coach. That coupled with the plane crash story is one that makes them a sure story to bring back into the mix. Thanks for sharing.

Good post and link, thanks!

Yes.

There have been a few recent defections from D2 up to FCS over the past few years and I think it's left D2 at a level where it really doesn't have anyone left that could make it in FCS. The only exception would be perhaps Grand Valley State which does have nice facilities and draws well. Other than that, most of those schools from D2 would get squashed in FCS. I follow D2 rather closely and that's just my opinion.

I think the issue now is that we have schools playing in FBS and FCS that should be in lower levels.

Yeah, it wasn't a generally compelling piece. It was just a nice list of schools more than anything. 95% of those aren't remotely suitable for anywhere in D1, as well as the crap schools in FBS that shouldn't be there at all and get in the way.

I think I'm close to the schools I want to go with, though I'm still kicking around the conference alignments which might change one or two, depending on who ends up where and who ends up left out. It's just a question of how realistic I want things to be as far as the usual suspects who already dominate the sport.

Eh, I changed my mind. Rather than going with the created school, I'm just going to graft together a new Yankee Conference. I'll switch the SEC and the Big East, because I think that'd be funny. I won't add all of those Yankee Conference schools because not all of them are particularly interesting to me. I'm still tinkering with the alignments tho.

I know Kevin Morris is a terrible coach, and we're in a bit of a down cycle, but I wouldn't go that far.