Hofstra dropping football.

Hofstra announced it is dropping its football program immediately. Scholarships will be honored for players that stay at the school.
[www.nytimes.com]

Gothamist says one of their readers reported that a meeting is scheduled with the lacrosse team for later in the day.
[gothamist.com]

Edit: If there was a lacrosse meeting it must have been to reassure everyone they weren't being cut.

AP
The decision follows a two-year review of sports spending at Hofstra. [Hofstra president Stuart] Rabinowitz said there are no plans to cut any other sports at the Long Island school.

Does this mean I-AA football is the next D-II hockey?

All I can think of is that future generations will no longer understand Andy Bernard's joke on the Office when he invited Michael Scott over to watch football: "Cornell-Hofstra...SLAUGHTERRR."

Trotsky
Does this mean I-AA football is the next D-II hockey?

What's more embarrassing, Cornell's football program continuing in its current state or being the first Ivy to drop football?

nyc94
What's more embarrassing, Cornell's football program continuing in its current state or being the first Ivy to drop football?

Why drop it? Just make it self-funded. Evidently there are enough alums masochistic enough to watch it even in its degraded state, which provides some hope that there would be enough to write checks to keep it running. Cornell still needs the stadium for lacrosse, so that's in no danger of going anywhere.

nyc94
What's more embarrassing, Cornell's football program continuing in its current state or being the first Ivy to drop football?

How'd Columbia get into this?

Northeastern said it was dropping football because of the cost per season and also because of the much higher cost of upgrading facilities to be competitive. BU was ahead of the game dropping out 10-12 years ago.

Not to politicize, but how many schools hinted that Title IX had an impact (75 men playing a sport for which there's no women's counterpart) and at how many schools was it actually a factor, as opposed to more thing to gripe about? I've thought maybe there should be a Title IX exception for football because it's unique and then you don't have to chop men's gymnastics or wrestling. No women play footall (okay, Navy had a placekicker 10 years ago who was female). But it's also unique in being a million-dollar-plus expenditure even after revenues.

Hofstra story said about 500 students came to games including cheerleaders and pep band.

There should be an exeption (or allowance or something) for football. But first football ought to have a hell of a lot less than the 85 scholarships that are allowed in D1. Eighty-five. That's just ridiculous.

KeithK
There should be an exeption (or allowance or something) for football. But first football ought to have a hell of a lot less than the 85 scholarships that are allowed in D1. Eighty-five. That's just ridiculous.

What's a reasonable number of players for a football team to carry? Surely, something less that 85. It's important to have depth on a football team because of the high injury rate and for practices, but there are a lot of guys on the team who are simply useless.

imafrshmn

KeithK
There should be an exeption (or allowance or something) for football. But first football ought to have a hell of a lot less than the 85 scholarships that are allowed in D1. Eighty-five. That's just ridiculous.

What's a reasonable number of players for a football team to carry? Surely, something less that 85. It's important to have depth on a football team because of the high injury rate and for practices, but there are a lot of guys on the team who are simply useless.

An NFL roster is 53 of which 47 can dress for a given game. It's essentially the same game so that provides good context. But should that be the number of scholarships? Look at hockey. In D1 you have 18 scholarships compared to 20 players dressing. Baseball has less than 12 scholarships. So it's to think that the "right" number for football "ought" to be easily half of what it is today or less.

At the end of the day, the scholarship numbers are so high because football is king at the big BCS schools.

KeithK

imafrshmn

KeithK
There should be an exeption (or allowance or something) for football. But first football ought to have a hell of a lot less than the 85 scholarships that are allowed in D1. Eighty-five. That's just ridiculous.

What's a reasonable number of players for a football team to carry? Surely, something less that 85. It's important to have depth on a football team because of the high injury rate and for practices, but there are a lot of guys on the team who are simply useless.

An NFL roster is 53 of which 47 can dress for a given game. It's essentially the same game so that provides good context. But should that be the number of scholarships? Look at hockey. In D1 you have 18 scholarships compared to 20 players dressing. Baseball has less than 12 scholarships. So it's to think that the "right" number for football "ought" to be easily half of what it is today or less.

At the end of the day, the scholarship numbers are so high because football is king at the big BCS schools.

I'm not saying it's reasonable, but the football scholarship numbers are slightly inflated by the common practice of redshirting. You've got to pay them for five years to get four years of work. To some extent the NFL active roster number is kept down by the teams' ability to keep a taxi squad (8 more players) and to hire replacements for injured players.

David Harding

KeithK

imafrshmn

KeithK
There should be an exeption (or allowance or something) for football. But first football ought to have a hell of a lot less than the 85 scholarships that are allowed in D1. Eighty-five. That's just ridiculous.

What's a reasonable number of players for a football team to carry? Surely, something less that 85. It's important to have depth on a football team because of the high injury rate and for practices, but there are a lot of guys on the team who are simply useless.

An NFL roster is 53 of which 47 can dress for a given game. It's essentially the same game so that provides good context. But should that be the number of scholarships? Look at hockey. In D1 you have 18 scholarships compared to 20 players dressing. Baseball has less than 12 scholarships. So it's to think that the "right" number for football "ought" to be easily half of what it is today or less.

At the end of the day, the scholarship numbers are so high because football is king at the big BCS schools.

I'm not saying it's reasonable, but the football scholarship numbers are slightly inflated by the common practice of redshirting. You've got to pay them for five years to get four years of work. To some extent the NFL active roster number is kept down by the teams' ability to keep a taxi squad (8 more players) and to hire replacements for injured players.

The number of players and the number of scholarships are not the same thing. Non-football sports routinely give players less than full scholarships to play.