Breaking News from Fordham!!!
Well, they've gone and done it. Fordham will begin offering football athletic scholarships starting with next year's recruiting class.
The official Fordham announcement makes special mention of the annual game with Columbia, which tells you they know, or at least fear, it will be in jeopardy now.
This could also jeopardize Fordham's continued membership in the Patriot League.
Could big-time college football be coming back to New York City, or will this blow up in Fordham's face?
We certainly have a good issue to talk about leading up to the season opener at Fordham on Sept. 19th.
posted by Jake @ 11:29:00 PM
17 comments
17 Comments:
We should drop Fordham. So should the rest of the Ivies. The new President of Fordham wants to go big time. Let him.
You voice the interesting conjecture that Fordham is concerned that the annual game against Columbia is now at risk of being cancelled by Columbia.
I would hope that Columbia would wait to see if the Lions become outclassed on the field because of Fordham's scholarships rather than pre-emptively terminating the series on the fear that it COULD happen.
My concern is based upon some ugly history. we were off to a tremendous start in 1976, having beaten both Harvard and Yale, as I recall. Rutgers went big time that year, routed us in Giants Stadium 69 to 0. the Princeton Board of Trustees cancelled the Rutgers series, which was the oldest rivalry in the country, the very same week, having decided that it would not put up their players as sacrificial lambs. Mark my words, Fordham will try to do the same thing. They will have a scholarship team which will blow us out and end the series on a low note for us and a high note for them. The Rutgers game ruined our season in 1976. It wasn't a building experience or anything of hte sort. It was an out and out massacre by a team wishing to make a statement at our expense, and it's naive to think otherwise about Fordham.
Actually, the season you're referring to was 1978, and you make a strong point.
Obviously, Fordham intends to use the Columbia game as a warm-up to for its planned rivalries with Navy, Army, Villanova, and whomever else. Fordahm will try to blow out the Lions and any other Ivy League or Patriot League School that is dumb enough to remain on Fordham's schedule past this fall. The Lions can't afford to play Fordham in its opening game of the season with the likilihood of a blow-out loss with injuries that could effectively end Columbia's chances of competing for the Ivy League Title. As far as I'm concerned, Fordham has breached its contract with Columbia allowing the Lions to terminate any football games scheduled beyond this fall. Even Yogi would say "It's Over!"
For the love of Pete, can we at least wait and see what happens instead of taking such a defeatist approach? I have a hard time seeing Fordham as a "big-time" football school anytime soon. I am also not in favor of treating Columbia players like they are ballerinas, maybe this annual match-up will instill some toughness. I don't like the wimpy, defeatist attitude. It's not like we're talking about USC or Ohio State here.
Agreed. Let Fordham play out its own football fantasies without our help as fodder.
Leonlion
A roar for the last two posters. Let's remember we're Lions!
Those who forget history are doomed to repeat it. Santayana, who was not at the '78 Rutgers game, would nonetheless endorse giving Fordham the Dutch Salute. We should not be playing scholarship schools.
Interesting stuff. FWIW, there's no push at Fordham to go "big time", at least so far as that means some sort of FBS aspirations. For those that care, the recruiting pool for PL schools has been shrinking with more schools offering scholarships (on the low end) and more Ivies offering much larger financial aid packages to both players and all students (on the high end). The PL had always had a school based AI as well and the more highly ranked schools like G-town were getting crushed. Thus, the league came out and said they would go to a league-wide AI (that would "penalize" Fordham) but in return they would implement scholarships. After rolling out the new AI rules the league backed out on their scholarship promise and Fordham simply said 'we're going scholarship, so please let us know if that's within the league or outside of it'. That's how we got here, but outside of a few bs posters who opine about playing some big time schools, there are no aspirations to go higher than we are today. We simply want to get more bang for the $$'s we're spending now.
I understand that you guys have to do what you have to do but I've enjoyed this blog long enough to know that there was no bemoaning the fact that you guys are playing a Towson St. or some other CAA school who offers even more scholarships than we'll be able to. I really don't expect there to be a HUGE leap over where we are now ... just that it will open up our recruiting a bit more than it is today. So, we're much less likely to be your '78 Rutgers than we are some CAA squad you may still schedule (if we're lucky). just my .02.
Towson is scholarship, we should have beat Towson hands down on their home field.
The problem with waiting for the bomb to fall, as some posters suggest, is that when it does happen it will be very embarrassing to lose 67-12, or so, in the opening game of the season and see your Ivy League Championship hopes dashed by multiple injuries. We certainly have the size on the two front lines to compete with a Fordham Football Factory for a couple of years, but we will not have the speed to contain their 4.4 wide receivers and running back transfers who will be tranferring in immediately to Fordham from the community colleges, junior colleges and some division 1 schools. The reality is that Columbia needs to drop Fordham before Fordham murders us in the opening game of the season, which will probably happen in two to four years. I don't agree with the posters who wonder whether it will happen. Of course it will. That's college football. Let's not be naive. Fordham's plan is to go big-time like Rutgers. Whether or not Fordham succeeds is irrelevent. Columbia has nothing to gain by continuing to schedule Fordham. Columbia's football goal should be to compete for and win the Ivy League Championship every year. The three non-conference games we play should help us to achieve that goal, and not make it more difficult. Opening against a powerhouse that has played two games would be a huge mistake.
I fully agree with the last poster and think we should drop Fordham before the series ends badly. I think Santayana had it all figured out.
I still don't get how playing Fordham a few years from now is any different than playing Towson last year?
It sounds like they will be a Div 1 scholarship school. The announcement was not specific. If that is true and the school does provide the support to make it a winning program then dropping them may be the correct course. I'm still not sure. If they get the skill level of a UCLA or OSU team, absolutely.
One thing to remember is that many of the students that Columbia gets today were recruited at one time by the Big Ten, Pac Ten, etc. Many could have attended those schools as Preferred Walk Ons. Senior year injuries, not getting ranked by Rivals (happens a lot) or being part of a team having a bad year as a senior are a few risk factors that kept those students from being offered. Don't sell the Ivy students short.
As far as scholarships are concerned, I would love to see all the Ivy schools go back to being scholarship schools. Any program that provides a “free ride” is plus in my book.
I believe in Norries and don't expect us to be at the bottom of the Ivies much longer.
Villanova plays Penn every year.
Why would CU Fordham be any different than Nova/Penn?
Keep playing the game!
I don't know, Fordham in order to really move on up would also have to upgrade its stadium (or play somewhere else other than its current on-campus facility). Until that happens, why worry? One 320 lb. OL is pretty much like another on the Fordham-Columbia level unless and until it also turns out that he's being heavily recruited by Clemson and Penn State.
If Fordham thus wishes, in the current state of affairs, to hand out maybe 25 scholarships for football per year, fine, more power to 'em.
I'd also hate to lose the Liberty Cup, which has emotional resonance to me as few (in indeed any) Ivy-on-Ivy rivalries have.
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