UC Riverside Football

[DFW HOYA]

This article made Wikipedia's front page today:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UC_Riverside_Highlanders_football

The West Coast seems to have the largest representation in the Football Graveyard of former teams. There are so many former teams out there in California alone (list per the Helmet Project, Division I schools in bold):

Cal Poly Pomona
Cal State-Chico
Cal State-Fullerton
Cal State-Hayward
Cal State-Long Beach
Cal State-Los Angeles
Cal State-Northridge
Cal Tech
Loyola Marymount
Pacific
Pepperdine
Saint Mary's
San Francisco
San Francisco State
Santa Clara
Sonoma State
UC-Riverside
UC-San Diego
UC-Santa Barbara
U.S. International (now closed)

Can any of these programs be revived?

[GoAgs72]

UC Davis used to play most of them. With all of the defunct teams we could have two California conferences with potential autobids. Many of them dropped football in the 1990's and early 2000's due to tight budgets and Title IX. Now we're down to just four FCS teams (UC Davis, Cal Poly, Sac State and San Diego) and I think two D2 teams (Azusa Pacific and Humboldt State). Seems minimal for the largest state, population-wise.

I don't really see any new FCS teams on the horizon until the state budget situation improves greatly. I would love to see the private schools Santa Clara and Saint Mary's start up FCS football again. They were good rivals and close by. They spend their money now on basketball.

[bojeta]

There are "Bring back Football" movements currently at: Long Beach, Fullerton, Northridge, UC Riverside, UOP, UCSB and even small talk at UC San Diego. Only Long Beach and Fullerton seem to have some real momentum. However, the budget issues are very difficult to overcome. Bringing back football rests on the student's willingness and ability to cover the bulk of the cost through added fees. With tuition rising significantly annually, it doesn't look good in the short term.

[doolittledog]

Before all those schools dropped football, wasn't part of the problem was some were FCS and some were D2 and they were all in a bunch of different conferences? I know there is a state budget crunch, but you would think if the state legislature stated all the schools in the start up were required to be in the same division and needed to play in the same conference that could really help out on expenses.

The Wisconsin legislature requires the WIAC schools to be D3 and limits their out of conference games to a certain radius around each campus. Maybe the California legislature could require no off-campus recruiting, scholarships only to in-state kids, no out of state football games until playoff time as ways to cut costs for state schools starting up a program.

Of course, this has all been talked about before on here. I do think a difference this time around could be all these schools in the same conference and limited budgets could save big time on the costs that wasn't done the last time all these schools had football programs.

[UNH Fanboi]

How many schools have dropped football entirely then come back at FCS. Villa nova comes to mind, but I can't think of any others. I do not see it happening in this climate. There's already a huge uproar in CA over rising in-state tuition, and no one really cares about FCS football.

[henfan]

How many schools have dropped football entirely then come back at FCS. Villa nova comes to mind, but I can't think of any others.

Old Dominion

[asumike83]

Old Dominion

Georgia Southern did as well.

[DFW HOYA]

How many schools have dropped football entirely then come back at FCS.

Villanova is the only modern I-A school to have dropped football and then come back to I-AA. A number of schools in the subdivision had dropped football and restarted it, though.

[MplsBison]

I can't see any Cal State school starting football unless literally any related financial addition to the athletic department from starting the sport is taken care of with private donations.

Those schools can't even enroll new students, they're so broke.

[Houndawg]

Villanova is the only modern I-A school to have dropped football and then come back to I-AA. A number of schools in the subdivision had dropped football and restarted it, though.

SIU was formerly 1A

[GoAgs72]

In the early 1990's Santa Clara (DI AA) along with UC Davis (D2) proposed to the NCAA that they allow them to be DI in all sports except football which could be D2. When that didn't pan out, Santa Clara dropped football as being too expensive and UC Davis eventually went all DI.