Philadelphia just doesn't care much for college football

http://www.philly.com/inquirer/sports/20071120_Football_program_finished_at_La_Salle_The_0-10_Explorers_were_not_a_budget_cut__Their_conference_had_shrunk_from_10_to_4_.html

Ten years ago, another school started their football program in I-AA: USF (Hi Lucas!). Of course, the similarities of the two schools end there, but I find it an interesting juxtaposition with the two programs: one of them was ranked the second-best team in the country at one point while the other couldn't beat a D-III school. This also shows to me the lack of interest in Philadelphia-area college football. Yes, Penn does well in the Ivy League, but that's about it. Temple's program is still a joke, 'Nova is also I-AA & now the only other school actually in Philadelphia axes its program. It's weird to see a football-crazed city like Philly not have a big-name college team. Miami does. Boston does. Minneapolis does. Hell, LA has TWO big-time programs and zero pro-teams. That's about all I have to say about that.

 

Well, New York City hasn't had a big-time program since the 1940s, unless you count Army, which is 70 miles north, or Rutgers, which has been totally ignored until just recently. Columbia is Ivy League, Fordham is I-AA. Some cities just prefer the pro game more.

 

Very true, but New York also has two baseball teams, two basketball teams and three hockey teams in the area. There is a lot more competition for a NY sports fan's attention than Philly has to offer its sports fans. I'm not saying La Salle axing their program is a huge loss (not even on campus), but it just shows an interesting point.

 

This was bound to happen with the MAAC giving up on offering football. The same thing might befall Iona and Marist soon, unless they decide to start offering scholarships or move to the Pioneer.

 

Two words:

PENN STATE

No, it's not in Philadelphia. But do you think the more than 60,000 fans that came out for the recent game against Temple at the Linc traveled from State College? Or were Temple fans? (HA!) : ;D

From www.alumni.psu.edu/about_us/news/archives2006.htm:

The Alumni Association now counts as members nearly 35 percent of all addressable Penn State alumni, which number 459,653 as of June 30, 2006. That number has grown by more than 6,300 alumni in the last year, up from 453,313 in 2005. While Penn Staters are scattered all over the globe, approximately 40 percent of Penn State alumni live in five metropolitan areas: Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Harrisburg, Pa., New York City and Washington, D.C.

... and Philly constitutes a LARGE chunk of that 40 percent.

 

Wonderlic, PSU doesn't get all that much airtime on the TV stations down there. In all the time I've listened to WIP when living in the region and later driving through town, not once have I heard them talking about anything related to Penn State -- except for the day Penn State was playing Temple in the Sweet 16.

 

Then how come NYC hasn't adopted either Rutgers, UConn or Syracuse as "their" college football team? I lived in Philly for five years & I know that PSU is the de facto squad in that town, but is one hell of a fucking hike to get to Happy Valley from Center City, for instance, don't you think? It's a sad thing that Temple isn't a competitive school. Is it because of lousy coaching/recruiting, low funding, facilities and/or location of the school?

 

Because the tri-state area doesn't give a shit about college football. Generations of mediocrity--or much worse--have convinced most of us good college football is what happens in flyover land or down south. Rutgers is good now, yes. But people still correlate them with 1-10. Temple? Forget about it. They will never recover, perception-wise, from sucking for so long. They could make the BCS title game and most people in the northeast would not give a shit. And how often has Syracuse contended for a national title in the last 20 years? Once? It took a miraclous two-month run for Boston College against inferior competition for people to give a crap in Boston. And once they got beat, see ya.

If it's not big-time college football, no one's going to invest the time in it. I spent three years in college wondering why nobody gave a crap about I-AA football. It has a playoff system! It decides a champion on the field! And in 11 years (teary smiley here) since I graduated, I can count on one hand how many games I've been to and still have fingers left over.

Even when a UConn moves up to the Big East, people still remember how they used to be in the Yankee Conference and played on a high school-caliber field in Storrs and found a way to piss away a playoff berth on the last Saturday of every season. No one's investing in a team whose big rival used to be New Hampshire.

This is a pro sports area. Thankfully.

 

I think it's a combination of the popularity of the pro teams, which crowd out the college teams, and the lack of popularity of high school ball.

I grew up in central New Jersey, which was pretty evenly split between New York fans and Philly fans (you couldn't be both). And, within a three or four hour drive from where I lived, you have five NFL teams, five MLB teams, four NBA teams and five NHL teams. The pro teams are just more numerous and popular. It doesn't help that high school football in the state is a joke, which means nobody follows them when they move on to college.
By contrast, look at where college football is most popular -- the Big 12 area, which has a couple pro teams per state; the Big 10, which relies on tradition more than anything else; and the SEC, which has virtually no pro teams in any of its states other than Florida and Georgia.
Bottom line, there's only so much sports people can take. They'll watch the best competition. In the northeast, that's the pros.

 

The University of Washington does pretty well in a town with three pro teams, doesn't it?

 

UW was there before the pros ever thought of Seattle. Same for USC, UCLA, the SEC schools and North Carolina.

 

Yeah, Washington does well for the same reason schools like Michigan, Ohio State, USC or UCLA do well -- tradition. They've been in the big cities as long or longer than the pro teams, and have had enough success (unlike, say, Rutgers) to stay on the front page alongside the big boys.