Football: Elon Program vs A&T Program

[gophoenix]

Just a little background....

In 1999, our first I-AA year, we were at 40 schoalrships. In D-II, the SAC-8 had a 25 scholarship limit, so it took a while to filter up the limit as we started adding them in 1998. We just hit the I-AA limit our first year in the SoCon. I bet you guys still beat us in season tickets. We sold just above 3000 this year, which technically isn't bad, but oh well. We do pay our coach the seocnd highest salary in the SoCon, close to 1/4 million. The Georgia Southern coach makes over $400k and App's Jerry Moore reportedly makes about $125k. Put that in perspective, Al Seagraves was making below $100k. I wouldn't say we were broke by any means, but we were spending a ton and giving went down with the Paul Hamilton circus show the past two years. But keep in mind, 63 scholarships @ $16k apiece vs 63 @5k (average) for you makes a lot of difference as it really costs less to fund the team from that perspective. That is one of the things that irritates me about Davidson, Campbell, and other non-scholarship schools who whine about not being able to afford it. If Elon, Wofford, Howard, Hampton, Liberty, Charleston Southern, Furman, Samford and so on can do it, anyone can.

Game atmosphere, you guys have that going for you, without a doubt. And the band, definately. But the staidum itself, not really. Youre is big, ours is pretty, but as long as it is functional and not an eye-sore, I don't think it really counts for that much.

[Bornthrilla]

Elon sets agenda for I-A matchups

By: Adam Smith and Bob Sutton
Burlington Times-News

The pool has become deeper regarding Elon University’s Division I-A plunge into future football opponents.

Elon will announce today dates for four non-league games, with road trips to South Florida next year, Wake Forest in 2009, Duke in 2010 and Georgia Tech in 2013 filling schedule slots.

The Division I-AA Phoenix never has tangled with Division I-A competition. Now three Atlantic Coast Conference foes and a Big East Conference opponent reside on the horizon.

"I think Pete Lembo’s very ambitious with what he wants to do," new Elon athletics director Dave Blank said Monday, referring to the school’s first-year football coach. "It’s just a shared vision that Pete and I have of where we want to go with the competition level for our program.

"I think this is a positive direction that brings a lot more to the table for us."

Originally, Elon’s first Division I-A experience was supposed to come last season in game at Wake Forest. But that then was moved to next year, so this latest change marks the second time the Elon / Wake Forest game has been pushed back on the teams’ respective calendars.

Wake Forest will replace Elon with Vanderbilt on the 2007 schedule. That will be the start of a seven-game contract covering an eight-year span, an arrangement that Wake Forest and Vanderbilt officials announced Monday.

When Elon visits Wake Forest in 2009, the Demon Deacons also will welcome Baylor and Stanford to Groves Stadium for non-league games that season and make a trip to Navy.

"The landscape changes, so it’s good to get these kinds of games locked in when you can," said Blank, who dove into Division I-A scheduling possibilities when he joined Elon in late spring. "Our basketball team took it as an opportunity to beat Clemson. That doesn’t happen if you don’t schedule the game."

South Florida’s sixth football game in school history was played Oct. 11, 1997, when the Bulls traveled to Burlington Memorial Stadium, home of Williams High School, to take on then-Elon College.

Since then, South Florida rapidly has matured into a BCS conference member. The school landed its first bowl bid last season, losing to North Carolina State in the Meineke Car Care Bowl at Charlotte.

"These I-A games are in prime recruiting areas and will allow us to compete on the field with some nationally prominent academic institutions," Lembo said.

Duke and Elon haven’t met since 1926, when a stretch of six games in seven years ended. Elon leads the series 5-0-1, with Duke shut out in the last five meetings (one ending in the tie).

By adding Elon in 2010, Duke’s schedules show a Division I-AA opponent for eight years out of a nine-year stretch (2003-2011). The exception comes next year when, barring changes, Duke welcomes Connecticut and Northwestern to Wallace Wade Stadium and goes to Navy and Notre Dame.

Duke coach Ted Roof, whose team lost in this month’s opener to Division I-AA member Richmond, said parity has brought I-A and I-AA closer. There are no guarantees for the higher classification.

"There is a gamble involved with it," Roof said. "Ever since the scholarship limits have been reduced, I think that has really benefited I-AA football. There are a lot more kids who are available who are signed by I-AA schools."

By reaching an agreement for a 2010 game, this is the strongest link between the Duke and Elon programs since Red Wilson, two years after leaving his Elon coaching post in the late 1970s, became Duke’s coach.

The rest of Duke’s 2010 nonleague slate shows a home game with Army, a trip to Kansas and a game against Alabama at a neutral site.

[trues]

No one has really talk about the two team that will be playing each other for the last time.

Given the fact they upset No 25 rank Coastal Carolina tell me we may lose our last game playing them. I understand we have a couple games to improve but you got understand they are improving as well and if we continue to lose our confident will continue to drop when we play Elon.

[Maxell]

We won't.

[DOOMS]

Of course we will. They're a mile ahead of us. Are they going to slow down just cause we're bad?

That doesn't mean we won't try to win. It just means they are ahead of us.

[da heretic]

Their program improved over ours, by miles, when they hired Pete Lembo.

[numberonebrave]

Aggiejazz, what upperclassmen did you want Fobbs to keep ie that were not given a chance? I thinkl you need to check (away from this board) why the upper classmen are not in the program ..ie grades, injuries etc.

[trues]

Their program improved over ours, by miles, when they hired Pete Lembo.

Is this because he had better players to start with than Fobbs or he is just a better coach or both.

[aggiejazz]

I did not have any particular upperclassman that I wanted Fobb to keep so at the end of my hearsay statements, I asked the question if Fobb was too harsh. At that time I was not sure. I did hear from a couple of disgruntle players but I am smart enough not to take what they said as gospel because anyone feeling displaced will not be a happy camper.

numberonebrave said:

Aggiejazz, what upperclassmen did you want Fobbs to keep ie that were not given a chance? I thinkl you need to check (away from this board) why the upper classmen are not in the program ..ie grades, injuries etc.

[aggiejazz]

I will add that we will see if the players were right in their complaint.

[Aggie One]

I don't think anyone can make any assumptions about this coach's handling of any transitioning until Fobbs has a chance to recruit his first real class of his choosing (and more likely two).

Remember most of those kids signed this year were done by the skeleton crew that were held over. We do know that more than half of the upperclassmen decided to mail it in by either leaving or flunking out after Small was let go and some of those that stayed and not retained were suspect at best as walk-ons the year before.

A coach has to run his program as he sees fit and not the players. College football is not a democracy.

[DOOMS]

I dunno. My opinion is a coach has to play with the hand he is dealt. Yeah, his hand sucked but you might want to get the most out of the cards before you throw the deck in.

Not to mention only a month or so ago we were praising the signees stating how wonderful they were. I think we should pick one side of the road and drive on it.

Back to Elon vs. A&T, Lembo got a better hand. He probably told a few kids to hit the road too. They had some academic casualties. One thing Lembo received was a darn good defense. He took a kid that the previous staff had used at tight end and made him an excellent qb. He took two kids the previous staff looked at for qb and made them excellent receivers. My belief is that his prior experience at the head coach position helped him quickly put together his team and make them immediately competitive. On the other hand we are clearly in for the long haul. We'll see in the long run whose strategy worked better. It could very well be ours.