The craziest part about this year on Valpo is our whole secondary is set to graduate. Appels a senior in school. Mansaray and Mann too. Our LBs are all seniors. Coulson is gone.
Another rebuild is coming which is why I am most fearful that it could be all for Fox. Replacing 50 players every year has to be tough. Like I said 0 insight.
Disappointing season. I would agree he has been one one the better coaches in recent years, but he's limited by the lack of scholarships, assistants that are not compensated well, and the out of date Brown Field. Add on the "buy" games that are an enormous boost to the athletic department. The lot of talent he has to pick from during recruiting is limited. Looks like he's doing everything he can with the resources at hand. Until this year, his teams have been pretty competitive in the conference games. I just wonder if they are able to pour more resources into having a game changing QB. Yes you need other things to have a successful team, but having a great QB can make up for a lot of shortcomings at the FCS level. Look at Vandy this year with Pavia. Finding an extremely talented player who's only interested in academics and willing to play for "free" are very slim odds they come to Valpo. The only hope is for the basketball team to start winning soon, to help promote the university and bring some revenue back into the athletic department concessions, season tixs etc.... I am sure we all want Powell to succeed and many of us feel Powell is the guy. Unfortunately we could all see a scenario where the basketball team has two or three big seasons in a row and a power conference comes a calling. Will Valpo be able to compensate Powell close those offers?. Who knows, maybe he wants to stay here for a long time, gets a modest pay raise and an updated facility.
@burnee77 Roger won 7 games last season. Were a bit of a ways away from him being picked off by a larger school
I woudnt put too much stock into year 1. Roster he got was largely inherited from Lottich. One of the shining lights on that roster (Cooper Schwieger) was one of the only decisions that he got to make in the recruitment process.
His culture is great and growing. He is getting more investment from the community. Lets wait till after this year to throw up pitchforks
Reported attendance by ESPN was <1500. For a venue that seats 5k that's not a good look.
Attendance in the PFL is never good. Valpo is typically in the middle. San Diego had just over 1000 a couple of weeks ago.
Has anyone actually priced out what it would cost to create a winning football program at VU? And though I presume the actual budget for the football program is not externally shared, I wonder what the difference is between those two numbers?
The revolving door of assistants has to be a leading indicator of how poorly the program is funded. They come here, see the situation, and sooner than later are hired by a program that can pay better. And that doesn't even factor in better, more experienced coaches who might take a look at VU and either not apply or quickly pass on the offer.
It has to be frustrating for the players, who can't build the kind of continuity in position coaching and mentoring that promotes season-to-season growth. Some of them must feel like they're on their own. A player who spends 4 years at VU could well have 3 position coaches during his time here.
David81....I don't think that question can be answered unless it is defined what other programs within the PFL are doing to make them successful. Also....what is considered "successsful". I don't think Stetson has won a league title or even been all that great as a team over the years it has been in the league but the program has put at least two players into the NFL. Davidson's been a strong program since hiring Abell but I don't think has seen anyone go to the NFL.
Defining whatever success is, in terms of dollars, may be very difficult.
In my opinion "successful" would likely mean a Drake or a St Thomas. I would lean more towards St. Thomas given their success has come a lot more recently.
In regards to st thomas. They have a very lucrative, and growing, booster network. Their boosters. They have set multiple records for donations with their version of "Day of Giving" within the last few years as well. Their donor pool even gave them a brand new state of the art basketball and hockey facility(barring legal opposition). They have also been a league topper ever since joining the PFL when they initially went D1 for football in 2021 after being kicked out of their former conference the MIAC.
On the left is St Thomas Numbers, on the Right is Valparaiso Numbers
Total Revenue 17,812,586 / 14,586,069
Total Expenses: 17,812,586 / 13,605,002
Since this is a Football thread, I wont compare basketball, but here is the football records. The only thing I would note here is that the Basketball team is ran at a loss while the football team is ran at a gain. In Fact, MBB and WVB are the only programs that are ran at a loss with the loss from basketball being upwards 150k
St. Thomas: No Profit. 109 Members . Total Revenue generated (1,785,830). 1 Head Coach. 12 Assistants
Valparaiso: Profit: 51,021. 118 Members. Total Revenue Generated (1,221,326). 1 Head Coach. 10 Assistants.
One thing I will note is St. Thomas has a commitment to put 100% of their revenue back into their programs it seems.
I’m not sure it’s entirely a budget problem. I mean to an extent obviously, yes we cannot go hire a proven P5 OC. But Doughty , RJ, Marquis, Limbach all stayed here for multiple seasons at the coordinator level.
The state of the offense really comes down to two things, NO continuity at the OC Postion and instability at the OL position.
Start with the OL. Fox has never made his OC an OL coach, meaning this is a sub average PFL’d salaried position coach. In today’s economy you probably get an up & comer who needs more money eventually or (Bustle/Brewer) a retread with no where to go (Denecke/Bucar). At a school with Valpos budget your OL coach needs to be bought in.
now if you look at the roster. Fox inherited 6 OL, 4 who had never played a snap and then converted one over to a DL. We almost never have upperclassmen depth as many quit if the do not start as sophomores. We have also lost Files, Orr, Gray, Szczepanski to the portal as starters. All of whom are playing college football this year. OL is a premium in the transfer portal.
Now to OC
Limbach moved his family to Valparaiso from Edinboro meaning that the position probably pays more than your typical mid level Division 2 position. After Limbach we brought in Fleming who did admirably and was rewarded with a scholarship FCs OC job. The money will probably never be there to keep that person with that opportunity.
Symmes is really where things got bad. He had never coached an offense and was essentially running scout team at East Carolina. The offense and Appel took about 5 steps back with his hire and he was job hunting. He went through spring job hunting and left in the summer while job hunting for a minimal role in the power 5, this leaving Valparaiso to scramble and have a first time QB, OL, WR coach across the board.
This season is on the Symmes hire. And a lot of defensive talent is graduating this year with only a few building blocks on offense for the future (Tyler,Givens,Thomas,Russell). I am still very confused as why the keys have not just been given to Caron in the portal Era.
Rez - I am quite familiar with the US Dept. of Education database where those revenue and expense numbers are posted and have talked with athletic directors and staff about the nature of what is reported. The expenses posted are pretty accurate, but there are incredibly wide interpretations on how revenue is determined. You can trust the expenses number, but you can't really make any judgements when you include the reported revenues for any sport.
The data I provided was just what was available to me on the internet. Ultimately, no amount of revenue generation at this level is significant enough to pose great change. The question was posed as to what monetary investments it takes to make a winning program. St Thomas is a peer institution who has had recent success. Ultimately I left the discussion open ended for others to interpret as they would and did not comment further beyond the initial research into reported monetary expenses and revenue generation aside from mentioning the sports reported in the red, and to pose the belief that St. Thomas puts 100% of their athletic revenue back into athletics.
If anything the, relatively, little differential in expenses shows that it doesn't take just throwing money to make a winning program, but rather support and putting what money you have in the right places. IE, an offensive coordinator who wants to coach at VU long term and a program that is completely backed by the athletic dept.
Thank you for these responses that provide a bit of the numbers context and a more specific look at the assistant coaches situation. Very helpful.
The numbers are helpful.
The bigger point is that at least for football, modest increases in the budget would make a difference. If there are 10 assistant coaches, a $250,000 increase in the annual budget would allow raises to better hire and retain coaches.
However, the university has been operating under a substantial budget deficit for some time, and the money is just not available. They already have tapped a line of credit (presumably secured by the endowment) so it is not possible to do much more on that front.
If a donor (or donors) stepped up with a $5M donation, it would roughly secure that level of budget increase going forward. I'm sure if a donor came up with $250,000 under terms that it be given as one-time bonuses to the coaching staff (or to hire and OC for the year), it would make a huge difference.
