MERCYHURST TO GO D1

[GaitsRightHand]

Saw a rumor on the D2 board, so I asked a buddy in the coaching world. He said that its true and it should be announced tomorrow. Think they'll be in the NEC.

Good to have another D1 but D2 is disintegrating. Especially in the North.

[Wheels]

Good to have another D1 but D2 is disintegrating. Especially in the North.

It's related to enrollment. Most of those former D2 schools that have transitioned to D1 aren't fully funded (maybe even not at the D2 level). But if you're looking to target a demographic group that is more likely to pay higher tuition (even at steeply discounted rates, as most private schools do), it's lacrosse families. Between men's and women's teams, you're looking at combined rosters in the 90-100 players range. Selling players (and probably more importantly, their families) on playing D1 lacrosse is more compelling than selling them on playing D2 lacrosse.

Mercyhurst already plays D1 hockey.

My guess is they'll probably continue to fund scholarship levels at their current levels for all of their sports (and they have a lot of teams, including football), and they're hoping that the draw of "D1 athlete" will help them with enrollment. It's really hard to recruit college kids to Erie, PA. Pretty much all of PA outside of the PHL and PIT areas have emptied out. That means fewer high school kids. So colleges in those areas have seen their admission pipelines evaporate.

Mercyhurst, I'd guess, is essentially banking on D1 as a way to draw students from farther away. Financially, they're running a D3 athletics model. With as many sports as they sponsor, they're going to be one of those schools where like 40% of the student body plays sports.

[GaitsRightHand]

Enrollment is about ~2800, so I'd imagine athletes make up a large percentage of that. Pretty common numbers for D2. Especially in the rural areas.

[GaitsRightHand]

https://x.com/MercyhurstU/status/177589 ... 64387?s=20

[GaitsRightHand]

https://www.insidelacrosse.com/article/ ... ason/63008

[GaitsRightHand]

NEC will be:
Cleveland State
Robert Morris
Le Moyne
LIU,
Wagner
Detroit Mercy
VMI

[Wheels]

Enrollment is about ~2800, so I'd imagine athletes make up a large percentage of that. Pretty common numbers for D2. Especially in the rural areas.

Yes...but with the demographics shifting south, the "come play D1" is a big draw to get people moving north...especially to Erie!

[Farfromgeneva]

Enrollment is about ~2800, so I'd imagine athletes make up a large percentage of that. Pretty common numbers for D2. Especially in the rural areas.

Yes...but with the demographics shifting south, the "come play D1" is a big draw to get people moving north...especially to Erie!

Partly because so much of the culture is binary they think it’s D1 or little
Yellow bus. While most of them drive meekly with their effected physical frames or have to sign over guts and haven’t played competitive active sports in 25yrs. They are worst than the hyper competitive New England parent and easier to snow with “your kid can play D1 than the standard Sudbury Ma parent. Cracks me up every time a kid will come play football from Ga or Fl and half don’t understand why they are 5th string because football is clearly so dope - had a kid transfer from a high end Ga HS to a FCS modest school full ride where he was 2ns string there as a FR and never saw the field in Geneva. And they still don’t get it despite evidence like this so they’ll keep getting sucked into “it’s D1” far longer than a standard over the top New England parent

[DebitLaxPlayable]

I think you’ll be seeing more and more programs follow on this path, whether it’s a wise decision or not.

A lot of these college admins see D2 as a wasteland. A lot more money to field a competitive team than in D3 with nearly as many schollies as D1, with a fraction of the reach of a D1 athletics program. Combine this with a lot of small/mid sized schools getting crushed by dropping enrollment post-pandemic and you’ll see a lot of programs try to move up as they see it as their only option. Spend just a bit more money and get more eyeballs on the school and hopefully drive up enrollment they see. Many, like Lindenwood, will unfortunately fail.

Always good to get a new D1 program and wish them the best, but it will be a very tough uphill battle for them

[Gorilla Fan]

Enrollment is about ~2800, so I'd imagine athletes make up a large percentage of that. Pretty common numbers for D2. Especially in the rural areas.

Yes...but with the demographics shifting south, the "come play D1" is a big draw to get people moving north...especially to Erie!

Partly because so much of the culture is binary they think it’s D1 or little
Yellow bus. While most of them drive meekly with their effected physical frames or have to sign over guts and haven’t played competitive active sports in 25yrs. They are worst than the hyper competitive New England parent and easier to snow with “your kid can play D1 than the standard Sudbury Ma parent. Cracks me up every time a kid will come play football from Ga or Fl and half don’t understand why they are 5th string because football is clearly so dope - had a kid transfer from a high end Ga HS to a FCS modest school full ride where he was 2ns string there as a FR and never saw the field in Geneva. And they still don’t get it despite evidence like this so they’ll keep getting sucked into “it’s D1” far longer than a standard over the top New England parent

You cracking on Sudbury parents? From my understanding there have been a few from that well established Mass program sent to Geneva.

[Farfromgeneva]

I think you’ll be seeing more and more programs follow on this path, whether it’s a wise decision or not.

A lot of these college admins see D2 as a wasteland. A lot more money to field a competitive team than in D3 with nearly as many schollies as D1, with a fraction of the reach of a D1 athletics program. Combine this with a lot of small/mid sized schools getting crushed by dropping enrollment post-pandemic and you’ll see a lot of programs try to move up as they see it as their only option. Spend just a bit more money and get more eyeballs on the school and hopefully drive up enrollment they see. Many, like Lindenwood, will unfortunately fail.

Always good to get a new D1 program and wish them the best, but it will be a very tough uphill battle for them

Agree and same mentality with them last decade of FCS football schools condo to FBS. But they don’t understand the risk of being a complete afterthought and the massive cost if you had 2-3 years where your institution misses on its overall yield and runs an opex deficit while needing to transfer to deficit producing FB program due to increased infrastructure costs etc and they just end up dropping it altogether. Or you end up like WVU gutting whole departments.

Birmingham Southern just closed its doors…a field mis and corresponding $5$-10mm opex loss 2-3yrs and then toss in higher debt service in coming years plus principal amort on debt and then you get a struggling now D1 program that kills revenues and needs an additional transfer those years on a sub $350mm
Endowment and it becomes a negative vortex real fast or they decide to end the program before it ends the institution. Made worse by a clear weakness in managerial skills in higher ed (see mills college prostituing their assets to Northeastern so a few cats could keep their paychecks-that land was worth multiples of what it cost NE to acquire, made the $1Bn price tag on the Bear Stearns bldg paid by JPM while the govt it backstopped the first $30Bn in losses for a property worth more than $1Bn look like a very fair arms length deal).

It’s a shame they only think “stay up or maintain” as if moving to D3 is some shameful thing. It’s a complete lack of leadership in higher ed which is only accelerating and exacerbating the issues they have anyways.

[Farfromgeneva]

Enrollment is about ~2800, so I'd imagine athletes make up a large percentage of that. Pretty common numbers for D2. Especially in the rural areas.

Yes...but with the demographics shifting south, the "come play D1" is a big draw to get people moving north...especially to Erie!

Partly because so much of the culture is binary they think it’s D1 or little
Yellow bus. While most of them drive meekly with their effected physical frames or have to sign over guts and haven’t played competitive active sports in 25yrs. They are worst than the hyper competitive New England parent and easier to snow with “your kid can play D1 than the standard Sudbury Ma parent. Cracks me up every time a kid will come play football from Ga or Fl and half don’t understand why they are 5th string because football is clearly so dope - had a kid transfer from a high end Ga HS to a FCS modest school full ride where he was 2ns string there as a FR and never saw the field in Geneva. And they still don’t get it despite evidence like this so they’ll keep getting sucked into “it’s D1” far longer than a standard over the top New England parent

You cracking on Sudbury parents? From my understanding there have been a few from that well established Mass program sent to Geneva.

They are and my brother in laws brother (sisters husband brother, he ran a large law firm for years that isn’t known around hr type issues) lived there and raised his son there. It’s actually not the worst, should’ve used a Fairfield co comp really. Darien or one of those towns. But Sudbury came to mind then bc i had a family related topic in mind.

Eric Holden and Dan Ryan did great things for Hobart and will always be remembered fondly. John Herlihy career is more Greek tragedy unfortunately. The two coaches sons I believe both transferred out (cam the goalie and then the FOGO). I’m probably wrong now but think this good guy TIm Bigelow back in the day was form Sudbury as well.

[Unknown Participant]

I think you’ll be seeing more and more programs follow on this path, whether it’s a wise decision or not.

A lot of these college admins see D2 as a wasteland. A lot more money to field a competitive team than in D3 with nearly as many schollies as D1, with a fraction of the reach of a D1 athletics program. Combine this with a lot of small/mid sized schools getting crushed by dropping enrollment post-pandemic and you’ll see a lot of programs try to move up as they see it as their only option. Spend just a bit more money and get more eyeballs on the school and hopefully drive up enrollment they see. Many, like Lindenwood, will unfortunately fail.

Always good to get a new D1 program and wish them the best, but it will be a very tough uphill battle for them

I realize DII schools can offer scholarships, but some (many?) do not, and, in any event, it's trifling (as it is for DI). Rollins College, until recently ranked no 1 (now 6) in DII, where my son played, had/has no scholarships.

NCAA Hockey did away with DII at some point over the last 20+ years. No big loss if lacrosse does too IMO.

Can you name me some solid academic DII schools? I'll say Bentley, Rollins, Embry Riddle, maybe Saint A's (Merrimack was) ... can't think of too many more.

[D2fan]

I think you’ll be seeing more and more programs follow on this path, whether it’s a wise decision or not.

A lot of these college admins see D2 as a wasteland. A lot more money to field a competitive team than in D3 with nearly as many schollies as D1, with a fraction of the reach of a D1 athletics program. Combine this with a lot of small/mid sized schools getting crushed by dropping enrollment post-pandemic and you’ll see a lot of programs try to move up as they see it as their only option. Spend just a bit more money and get more eyeballs on the school and hopefully drive up enrollment they see. Many, like Lindenwood, will unfortunately fail.

Always good to get a new D1 program and wish them the best, but it will be a very tough uphill battle for them

I realize DII schools can offer scholarships, but some (many?) do not, and, in any event, it's trifling (as it is for DI). Rollins College, until recently ranked no 1 (now 6) in DII, where my son played, had/has no scholarships.

NCAA Hockey did away with DII at some point over the last 20+ years. No big loss if lacrosse does too IMO.

Can you name me some solid academic DII schools? I'll say Bentley, Rollins, Embry Riddle, maybe Saint A's (Merrimack was) ... can't think of too many more.

Long time DII fan here. I will admit that DII is not what it once was. But the Division is not being dropped. There are more teams than ever (More than DI now) and schools continue to add.

There are still very good teams like Tampa, Limestone and Lenoir Rhyne, but the overall depth has dropped off. Really Limestone and Adelphi have a long history of tradition. Most of the top 20 have added teams in the last 20 years.

No more teams like Le Moyne or NYIT that were keeping highend talent from Syracuse and Long Island home.
Or someone like Limestone who at one point had 8 current PLL/NLL players on their roster. Even now Le Moyne’s D1 team has nowhere near the talent level they had a couple of years ago.

Losing Mercyhurst is a big blow to DII. They represented growth in the division because of their location. Talking to some coaches, many schools felt that if a University in Erie Pa can be a perennial top 5 team, they could do it too. Without them, I do not think you see many other schools add and invest into their program.

I do think the school itself is set up better than the recent schools to make the jump. They have had D1 hockey forever which I think helps navigate. Mercyhurst has a good basketball team and is stronger in their non-revenue sports than LeMoyne and Merrimack were. They will continue to attract athletes, though the question of attracting regular students to Western PA is a mystery. They are best known for their Intelligence/ National Security major and have a lot of government backing in it. I think their other majors are on par with many of the other midmajor MAAC and America East schools.

I am interested to see who follows.

[Wheels]

I think you’ll be seeing more and more programs follow on this path, whether it’s a wise decision or not.

A lot of these college admins see D2 as a wasteland. A lot more money to field a competitive team than in D3 with nearly as many schollies as D1, with a fraction of the reach of a D1 athletics program. Combine this with a lot of small/mid sized schools getting crushed by dropping enrollment post-pandemic and you’ll see a lot of programs try to move up as they see it as their only option. Spend just a bit more money and get more eyeballs on the school and hopefully drive up enrollment they see. Many, like Lindenwood, will unfortunately fail.

Always good to get a new D1 program and wish them the best, but it will be a very tough uphill battle for them

Unsaid in some of the national discussion about the enrollment cliff or the drop in enrollment pre- to post-COVID is that the decline is being driven by fewer men going to college. Enter athletics.

And you're right about the finances between D2 and D1. Most of these programs will continue to operate at D2 funding levels (maybe some marginal increases around support functions or coaching pay) even while at the D1 level. The universities just want more bodies in seats. Non-revs at the D1 level for most schools operate on a D3 mindset anyway.

[kramerica.inc]

NEC will be:
Cleveland State
Robert Morris
Le Moyne
LIU,
Wagner
Detroit Mercy
VMI

No reason Mercyhurst can't make a run for the conference somewhat early on.