Well, after a few weeks of being asked for my reaction to the recent news coming out of the football program at BCU the time has finally come for me to give my answer.
First off, I'll set the stage. For those of you who haven't heard (and there are more that you'd think) the Briar Cliff athletic department has recently announced that the Charger football team will play one game at the DakotaDome on the campus of the University of South Dakota in Vermillion (39 miles from Sioux City) during this season and, starting in 2013, will play their home games exclusively in Vermillion, leaving their home since the program's beginnings Memorial Field in Sioux City. Athletic Director Steve Gast and head coach Tom Rethman have said that the move into a Division I-AA stadium will improve recruiting and the credibility of the football program as well as expand the fan base that Briar Cliff has in the region. Gast has also been quoted as saying that this will be "one of a network of connected, and often shared, sites where we teach, learn, work, compete and recreate" and that the Dome will "provide a tremendous game-day environment for our football team, our opponents, our students, fans and everyone associated with BCU football." During the same interviews Gast talked about this being an interim step in a plan that ultimately will end in the team moving to a stadium either on-campus or in the Sioux City area.
Now that I've told you what's going on, here's my take:
For starters, I first heard about this back in March (a couple months before the official announcement was made), but at that time the plan was to play one game at the Dome each season and play the rest at Memorial Field. When I heard this I liked the idea. Playing a home game at a separate site from your official home field is nothing rare in college football. This even happens at the NCAA Division I-A level (Florida-Georgia @ Jacksonville, Oklahoma-Texas @ Dallas, and Arkansas plays one home game in Little Rock).
Now when the announcement came that BCU was going to move to the Dome exclusively in 2013, my reaction was just a little bit different. And all I have to say to Athletic Director Steve Gast is WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU THINKING!!!!!!!
While I will agree that Memorial Field is not the best place for a college football team to call home (especially when the weather is not the best and also in November after BCU and Heelan have played on it week after week) AT LEAST IT'S IN SIOUX CITY!!!! Our football fans in the community and our students ARE NOT going to travel 39 miles from Sioux City and Briar Cliff campus to watch a Briar Cliff HOME football game. I don't care if we're moving to the DakotaDome or (Bleeping) Notre Dame Stadium, they just won't do it. Busing from campus to the games might get some but come on, if the students won't go to games just down the road at Memorial where they can hang out in the parking lot during halftime and go across the street to Applebee's if the game gets out of hand, then what's going to make them hop on a bus or carpool to Vermillion to watch a game indoors? Also, you say that this will expand the fan base in the region, then answer this question for me, What football fan (not counting families of team members and coaches) is going to come to the DakotaDome to watch a team that has gone from 5-6 in 2006 to 2-9 in 2012 and has never had a winning season in 10 years of football?
Now Steve Gast also mentioned that this was an interim site until a new stadium can be built either on-campus or in the Sioux City area. That one is almost too easy to counter. Back in 2005, when Trent Johnson was talking to me about possibly coming to Briar Cliff to continue my education following high school, he kept bringing up the fact that Briar Cliff was going to be improving the facilities on campus, especially at Heelan Hall. Now the plans for a new addition didn't come out until a couple years later, but BCU was using this as a recruiting tool for prospective students for years with little to no progress being made until construction finally started in 2011. Another example is how from 1982, when the Newman Flanagan Center opened, until 2010 the floor the basketball and volleyball teams play on went through very little change in terms of look and also in upkeep. By 2009, the floor had numerous dead spots and, most infamously, still had BCC, for Briar Cliff College (not Chargers like the school claimed after the change to BCU) on the center court circle. My point is that every upgrade that the school has added over the years to the campus has taken a long time to raise the money for. And even if we could build a stadium on-campus, there is still the problem of the city ordinance against our on-campus fields having lights for night games. I've lost count of how many times we've finished a soccer doubleheader with light so dim that the light from the scoreboard glowed on the ground in front of it, or how we've had to suspend baseball games due to the sun going down so far that it was a safety hazard for the players.
So in conclusion, the idea of moving home football games to the DakotaDome is not only a mistake, it is PROGRAM SUICIDE!!!! Instead of increasing our fan base within the region will isolate the fan base that we already have because our team will not be in its key market. It will also hurt the program's connection to the student body because they won't travel 39 miles to watch a team play their home games.
Now while there are no easy solutions to this situation, a solution could be started with one simple move: Form an agreement with Heelan to raise the money together to install FieldTurf on Memorial Field. This move would improve our current facility significantly and would prevent the wear and tear that the field goes through every fall. It is also a solution that has been proven, not only in college football, but in the GPAC itself as both Morningside and Northwestern, who also share their fields with high school teams, have installed FieldTurf at their stadiums to compensate for the extra use.
So my prediction for this move to Vermillion is that it will backfire on the football program and we will more than likely move back to Memorial Field with our tails between our legs in 2015.
I'm DK and that's the 411!
