FB: American Southwest Conference

[Ralph Turner]

This is why UMHB is different from the other schools in the ASC.

https://www.umhb.edu/news/2023/umhb-announces-largest-planned-gift-to-date

$50M!

From the article...

The university enrolls over 3,500 students, is located in Belton, Texas, and has a vision to be the university of choice for Christian higher education in the Southwest.

A lot of universities in the ASC mouth these words. UMHB just seems to do it better.

[Riley Zayas]

This is why UMHB is different from the other schools in the ASC.

https://www.umhb.edu/news/2023/umhb-announces-largest-planned-gift-to-date

$50M!

From the article...

The university enrolls over 3,500 students, is located in Belton, Texas, and has a vision to be the university of choice for Christian higher education in the Southwest.

A lot of universities in the ASC mouth these words. UMHB just seems to do it better.

I'd agree. The funding is there at UMHB, while it isn't necessarily there for all the other schools in the ASC. Which is why you see the athletics disparity a little bit. Their facilities are better than a handful of Southland Conference schools and I think that financially they could make it at D2 if that's the route they opt to go (if the ASC ends up losing the football AQ soon).

[Etchglow]

Thank you for the explanation. Now we just wait.

Yes. Unfortunately, with power programs in D3 (UMHB, St. John's, Whitewater), we usually have to wait until spring to find out scheduling. Nobody wants to play these teams. Coaches I talked to last year said that it was near impossible to find nonconf opponents. Wouldn't surprise me if it's May and we still don't have a football schedule for the Cru. Finding 2 nonconf games was challenging last year

There is very little value to scheduling a non-conference game with a power program. If you need a quality win for the sake of Strength of Schedule, you can play someone against whom you might get a victory, e.g., Huntingdon's 41-34 loss to Linfield last season. Sometimes, it backfires, e.g., UMHB 62, Muhlenberg 13. Wow, McMurry only lost 62-3 to UMHB in 2022. In fact, McMurry has played UMHB 6 times since returning D-3. They are 0-6 by cumulative scores of 426-16.

The good news for McMurry moving to the SCAC is that they will no longer receive their "beat-down" from UMHB. That honor will transfer to Trinity.

They might still end up playing lol.  It would be nice if the ASC survives that the SCAC would play each other for non conference stuff. 

[Ralph Turner]

Does anyone know how to get endowment totals? I used to get them fro NACUBO, but they seem to charge for the report now.

[Etchglow]

Does anyone know how to get endowment totals? I used to get them fro NACUBO, but they seem to charge for the report now.

https://www.nacubo.org/-/media/Nacubo/Documents/research/2021-NTSE-Public-Tables--Endowment-Market-Values--REVISED-February-18-2022.ashx?la=en&hash=FA57411CC4244B7D49C25377165FEC42FFBDEB56

Seems to have the market value of the endowments.

[Ralph Turner]

Does anyone know how to get endowment totals? I used to get them fro NACUBO, but they seem to charge for the report now.

https://www.nacubo.org/-/media/Nacubo/Documents/research/2021-NTSE-Public-Tables--Endowment-Market-Values--REVISED-February-18-2022.ashx?la=en&hash=FA57411CC4244B7D49C25377165FEC42FFBDEB56

Seems to have the market value of the endowments.

Thanks. +1

It has FY (Fiscal Year) 2020 and 2021.  When someone finds 2022, please post it.

[Etchglow]

Does anyone know how to get endowment totals? I used to get them fro NACUBO, but they seem to charge for the report now.

https://www.nacubo.org/-/media/Nacubo/Documents/research/2021-NTSE-Public-Tables--Endowment-Market-Values--REVISED-February-18-2022.ashx?la=en&hash=FA57411CC4244B7D49C25377165FEC42FFBDEB56

Seems to have the market value of the endowments.

Thanks. +1

It has FY (Fiscal Year) 2020 and 2021.  When someone finds 2022, please post it.

22 doesn't get posted until Friday as per:

https://www.nacubo.org/research/2021/public-ntse-tables

[Ron Boerger]

And has now been posted.

CTX - did not participate
ETBU - did not participate
HPU - did not participate
HSU - $201M (-6.5%)
LeTU - $25.4M (-11.1%)
McM - did not participate
Ozarks - $126.8M (-6.6%)
SRSU - part of Texas State system, $801M (+32.9%)
UT-D - part of UT system, $42.7B (-0.6%)
UMHB - did not participate

BTW, the Around the Nation podcast that was dropped today talks a bit about the future of ASC football towards the end.  The primary focus is how do we fix the at-large mess and has a great panel discussion on that topic. 

[Etchglow]

And has now been posted.

CTX - did not participate
ETBU - did not participate
HPU - did not participate
HSU - $201M (-6.5%)
LeTU - $25.4M (-11.1%)
McM - did not participate
Ozarks - $126.8M (-6.6%)
SRSU - part of Texas State system, $801M (+32.9%)
UT-D - part of UT system, $42.7B (-0.6%)
UMHB - did not participate

BTW, the Around the Nation podcast that was dropped today talks a bit about the future of ASC football towards the end.  The primary focus is how do we fix the at-large mess and has a great panel discussion on that topic.

Pretty good stuff in the pod.  I think it'd help Stagg Bowl attendance (in Texas at least) if it was a week later.  I know last time it was in Texas it was the same weekend as HS Football championship weekend and Jerry World where the 10 games generally bring 200k+ attendees.

[Ralph Turner]

BTW, the Around the Nation podcast that was dropped today talks a bit about the future of ASC football towards the end.  The primary focus is how do we fix the at-large mess and has a great panel discussion on that topic.

Great podcast!  Well worth the entire 87 minutes.

Since we could go to a 6-week playoff, I took a 64-team bracket and gave byes to the top 2 teams in each of the 6 regions.
That meant that #36 was playing #13 . That is a much more competitive game than a #32 playing a #1 or even a #29 playing a #4 in the 1st round. That offers more "Cinderellas" a chance to go deeper into the dance


Modified...
My bad. See below!

[Ron Boerger]

BTW, the Around the Nation podcast that was dropped today talks a bit about the future of ASC football towards the end.  The primary focus is how do we fix the at-large mess and has a great panel discussion on that topic.

Great podcast!  Well worth the entire 87 minutes.

Since we could go to a 6-week playoff, I took a 64-team bracket and gave byes to the top 2 teams in each of the 6 regions.
That meant that #36 was playing #13 . That is a much more competitive game than a #32 playing a #1 or even a #29 playing a #4 in the 1st round. That offers more "Cinderellas" a chance to go deeper into the dance

The NCAA isn't going to double the number of schools involved as it would totally blow the access ratio out of the water.   250 football-playing schools / 6.5 (the access ratio for other sports) = 38+, maybe you get 36 if they ever do anything.

[Ralph Turner]

BTW, the Around the Nation podcast that was dropped today talks a bit about the future of ASC football towards the end.  The primary focus is how do we fix the at-large mess and has a great panel discussion on that topic.

Great podcast!  Well worth the entire 87 minutes.

Since we could go to a 6-week playoff, I took a 64-team bracket and gave byes to the top 2 teams in each of the 6 regions.
That meant that #36 was playing #13 . That is a much more competitive game than a #32 playing a #1 or even a #29 playing a #4 in the 1st round. That offers more "Cinderellas" a chance to go deeper into the dance

My bad. Let me try to re-draw a bracket for 36. I am thinking that there would end up with 28 1st round byes.

[Ron Boerger]

This is why UMHB is different from the other schools in the ASC.

https://www.umhb.edu/news/2023/umhb-announces-largest-planned-gift-to-date

$50M!

Corey Hogue of DCTF speculates some of these funds will be used for athletic purposes as the gift is unrestricted.  That could help propel a move to D2 or FCS should the ASC not find a path forward for its football schools.   

[Ron Boerger]

And Ralph, you were looking for ASC endowments; one possible source if you want to do the legwork is Propublica.org which maintains a wealth of publicly available information about non-profits.  From a financial audit of UMHB for the period ending May 31, 2022 the school reported endowment funds of $ 115,770,020 (down $1M from a year earlier) and "other investments" of $57,871,879 (up $19M from a year earlier). 

[crufootball]

Well now we know 2 of the 3 non conference games for UMHB, crazy that I can only assume they are going through the phone list for the 10th time trying to convince someone to play them.

When the HBU HCU game got canceled I wondered where Trinity would go, happy for UMHB to get the game but do fell bad for HSU who seems to be having even more trouble finding games.