The Georgetown Football Puzzle (Part Three)

 

The previous options in this series to date have attempted to balance cost with change when it comes to intercollegiate football at Georgetown University. The 150-odd years of football on the Hilltop have been an exercise in balancing a cost-benefit equation of sorts, even if it wasn't called that. 

In 2025 and beyond, there are costs to compete and investments to excel in every intercollegiate sport. The increasing professionalization of major college football and basketball will put even more pressure on other sports that rely on institutional support to justify their value to the University against the tide of putting more money into revenue-positive programs. 

This is not new, of course. Decades ago, even in the best of times, former Georgetown athletic director Frank Rienzo would regularly remind alumni that "those sports with a community of support will be those who survive at Georgetown." It didn't seem as dire then but, as Rienzo was keen to play the long game, it's an issue now.

The next three items on this grid, below, are opportunities not only to survive but thrive. 

Each requires investment in and long term support of, competitive football at the FCS level. No one is arguing that Georgetown needs to be the next Maryland or even the next  James Madison, but the need to provide a financial foundation for Patriot League football is a clear and present need. The three newcomers to the Patriot League have made timely investments to  prepare them, in each school's unique situations, to be ready to excel within the Patriot League and FCS championship structure. After a quarter century of visibly lagging in these areas relative to their six current peers, this is the time to make the case that with support comes institutional trust within the University that its investment of 105 student-athletes and ten coaches in football is not a one-way street.

1. A Football Campaign (high cost, low program change).

For most of its first 100 years, Georgetown made no effort to enlist alumni and friends in financial support of the program; had they done so, the end of major college football in 1951 might have been delayed, if not avoided altogether. 

In 1974, the Gridiron Club was founded with the aim of supporting the team through annual giving. A 1976 article In The HOYA reported the club had announced a $350,000 campaign ($2 million in 2025 dollars) from which to provide 10 need based awards annually representing a fourth of the cost of tuition, which would be supplemented by work-study. This effort didn't take hold, but the Club raised modest funds annually for needs not met by the University budget, from travel to new uniforms to a scoreboard at Kehoe Field.

The Gridiron Club and 16 other satellite clubs under the Hoyas Unlimited umbrella raised funds that were complementary to the athletic budget. That model changed in 2005 when then-athletic director Bernard Muir moved to have the support clubs engage in supplementary fundraising, that is, giving only to support the operating budget, with decisions on program spend within Athletics, not alumni. The bottom line benefited, but at a loss of volunteer interest and camaraderie--the decline of the Hoya Hoop Club in the intervening years is an example. Efforts to raise significant funds beyond the total often fall short, in part because alumni and donors don't always see progress with giving more on an annual basis.

The Gridiron Club represents a vital part of Hoyas Unlimited, but annual giving has its limits. Such giving does not address any of the opportunities cited to date in this series, and  even if it did, would run into the bureaucracy, which usually leads to the "we can't afford to do that" response. Georgetown's track record with additive gifts is a checkered one, most recently with the Multi-Sport Facility effort.

There is, and will continue to be, a need for annual giving. There is also a need for some long term thinking, around these five questions:

1. What does Georgetown University and its supporters want from football over the next ten years and beyond?

2. What are the steps needed to get it there?

3. What is the financial commitment from both parties required to meet these goals?

4. What is the capacity of the donor base to support these goals?

5. Is there the institutional and donor will to meet these goals?

With answers to these questions, the opportunity for football to launch a ten year, $10 million campaign for Georgetown Football is a step to be considered.

Georgetown knows all about campaigns as they are in the tail end of its biggest campaign in the school's history, the "Called To Be" campaign, which has raised $2.58 billion of a $3 billion goal with one year remaining in the campaign. While football had a brief campaign goal without a specific sum (the campaign web site reads, in part, "Georgetown Football is seeking investments in coaching funds, the JumpStart Program, travel and recruiting funds, nutrition and sports performance funds, the Annual Fund, and a number of existing named scholarship endowments"), it doesn't address the future so much as funding the present. It has not announced any significant giving towards these aims to date, although many have contributed. 

The present University campaign concludes in 2026 and while the next University campaign would not begin in earnest until the 2030's, the fundraising never stops. Getting the right people within the football community, the Department of Athletics, and University Advancement to consider this in a period between campaigns is a start. Developing this as a University-level effort and not just a Gridiron Club project is another. With the renewed hope of a boathouse, there will be fundraising for that, too. 

In an era of limited budget opportunities for Athletics to assume any additional spending in sports not named "men's basketball", it's incumbent to design and execute a strategy to meet long term needs, whatever they may be: coaching salaries, strength and conditioning, NIL, travel, even scholarship aid. This isn't the place to determine which of these carries the weight, but that a meeting of the minds offers an opportunity for Georgetown to be up-front with its donor community in football (and vice versa) to ask them to step up for defined goals and defined outcomes.

A single sport campaign is not unique to GU but it runs into headwinds, particularly around Title IX. Were football to raise large sums for aid, it stirs the issue regarding proportional aid for student-athletes in general. Adding $2 million, for example, to men's aid may be held up to scrutiny as men are a minority on the campus and would exacerbate proportionality. 

There is no sport comparable to football by which a companion campaign could be held, as it could for men's and women's soccer, for example. However, a lesser known but important group within Georgetown Athletics could be a suitable partner and keep Title IX issues in context.

The group is known as the Georgetown Women's Allegiance, which is also on the campaign docket. Its introduction reads: "In looking towards the next 50 years of women’s sports at Georgetown the Athletic Department is seeking donor partnership to provide the resources our student-athletes need to succeed in the classroom, community, and competition ...during the past seven academic years, with the exclusion of men’s basketball, over 75% of sport specific donations have been directed towards men’s programs. This alarming gap in contributions is a priority that the department is aggressively trying to address."

Were a football campaign paired up with the Women's Allegiance for similar aid targets, both groups benefit: for example, a campaign that sough to raise the aforementioned $2 million for football aid could also raise a $2 million total for multiple women's sports in the same campaign.  

There are no magic bullets in fundraising - its takes a professional staff, it takes lots of work, and it takes executive and board level support. Campaigns are board-level discussion pieces, and it would take a new president and the Board of Directors to get a sense of the "what" and the "why" that such an effort would engage within a donor base that has been identified as those that could get this done. 

It's unclear when football last made its way to a Board of Directors agenda, but a chance to solidify its competitive future is a better opportunity than an agenda to address the cost of futility. 

An ongoing sport-specific campaign for a $4.25 million sprint (lightweight) football campaign at Cornell is underway. Its message is a direct one: "The future of Cornell Sprint Football is not a given. Strong alumni guidance, engagement and investment will ensure our legacy moves forward."

As it would at Georgetown.

2. 56.7 Equivalencies (high cost, moderate program change).

The distinguishing feature between FCS and major college football is not stadium size or attendance, but institutional aid. A school like Duke or Boston College offers 85 scholarships, with a pending move to 105 for most of these schools. Such a figure costs Boston College $8.2 million a year at 85 grants, not to mention cost of attendance grants common among ACC peers.

FCS schools are limited to 63 scholarships, which may be divided among 85 players with a combination of traditional scholarships and financial aid, in what is called the equivalency model. (If four Georgetown players each received a quarter of the cost of tuition through directed aid, that would be "one" equivalency.) Every Patriot League team except Georgetown offers at or near 63 equivalencies, while Richmond, William & Mary and Villanova offer 63 as well. 

An NCAA rule addresses schools below the 63 equivalency limit. Any school offering at least 90 percent of the available equivalencies (63 x 90% equals 56.7)  counts for FBS opponents to schedule them for bowl eligibility. Thus, Oregon State can schedule Lafayette this year (and did) to count for a win to reach bowl eligibility, but if it scheduled Georgetown it wouldn't count. 

Why? Georgetown is below 56.7, though it never discloses how many it actually offers between loan buyouts and institutional aid.

Among the schools that you would suspect were not playing major college opponents in 2025:  Duquesne at Pitt, Robert Morris at West Virginia, Wagner versus Kansas. None expect a win but they all will be well compensated for it, with guarantee fees from $300,000 to almost $2 million for selected schools. Holy Cross nearly beat BC in overtime two years ago. 

Every Patriot League school except Georgetown takes advantage of at least one such opponent per year: it's a recruiting opportunity, a chance to be seen by a wider audience, a chance to play better competition and get paid for it. Colgate, for example, played at Stanford and made it an alumni weekend. Closer to its home, Richmond travels to North Carolina this season, with Louisville, Virginia, and Pitt on its horizon.

Louisville, Virginia, and Pitt are not on Georgetown's horizon, we know that. But at some point, the ability to upgrade its need based and buyout equivalencies offers Georgetown competitive opportunities that would be a value-add for the program and provide revenue. Maybe it's Navy in Annapolis. Maybe it's at West Point. Maybe it's at Duke. 

For a program that exists in relative anonymity, any future move in equivalencies, need or otherwise, not only gets them the opportunity for a big game in week one but it sends a message to the rest of the PL that Georgetown can compete in this league and is better committed to what the league is trying to accomplish in football. If Villanova (a school that is the closest to an athletic peer at Georgetown) can do it and excel, the conversation among recruits shifts from "why can't Georgetown compete?" to "why won't it compete?"  

The road to this funding level is expensive, regardless of whether by aid, a buyout, Ivy-plus, flex aid, etc., but the opportunity to further strengthen and diversify the program runs though equivalencies. Whether GU is 10, 20, or 40 short of this number is a conversation that remains inside the walls.

3. Scholarship Football (high cost, high program change).

It's the biggest potential change to Georgetown football in 75 years and even if not everyone is ready, willing, and able to consider it, the subject deserves the conversation. 

Hurdles abound: cost, Title IX, athletic priorities, institutional culture. Only one-sixth of GU student-athletes receive such aid; yet, there is a direct correlation between scholarship support and program success. Men's soccer had one post-season bid as a non-scholarship program from 1952 to 1997; since then, nine Big East titles, three Final Fours (aka the College Cup), and the 2019 NCAA title. Men's lacrosse never had a winning season in 20 years as a non-scholarship program; today, it is a Top 15 program.  

The turnaround in baseball, which had gone 35 consecutive seasons without a winning record from 1986 through 2020, is attributable to scholarship support. Conversely, sports like field hockey, softball, and women's tennis are not competitive in a market where competitive recruits go elsewhere, regardless of Georgetown's academic offering. The same can be said for football. 

"I don't waste my time thinking about scholarships," Coach Sgarlata said in 2015. "If I can't do that with nine coaches recruiting nationally with Georgetown's brand and find kids of the same caliber that everybody else is getting in the Northeast, then we have a problem." 

Even Sgarlata would admit that the landscape has changed, and the Patriot League is a different place when it comes to recruiting. Georgetown will have a problem in 2026.

It's not his decision to make, of course.

Georgetown has a lot of decisions to make about intercollegiate athletics. It's a 30 sport program funded off the revenues from one sport, one which has underperformed for a decade, and an institutional subsidy which will be further constrained by the pressures of revenue sharing and University-wide responses to losses in federal research funding. Scholarships are limited; facilities, even moreso. Compensation for coaches outside basketball remain difficult conversations. 

Through it all, Georgetown remains an extraordinary place for student-athletes, with a Top 10 graduation rate and a ranking in the top 50 among all Division I schools and fourth nationally among FCS-level programs, trailing just three Ivy League schools. Among Big East schools, only UConn and its national basketball success is more competitive across multiple sports. 

 

It's neither fortune or good luck that has elevated Georgetown athletics to this rarified air, but a peculiar alchemy of sport by sport funding that, to date, has worked remarkably well, even for sports like football that have not enjoyed the results of its fellow programs. How it meets the challenges of an uncertain future is the vital question, and, harking back to the Frank Rienzo quote above, does football have the community of support will allow it not only to survive, but thrive with the level of institutional support, philanthropy, and competitive opportunity enjoyed by its Patriot League peers?

It's not going to be "63 scholarships or bust". It never was. This is about a community of interest who can support a future where, with a mix of transparent recruiting, admissions support, flexible financial aid solutions, and where practical, some number of grants in aid that would put not only a competitive team on the gridiron, but a representative one that still connects to Georgetown as an institution.

Whatever that number is, I don't know. It could be three per class, six, or eight.  Maybe it's paired with Women's Allegiance grants. Maybe, perhaps, the "four for 40" can raise 40 half-grants a year from the alumni classes. Whatever the calculus, it begins with dialogue.

The support of the football donor community will, in all likelihood, be the difference between the dimming future of non-scholarship football outside the Ivy League and a program that provides talented young men the ability to afford Georgetown, to play there, and to graduate and pay it forward to the next generation.

If this series has identified a problem or two, and offered an few options, it's not about the wins and losses, but for the strategic gain to see where Georgetown football can be more agile in an uncertain time for college athletics. 

"The best way to predict your future," said Abraham Lincoln, "is to create it."

The Georgetown Football Puzzle (Part Two)

  

For the second part of this discussion, there must be a consensus that one of the major drivers that relegates Georgetown football to where it is situated has been, and continues to be, cost. 

Georgetown underfunded this program relative to its Patriot League peers when it joined, it is underfunded today, and it is likely to continue to be underfunded going forward--not with malice aforethought, but that the absence of a scholarship tradition at Georgetown coupled with the financial tightrope Georgetown walks with a 30-team program and one major revenue source has been restrictive at best and a constrictor at worst. 

In theory, the Georgetown Way calls to mind an Ivy League model of days gone by, where men were admitted to a university and paid their way, not merely to play football In practice, and in a world where the cost of education approaches figures unthinkable by the likes of Percy Haughton, Tad Jones, or Lou Little, it's become untenable. In 1980, the cost of a year at Georgetown University was roughly 25 percent the cost of an year's earnings for a middle class family- sizeable, but not completely overwhelming. In 2025, it's now at 126 percent for that same family. Affordability, or the lack of it, is a deal maker and deal breaker every football program that does not offer scholarships for admission.  

In 2000, Georgetown was one of 33 schools in the Northeast which did not offer athletic scholarships in I-AA football. In 2025, Georgetown is one of just ten--eight are in the Ivy League, the other is Marist. Seeking to be more the former than the latter, Georgetown's financial aid is aligned with that of the Ivies, leading to this paradox: it competes (with Ivies) where it does not play, and plays (with the Patriot) where it does not compete.

The next three topics address how Georgetown could consider a more competitive approach for recruiting and retaining student-athletes in football. Note that, at least in public, these are not current approaches and if they are being used in some form or fashion, it's certainly news to me and a lot of other Georgetown fans and alumni. Assuming they are not, we begin to look at three approaches with medium cost and with a change to the program as it currently stands.

1. Ivy-Plus Recruiting (medium cost, low program change).

Since 1978, Georgetown University has subscribed to a financial aid model which has, more than any single external factor, has elevated it to the elite of American higher education. Known as "need-blind, full need" admissions, Georgetown does not consider the parents' ability to pay when making an admissions decision, something only very few schools are financially confident enough to do. Secondly, once accepted, it is committed to meeting the gap between the overall cost of attendance and the family's ability to pay, otherwise known as the "expected family contribution," or EFC. 

In 1978, Georgetown allocated $2 million for this gap. As of this week's Board of Directors announcement, that number is $286 million, the largest single expenditure at the University outside faculty salaries. As a result, Georgetown spends more on aid in a single year than the total endowment of Xavier University.

Full-need financial aid makes a Georgetown admission offer extremely valuable, but less so for families where the EFC is not favorable. For a family with an annual income of $50,000, an offer to Georgetown is close to a full-ride grant, athletics or not. For a family of $125,000, considerably less so. As such, one of the underreported stories of the last generation has been the evisceration of the middle class at Georgetown, which is, as much as any time in our memory, a place for  the children of the working poor and for those of means.

Putting aside some recent litigation on this issue, if the EFC number was a consistent figure that applied across all schools, a student would have a truly rational decision on where to attend, but it's not: an offer from Harvard and an offer from Hillsdale College would be comparable. It's not.

At Harvard, applicants with a household income of $100,000 or less pay $0 for tuition,  room, and board. Families with a household income of $200,000 pay nothing for tuition but would need a parent contribution for room and board.  Each of the Ivies, along with schools such as Vanderbilt, Rice,  Johns Hopkins, and Stanford, are similarly generous, while others commit to full aid by grant, without loans of any kind.

These schools share one thing in common: an endowment in the tens of billions to cover such costs. Georgetown University, with an endowment one-fourth that of Hopkins and  one-fourteenth that of Harvard, cannot compete with this. Thus, a Georgetown offer, while competitive to those of lesser means, quickly becomes less so when it requires loans and a higher EFC for middle income applicants, particularly those above $80,000.

Back to football: the Pell Grant recruit who considers Georgetown and an Ivy program is going to have comparable offers and one comparable with a PL football scholarship at Colgate or Lehigh. Beyond $80,000 or so, a middle class family will begin to see gaps of $5,000 to $15,000 from Georgetown and the others. Above $150,000, an Ivy offer may be significantly more favorable. 

As long as Georgetown is competing among this cohort for admissions, that's a big deal. That's not to say every GU recruit is going to an Ivy school, but absent football scholarships and a separate admission track afforded to sports as GU basketball enjoys,   grades and aid are the drivers between playing football at Georgetown and playing somewhere else. More often that not, aid wins out.

Prior to 2013, the Patriot League funding model allowed for what was called the "buyout" of the parent contribution: for example, an EFC of $15,000 could be assumed by the athletic department and recorded on its budget, not that of the financial aid office. This became the need-based equivalency for FCS purposes, allowing some PL schools to offer as much or more than as 56.7 equivalencies for FBS guarantee games without the definition of a scholarship. The move to a scholarship model in the PL converted these amounts to athletic scholarships at al schools but Georgetown, rendering competition with these schools for recruits even more daunting. A kid from Delbarton with a choice of paying $20,000 a year to go to Georgetown or getting a free ride at Holy Cross will, all things being equal, go to Worcester.

Money offered by the financial aid office is, and remains, based on demonstrated need. For this argument, there needs to be some conversation about targeted fundraising that would allow Georgetown football to compete at a figure (for argument's sake, a household income between $80,000 and $125,000) where the gap between Georgetown's offer and that of a comparable Ivy school would be matched by the athletic department beyond Georgetown's need formula, and independent of the loan buyouts. This fund would effectively create a range of income  beyond the Georgetown EFC where football would meet and cover the gap between Georgetown's EFC and that of peer schools, perhaps even to include PL scholarship offers.

No, it would not be for everyone, but not every recruit fits into this category. If a $200,000 annual fund could support 20 students that had a $10,000 gap by an "Ivy-Plus" offer, that's still no more than five recruits in a cycle which the staff could offer it to, and likely it becomes a decision for the coaches whether to use this on a recruit. Unlike financial aid, it's a budget item that Athletics would have to absorb through philanthropy, and if the fundraising isn't there, neither is the offer. 

There's room for discussion if this stretches the need based model of Georgetown too far, and that's a fair argument. Would such a model introduce athletic performance to the aid formula, or merely meet the need that is otherwise offered in the marketplace? It's a discussion worth having.

2. Flex Aid (medium cost, medium program change).

The Ivy-Plus approach to financial aid works, if up to a point. Many Georgetown recruits will come from families where financial need will not be available under any measure, and others simply can't reasonably justify Georgetown  against comparable programs that will offer more generous aid, whether in a scholarship or a full aid, loan-free package. A discussion about whether there is capacity among the donor pool to support limited equivalency grants is a healthy one.

Before someone sounds the alarm and says "That means FOOTBALL SCHOLARSHIPS!", let's take a step back.

Georgetown University hasn't offered a grant-in-aid for football in 75 years. Far be it  some sort of statement of academic purity, such a belief was always about cost: they did not want to be saddled with the cost of 81 grants, even when tuition was $1,400 a year.  When football returned in 1964, administrative opposition was not about academic slippery slopes, it was about cost. The "Football For Fun" movement carefully used its words in its proposals to the University, stressing it would not be "big time"; which, then or now, connoted universities that spent beyond Georgetown's means. 

Whether in the club football era or Division III, "cost containment" was the driver, from the players themselves right down to the part-time coaches which served the program selflessly and more than most ever knew. It was also a tacit reflection that Georgetown didn't see a community of interest to support anything more than what low level football would provide: opportunity, but not enough support to get in the way of institutional commitments to its bellwether programs in basketball and track.  

This theory endured in the move to I-AA, where football pivoted to the MAAC and thus  could continue to play similarly-situated (read=low budget) schools. Eight years later, the move to the Patriot was framed, in part, among similarly situated schools that kept costs low. 

In 2012, Georgetown was the only PL school to vote no to the league's move to scholarship football. Former president Jack DeGioia drew the line on football grants with his claim that "I don’t believe that [football scholarships] fits the ethos and the culture of Georgetown", though no one called him on the follow-up: do soccer scholarships fit the ethos and culture? How about volleyball? Do golf and tennis and baseball, each of which receive small but worthy scholarship opportunities, contribute to the ethos and culture that football is somehow unfit to do?

DeGioia's follow-up in that quote bears a second look. 

He continued, "I’m not supportive that Georgetown would follow the move that Fordham did and go to 63 scholarships. It’s just very expensive and I don’t think it’s commensurate in who we are and in our aspirations for our athletic program." 

Once again, it was about "very expensive". That Georgetown has been able to tread water through a decade of PL scholarship football is a credit to Georgetown teams and a couple of teams they can surprise now and then, but as Holy Cross proved under Bob Chesney and the three CAA arrivals are about to magnify, there's no surprises anymore.

By 2026, at least nine games, maybe as many as 11 of 12, will be against scholarship opponents--some will spend more, others less, but each will have the flexibility to recruit and admit from middle-income and high-income households that Georgetown cannot  m match. A full need approach is an increasing challenge to the coaching staff to address and remain reasonably competitive.

DeGioia's comment about 63 scholarships as "just very expensive"  begs this question: does Georgetown need 63 scholarships? Probably not, though it wouldn't hurt. What it needs, and sooner rather than later, is a discussion about what sum of annual giving, directed at a fundraising pool which could fund additive aid for a limited number of impact recruits (say, three or four a year) would give Georgetown a fighting chance at recruiting against comparable schools.  

Could the Gridiron Club raise $300,000 a year for five grants of $15,000 annually, presumably covering a four year commitment, that would allow the staff to combine this with a financial aid package? A recruit from a six figure family income may still have an hefty EFC from Georgetown, but could an additional $15,000 grant, (literally, an equivalency) make Georgetown competitive? 

Five $15,000 grants isn't 63 scholarships and not even close--it's literally less than one equivalency. On the margin, however, it may be enough, with need aid, to land the impact QB or RB which GU has been visibly missing for years on end. and it does so with outside giving, thus freeing the University from the institutional angst that it cannot afford to do so. If the support club can't raise the funds, the grants aren't awarded, full stop. 

But if it can, it should be discussed. If baseball (a proud program which labored without a winning record for over  three decades) was given the green light to raise over $5 million for partial grants, the ethos and culture of Georgetown didn't come crashing down, and neither would it for football.

3. NIL (medium cost, high program change).

The cloud that hangs across all college sports takes a darker turn this fall, and if you think Patriot League football is immune from such concerns, think again.

In 2022, athletic director Lee Reed and former board chairman Paul Tagliabue warned alumni at the John Carroll Weekend in Nashville of the perfidy of name, image, and license opportunities being co-opted by Southeastern Conference schools. A year later at John Carroll in San Francisco, with new coach Ed Cooley in the room, Georgetown did a 180 and announced it was in the NIL game as well. The combination of a Supreme Court decision and the inability of the NCAA to police its own members led Division I programs outside the Ivy League to jump into the pool. 

Beginning this fall, following the House decision, NCAA schools that choose to opt in to the settlement may offer up to $20 million per school annually in what is loosely called revenue sharing to student-athletes. Few outside the major college programs will offer anything close to $20 million and fewer still have identified exactly which sports they'll actually cover, though Oklahoma AD Joe Castiglione named six: football, men's basketball, women's basketball, baseball, softball and women's gymnastics. The last three may surprise some but they are sports where donors, not just media contracts, can provide the dollars that can elevate the Sooners to national championships. The OU softball team, for example, has won four of the past five NCAA championships and lost in the 2025 final to Texas Tech, a school which has gone all-in on softball NIL.

Georgetown hasn't announced which teams figure to join in revenue sharing. Basketball is a given. Football isn't likely, but it doesn't have to be a byproduct of media rights. As in the previous discussion, the ability of Georgetown to externally raise some amount of money annually for targeted football NIL/rev-share/whatever-you-want-to-call-it is another tool in the recruiting toolbox.

But is this even necessary in the Patriot League? 

Well, don't look now, but the days of the collective, either in-house or externally run, have arrived in the land of The Last Amateurs.  The PL will never be the land of SEC and Big 10 football, where dozens of  players will receive $3 million or more each next season, but by 2026 this will be a factor at the higher levels of PL recruiting, as sure as it is in the Big East today for basketball.

A conversation about football NIL may be a contentious one for a school which hasn't even made a move on scholarship aid. A conversation is appropriate, however. Georgetown has an unusual issue on NIL in that, for its recruits, any such award would actually be counterproductive since the income received would negatively affect their aid award from the University. 

In the case of recruiting an impact grad transfer, an FBS transfer, or a high income recruit that isn't getting aid to begin with, the program needs to do the math and determine if outside giving could or should be solicited in advance to cover limited NIL grants for this cohort, much as was discussed above for flex aid.  Maybe it's not a priority unless and until scholarship support is settled, and that's OK, but the football staff knows that other PL schools will be going down this road soon, and Georgetown isn't doing itself any favors by looking away.

Think of the three topics in this article as variations on a theme: Ivy-Plus as addressing the gaps for the lower income recruit, flex aid as addressing Georgetown's competitive gaps in middle income applicants, and NIL as a selective option for a high income, high impact candidate. These are externally solicited giving to support program needs, in a way that is more transparent than Georgetown has been to date with its football donors. Unlike the ideas discussed in Part One, these involve some five and six figure donors, and that needs to be considered in a period of change in the Georgetown athletics model. Properly positioned, however, this could open up opportunities for football in a way that the current opaque fundraising model does not meet, and one will be severely tested otherwise in the years to come.

In part 3 of this series, a look at three other expensive and impactful options that may also be considered in a changing athletic world.

The Third Man

 

The worst kept secret in FCS football is a secret no more. 

In a matter of a little more than 13 months, the conference where time stood still has added three nationally prominent programs, including two former national champions, and positioned the Patriot League as the most interesting conference in FCS football. The addition Thursday of Villanova, the third jewel in the PL's triple crown of expansion candidates, is stunning in its impact, and remarkable that the stars aligned as they did.

For forty years, Villanova was the school that wanted nothing to do with the PL, and did its part to steer clear of the Last Amateurs while they were still amateur. The Andy Talley era positioned Villanova as the school which took I-AA and FCS football seriously, something to which Patriot schools were not altogether seen in such company. Yet, much like their fellow CAA stable mates in Richmond and William & Mary, the ground had changed underneath them, and the Patriot had changed to offer them a competitive home where one was fraying around them in the CAA.

Unless you're a Georgetown fan who grew up in or around the Philadelphia area, chances are you don't know much about the Wildcats, inasmuch as these schools never played each other in football over the last 75 years.  How Villanova got to this position is a story worth telling.

A football program since 1894, Villanova was the smallest of the three Philadelphia area programs behind Penn and Temple. A major college program throughout, Villanova played larger opponents at Shibe Park or Municipal (JFK) Stadium, but more often than not at the 12,000 seat on-campus stadium which still stands along Lancaster Avenue. Though it had not been ranked nationally since 1949, the Wildcats were invited to the 1961 Sun Bowl versus Wichita State and the 1962 Liberty Bowl versus Oregon State, the latter played at Philadelphia's Municipal Stadium before its move to Memphis later in the decade.

Following a 9-2 season in 1970 with wins over Maryland, Navy, and Temple, the Wildcats managed just two winning seasons the remainder of the decade before a 6-5 season in 1980. The year 1980 is a seminal date for Villanova football, for it was following that season that, citing a $500,000 loss, that the program was discontinued.

"Interest had dwindled to the point where we sold only 750 season tickets in 1980, and we had 95 players on scholarship,'' said athletic director Ted Aceto, himself  the quarterback of the 1961 and 1962 teams. 

Rather than dutifully accepting its fate as Georgetown had done two decades earlier, alumni pushed back. A group known as the Committee to Restore Football began to get attention, even going so far as to book the legendary Bob Hope for a fundraiser later that year at the Philadelphia Academy Of Music, titled "Hope For Football".  According to local reports, the event covered expenses but "we got about $5 million in free advertising from the papers."

What really got the school's attention was getting alumni to show their dissatisfaction over the decision. 

"During those years the university realized it had dropped a notch in prestige and how people viewed it,” said sports information director Craig Miller to the Philadelphia Inquirer.  “People would send checks and write "Void" on them, saying they wouldn’t continue to make donations until football returns.” Homecoming attendance dropped over 90 percent in two years. University officials saw the issue and understood that it needed a second look. 

"We have 54 (alumni) clubs throughout the country--including three in Los Angeles, San Francisco and San Diego,” said its alumni director. “And 52 of the 54 club presidents returned to campus the day we urged [Villanova] to reconsider.”

In 1983, Villanova restored football, to begin at the Division III level with a move to Division I-AA within four years--a lower scholarship threshold and a perceived better positioning for the school as a whole, now a member (in other sports) of the Big East conference. 

"You simply have to look to the overall benefits (of playing the game) instead of the financial benefits (of not playing),” its school president told the Inquirer., “Football is a unique college activity that has the strong support of the alumni and the school’s other friends." 

"If it’s that important to them, it’s that important to the university.”

With a new coach in Andy Talley, a non-scholarship team debuted with an intrasquad scrimamge at Homecoming on November 3, 1984. 

"We weren't going to have a team until the following fall, we still hadn't recruited a single player and yet we had a capacity crowd of 13,400 people who had paid $10 each to see the game,'' said Aceto in a story picked up by the Los Angeles Times.  "It was absolutely amazing. Except for three players, who had accepted scholarships before the football program was abandoned, everyone was a walk-on, and we were so short of offensive linemen that some guys had to keep running on and off the field to change jerseys.''

Beginning with a Division III schedule in 1985,  Talley won 17 of its next 18 over the next three seasons, and the Wildcats were off and running. Amidst early opponents such as Iona, Pace, Fordham, and even Catholic University, Talley took care not to schedule, or even be compared to, Georgetown. To this date, and at least until 2026, Georgetown remains the only PL school Villanova football has not played in its modern era.

Villanova joined the Yankee Conference in 1988, hosting Wake Forest at home but finishing 4-4 in conference against the likes of Delaware, UConn, and UMass, and with a run of four consecutive weeks versus nationally ranked teams. The next season, Villanova won its first Yankee title, one of five such titles across the Yankee, A-10, and CAA nameplates. The Wildcats have 16 NCAA appearances, including the 2009 national championship.

In 2011, Villanova gave serious consideration to upgrading to FBS and joining Big East football, with a move of its games to what is now known as Subaru Park in Chester. One week before the trustees' meeting, Pitt and Syracuse announced a departure from the Big East and the vote was tabled.

In the intervening years, Villanova was a loyal and successful CAA program. The loss of James Madison in 2021 stirred some questions among the fan base, as did the addition of unfamiliar and disparate programs: Bryant, Campbell, Hampton, Monmouth, North Carolina A&T. In 2023, its  major CAA rival, Delaware, announced a move out of the conference. With Richmond and William & Mary moving to the Patriot, the stage was set to join them.

So what does this mean for Villanova? 

At the forefront, stability. The PL is a conference of like minded schools that the Villanova fan base is familiar with. Richmond and W&M renew regional ties, while Lehigh and Lafayette are nearby regionally. According to a report, the average distance for road games across the PL will be just 175 miles compared to trips along the CAA schedule which ranged from Buies Creek, North Carolina to Orono, Maine. 

As to home games, Villanova should see a boost in attendance. Lehigh fans will buy tickets. So will Lafayette and Bucknell, Fordham and Holy Cross.

"The geographic footprint of the Patriot League is a perfect fit for Villanova," said  athletic director Eric Roedl.

"We believe this move will foster strong regional rivalries while maintaining our commitment to excellence on and off the field,” said ninth year coach Mark Ferrante. “It’s a natural fit that positions us well for the future.”

Second, it allows the Wildcats to remain nationally competitive. Villanova is 72-42 (.632) over the past ten seasons and has made the NCAA playoffs four of the past six seasons. The PL, in its scholarship era, allows them to continue to compete at a high competitive level for FCS be seen (by opponents or fans) as not deemphasizing the sport.

Third, it mitigates risk. The CAA has endured its hills and valleys over the years and the next few years may be challenging for that conferences. In an era of turmoil ahead for college athletics as a while, the PL is one less thing for Villanova athletic leadership to worry about.

What does this mean for the Patriot League? 

It's the big prize that gives the PL a 10 team conference without the need for further expansion. Short of the Ivy League breaking apart or the service academies dropping to FCS, there are really no other schools that fit the PL model in its footprint, and now the league can sit back and say they have the optimal collection of football teams in this region, including a school in Villanova which is a Top 60  academic university nationally.  For the first time in its history,  multiple bids to the NCAA playoffs  from the PL is not a hope, it is an expectation.

It's also an addition of affirmation. Were Villanova to consider this even a decade ago, it would have brought back a lot of pushback, if not outright revolt, from players, the coaching staff, the alumni base, and the local press. In 2025, there's no grumbling that Villanova is downgrading or given up its national ambitions. 

There's not a team in the league who will not be a better program, competitively speaking, by adding Villanova to its schedule.  That said...

What does this mean for Georgetown? 

At the outset, pain. 

Villanova is leagues ahead of Georgetown across the board on football: reputation, recruiting, player development, coaching, strength and conditioning, and, of course, results. Villanova is 72-42 since 2015. Georgetown? 32-66. Villanova's operating expenses are nearly twice that of GU, while its budget of $8.4 million doubles that spent on the Hilltop. While Georgetown plays Wagner in its second game this season, Villanova is playing Penn State.

The Georgetown program can compete alongside Bucknell and Lafayette, and can hang around with a Lehigh or Fordham. As presently constructed in 2025, it can't compete with Villanova.

Therein lies opportunity. 

The football program needs to have a real conversation about the ingredients it needs, inside and outside the University, to be successful going forward in a PL where eight or nine other schools are prepared and ready to compete at a national level. The ongoing series on this blog, the Georgetown Football Puzzle, is an example of such ideas, but there are others. Georgetown doesn't have to outspend everyone to compete, but first, it must compete. Football isn't fun if this is a one or two-win program within four years. 

For a student and alumni body which can struggle to hold back a yawn when mentioning Georgetown's football opponents, this is the only name out there to which people will sit up and pay attention. In nearly a half century, Georgetown fans know the name and know the rivalry. This isn't a rivalry from another era a la Fordham and Holy Cross, this is twice a year, every year, in basketball and 20 other sports. Now, add football.

Properly positioned and marketed, this series can reignite real support for Georgetown football, something that's been missing for decades as the Big East overwhelmed the sports landscape at Georgetown. This is the kind of event where Georgetown fans could take the Amtrak from Union Station to 30th Street, change to the SEPTA or regional rail, and walk right to the gate. 

Conversely, it's an open invite for Villanova fans who haven't visited Washington for a football game in decades to make this game a destination. Maybe that destination is Cooper Field. Maybe it's Audi Field. Maybe it's the new Commanders Stadium someday, no matter.  This game must become a destination on the calendar of every Georgetown and Villanova fan, and their communities at large. 

Marist can't do that. Neither can Bucknell or Lafayette. Villanova can.

From time to time, I've quoted a 2001 article by former coach Bob Benson on what football can do at Georgetown. This is a good time to revisit it.

"The move to the Patriot League is an expensive one," he wrote in 2001. "For Georgetown University to make this decision, the change must not only be a positive move for the football program, but for the entire university. There must be a vision!"

"It is really quite simple," he continued. "Utilize the game of football to create an environment and atmosphere among our students, faculty, and community on an autumn Saturday afternoon and bring to our campus a school spirit on a fall day that is desperately needed."

The Villanova Wildcats arrive to the Georgetown schedule in 15 months . Let's be up to the challenge.

The Georgetown Football Puzzle (Part One)

 

 

"The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them”--Albert Einstein

Entering its 25th season of Patriot League football this fall, upcoming changes to Patriot League football figure to test a competitive model at Georgetown University that has largely been unchanged in decades.

With an alchemy of philosophical, institutional, and financial constraints, Georgetown is one of just two Division I schools in the East playing nonscholarship football outside of the Ivy League, and is the only nonscholarship program in all of Division I competing in a scholarship conference. That the Hoyas have been able to compete in the Patriot has been due in no small part to the resolve of its coaches and players, but the league is poised for a significant upgrade in the years to come.

The arrival of two, perhaps three new member schools is one part of the change, but revisions to the league bylaws put additional scrutiny on how the Georgetown model, once dubbed as "football for fun", will compete going forward in recruiting, admissions, and ultimately for wins.

In the midst of the uncertainty of NIL and pressure on men's basketball to support the budget at-large, there are no clear paths to determine which tactics are best aligned to a strategy to meet competitive and institutional obligations. Priorities that once relegated football within a narrow definition of the "ethos and culture" of Georgetown require a second look to see what can be retained, and what must be realigned for the future.

To address a problem, of course, first one must identify that there is a problem.

Plainly speaking, Georgetown's 25 years in the Patriot League have been a challenging (at best) exercise in competing against better funded programs to whom it does not compete on a level playing field in terms of resources or results. Since 2001, Georgetown is 29-111 against PL teams. In almost any other program, that would be wholly unacceptable. It's not that Georgetown can't do so, but often times it has chose not to.

The Rubik's cube analogy is especially appropriate here. The balance of recruiting, admissions, retention, staff, facilities, and competitive outcomes are all weighted against drivers that are equal parts experiential (a worthwhile student experience), expectational (a record of success worthy of the effort) and economic. A coach, an athletic director and even a president at Georgetown is expected to make it all work, in every sport, and at every time.

However daunting at times, the Frank Rienzo-era model of Georgetown athletics has, for the most part succeeded, but 2025 is not 1975. Football is a visible example of this. Even if Georgetown doesn't seek to compete with Auburn or Syracuse, how can it even compete with Richmond or William & Mary on a 50 year old competitive model?

This column, in three parts, will attempt to raise issues through a nine-box chart, comparing opportunities based on cost versus program change. It's not a risk model in that neither cost nor program change is inherently more or less risk-averse, but that competitive improvements come with an impact to the model to which a sport is situated at Georgetown. Some are optimal, some are disruptive, and still others may never gain the momentum to act upon it, but they bear discussion.

In part one, let's look at three issues with relatively little cost to the Georgetown football model, but with some degree of program change.

1. Local recruiting (low cost, low program change).

All politics is local, so they say, and so is football.

Take a look at the Georgetown roster of 2024. Just one player played high school ball in the District, another five played inside the Beltway. Georgetown is not even an afterthought to the All-Met or all-conference selections among nearly 200 high school programs in the region, and not merely the ESPN Top 300 selections for whom a major college program offers opportunities to play in the NFL. Of the top 20 teams in the Washington Post's 2024 high school rankings, just one current GU player graduated from one of these schools. In the past 10 seasons, a total of just seven Georgetown players  are alumni of any of these 20 high schools.

This is not new to football or to the University. For much of the 20th century, Georgetown took a patrician view of local high schools, passing over most public school applicants (before and after desegregation) and limiting its private school interest to a coterie of schools such as Gonzaga, St. John's, Landon, or Georgetown Prep, ostensibly over grades and academic reputation. Outside a period in the early 1970s where Georgetown picked up recruits from the now-defunct football program at Montgomery Junior College,  local recruiting in football remains an anomaly.

Today, a competitive FCS-level candidate from Good Counsel, Churchill, or DeMatha would be more likely to end up on a roster at Holy Cross or Lehigh than Georgetown. The 2024 Villanova roster has more Washington kids than Georgetown does. So does Richmond.

For the majority of its PL existence, Georgetown could shrug its shoulders and point to the Patriot League Academic index as the governor on local recruiting. For the first 20 years of PL football at Georgetown, the restrictions that limited Georgetown to a narrow subset of recruitable athletes based on GPA and SATs within one standard deviation of the admitted pool of students largely wiped away any recruit below a 1200 SAT, and that was a lion's share of the local market. Even if one were to have the numbers,  Georgetown's competitive standing would lead the high-score recruits elsewhere.

Quietly, this has changed.

The Patriot League began to take a look at SAT's during COVID, where six of the seven schools (Georgetown excepted) went test optional. In 2023, the NCAA ruled that SAT scores were no longer required for eligibility. By late 2024, references in the Patriot League bylaws were revised from "Academic Index" guidelines to "Narrative Reporting". By many accounts, the banding of recruits to a strict index is no longer maintained.

While no one will say so publicly, this subtle change, along with expected changes to the league's redshirting policy, persuaded Richmond and William & Mary that PL football would not be a competitive stranglehold on the recruiting bases it already maintains.

Potentially, this change should open the recruiting window a little wider on Georgetown recruits, including local ones, to whom the GU staff could not even look at before, but to whom its financial aid would be otherwise competitive among lower-income and Pell Grant eligible applicants (the latter of which is a public priority of the University at large). This is not to suggest that low-performing rockheads are suddenly in the consideration set, only that the coaches can cast a wider net at talent to whom the opportunity to study and compete at Georgetown is no longer a deal-breaker. But will it?

The lack of an academic index is not the salvation of Georgetown recruiting: it's still an difficult proposition to attract talent without sustained success. I have called it the Cornell paradox-- a top prospect with an offer to Harvard or Princeton wouldn't go to Ithaca because the Big Red aren't successful, even if the aid was comparable. Cornell hasn't won an outright Ivy title ever and its last shared title was 35 years ago. The Big Red have 32 wins in the past 10 years, the Hoyas 35. 

To paraphrase an old argument, before you win the game, you must win the recruit. However, successful programs are built with a local (or regional) foundation: an Alabama or a Penn State can recruit nationally, but they had better in the mix for every top recruit in the state. To the degree Georgetown can be a realistic option for local and regional talent, it needs a foundation.

Georgetown has posted only 17 first team all PL selections since 2001. Of these, one was a local product. There is too much talent in the region not to prioritize local recruiting and not just settle for the boarding schools and the second team all-county selections to compete in today's Patriot League.

Recruiting is about relationships, and the turnover in assistant coaches doesn't make that job any easier for the Hoyas. (On its web site, a page titled "Who Recruits My State" lists Steve Thames as the contact for DC and suburban Maryland; unfortunately, Thames left Georgetown for Rutgers two seasons ago.) Assistant coaches can't go very deep with dozens, if not hundreds of high schools in their assigned region, and must rely on the trust built with high school coaches who understand the PL model and Georgetown's place within it. The Hoyas' two veteran assistants (Rob Spence, Kevin Doherty) recruit the tried and true of Georgetown recruiting: the New York Tri-State area and New England.  However, fewer players are coming from this region: in 1996, 44 members of the team came from either New York or New Jersey. In 2024, just 12. Personally, I'd like to see more signees from Texas and Florida, but that comes with a cost. 

Local recruiting remains a low cost, value-added approach and one which could open the door to more talented recruits that want to make a difference close to home.

2. Focus On The Transfer Portal (low cost, moderate program change).

One of the unfortunate byproducts of this era is the transitory nature of college athletes through the increasingly volatile NCAA transfer portal.  Between the transfer portal and name, image, and likeness, the tenures of the four year player is an increasingly rare one in Division I athletics.

Georgetown University is not immune to these trends, and not just in the revolving door that is men's basketball. The transfer portal opens for baseball today and players from a lot of teams, Georgetown included, will be out the door. Head baseball coach Edwin Thompson hasn't hesitated to make his case online.

"We welcome anyone interested that is looking to come play @GtownBaseball," he wrote on Twitter. "Want a chance to develop on the field?  Get a world class degree? Come grow in Washington D.C. Come join us for the next chapter! DM’s are wide open!"

 By contrast, Georgetown football hasn't made inbound transfers a priority.

It's still "Four for 40" for Rob Sgarlata and staff,  not "One or two for 40" and that's understandable--he's been with the program for 35 years and understands the importance of class ties that extends from one's arrival as freshmen right through life as alumni.  As a result, the four year development is part of the program's fabric: more than many programs, most Georgetown underclassmen won't see the starting lineup until their junior season. To bring someone into the starting lineup that didn't go through one, two, or three years learning the ropes is a big change, but an increasingly necessary one in this era of college football.

Georgetown has accepted transfers in the past, but few if any have been game changers as the program goes. Most of the transfers over the years have been walk-ons at FBS programs that didn't get time there, and many didn't get time at Georgetown, either. I recall one WAC transfer in the mid-2000s who arrived that summer and didn't even make the team (though he stayed to graduate), another was a kicker from the University of Texas that played in the Georgetown spring game but then transferred back to Texas and finished his degree there. The current team's most notable inbound transfer is WR Nick Dunneman, but he arrived from a Division III program. More often than not, transfer admissions have been rare at Georgetown and not changed the trajectory of their respective teams.

Other PL schools have seen an impact from transfers. The 2024 Patriot League offensive player of the year was Bucknell QB Ralph Rucker, was a transfer from Oklahoma. Fordham quarterback J.J. Montes arrived from New Mexico and was a Walter Payton finalist in 2023. But what the portal giveth, however, it can taketh away: Lafayette lost nine players this past season to transfers, Richmond lost ten. Lafayette head coach John Troxell told the student newspaper what is driving this.

 "Agents [are] becoming more active in communicating with players [which] gives them an enticing opportunity to leave and chase money or a higher level,” he said. “We lost more guys [in 2024] than we lost probably in the first two years combined."

"My ultimate goal is to become a pro,” said all-PL first team RB Jamar Curtis, who left Lafayette and is now enrolled at Sacramento State.  "I’ve got a better chance of reaching my potential and our goals from where I’m at now.”

Georgetown is unlikely to be the place for such aspirations, but there is a sweet spot where, for a sophomore or a redshirt freshman, a commitment to a Patriot League school makes sense. Richmond is positioned for that this season, adding three well recruited players that did not see time at Maryland, North Carolina and Appalachian State, respectively but still want to play football.  Bucknell and Holy Cross have three adds as well.  The Hoyas have apparently added one transfer, though they never announced it.  Luke Daly, a reserve WR that played at Villanova for three seasons, announced a transfer to Georgetown on January 12.

Three transfers seems a good number for Georgetown to aspire to each year: impact players that were either previously recruited by Georgetown and took offers elsewhere before entering the portal, or those with previous FBS experience elsewhere but wish to return closer to home. One or two years of grades provides the staff and the office of admissions with a review of what they are capable of, and if admitted they arrive to the team with the intangible asset of experience. This is especially valuable, and needed, in impact positions like running back and the offensive line, where Georgetown simply does not recruit as well, and often wears out during the season.

It's also a good number given that, maintains the high school recruiting strategy, so that Georgetown does not become a way-station for 10-15 transfers in and out every season. A limited number of transfers replaces experience with experience.

The Patriot League isn't at the stage where it is ready to sign off on grad transfers... well, not yet, anyway. Georgetown's place in that discussion needs some internal consensus as this is where a Georgetown degree may be most impactful to a graduate with excess eligibility, and how to make that case to commit to a fifth year at the program.

3. Alternate Degree Programs (low cost, high program change).

A four year residential experience is a traditional one for Georgetown student-athletes. As recent years have shown, it's no longer the only path to an education.

Some will transfer in, others will transfer out. Online education is now a factor. At a University which is actively trying to create a separate campus in downtown Washington, some majors, particularly in public policy, face a different student life than those in dormitories. As this column has discussed, the opportunities to draw more local recruits and more transfer opportunities, it must discuss, if not engage with, academic opportunities which align with nontraditional degree opportunities.

In 2024, two men's basketball players, Jay Heath and Akok Akok, received bachelor's degrees in liberal studies (BLS) from Georgetown University. Each were transfer students (from Arizona State and Connecticut, respectively) who joined the team. A BLS is not a degree from the College, or the SFS, or even the business school. It's a degree from the School of Continuing Studies (SCS), which has quietly become the largest degree granting school at the University. Primarily known for a wide variety of master's degree and professional certificate programs to working professionals, the downtown campus has been offering the BLS degree for a number of years, primarily to those who have completed up to two years elsewhere, in concentrations such as Business & Entrepreneurship, Cybersecurity, Analytics, & Technology, Media, Communications, & Humanities, Politics & International Relations, and Interdisciplinary Studies.

Two items distinguish the BLS from its A.B. and B.S. brethren: flexibility and cost.

First, it's an online degree. Some may object to say that an online education isn't a "real" education, but two years of Georgetown students navigated online coursework during COVID-19 and did fine. It is a degree in course per the University. For transfer applicants who have completed as many as two years elsewhere and do not expect to retake core courses to fit the requirements of a specific four year College or MSB program, such a program gives them the flexibility to earn a degree and stay on focus to graduate on time.

Watching a lecture online may not be the same as sitting in the back of a classroom at Hariri, but the coursework is designed to be held up to the same standards as a classroom environment. As online education grows more comfortable within the 18-24 audience, it's an option for some candidates which heretofore has gone unnoticed.

The second issue is cost. The need award for a football player coming to Georgetown will be based on a 15 hour per semester commitment at an average of $2,550 per credit hour. This, plus the cost of attendance, is a University commitment of somewhere short of $92,000 per FTE per year and that's what the program must work to get an aid package that a recruit and his family can afford.  The cost of a credit hour for the BLS degree is $412.

And you read that correctly.

A full year's tuition in SCS, therefore, runs $12,360 versus $71,136 for the main campus. Even adding in the cost of room and board, a year in SCS would be as little as one-third the cost of a main campus undergraduate degree program.

While a note in the online undergraduate bulletin notes that "undergraduates in the [SCS] may be eligible for loans, federal grants, private scholarships, and other external awards, but are generally not eligible for [University aid] scholarships," an SCS applicant of a middle class household income has a much, much lower threshold of affordability than one where the expected gap between the parent contribution and the coat of attendance is much higher, and even less should the applicant be local to the area and thus not opt for  room and board (required on main campus, but not within SCS). It also suggests that if the football program bought out the loan or work study portion of the gross cost, the gap could come in at a much lower cost and be much more competitive.

Generally speaking, Georgetown football hasn't had commuting students since it made dormitory living a requirement in the 1980s (and gained the annual revenue from doing so). To no surprise, perhaps, on-campus housing now runs between $15,000 to $19,000 per year in financial aid calculations. For those families that can afford it or who have a full aid package,  living on campus is a good thing. For those that don't have that financial option, it can be a deal breaker.

Granted, an online education is a marked change from where Georgetown football is right now--there will always be those who want the four year finance degree and the entre to Wall Street. For some transfers, and that's the group in discussion here, it may not be. For them, it may be more about a Georgetown degree and less about the view from Village A or the food in the dining hall. Were it to be an option down the road, an online program could be an opening to recruits who, with transfer credits, can earn their degree and compete for the team, and be able to afford both.

These three topics are about change as opening doors. In part 2, we'll talk about looking at new ways to fund such changes.